In February 1451, his great contemporary, Murad, died at Adrianople. He had been a successful warrior, and, with the exception of his failure to capture Belgrade, had succeeded in most of his enterprises. Gibbon is perhaps justified in speaking of him as a philosopher in matters of religion, but he was relentless in imposing his creed. Cantemir, his eulogist, relates that in Epirus he converted all the churches into mosques, and ordered every male Epirot, under penalty of death, to be forcibly made a Mahometan. He deserves the praises of Turkish writers. Chalcondylas and Ducas recognise in him certain good traits of character. The first says that he was a just and equitable man, and Ducas gives him credit not undeserved for having scrupulously respected the treaties which he made with Mahometans or Christians. His son Mahomet, who now becomes the second sultan of that name in the Ottoman dynasty, was at Magnesia when he heard the news of his father’s death. CHAPTER VIII CAUSES LEADING TO DECAY OF EMPIRE: NOT DUE TO DEMORALISATION OF COURT; INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CAUSES; LATIN CONQUEST AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT HAD PRODUCED INTERNAL DISSENSIONS AND CHECKED ASSIMILATION OF HOSTILE RACES; METHOD OF TURKISH CONQUEST AND ITS FATAL CONSEQUENCES; RAVAGES OF BLACK DEATH; POPULATION OF CAPITAL IN 1453; ITS COMMERCE; RELATIONS OF PEOPLE WITH GOVERNMENT; RESEMBLANCE TO RUSSIA; DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING IDEA OF DOMESTIC LIFE. As the later Roman empire is now drawing to a close, it is worth while endeavouring to realise what were the immediate causes of its weakness, and what was its actual condition immediately preceding the final siege. The empire to which Constantine Dragases succeeded on the death of his brother John was over the city and a strip of land behind it which may be estimated roughly at about a hundred miles in length from its walls towards the north and west. To this and about half of the Peloponnesus still held by his brother had the realm of Theodosius been reduced. [Sidenote: How far was population demoralised?]