Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/358

 34:0 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. no doubt, the party which, as we shall see later, hailed Boni- face as king. Mourtzouphlos had had as yet insufficient time to organize his forces, but meantime was acting bravely, was superintending and pushing on the repairs, and was harassing the enemy. The Crusaders and Venetians, on their side, were equally active. During the days which followed the accession of the new emperor, and before the death of Alexis, an inci- dent occurred which is worthy of note.^ Fighting was going on daily. The neighboring country was scoured in order to lay in a stock of provisions preparatory to the attack and the siege. One of these raids was made during the end of January as far as Philies,' near the Black Sea entrance of the Bosphorus, where Henry, the brother of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, led an expedition and captured great quantities of cattle and provisions. Mourtzouphlos, liearing of their departure, endeavored to surprise them. A sharp skirmish took place, in which he was defeated and narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. The imperial gon- falon^ was captured, and a banner which represented the Virgin, by which the Greeks set great store.'* Profiting by the occasion presented by this defeat, Boniface appears to have entered into negotiations with the between cmperor in order to save the life of Alexis.^ All phios and liopc of Carrying out the design of Philip of Swabia was not lost so long as the life of Alexis was safe. 1 Guntlier says that Mourtzouphlos did his utmost to conceal the death of Alexis, and sent messengers continually, in the name of the young emperor, asking the leaders of the army to enter the city, but that Dau- dolo persuaded tliem not to go. ^ Codinus says that the emperors had twelve ensigns which were used in public ceremonials, one or two only of which were employed when the emperor took the field. The emblem of the city has always been the crescent, probably derived from the horns of a bull (/Souf), which was the symbol of the Turanian race, as that of the lion was of the Arian. Each regiment had its own flag or iSdvcoi', whence we still speak of a band of soldiers. » " Chron. Novgorod.*' p. 95 ; " Chron. Grcc.-Rom.," Hopf.
 * Possibly Kilios.
 * Villehardouin, p. 227-8, and Nicetas, p. 751.