conquests the most splendid was that of the Nephthalites, or White Huns, a polite and warlike people, who possessed the commercial cities of Bochara and Samarcand, who had vanquished the Persian monarch, and carried their victorious arms along the banks and perhaps to the month of the Indus. On the side of the west the Turkish cavalry advanced to the lake Mæotis [Sea of Azov]. They passed that lake on the ice: The khan, who dwelt at the foot of Mount Altai, issued his commands for the siege of Bosphorus, a city the voluntary subject of Rome and whose princes had formerly been the friends of Athens." _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 42._ _W. Smith, Note to E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 42._ {3131} ALSO IN: _J. H. Newman, Lectures on the History of the Turks (Historical Sketches, volume 1), lectures 1-4._ See, also, TARTARS; and MONGOLS: ORIGIN, &c.; and BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: RACES EXISTING. TURKS: A. D. 710. Subjugation by the Saracens. See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 710. TURKS: A. D. 815-945. Slaves and masters of the Caliphate. See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 815-945. TURKS: A. D. 999-1183. The Gaznevide empire. The decline of the Caliphate at Bagdad in the 9th century was signalized by the rise to practically independent power of several dynasties in its Persian and Central Asian dominions. Among these was the dynasty of the Samanides who ruled, for a hundred and twenty-five years, an extensive dominion in northern Persia and modern Afghanistan and in the Turkoman regions to the Oxus and beyond. In this dominion of the Samanides was included the Turkish tribes which had submitted to Islam and which were presently to become the master champions of the faith. Their first attainment of actual empire in the Moslem world was accomplished by the overthrow of the Samanide princes, and the chief instruments of that revolution were two Turks of humble origin—Sebectagi, or Sabektekin, and his son Mahmud. Sebectagi had been a slave (in the service of a high official under the Samanides) who gained the favor of his masters and acquired command of the city and province of Gazna; whence his famous son Mahmud was called the Gaznevide, and the wide conquests which the latter made are sometimes distinguished as the Gaznevide empire. "For him the title of Sultan was first invented [see SULTAN]; and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighbourhood of Ispahan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the principal source of his fame and riches was the holy war which he waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. … The Sultan of Gazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander; after a march of three months, over the hills of