At the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, on the northern promontory, was the Genoese self-governing colony of PHOCAEA (46), of which much has been said in the chapter on the reign of Orkhan. Phocaea had many vicissitudes, but maintained its independence as a Latin colony throughout the fourteenth century, and knew how to turn aside the possible aggression of Timur. It was never even temporarily dependent upon the Osmanlis.[793] SMYRNA (47) was wrested from the emir of Aïdin by the crusaders of 1344, and, for the rest of the fourteenth century was a Christian city, independent of the Osmanlis and the Turkish emirs alike. It was Timur who brought it again under Moslem control. But it did not pass to the Osmanlis for many years after this reconquest. The Byzantines, after they had been driven out of Bithynia and Mysia, managed to maintain PHILADELPHIA (48), through their friendship with Sarukhan, until the end of Murad’s reign. The CYPRIOTES (49) exercised a powerful influence in the southern portions of Asia Minor throughout the fourteenth century. As we have seen, they held Adalia for some years. In 1360, the emirs of southern Anatolia were so divided and opposed to each other, and needed so greatly the help of Cyprus against the Karamanians, whom they feared much more than the Osmanlis, that they became for many years tributary to Cyprus.[794] The Cypriotes were also interested in Cilicia. In 1327, the year after Osman’s death, the power of the MONGOLS (50) reached for a few years the Mediterranean. After Bahadur Khan’s death, in 1335, the Mongol Empire was divided up. Suzerainty in Asia Minor fell to the Sultan of Irak (Persia), who, until Timur’s coming, fought with the Karamanians for some of the most important cities of eastern Anatolia. When Ibn Batutah went through the peninsula, Erzerum, Erzindjian, Sivas, Caesarea, Amassia, Nigdeh, and Ak Seraï were ‘cities of the Sultan’.[795] The chevaliers of RHODES (51) did not come into Asia Minor until 1310, when they won from the Turks and Greeks the island which was to give them their most commonly used name. They were continually in conflict with Tawas, Alaïa, Adalia, Tekke, Menteshe, Fukeh, and Aïdin. But they never came into contact with the Osmanlis until after the fall of Constantinople. On the mainland, the chevaliers helped to take Smyrna in 1344, and defended it against the Turks for sixty years. They wrested Ayasoluk from Aïdin for a while about 1365. Several times they gained a foothold in Fukeh and Menteshe, and in the last year of the century established a fortress at Halik (Halicarnassus).[796]