Such rulers, having lost the respect, could not hold the loyalty of their subjects. The people no longer responded to the calls of the throne for aid in the war-fields. Indeed, the independent peasant class, having been reduced to virtual slavery, were more ready to admit a change of rulers than to risk their lives for the support of such as they had. The emperors were thus compelled to surround themselves with mercenaries whom they hired in foreign countries. Slavonians, Italians, Warings (Saxons who were crowded out of England by the recent Norman conquest), filled the armies and oppressed the citizens. The Greek navy was composed chiefly of Venetian bottoms, and manned by water-dogs from every seaport in Europe. To these elements of decrepitude we must add the ceaseless strife for occupancy of the imperial throne. During the quarter-century ending with 1200 there were more claimants than there were years. This internal weakness of the Byzantine or Greek empire left it largely the prey of enemies from without. Ever since their first irruption from their original home in central Asia the Turks had menaced the imperial provinces. They succeeded in wresting vast lands, and in either driving out their Christian inhabitants or making them tributary to the cause of Islam. Asia Minor was lost to the Greek, and the Moslem negotiated with his foe from the banks of the Bosporus. During the twelfth century scarcely a year passed which did not witness some battle between the Byzantines and the Turks. Defeated by the crusaders, these quick-moving hordes of the East found redress in ravaging some part of the empire. When victorious in Syria they echoed their joy in new battle-shouts in the direction of the Greek capital. Their swords dripped blood on the shores of the Marmora and the Black Sea almost as frequently as on the fields of Syria. In 1185 the emperor was compelled to purchase immunity from attack by paying tribute to the Sultan of Iconium, and even to call in the assistance of Saladin to secure him from the aggressions of other Moslem hordes. The Huns also assailed the Byzantine power. In 1184 Maria, dowager empress at Constantinople, was put to death for having engaged these ruthless people, under their king, Bela, to invade the empire. Bulgarians, Patchinaks, Turkomans, Wallachs, and Servians raided in turn the Balkan peninsula.