The crescent moon and star, Figs. 239 and 240, were adopted by the Turks as their device on the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453. They were originally the symbol of Diana, the Patroness of Byzantium, and were adopted by the Ottomans as a badge of triumph. Prior to that event, the crescent was a very common charge in the armorial bearings of English Knights, but it fell into considerable disuse when it became the special device of the Mohamedans, though even so late as the year 1464 we find René, Duke of Anjou, founding an Order of Knighthood having as its badge the crescent moon, encircled by a motto signifying "praise by increasing." Though the crescent was, as we have seen, originally a Pagan symbol, it remained throughout the rise and development of the Greek Church the special mark of Constantinople, and even now in Moscow and other Russian cities the {120} crescent and the cross may be seen combined on the churches, the object being to indicate the Byzantine origin of the Russian Church. The crescent may be seen on the coins and medals of Augustus, Trajan, and other Emperors. The origin of the symbol was as follows: Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, meeting with many unforeseen difficulties in carrying on the siege of the city, set the soldiers to work one dark night to undermine the walls, but the crescent moon appearing the design was discovered and the scheme miscarried; and in acknowledgment the Byzantines erected a statue to Diana, and made the crescent moon--the attribute of the Goddess--the symbol of their city. The War Flag of Turkey is the crescent and star on the scarlet field, as shown in Fig. 239. The flag of the Merchant Service seems less definitely fixed. In the Official Flag Book[79] of the English Admiralty, Fig. 239 is given as both the man-of-war flag and the merchant flag for Turkey, Egypt, and Tripoli, while in an excellent book on the subject, published at Vienna in 1883, Fig. 235 is given as the flag of the commercial marine; and we have also seen a plain red flag with a star in the upper corner of the hoist, and another divided into three horizontal bands, the upper and lower being red, and the central one green. The Military and Naval Service of Tunis has the flag represented in Fig. 240, while the Tunisian commercial flag is simply red, without device of any kind. In a map bearing the date 1502 the Turkish Dominions are marked by a scarlet flag having three points and bearing three black crescents, while in a sheet of flags with the comparatively modern date of 1735, "Turk" is represented by a blue flag with three crescents in white upon it.