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 WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY THE CRUSADES. 127 tiling like hostility between his army find tiie Byzantine troops. Frederic sent an embassy to Sahidin requcsbing iiini to surrender Jerusalem. The answer was a declaration of war. lie sent another embassy to Kilidji Arslan, the JSultan of Iconium, wdiich apparently met with greater success. The Turkish sultan was accused by the Moslem writers of belong- ing to the sect of philosophers, and was indeed believed by Pope Alexander III. to have secretly embraced Christianity, or to be ready to do so. The *' Sultan of the Turks, the Armenians, and the Syrians," as he styled himself, promised help of various kinds to Frederic, and Europe was astonished at the novel sight of fifty Moslem knights who came to bring these promises of aid. Frederic sent to Manuel to ask per- mission to pass through the Byzantine dominions, promising at the same time to prevent any disorder and to pay for all that was supplied them. A treaty according such permission was solemnly entered into. Frederic's progress, until he entered the empire, met with no obstacles. Bela, King of Hungary, received him with magnificence at the famous river fortress of Gran. As soon, however, as he had reached the imperial territories troubles began. The Wallachs, Bulga- rians, and Greeks, who remembered but too well what they had suffered from the former crusade a ireneration earlier, impeded his progress. The Servians asked the aid of Frederic against Isaac. Nicetas himself, the historian of Isaac An- geles, and who was at this time governor of Philippopolis, admits that the Greeks gave trouble and broke the treaty. Convoys of provisions on their way to Frederic were sent back. The passes were impeded by trunks of trees, which were placed there, as he alleges, by Isaac's orders.^ The Germans, however, managed to reach Philippopolis by an un- expected route in August, 1189, and occupied the city. They found that the bulk of the inhabitants, alarmed at the ap- proach of what they regarded as a hostile army, had fled, and that the only occupants belonged to an Armenian colony ' Nicetas is always bitterly hostile towards Isaac, and his statement, therefore, can hardly be taken as altogether trustworthy.