Athens was taken in 1397, and the Crescent, the symbol of barbarism, shone over the ancient seat of learning and the arts. The metropolis of the East, for which the emperor gained a temporary but ignominious respite by turning one of the churches of the city into a mosque, and consenting to pay an annual tribute of 10,000 ducats, would doubtless have speedily fallen into the power of Bajazet but for the appearance at that moment of a rival on the scene. Manuel Palæologus had in vain sought the assistance of the European princes; the wars in which they were engaged prevented their heeding his appeal. In his extremity he had recourse to Timour the Terrible,[7] the khan of Tartary, whose jealousy of Bajazet’s successes induced him readily to listen to the embassies of the Greek emperor. The result is well known: on the plains of Angora (A.D. 1402),—the same where Pompey overthrew the power of Mithridates,—the Turks and Tartars met, and after a bloody contest the triumphs of Bajazet were terminated for ever, and he himself, falling into the hands of his savage conqueror, was subjected to a captivity the ignominy of which has gained for him a compassion and sympathy to which his crimes and infamous vices were far from entitling him. It followed as a matter of course, that the dominions of Bajazet were simply transferred into the hands of Timour; and with the single exception of the knights of Rhodes, all the princes of the East submitted to his yoke, or acceded to his alliance. Their stubborn independence brought on them a declaration of war from the Tartar despot. It seemed insufferable that one small island should presume to withhold its allegiance to a monarch whose dominions exceeded those of Alexander and of every conqueror the world had ever seen, and whose power was acknowledged by the Christian sovereigns of Anatolia, as well as in all the provinces of the East; yet Rhodes, small as it was, presented so formidable an aspect, with its masses of fortifications, that he determined on first of all reducing the city of Smyrna, whose position in the very heart of the Asiatic provinces seemed to bid defiance to his arms. Timour’s object was, however, scarcely so much the actual subjection of the place as the gratification of a proud ambition; and well knowing that a city which had so long resisted the power of the Turks would prove no easy conquest, he declared to William de Mina, the governor appointed by the grand master, that he would be contented if his banner were suffered to float from the citadel, without proceeding to a siege, or depriving the knights of their actual possession. But the demand was scornfully rejected: not that the Hospitallers for one moment entertained a hope of withstanding the attack of the Tartars, unsupported as they were by any succours from Europe, and isolated in the midst of the enemy’s dominions; but Smyrna was the post of honour which, intrusted to them as it had been by the Pope himself,