It is impossible to state with any degree of certitude the conquests of Osman before 1300. The record of village warfare, with its names of localities which even the most celebrated Ottoman geographer could not, three centuries later, identify,[38] is of no importance whatever. The extent of Osman’s principality, when he and his people first appear in history, was very insignificant. In 1300 he had succeeded in submitting to his authority a part of ancient Phrygia Epictetus and Bithynia, whose four corners were: south-east, Eski Sheïr; south-west, the eastern end of Mount Olympus; north-east, the junction of the Kara Su and the Sangarius; north-west, Yeni Sheïr. In 1299 Osman took up his residence in Yeni Sheïr. This was the outpost of his principality, in a position of extreme importance, about half-way between Brusa and Nicaea.[39] In sixty years the tribe of Osman had advanced sixty miles from Eski Sheïr, the old city, to Yeni Sheïr, the new city.[40] They held undisputed sway only in the valley of the Kara Su,[41] and their important villages and castles, Biledjik,[42] Itburnu, Inoenu, Sugut, AÏnegoel,[43] Karadja Hissar,[44] Yundhissar, and Yar Hissar,[45] were all within a day’s journey of each other. In 1301, twelve years after Osman began to form his state, he fought his first battle, and came into direct contact with the Byzantine Empire. At Baphaeon,[46] near Nicomedia, the heterarch Muzalon, with 2,000 men, attempted to check a raid the Osmanlis were making into the fertile valley whose products contributed so greatly to the well-being of Nicomedia. It was midsummer, just before the gathering of the harvests.[47] In a pitched battle, the unarmoured horsemen of Osman charged so speedily and so impetuously that they broke through the heavy line of their opponents, and the Greek commander’s retreat was covered only by the opportune arrival of Slavic mercenaries.[48] The Osmanlis were too few in number to follow up this victory. It is hardly probable that they made any attack on Nicomedia.[49] But they laid waste all the districts into which they dared to venture. VI