Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/52

 34: THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. the struggle between the Turks and the empire. His troops pushed on to Chrysopolis and Chalcedon, or, as they are now called, Scutari and Kadikeui, immediately opposite Constan- tinople. For a time the aid of the Turks appeared to render him invincible, but he was captured in 1078, and his eyes were put out, the Warings again being the means of saving the reigning emperor. It would be useless to attempt to follow in detail the his- Seijnks reach ^^U ^^ ^^^® Struggle which wcut ou between the the Marmora, ei^^-jpii-e ^ud the Turks during the next century. The essential fact to be noted is that the Seljukian Turks were able to establish themselves firmly in Asia Minor. They already held several outposts on the Marmora, and were at times almost in sight of the Bosphorus. Eastern and West- ern contemporary writers agree that nearly the whole of the south and west of Asia Minor had been conquered from the empire by the end of the eleventh century.^ Their strongest position was at Nicsea, the ancient capital of the empire, a city which was well fortified, and was only about seventy miles from Constantinople. The Turks had thus, in the course of a century, pushed their conquests to within sight of the New Rome. Their progress had been steady, in spite of a series of defeats. At the same time the Saracens in Syria had placed the whole of the Christian population in subjection. The empire had lost almost as much territorj^ in Asia as it possessed in Europe. The statesmen of the capital were fully alive to the necessity of using their utmost efforts to arrest the progress of their countless enemies. Unfortunately, at the time when Suliman was gaining his greatest success, the empire had other ene- mies to meet. Robert Wiscard, the Norman, was attacking it on the southwest at Durazzo, and had succeeded in destroy- ing the Italian exarchate over the two Sicilies, while another branch of the Turks was making war in Europe on the north- eastern frontier. Still, as we shall see, the New Rome was yet to make a stout resistance against its Asiatic foe. ' Will, of Tyre, IIL L ; "Recueil," vol. i. pp. 112, 113.