The Turk has at all times been a nomad and a destroyer. He has never been a capable trader or even agriculturist. When the armies led by Genghis Khan and his successors retired, armies which were well disciplined and well led, many of his soldiers or their followers remained and took service with the Seljukian Turks. Others formed separate communities. One of the chiefs who thus settled in Asia Minor was Ertogrul or Orthogrul, the father of Osman or Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. During Ertogrul’s life, the Seljuks had been greatly harassed by the newer invaders. Pachymer states that on the arrival of the Tartars the sultan of Konia (the ancient Iconium) was surrounded by enemies, and that he had sought the protection of the emperor. He had invited also the aid of the sultan of Egypt, known to the Crusaders as the sultan of Babylon, against the Tartars, by whom he was hard pressed. Three or four years after this sultan’s death in 1277, Ertogrul died. His son Osman or Othman by his courage and ability gave his followers the leading place among the Turks in Asia Minor and firmly established the dynasty named after him. He began his career by coming to an agreement with some of the other Moslem chiefs to divide the territory occupied by the Seljuks and themselves in Asia Minor into eight portions. Thereupon the combined forces of the old and new Turks commenced a series of attacks upon neighbouring territory. During the next twenty years, their success was almost unchecked. In 1282, they laid siege to Tralles (the present Aidin), and, though opposed by the son of Michael the Eighth, were able to capture and destroy the city.[47] A short time afterwards they obtained a fleet and took into their service a large number of sailors who had been discharged by the emperor from motives of economy. Twelve years later, Othman and Ali, chief of another Turkish band, pushed their raids northward and even crossed the river Sangarius and spread desolation throughout the Asiatic provinces of the Empire, before they could be driven back. Two years later, they laid waste the country between the Black Sea and Rhodes. [Sidenote: Othman, first Ottoman Sultan, 1299–1327.] In 1299, Othman took the title of Sultan. In 1302, he and other Turkish leaders inflicted a serious defeat upon the imperial troops and a band of Alans on the river Sangarius near Sabanja. The defeat was shortly afterwards turned into a rout and the subjects of the empire with the Alans were driven to seek shelter in Ismidt, the ancient Nicomedia. The confines of the empire were narrowed, and Othman established himself near Brousa and the neighbouring city of Nicaea, and came to an arrangement for division of the newly acquired territory with the other Turkish chiefs.