Even in the midst of alarms an eminent philosopher—to the surprise of the elegant Byzantines, it is true—had fixed his seat at Mistra. George Gemistos Plethon believed that he had found in Plato a cure for the evils of the Morea. Centuries before the late Mr Henry George, he advocated a single tax. An advanced fiscal reformer, he suggested a high tariff for all articles which could be produced at home; a paper strategist, he had a scheme which he submitted, together with his other proposals, to the Emperor, for creating a standing army; an anti-clerical, he urged that the monks should work for their living, or discharge public functions without pay. The philosopher, in tendering this advice to the Emperor, modestly offered his own services for the purpose of carrying it out. Manuel II was a practical statesman, who knew that he was living, as Cicero would have said, “non in Platonis republica, sed in fæce Lycurgi.” The offer was rejected. At last the long threatened Turkish peril, temporarily delayed by the career of Timour and the great Turkish defeat at Angora, was at hand. The famous Ottoman commander, Evrenos Beg, had already twice entered the peninsula, once as the ally of the Navarrese prince against the Greek Despot, once as the foe of both. In 1423 a still greater captain, Turakhan, easily scaled the Hexamilion, leaving behind him at Gardiki, as a memorial of his invasion, a pyramid of eight hundred Albanian skulls. But, by the irony of history, just before Greeks and Franks alike succumbed to the all-conquering Turks, the dream of the Byzantine court was at last realised, and the Frank principality ceased to exist.