Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/63

 PROGRESS OF THE SELJUKS. 45 vere that Conrad's march was, for a time, arrested. lie re- treated, with liis army greatly reduced in strength, owing to this battle and to disease, and lixed his headquarters at Niciea, in order to await the arrival of Louis. The French king was not far behind, and on JSTew Year's Day, 1148, had his first en- counter with the Turks, likewise on the shores of the ][ean- der. Again the common enemy of Christendom was defeat- ed. Before the year was over, Mahsoud, the new Sultan of Iconium, had raised an army sufiiciently strong to capture Marash, which was then, as it is now, the centre of a large Armenian population. His victory was followed by the usual devastation of the neighboring country. AVithin a year he had succeeded in taking possession of the whole of the Cru- saders' principality of Antioch, with the exception of the city of Antioch itself. The war was continued against the Turks by the Emperor Manuel and the Crusaders until 1155. The former were again beaten, and compelled to surrender the territory they had re- cently recovered. The death of Sultan Mahsoud in 1156 did not interrupt the war. His empire was divided among his three sons.^ Kilidji Arslan, to whose share Iconium had fall- en, was the most powerful. Another son, the Sultan of Cap- padocia, quarrelled with Kilidji Arslan. The Emperor Man- uel sided with the former, and marched to assist him. Ap- parently before his arrival, the Sultan of Iconium deemed it best to lay down his arms and submit himself to the emperor. Kilidji Arslan was taken to Constantinople, and a triumph was ordered to do honor to the occasion. He was well treat- ed — received, indeed, with too much honor, according to the opinion of the inhabitants — and promised to assist the emper- or in future.' No sooner had he quitted Constantinople than 1 Nicetas, " Man.," iii. G. 2 Nicetas, iii. c. 5 and 6. The presence of a Turkish sultan was evi- dently a great shock to the Constantinopolitans. " God hindered the triumph," says Nicetas, "by an earthquake, which shook down tlie finest houses, and by various other signs of his displeasure." The priests said, and the emperor was not far from agreeing with them, that God would not permit an infidel to be spectator of a triumph in which the relics of