Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/98

74 74 WAR OF GRANADA. PART have postponed the fall of Granada for many years. '- — As it was, these very talents, by dividing the state in his favor, served only to precipitate its ruin. 14 90. The Spanish sovereigns, having accomplished the object of the campaign, after stationing part of their forces on such points as would secure the per- manence of their conquests, returned with the re- mainder to Jaen, where they disbanded the army on the 4th of January, 1490. The losses sustained by the troops, during the whole period of their prolonged service, greatly exceeded those of any former year, amounting to not less than twenty thousand men, by far the larger portion of whom ' are said to have fallen victims to diseases incident to severe and long-continued hardships and ex- posure. ^^ Difficulties Thus terminated the eighth year of the war of of tins cam- O J paign. Granada ; a year more glorious to the Christian arms, and more important in its results, than any of the preceding. During this period, an army of eighty thousand men had kept the field, amid all the inclemencies of winter, for more than seven months ; an effort scarcely paralleled in these times, when both the amount of levies, and period of ser- vice, were on the limited scale adapted to the ex- igencies of feudal warfare. ^^ Supplies for this im- 23 Zurita, Anales, torn. iv. fol. foot under the count of Cifuentes, 360. — Aljarca, Reyes de Aragon, for the space of eight months dur- lom. ii. fol. 308. ing this siege. See Zufiiga, An- 24 The city of Seville alone iiales de Scvilla, p. 404. maintained 600 horse and 8,000 Notice of Pietro Martire, or, as he is call- often quoted in the present chap- Peter Mar- g^ j,j English, Peter Martyr, so ter, and who will constitute one