Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/486

 440 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE in his native city of Brescia, he had the broad outlines of the siege well in his recollection. His narrative is the following, and is in complete accord with that of every other eye-witness. The ships are seen approaching on the Marmora; some of the townsfolk flock to the Hippodrome where (from the Sphendone) they have a view far and wide over the sea, and can observe them taking the usual course for ships coming from the Dardanelles to the capital with a southerly wind. The Turkish admiral with his fleet has gone to meet them, and orders them to lower their sails. The south wind still blows full astern, and with belly- ing sails they hold on their course. The wind continues until they are carried to a position where the Bosporus strains against the shore of either land. 1 That is, as I understand the phrase, until they are at least well past the present lighthouse. ' There the wind fails them ; the sails flap idly under the walls of the citadel. 2 Then, indeed, began the fight ; the spirits of the Turks are aroused by the fall of the wind ; Mahomet, watching from the shore not far off, arouses their rage.' My only doubt as to this interpretation arises as to the question whether the writer did not mean that the wind dropped, not merely off Seraglio Point, but within the mouth of the Horn. Ducas says the sultan, when the ships came in sight of the city, ' hastened ' to his fleet, and gave orders to capture them or, failing that, to hinder them from getting inside the harbour. This hastening of the sultan meant a journey of between two and three miles from his camp in the Mesoteichion to Diplokionion. Once he was there, his natural course would be to follow on shore the movements of his fleet, until he reached the eastern walls of Galata, which is exactly the place where the archbishop stations him. If it should be objected that Mahomet's hastening to his triremes implies that they were stationed near Zeitin Bournou, the answer is twofold : first, that there would be no haste necessary, and secondly, that even Ducas implies that the fleet was in the Bosporus, as indeed Barbaro and others say that it was. The two statements of Phrantzes — first, that the fight was about a stone's-throw from the land where the sultan was on horseback and rode into the sea to revile his men, and, second, that he (Phrantzes) and his friends watched the fight from the walls 3 — 1 ' Nec flare quievit Structa donee statuit super aequora, Bosporus arctat Litora ubi geminae telluris.' Book iv. 413. 2 ' Deserit illic ventus eas ; cecidere sinus sub moenibus arcis,' iv. 415. 3 Tiixtis Se e/c rS)v Tet^coy ixvooOev ravra decopovpres, p. 248.