and certainly refused to arrest its perpetrator [1307]. He was promptly punished. The “Grand Company” was not disorganized by the loss of its leader, and thought of nothing but revenge. Assembling themselves in haste, and abandoning Asia Minor to the Turks, they marched on Constantinople, harrying the land far and wide with fiendish cruelty. The Emperor sent his son Michael against them, but the young prince was disgracefully beaten in two fights at Gallipoli and Apros, and the mercenaries spread themselves all over Thrace and plundered it up to the gates of the capital. It almost looked as if a second Latin Conquest of Constantinople was about to take place, for the leaders of the “Grand Company” got succour from Europe, raised a corps of Turkish auxiliaries, and occupied Thrace for two years. But they could not storm the walls of Constantinople or Adrianople, and at last, after two years of plundering, they had stripped the country so bare that they were driven away by famine. Drifting southward and westward they ravaged Macedon and Thessaly, and at last reached Greece. Here they fell into a quarrel with Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, slew him in battle and took his capital. Then at last did the wandering horde settle down; they seized the duchy, divided its fiefs among themselves, and established a new dynasty on the Athenian throne. The empire was at last quit of them, for when once they ceased to wander the “Grand Company” ceased to be dangerous. This disastrous war with the mercenaries not only ruined Thrace and Macedonia, but was the cause of the final loss of the Byzantine provinces of Asia Minor. While Andronicus was feebly attempting to cope with the “Grand Company,” the Seljouk chiefs had conquered Lydia and Phrygia once more, and then advanced yet further north to siege Mysia and Bithynia. By 1325 they had reduced the Emperor’s dominions on the east of the straits to a narrow strip, reaching from the Dardanelles to the northern exit of the Bosphorus, and bounded by the Bithynian hills to the south. Five Seljouk leaders had carved out for themselves principalities in the conquered districts, Menteshe in the south, Aidin and Saroukhan in Lydia, Karasi in Mysia, and in the Bithynian borderland Othman, destined to a fame very different from that of his long-forgotten compeers.