[Footnote 322: They were taken from Chios in the fourth century by the emperor Theodosius, and placed in the hippodrome at Constantinople, whence they were taken by the Venetians in 1204. The opinion that "the results of the Fourth Crusade upon European civilization were altogether disastrous" is ably set forth by Mr. Pears, _The Fall of Constantinople_, London, 1885, and would be difficult to refute. Voltaire might well say in this case, "Ainsi le seul fruit des chretiens dans leurs barbares croisades fut d'exterminer d'autres chretiens. Ces croises, qui ruinaient l'empire auraient pu, bien plus aisement que tous leurs predecesseurs, chasser les Turcs de l'Asie." _Essai sur les Moeurs_, tom. ii. p. 158. Voltaire's general view of the Crusades is, however, very superficial.] [Sidenote: Rivalry between Venice and Genoa.] The general effect of the Crusades upon Oriental commerce was to increase the amount of traffic through Egypt and Syria. Of this lucrative trade Venice got the lion's share, and while she helped support the short-lived Latin dynasty upon the throne at Constantinople, she monopolized a great part of the business of the Black Sea also. But in 1261 Venice's rival, Genoa, allied herself with the Greek emperor, Michael Palaeologus, at Nicaea, placed him upon the Byzantine throne, and again cut off Venice from the trade that came through the Bosphorus. From this time forth the mutual hatred between Venice and Genoa "waxed fiercer than ever; no merchant fleet of either state could go to sea without convoy, and wherever their ships met they fought. It was something like the state of things between Spain and England in the days of Drake."[323] In the one case as in the other, it was a strife for the mastery of the sea and its commerce. Genoa obtained full control of the Euxine, took possession of the Crimea, and thus acquired a monopoly of the trade from central Asia along the northern route. With the fall of Acre in 1291, and the consequent expulsion of Christians from Syria, Venice lost her hold upon the middle route. But with the pope's leave[324] she succeeded in making a series of advantageous commercial treaties with the new Mameluke sovereigns of Egypt, and the dealings between the Red Sea and the Adriatic soon came to be prodigious. The Venetians gained control of part of the Peloponnesus, with many islands of the AEgean and eastern Mediterranean. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries their city was the most splendid and luxurious in all Christendom. [Footnote 323: Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. i. p. lxxi.] [Footnote 324: A papal dispensation was necessary before a commercial treaty could be made with Mahometans. See Leibnitz, _Codex Jur. Gent. Diplomat._, i. 489.] [Sidenote: Centres and routes of mediaeval trade.]