The Republics of Venice and Genoa owned many commercial ports and islands in the Ægean Sea and Adriatic, and were madly jealous of one another. The position was such as to afford a favourable opportunity to new invaders like the Ottomans, for there was no probability of a combination among these Christian communities to resist them. The story of the first entry of the Ottomans into Europe, as told by the early Turkish historians and adopted by Von Hammer and others, is shortly this. In the year 1356 Solyman, the son of Orchan, at the head of a small body of Ottoman troops, variously estimated at from seventy-five to three hundred, under the inspiration of a dream, stealthily crept, it is said, across the Hellespont in boats, and succeeded in surprising and overcoming the Greek garrison of the small fortress of Tzympe, on the European side of the Straits, and having thus gained possession of it, increased the invading force to three thousand. Mr. Gibbons, on the other hand, has unravelled from the Byzantine historians a much fuller and more reliable story of the successive entries of Ottoman troops into Europe from 1345 downwards. It may be briefly epitomized as follows, in explanation of the great historic event—the first entry of the Ottomans into Europe—a story which is most discreditable to the Byzantine Greeks:— On the death, in 1338, of the Greek Emperor Andronicus III, the most feeble and incompetent of the long line of Palæologi, his Grand Chancellor, Cantacuzene, was appointed, under his will, guardian of his son, John Palæologus, and as co-regent with his widow, the Empress Anna. Cantacuzene, not satisfied with this arrangement, and ambitious to secure supreme power in the Empire, had himself proclaimed Emperor at Nicotika in 1343. This was bitterly resented and opposed by the Empress Anna. Civil war broke out. Both Anna and Cantacuzene appealed to Orchan, their new and powerful neighbour across the Straits, for aid against the other. Cantacuzene offered his young daughter, Theodora, in marriage to Orchan in return for the aid of six thousand Ottoman troops. Orchan apparently thought this a better offer than that of the Empress Anna, whatever that may have been. He was perhaps flattered by the prospect of a family connection with a Byzantine Emperor. He closed with the offer and sent six thousand soldiers into Europe, in 1345, in support of Cantacuzene, who made use of them by investing Constantinople, of which the Empress had obtained possession. After a year’s siege, Cantacuzene effected an entry into the city by the aid of his partisans there, who treacherously opened its gates to him. The Empress was thereupon compelled to come to terms. She agreed that Cantacuzene and his wife should be crowned as Emperor and Empress, together with herself and her son. This union was further cemented by the marriage of the young Emperor John, at the age of sixteen, with another daughter of Cantacuzene. Orchan, in pursuance of his agreement