Constantinople A Sketch of its History from its Foundation to its Conquest by the Turks in 1453

Front matter

CONSTANTINOPLE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PREFACE

PREFACE.

IN this little volume it is intended to present a sketch of the leading events of the history of Constantinople during a period of about 2,000 years. It begins with the slight and meagre accounts which have come down to us of its foundation as Byzantium, and it ends with the conquest of the Turks in 1453, when the Eastern empire finally ceased to exist.

The narrative does not profess to be complete and exhaustive. Nor is it mainly based on original sources. It is, for the most part, a compilation. We have sought to present in a small compass the most striking events of a history which is full of interest. For this purpose we have freely used the great work of Gibbon, Finlay's careful and industrious "History of the Byzantine Empire," and Le Beau's voluminous History of the Lower Empire. But for some portions of the work, the sieges of the city, for example, by Philip and Severus, and the final siege by the Turks, the original sources have been consulted. As a compilation, then, and as an account of a city whose history yields in interest to that of two only, and in dramatic events to that of none, we trust that the work may be found useful and interesting.

There would seem to be no description of the situation and importance of Constantinople so clear, so eloquent, and so minutely accurate, as that of Gibbon. We have therefore transferred it to the following pages, to serve as an introduction, warning our readers that a knowledge of the topography of Constantinople is absolutely necessary to the right understanding of its history. This, which is true of all cities, is more peculiarly true as regards Constantinople. For this reason we have not only preferred to quote Gibbon's account in full, but we have prefixed as frontispiece a map of the city.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION.

IF we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the imperial city may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosporus. The northern side of the city is bounded by the harbour, and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora. The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood.

The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the appellation of Bosporus, a name not less celebrated in the history, than in the fables, of antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive altars profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the ex- ample of the Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; and of the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosporus are terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets, had once floated on the face of the waters, and were destined by the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity. From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium the winding length of the Bosporus extends about sixteen miles, and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter Urius. The old castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where the opposite banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second, when he meditated the siege of Constantinople; but the Turkish conqueror was most probably ignorant that near two thousand years before his reign Darius had chosen the same situation to connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. At a small distance from the old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosporus, as it begins to open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt.

The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the Bosporus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an ox. The epithet of golden was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it has been observed that in many places the largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that of the harbour, this arm of the Bosporus is more than seven miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city from the attack of a hostile navy.

Between the Bosporus and the Hellespont the shores of Europe and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the Sea of Marmora, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosporus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli, where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is contracted into a narrow channel.

The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the flood for the possession of his mistress. It was here likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of broad, which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature. The traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the remembrance of the sea, and his fancy painted those celebrated straits with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift current in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the Ægean or Archipelago. Ancient Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters from the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and the Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from the Sigæan to the Rhætean promontory, and the flanks of the army were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banner of Agamemnon. The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride and to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of Hector, and the citizens of the rising town of Rhæteum celebrated his memory with divine honours. Before Constantine gave a just preference to the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient Troy, towards the Rhætean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the Hellespont.

We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of Constantinople, which appears to have been formed by nature for the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude, the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills, the opposite shores of Europe and Asia. The climate was healthy and temperate, the soil fertile, the harbour secure and capacious, and the approach on the side of the continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosporus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of Constantinople, and the prince who possessed those important passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces may, in some degree be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosporus were shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous inhabitants. The sea coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill, and almost without labour. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of the north and south, of the Euxine and of the Mediterranean. Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the farthest India—were brought by the varying winds into the port of Constantinople, which, for many ages, attracted the commerce of the ancient world." (Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xvii.).

BYZANTIUM—EARLY HISTORY

CONSTANTINOPLE.

CHAPTER I.

BYZANTIUM.—EARLY HISTORY.

NEW ROME, or the city of Constantine, was known as Byzantium for a period of almost a thousand years. It was a Greek colony, and was in fact one of the most advanced outposts of Greek civilization. The neighbouring region was wild and barbarous. The waters of the Euxine had been the terror of Greek mariners, and were long regarded by them with that vague superstitious awe, out of which is sure to spring a plentiful crop of myth and legend. The sea itself was spoken of as the "Inhospitable," a name subsequently exchanged for the more pleasing appellation with which we are familiar, and which promises a gracious reception to the stranger who shall venture on its waters. Greek emigrants had found homes along the shores of the Propontis, and from thence would often pass through the famous strait into the greater sea beyond, which now, losing some of its fearfulness and mystery, would seem worthy of a better and kindlier name. But the old memories still clung to it, and the fleet of the Argonauts, and their perilous passage through the "clashing" or "wandering" islets, as they were called, at the entrance into its waters, and Jason and Medea, and the Golden Fleece, and the weird land of Colchis, must have been present to the mind of every Greek and Roman voyager on the Euxine. A region with more fascinations, both for traveller and historical student, whether in the modern or ancient world, it is difficult to imagine. Whatever interest it may have had in the past, it is assuredly not likely to lose in our own day, and it may in the present generation become the scene of events which, for good or for evil, will immensely affect the destinies of mankind.

It was in the seventh century B.C., probably about 658 B.C., that the city on the Bosporus was originally founded. It was thus younger than Rome by about a century. The Greek genius for colonization was particularly active at this time, and the Thracian Chersonese, or the peninsula of Gallipoli, had already attracted a swarm of settlers, a large proportion of whom had come from Athens. Megara, one of the less politically famous Greek states, but rich and prosperous, was beginning to push out its colonies northwards to the shores of the Propontis, and a site so pre-eminently eligible as that of Byzantium could hardly be overlooked. Chalcedon, on the opposite coast of Bithynia, had already been occupied by emigrants from Megara. But these emigrants had, unluckily for themselves, not shown the usual discernment of Greek colonists; they had, in fact, been so stupid as "to have seen the better, and yet to have chosen the worse." So they were called, by way of jest, the "blind men," the name having, according to Herodotus, been given them by the Persian satrap Megabazus when he was once on a visit to Byzantium, and noted the marvellous advantages of the site. The joke, says the historian, was one of "immortal memory," and the name stuck ever afterwards to the unfortunate citizens of Chalcedon. When the next set of colonists started from Megara for the coasts of Thrace, and asked the oracle of the Pythian Apollo where they should seek their new home, they were directed to a spot opposite the "blind men's" country. On seeing Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, they at once took the hint, and forthwith crossed to the European shore, and there settled themselves on a site which could not fail to promise a brilliant future for their city.

It is hardly necessary that we should dwell on what has been so repeatedly described, and is now so generally well known, as the singularly convenient situation of Constantinople. It was all that could be desired, both politically and commercially. On the land side the place was easy of defence, and when the new settlers had thrown up some walls and fortifications, they were tolerably safe against the attacks of the barbarous Thracian tribes. Its commercial advantages could hardly be overrated. In quite early days there was a good trade in corn with the countries bordering on the Euxine, and a large revenue could well be raised by the Byzantines out of dues levied on the corn ships. Another great source of wealth was in their fisheries. Huge shoals of fish used to pour down from the Euxine into the Bosporus, and then, for some reason or other, decidedly preferred the European to the Asiatic shore. A multitude of the poorer citizens, so we are told by Aristotle, gained a livelihood as fishermen. Riches, in fact, flowed into the city from all sides, and the deep and splendid harbour to the north was known to Pliny and the ancients, as it is to us, as the Golden Horn, the aptest phrase in the ancient mind for wealth and plenty. The Byzantines, too, had the good luck to have good wine within easy reach, as well as good fish. From Maronea on the Ægean and its neighbourhood came plentiful supplies of a wine so exquisite as to be the talk of the world, and so potent as to give the foreign merchant, after a dinner with his Byzantine friends and customers, little chance of returning sober to his ship. Homer makes Ulysses speak with rapture of its divine bouquet. Byzantium was indeed in air respects a highly favoured city, and life there must have been eminently enjoyable. We fear that they abused their privileges. At any rate, it was whispered that, in later days, they indulged themselves in strange and even shameful irregularities. But this, it seems, was not till democracy had been thoroughly established among them. It is fair to say that one of the writers who speaks unkindly of them was generally reputed to be too harsh and censorious. According to one statement, they came at last wholly to forget the commonest proprieties, and a Byzantine citizen was so immoderately jovial, that he made it a practice himself to live in a public-house, and to let his own residence to some wealthy stranger. Even in the extremity of a siege they could not throw off their careless ways, and the story was told that, in the time of Philip of Macedon, the officers could only keep them to their duty on the ramparts by transferring thither the public-houses and taverns. The very idea of discipline and law seems to have vanished so utterly that one of their mob orators, when he was asked in some case what the law prescribed, was able to reply, "Whatever I please."

Of the history of the city before the fifth century B.C. we know nothing. By that time it is certain that it was prosperous and moderately powerful. Linking, as it did, two continents and their civilizations, being the key of the Ægean and Euxine, and having the singular advantages of which we have spoken, it could not possibly fail to figure in Greek history, and to attract the notice of Persia, as soon as war with Greece had been resolved on. For a long period after its foundation it was quite able to hold its own against its neighbours, and it even appears to have reduced some of them to tributaries. This was its position in the sixth century B.C., at the close of which Dareius Hystaspes made his famous expedition from Asia into Europe. One of his satraps, Otanes, won several considerable conquests on the Propontis and the Bosporus, and among them the cities of Byzantium and Chalcedon. These Greek colonies remained under the power of Persia till that great Ionian revolt, early in the fifth century B.C., which led to the desperate struggle between Greece and Persia, and from which may be said to date Greek fame and grandeur. Byzantium joined the revolt, but its people were soon frightened into submission to the Persians by the approach of a vast Phœnician fleet, and, along with a host of fugitives from their neighbours of Chalcedon, who shared their panic, they sailed away northward into the Euxine, and settled themselves on its western shores at Mesembria, under the extremity of the Haemus range. Their own fair city, with many others in those part, was burnt to the ground, according to Herodotus, and we hear nothing more about it till the contest between the East and the West was decided by the victory of Plataea, in 479 B.C. The Spartan, Pausanias, who on that memorable day had commanded the Greek army, recovered the place from a Persian garrison for its old inhabitants, and, as he must have wished to restore them something better than a heap of ruins, he came to be spoken of as its founder. The fortunes of the city were now once more identified with those of the Greek world. It was at first its lot to become one of the maritime dependencies of Athens, which, soon after the war with Persia, occupied with colonists the fruitful lands of the Thracian Chersonese, and pushed her fleets through the Hellespont into the Propontis and Euxine. It was to be expected that Byzantium would fall under the control of such a power, and its possession was of course financially very valuable to Athens. Trading vessels from the Euxine would thus be made to swell the Athenian revenue. But when Athens lost both a fleet and an army in the disastrous expedition to Sicily, her loosely compacted empire received a fatal shock, and the revolt of Abydos on the Hellespont in 411 B.C. soon led to the loss of Byzantium and Chalcedon. The star of Sparta was now in the ascendant, and the Byzantines were ready to welcome a Spartan admiral, who was preparing to cut off the Athenian corn supplies from the Euxine. Athens would have been brought to the verge of ruin had he been thoroughly successful, but Sparta was never able to rival her effectually in the headship of allied maritime dependencies. Fortunately, too, she had among her citizens one who was equal to the crisis, and who, at least on this occasion, deserved well of her.

This was the clever and energetic Alcibiades, a man whom we cannot help admiring, though on the whole his career disappoints us. He might, we feel, have done so much more for Athens than he did, and perhaps have even saved her from her great reverse at Syracuse. He now acted promptly. First, he seized Chrysopolis, the modern Scutari, the port of Chalcedon. Shortly afterwards, in 408 B.C., he attempted to win back Chalcedon itself for the Athenians. The place was held, by a Spartan garrison, supported by the Persian satrap Pharnabazus. Alcibiades, it seems, had at his disposal a small force of Athenian citizens, and with this he blockaded the place by drawing a wall from the Bosporus to the Propontis. This cut off all communication on the land side, and the Persian satrap was foiled in an attempt to relieve the city, though at the same moment a sortie was led by the Spartan officer within the walls. The end of the matter was that Chalcedon surrendered and again consented to become an Athenian dependency, and to pay both the same tribute for the future as in the past, and to make good to Athens all arrears which had accumulated since the revolt.

Previous to the surrender, Alcibiades began preparations for the more serious and important task of the capture of Byzantium. For this his present resources were not adequate, and he thought it prudent to strengthen himself with an increase of funds and of military force. His first step was to attack Selymbria, on the northern shores of the Propontis, and about fifty miles to the west of Byzantium. It, too, had been a colony from Megara, and it had no doubt passed, along with Byzantium, into the power of Athens. It would have been sure to take part in the revolt of that city from Athens. Alcibiades contrived to secure possession of it by means, it is said, of the treacherous connivance of some of its citizens. Now he was able to get a supply of money, and thus to levy an army from the neighbouring Thracians, always a warlike people, and very formidable when properly led. As soon as the terms of submission had been fixed for Chalcedon, he resolved to attempt the recovery of Byzantium. He advanced on it by land from Selymbria, and began the siege of the city, the first of much importance, in a long series of memorable attacks. The place could be reduced only by regular military operations, and in these, when applied to fortified positions, the Greeks were never very skilful. The siege of a city was certain to be tedious. It was as difficult and hazardous to attempt to carry a strong fortress by assault as it is in these days of breech-loading rifles. Battering engines and the missiles which they hurled could do but little against a resolute and disciplined garrison. On this occasion the defence was under the direction of a Spartan commander, Clearchus, at the head of some Spartan troops, and it seems to have been conducted with a spirit and obstinacy equal to that with which Osman Pasha held his lines at Plevna. All the attacks of the besieging army were successfully repelled, as might have been expected, by Spartan skill and valour. It became evident that the work which the Athenian general had undertaken would be slow and arduous, and that the only mode of accomplishing it would be by means of a close and strict blockade. The Byzantines were cut off from the sea by the enemy's fleet. If they could be closed in on land, their surrender must be only a question of time. So Alcibiades simply converted the siege into a blockade, and waited patiently the pressure of famine which sooner or later would drive the populous city to desperation. As it was, the Byzantines bore their misery till they could bear it no longer. It seems that the Spartan commander did not care much for their sufferings, but coolly saw the unhappy people die in the streets, as long as he could feed his own soldiers. He was a man with all the Spartan hardness and tenacity, and he may have been as much a hero as Leonidas, though, as he failed, he has not won for himself equal glory. He kept the provision stores under lock and key, and persisted in the defence till he felt that if he was to hold Byzantium for Sparta, he must seek succour from without. There was the Persian satrap, Pharnabazus, somewhere in the neighbourhood, and from him he might hope for help. Pharnabazus, he knew, had something of a fleet, and with this it might be possible to menace some of the possessions of Athens, and thereby loosen the grip of the besiegers on Byzantium. After an interval of a few months Clearchus managed to steal out of the city with this view, and impressed on two of his officers that they were to do their best for the defence till aid should arrive. His idea seems to have been that the Byzantines would, with due encouragement, suffer for their own sakes to the last extremity rather than surrender themselves to Athens, from which they could hardly expect very lenient terms. He was, however, deceived. The Byzantines, accustomed no doubt to good living, would not endure further privations. They knew, too, that their neighbours of Chalcedon had after their capitulation secured for themselves a fairly favourable position, and were henceforth to be simply what they had been before, a tributary dependency of Athens. And so perhaps they counted on similar treatment for themselves. Athens, too, it is to be noted, had a repute for kindness and generosity in the Greek world, which Sparta never possessed. We may also take it for granted that there was a party in the city which sincerely regretted the revolt, and was really anxious to have the old connection with the foremost state of Greece restored. The result of all this was that Alcibiades was ultimately successful. There was not, indeed, a regular and unanimous surrender, but some Byzantine citizens—traitors they do not deserve to to be called—admitted the Athenians one night into what was known as the Thracian quarter of the city. The Spartan officers whom Clearchus had entrusted with the defence, remained at their posts, faithful to the orders of their superior, but they were easily overpowered, and were forced into submission. Their lives were spared, and they were sent as prisoners to Athens. Those who had trusted to Athenian clemency were not doomed to disappointment. The Byzantines obtained for themselves the same terms as the citizens of Chalcedon had done. Once more, after a siege of nearly a year, in the winter of 408 B.C., Byzantium returned to its former political condition, and it was one of the most honourable achievements of Alcibiades to have recovered for Athens, as a tributary ally, this most important city.

With the downfall of Athens in 405 B.C., at the fatal battle in the Hellespont, which deprived her of her entire fleet, Byzantium was again for a brief space under Spartan sway, and occupied by a Spartan garrison. But a few years afterwards we find it restored to its old alliance, which on the whole, no doubt, best suited its democratic leanings. We may be tolerably sure that it was a city, the population of which would have been always impatient of the oligarchical government which Sparta favoured. Athens, in fact, was its natural ally, and though soon afterwards, with a somewhat unworthy fickleness, it threw off the alliance and aspired to complete independence, it never became thoroughly hostile in its sentiments to the Athenian people. It is easy to understand that there must always have been a certain sympathy between the two cities, which in many respects resembled each other. Commerce must have done much to draw them together, and to create ties of friendship. There were, doubtless, close intimacies between many Athenian and Byzantine citizens. Still, Byzantium, in the year 356 B.C., joined in a hostile movement against Athens, which caused that state extreme perplexity and serious loss. This was the Social War, as it is called, or the revolt of the allies of Athens. The blow was one from which Athens never really recovered, and which left her too weak to carry on with needful vigour the struggle against Philip of Macedon. Byzantium was thus the means of inflicting a grievous hurt on the one state of Greece which had very soon to fight single-handed for Greek freedom against a semi-barbarous power. This the people of Athens felt very bitterly, though they generously forgave it. It was not long before Byzantium itself was threatened by the formidable king of Macedon, the common enemy of Greece, and was only too glad to receive aid from a quarter whence it had hardly a right to expect it. The city now held an important political position, not unlike, though far less commanding, than that of Athens in past days. It was not only independent, but was also the head of a small confederacy, consisting of the Greek colonies in Thrace and on the shores of the Propontis. Among these were Selymbria and Perinthus, both of which were unsuccessfully attacked by Philip about 340 B.C. The king of Macedon understood how to besiege a city better than any man of his time. The affair was with him a thoroughly scientific operation, and as he had introduced a new system of tactics into warfare generally, so, too, he employed new and more effective machinery in sieges. Selymbria and Perinthus were both important towns; the latter was particularly flourishing, and it is said that it had rivalled, if it had not surpassed, Byzantium, in wealth and population. It was admirably situated for commerce in peace and for defence in war; built, as it was, on a peninsula, with a very narrow neck, down the slope of a steep hill, so as to resemble an amphitheatre. The hill faced landwards, and ended in precipitous cliffs which utterly defied the approach of a fleet. The place, too, was strongly fortified. It would have been a great thing for Philip to have possessed himself of it, and he spared no skill or labour in making the attempt. He attacked it by land and sea, and the siege was a very memorable one. In fact, it marked an epoch in the history of sieges, and it was conducted in a novel fashion and with many new appliances. The citizens made a brave defence, but it would hardly have been successful, had they not been well backed up by their neighbours of Byzantium and the Persian satraps of the adjacent districts, whom the court of Persia, already apprehensive of mischief from the restless ambition of Philip, had directed to help the Greek city to their uttermost. By their means Perinthus was well supplied with stores of all kinds, and with everything which could enable it to confront the peril, and in addition it had the services of an Athenian officer with a body of mercenary troops. Philip battered down the first line of defence, but only to find himself repelled by a far stronger barrier built up out of the houses on the lower part of the slope. Similar barriers might be indefinitely multiplied, and, though Philip was the last man in the world to allow himself to be beaten, he gave up the attempt as hopeless, after a siege of about three months.