Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part II

It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a confederate
fleet to second their operations, they were alarmed by the
approach of Amurath himself, who had issued from his Magnesian
solitude, and transported the forces of Asia to the defence of
Europe. According to some writers, the Greek emperor had been
awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the Bosphorus; and an
indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or the
pope’s nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance
betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan
advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and
when the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the
numbers and order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed
the tardy and impracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone
was resolved to conquer or die; and his resolution had almost
been crowned with a glorious and salutary victory. The princes
were opposite to each other in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or
generals of Anatolia and Romania, commanded on the right and
left, against the adverse divisions of the despot and Huniades.
The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset: but the
advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the
pursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy,
or the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight
of his squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the
empire: a veteran Janizary seized his horse’s bridle; and he had
magnanimity to pardon and reward the soldier who dared to
perceive the terror, and arrest the flight, of his sovereign. A
copy of the treaty, the monument of Christian perfidy, had been
displayed in the front of battle; and it is said, that the sultan
in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands to heaven,
implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on the
prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name
and religion. 26 With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the
king of Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till
his career was stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the
Janizaries. If we may credit the Ottoman annals, his horse was
pierced by the javelin of Amurath; 27 he fell among the spears of
the infantry; and a Turkish soldier proclaimed with a loud voice,
“Hungarians, behold the head of your king!” The death of
Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On his return from an
intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the public
loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed
by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the
last efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the
remnant of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were
slain in the disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks,
more considerable in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their
total strength; yet the philosophic sultan was not ashamed to
confess, that his ruin must be the consequence of a second and
similar victory. 271 At his command a column was erected on the
spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest inscription,
instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and
bewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. 28

26 (return) [ Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from
his bosom the host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been
sworn. The Moslems suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to
God and his prophet Jesus, which is likewise insinuated by
Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan. A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]

27 (return) [ A critic will always distrust these _spolia opima_
of a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so
easy for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus
(l. iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus
Janizaris, telorum multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam
obrutus.]

271 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, p. 463.—M.]

28 (return) [ Besides some valuable hints from Æneas Sylvius,
which are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities
are three historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus,
(de Rebus a Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis,
libri iii. in Bel. Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p.
433—518,) Bonfinius, (decad. iii. l. v. p. 460—467,) and
Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165—179.) The two first were Italians,
but they passed their lives in Poland and Hungary, (Fabric.
Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. i. p. 324. Vossius,
de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
Bonfinius.) A small tract of Fælix Petancius, chancellor of
Segnia, (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Cæsaribus, p. 716—722,)
represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century.]

Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause
on the character and story of two principal actors, the cardinal
Julian and John Huniades. Julian 29 Cæsarini was born of a noble
family of Rome: his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek
learning, both the sciences of divinity and law; and his
versatile genius was equally adapted to the schools, the camp,
and the court. No sooner had he been invested with the Roman
purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm the empire against
the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of persecution is
unworthy of a Christian; the military profession ill becomes a
priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latter
was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and
alone in the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope’s
legate, he opened the council of Basil; but the president soon
appeared the most strenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom;
and an opposition of seven years was conducted by his ability and
zeal. After promoting the strongest measures against the
authority and person of Eugenius, some secret motive of interest
or conscience engaged him to desert on a sudden the popular
party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to Ferrara; and,
in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations admired
the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theological
erudition. 30 In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen the
mischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which
Julian himself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed
the duties of a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of
Warna. The circumstances of his death are variously related; but
it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his
flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some Christian
fugitives.

29 (return) [ M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du
Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p.
315, &c.) of Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara,
and his unfortunate end, are occasionally related by Spondanus,
and the continuator of Fleury.]

30 (return) [ Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy,
(p. 117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai
logikwV, kai met episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV.]

From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John
Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His
father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race
might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the
claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the
place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling
his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome. 31 In his youth he
served in the wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve
horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the _white
knight_ 32 was soon conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a
noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian
borders he won in the same year three battles against the Turks.
By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of
Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and
office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian’s crusades
added two Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress
the fatal errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and
minority of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was
elected supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at
first was silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes
the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a
consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the white
knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of
desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without
shame; and his military life is composed of a romantic
alternative of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed
his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly
denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked: their hatred is the
proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was
inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and
formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country
irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive
war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated
into the heart of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova,
sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army,
four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through
the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but
while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he
recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and,
after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence
an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of
his life was the defence of Belgrade against the powers of
Mahomet the Second in person. After a siege of forty days, the
Turks, who had already entered the town, were compelled to
retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated Huniades and Belgrade
as the bulwarks of Christendom. 33 About a month after this great
deliverance, the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph
is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no
longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had
triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne,
Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected
and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous
and long: Matthias aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a
saint: but his purest merit is the encouragement of learning; and
the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by
the son, have shed the lustre of their eloquence on the father’s
character. 34

31 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the
Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without
a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a
Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a
single branch of the Valerian family at Rome?]

32 (return) [ Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from
the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but
under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne,
(Valachia.) The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of
Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valor.]

33 (return) [ See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and
Spondanus, (A.D. 456, No. 1—7.) Huniades shared the glory of the
defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in
their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero
condescend to take notice of his rival’s merit.]

34 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.—decad. iv. l.
viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of
Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1,
1475, No. 6, 1476, No. 14—16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was
the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the
Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322—412) of Peter Ranzanus, a
Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by
Galestus Martius of Narni, (528—568,) and we have a particular
narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are
all contained in the first vol. of Bel’s Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum.]

In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly
associated; 35 and they are both entitled to our notice, since
their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the
Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, 36 was the
hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania,
between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend
with the sultan’s power, Castriot submitted to the hard
conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four sons as
the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after
receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish
policy. 37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd
of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed
cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the
suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal
treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his
tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The
successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a
proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favor
of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (_Iskender
beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his
glory and servitude. His father’s principality was reduced into a
province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of
Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of
the first dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the
wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity
of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared
the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his
Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach: he
fought in the defence of his religion and country; but the
enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival with the
name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the
rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father’s wrongs, the
ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and
the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though
tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of
his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the
doctrines of the Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the
religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor
is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty
38 could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less
exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken
his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but
a long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every
year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the
sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the
belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind
must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to
betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could
actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many
thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret
correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of
the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,
a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the
enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye
of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal
secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or
patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the
guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an
immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had
revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,
from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of
Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he
command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of
dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed
himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of
religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a
martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their
hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the
choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of
Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion
of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial
estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an
annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; 39 and the entire
sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated
to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline
was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his
camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his
conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and
that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and
Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his
standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven
thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he
viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of
the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation
was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms
Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman
empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater
son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with
seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered
Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless
towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the
Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate
captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the
petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his
arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious
scruple. 40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls of
Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march, the
siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
invisible, adversary; 41 and the disappointment might tend to
imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. 42 In
the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his
bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to
negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised
as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The
enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names
of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge
their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender
powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of
antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His
splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the
armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were
slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of
suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the
dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely
indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed
by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong
presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his
exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
the succor of the king of Naples. 43 Without disparagement to his
fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the
Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the
Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his
resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive
at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. 44 His sepulchre was soon
violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore
his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious
amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant
ruin of his country may redound to the hero’s glory; yet, had he
balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot
perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend
on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be
supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the
pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join
in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to
Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the
Castriots 45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their
blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A
colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,
and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their
ancestors. 46

35 (return) [ They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his
pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among
the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal
crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first
prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and
George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]

36 (return) [ I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a
friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the
time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus
Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis
Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in
fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false
jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.
229.]

37 (return) [ His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by
Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]

38 (return) [ Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year
of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;
since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was
_novennis_, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have
happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II.,
who must have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave.
Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31,
1443, No. 14.]

39 (return) [ His revenue and forces are luckily given by
Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]

40 (return) [ There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the
Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i.
p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose
inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog
had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good
map of Epirus.]

41 (return) [ Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92)
with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and
vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the
tribe of strangers and moderns.]

42 (return) [ In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188—192)
kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But
this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who
agree in the time and manner of Amurath’s death at Adrianople.]

43 (return) [ See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the
ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified
by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom.
xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus
Francisci Sfortiæ, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p.
728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of
_Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Mémoires
de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]

44 (return) [ Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most
rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human
size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467,
No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza,
(l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu,
demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by
Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]

45 (return) [ See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
Dalmaticæ, &c, xviii. p. 348—350.)]

46 (return) [ This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.
Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350—354.)]

In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I
have reached at length the last reign of the princes of
Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of
the Cæsars. On the decease of John Palæologus, who survived about
four years the Hungarian crusade, 47 the royal family, by the
death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore, was
reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the
surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the
last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who possessed
the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a
party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress; and
his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already
disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:
the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a
trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the
eldest son of his father’s reign. But the empress-mother, the
senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the
cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,
ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,
asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.
An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched
to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and
dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching
downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious
deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of
Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the
encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his
subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted
by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the
state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the
possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two
princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother’s
presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of
Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the
distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective
magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that
powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine
afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and
Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and
private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. 48

47 (return) [ The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;
but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445,
No. 7,) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last
Constantine which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius
IV. to the king of Æthiopia.]

48 (return) [ Phranza (l. iii. c. 1—6) deserves credit and
esteem.]

The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of
wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His
numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians
and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of
his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his arrival
in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and villages
flocked around the strangers; and such was their simplicity, that
they were delighted with the effects, without understanding the
cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old man, above
a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a
captive by the Barbarians, 49 and who amused his hearers with a
tale of the wonders of India, 50 from whence he had returned to
Portugal by an unknown sea. 51 From this hospitable land, Phranza
proceeded to the court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the
Greek prince of the recent decease of Amurath. Instead of
rejoicing in the deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed
his apprehension, that an ambitious youth would not long adhere
to the sage and pacific system of his father. After the sultan’s
decease, his Christian wife, Maria, 52 the daughter of the
Servian despot, had been honorably restored to her parents; on
the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by the
ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and
Phranza recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that
might be raised against the proposal. The majesty of the purple
would ennoble an unequal alliance; the bar of affinity might be
removed by liberal alms and the dispensation of the church; the
disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and,
though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might
yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to
the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that sailed
from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed his
marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the
sultana, who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced
to the first alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in
favor of a Georgian princess; and the vanity of her father was
dazzled by the glorious alliance. Instead of demanding, according
to the primitive and national custom, a price for his daughter,
53 he offered a portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual
pension of five thousand, ducats; and the services of the
ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been
adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his
daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of
Constantinople. On the return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified
by the Greek monarch, who with his own hand impressed three
vermilion crosses on the golden bull, and assured the Georgian
envoy that in the spring his galleys should conduct the bride to
her Imperial palace. But Constantine embraced his faithful
servant, not with the cold approbation of a sovereign, but with
the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a long absence, is
impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend.
“Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone
advised me without interest or passion, 54 I am surrounded,” said
the emperor, “by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor
esteem. You are not a stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great
admiral; obstinately attached to his own sentiments, he declares,
both in private and public, that his sentiments are the absolute
measure of my thoughts and actions. The rest of the courtiers are
swayed by their personal or factious views; and how can I consult
the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yet much
employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you
shall engage one of my brothers to solicit the succor of the
Western powers; from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a
particular commission; and from thence proceed to Georgia to
receive and conduct the future empress.”—“Your commands,” replied
Phranza, “are irresistible; but deign, great sir,” he added, with
a serious smile, “to consider, that if I am thus perpetually
absent from my family, my wife may be tempted either to seek
another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery.” After
laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoled
him by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last
service abroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and
noble heiress; for himself, the important office of great
logothete, or principal minister of state. The marriage was
immediately stipulated: but the office, however incompatible with
his own, had been usurped by the ambition of the admiral. Some
delay was requisite to negotiate a consent and an equivalent; and
the nomination of Phranza was half declared, and half suppressed,
lest it might be displeasing to an insolent and powerful
favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of his
embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should
embrace this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the
appearance of danger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea.
Such were the private and public designs, which were interrupted
by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the ruins of the empire.

49 (return) [ Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in
Timour’s first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he
might follow his Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from
thence sail to the spice islands.]

50 (return) [ The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and
fifty years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the
vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large
scale: dragons seventy cubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine
inches long, sheep like elephants, elephants like sheep.
Quidlibet audendi, &c.]

51 (return) [ He sailed in a country vessel from the spice
islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque
navem grandem _Ibericam_ quâ in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This
passage, composed in 1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years
before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or
wonderful. But this new geography is sullied by the old and
incompatible error which places the source of the Nile in India.]

52 (return) [ Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of
Lazarus Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage
with Amurath in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed,
that in six-and-twenty years’ cohabitation, the sultan corpus
ejus non tetigit. After the taking of Constantinople, she fled to
Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 22.)]

53 (return) [ The classical reader will recollect the offers of
Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of
antiquity.]

54 (return) [ Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the
emperor of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the
Greek creed, and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he
visited with the character of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38,
45.)]