Nish was sixteen days by carriage from Constantinople. Murad was now master of four-fifths of the great Roman highway from Belgrade to the Bosphorus; for Tchorlu, Demotika, Adrianople, Philippopolis, Ishtiman, Sofia, and Nish were in his hands. Nish was also the point where the road from Belgrade to Salonika turned southward. Practically all but the last day’s journey of the road across the Balkan peninsula from Constantinople to Durazzo on the Adriatic was Ottoman territory. In Asia Minor, Murad held the ancient highway from Constantinople to Trebizond as far as Angora, and the road which the pilgrims and Crusaders, Jerusalem-bent, had travelled as far as Ak Sheïr. From Angora to Nish took twenty-five days; from Constantinople to Durazzo seventeen days.[383] Twenty-five years before, when Murad came to the chieftainship of the Osmanlis, the Ottoman dominions could have been traversed in any direction in three days. XIII The treaty concluded between the Byzantines and Genoese in 1386 affords a striking illustration of Murad’s power after the Nish campaign. This treaty, whose text has been preserved, was signed by John and Andronicus Palaeologos, the podesta of Pera, and the Genoese ambassador. John Palaeologos bound himself to live in peace with his son Andronicus, and to move his army against all the enemies of Genoa ‘except Morat bey and his Turks’. The Genoese in turn promised to defend Constantinople ‘against all enemies of whatever nationality except the said Morat bey and his Turks, who acted according to the will of the said Morat bey’! Throughout the treaty, Murad is carefully excepted on both sides.[384] Genoa made a formal treaty with Murad in 1385. Favours were granted to the Osmanlis who did business in Pera, in return for liberty to Genoese merchants to reside and conduct business in the states of Murad. The treaty recalls the friendship of the Genoese for Orkhan, and speaks of Murad as ‘the magnificent and powerful lord of lords, Moratibei, grand admiral[385] and lord of the admirals of Turchie’.[386] But in the very next year Genoa secretly joined an offensive league with Cyprus, Scio (Chios) and Mytilene ‘against that Turk, son of unrighteousness and evil, and also of the Holy Cross Morat bey, and his sect, who are attempting so grievously to attack the Christian race’.[387] In the first year of Murad’s reign, the Venetian energy had become so sapped by prosperity and luxury that the Senate passed a sumptuary law.[388] The recent triumph over Genoa had given them a belief in their invincibility. Their self-sufficiency, and the growing disinclination to lay aside the pen and ledger for the sword and shield, were alarming symptoms of decay. The lesson of the Genoese at Chioggia was needed to teach the Venetians that the struggle for existence never ceases.