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 54 DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE Moslem peoples in Asia Minor and Syria, during the thir- teenth century, and this difficulty arises from the fact that their boundaries were continually changing. The Saracens held certain places in Syria, but there was a Christian prince in Antioch ; there were cities occupied by the western Knights Templars, a Christian prince in Caramania and a king of Lesser Armenia. There were Turcomans at Marash and in the hill country behind Trebizond, and Kurds invaded Cilicia in 1278. A large tract of country around Konia was ruled over by the Seljuks. No natural boundary marked the extent of territory occupied by any of these peoples or in Asia Minor by the Eoman emperor. It is certain, however, that the entry of the armies of the followers of Genghis Khan, continually renewed by the arrival of new hordes from Central Asia, changed the dis- tribution of the peoples and spread terror everywhere at their approach. Even at Nicaea, within sixty miles of Con- stantinople, the rumour in 1267 of the arrival of a Tartar army caused a terrible panic. 1 Two years later the Tartars attacked the Saracens in Syria, whither they had been in- vited for such purpose by the Christians, defeated them, and carried off a rich booty. For a while they were a terror alike to Moslems and Christians. As from the followers of Genghis Khan there ultimately came the race of Ottoman Turks who conquered New Eome and its empire, it is desirable to consider them somewhat carefully, It is important to note that the first hordes who came in Character-. *- istics of with the great conqueror and those who followed for at least invaders, a century were not Mahometan fanatics. Some of their leading generals were indeed Christians. Genghis himself had married a Christian wife. Mango Khan (1251-1259), one of his successors, is described by Maundeville, who visited Palestine in 1322, as ' a good Christian man, who was baptized and gave letters of perpetual peace to all Christian men,' and sent to win the Holy Land to put it into the hands of the Christians and destroy the law of Mahomet. 2 1 Pach. iv. 27. 2 Early Travels in Palestine, Bohn's edition, p. 241.