erors,
assumed the purple of the Caesars. For three years he was allowed to
indulge himself in various private and public designs, the completion of
which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the ruins
of the empire.

_IV.--The Great Siege of Constantinople_

Mahomet II. succeeded his father Amurath on February 9, 1451. His
hostile designs against the capital were immediately seen in the
building of a fortress on the Bosphorus, which commanded the source
whence the city drew her supplies. In the following year a quarrel
between some Greeks and Turks gave him the excuse of declaring war. His
cannon--for the use of gunpowder, for some time the monopoly of the
Christian world, had been betrayed to Amurath by the Genoese--commanded
the port, and a tribute was exacted from all ships that entered the
harbour. But the actual siege was delayed until the ensuing spring of
1453.

Mahomet, in person, surveyed the city, encouraged his soldiers, and
discussed with his generals and engineers the best means of making the
assault. By his orders a huge cannon was built in Hadrianople. It fired
a ball one mile, and to convey it to its position before the walls, a
team of sixty oxen and the assistance of 200 men were employed. The
Emperor Constantine, unable to excite the sympathy of Europe, attempted
the best defence of which he was capable, with a force of 4,970 Romans
and 2,000 Genoese. A chain was drawn across the mouth of the harbour,
and whatever supplies arrived from Candia and the Black Sea were
detained for the public service.

The siege of Constantinople, in which scarcely 7,000 soldiers had to
defend a city sixteen miles in extent against the powers of the Ottoman
Empire, commenced on April 6, 1453. The last Constantine deserves the
name of a hero; his noble band of volunteers was inspired with Roman
virtue, and the foreign auxiliaries supported the honour of the Western
chivalry. But their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the
operations of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful either in size
or number; and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant
them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and
overthrown by the explosion.

The great cannon of Mahomet could only be fired seven times in one day,
but the weight and repetition of the shots made some impression on the
walls. The Turks rushed to the edge of the ditch, attempted to fill the
enormous chasm