A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

844 CONSTANTINUS.
the overwhelming power of the Turks, who had
gradually reduced the Byzantine empire to the
city of Constantinople and a few maritime places
and islands in Greece. In his embarrassment he
sent Phranza, the historian, to the court of sultan
Mi'rad II., declaring that he would not exercise
that power which the Greeks had conferred upon
Ihim, unless the sultan would give him his permission. Miirad having received the ambassador
favourably, and given his consent, Constantine
embarked on board a squadron, and soon afterwards arrived at Constantinople. He made peace
with his brothers by giving them his former domain in the Peloponnesus. The beginning of his
reign was quiet; but sultan Mirad died in 1450,
and his son and successor, the ambitious and lofty
Mohammed, was far from shewing the same sentiments towards Constantine as his father. Mohammed was then engaged in a war against the
Turkish emir of Caramania, who made such a desperate resistance, that the councillors of Constantiiie thought this to be a favourable opportunity
for making their master somewhat more independent of the sultan. They threatened to assist
prince Urkhan (the eldest brother of Mohammed?),
who lived at Constantinople and claimed the Turkish throne, to raise an army and to enter into a
contest with Mohammed. Ambassadors having
been sent to the sultan to inform him of the dispositions of the Greek court, the vizir Khalil reproached them with their imprudent and presumptuous conduct in very severe terms, and concluded
with the words, "1If you will proclaim Urkhan as
sultan, you may do so; you may call the Hungarians for assistance, you may try to reconquer all
those countries which we have taken from you;
but know ye that you will succeed in nothing, and
that instead of winning an inch of ground, you
will lose the petty remains of your empire which
we have left you. My master shall be informed of
the subject of your message, and his will shall be
done." (Ducas, p. 132.) Soon afterwards, Mohammed made preparations for a siege of Constantinople, having declared that he would not make
peace till he could reside in the capital of the
Greek empire.
Constantinople was blockaded by land and by
sea till the sultan's artillery was ready, which was
cast at Adrianople by Urban, a Daciani or Hungarian founder, and was of greater dinmensions than
had ever been made before. While it was casting
Mohammed took Mesembria, Anchialos, Byzon,
and other towns which still belonged to the empire. On the 6th of April, 1453, Mohammed appeared under the walls of Constantinople at the
head of an army of 258,000 men, carrying with
him, among other pieces of large size, a gun which
threw a stone ball of 1200 pounds. The city was
defended by the Greeks and numerous Venetian,
Genoese, and other Frankish auxiliaries or volunteers; and the Christian navy was superior to the
Turkish, riot in number, but in the construction of
the ships and the skill of the Frankish marines.
Our limits do not allow us to give a history of
this siege. Among the numerous works, in which
the account is given with more or less truth or
* A Dacian (AW() according to Chalcondylas,
and a Hungarian according to Ducas. Gibbon
(xii. p. 1.97, ed. 1815) says, "a Dane or Hungarian,"-either a mistake or a typographical error.

CONSTANTINUS.
beauty, we refer to Gibbon, Le Beau, '4 Histoira
du Bas Empire," continued by Ameilhon, and
-lammer, " Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches."
The contest lasted from the 6th of April till the
29th of May, 1453: prophecies had foretold its
issue. O(n that day the last emperor of the East
fell on the wall of his trembling capital: OA cv
eavyesV f5XAkov - qNPv, he cried out in despair when
the Turks stormed the wall and he was forsaken
by his guards. Surrounded by a crowd of Janissaries, and foreseeing his fate, he cried out again,
" Is there no Christian who will cut off my head?"
He had scarcely uttered these words when he was
struck by two Turks at once, and expired unknown to them on a heap of slain. His body wias
afterwards discovered, and when Mohammed was
in undisputed possession of the city, he ordered his
head to be cut off, and had it nailed on the porphyry
column on the place called Augusteum. It was
afterwards sent as a trophy to the principal towns
in Turkish Asia. One of the first acts of the victor was the consecration of the church of St. Sophia
as a mosque, and Mohammed was the first Moslem
who prayed there standing on the altar. It is
said that he entered that church on horseback, but
this is an idle story invented by monks. lHe
alighted from his horse at the principal gate, entered the church with visible respect and admiration, and was so far from committing any profanation, that he killed with his own hand a Turk
whom he discovered breaking up the beautiful
marbles of the pavement.
The conquest of Constantinople was an event of
the greatest importance to the Sultans. During
upwards of one thousand years that city had been
looked upon by the nations of the East as the
sacred seat of both the supreme temporal and
spiritual power, and being masters of Constantinople, the Sultans at once were considered as the
heirs of the Roman emperors. Until then the
obedience paid to them was but submission to the
sword of a conqueror: it was now both fear and
habit, and the transient impression of victory acquired the strength of hereditary duty. With the
fall of Constantinople, darkness spread over the
East; but the Muses flying from the Bosporus
found a more genial home on the banks of the Arno
and the Tiber. Almost four centuries have elapsed
since the first Mohammedan prayer was offered in
St. Sophia; yet all the power and glory of the
Sultans have been unable to root out of the minds
of the Greeks the remembrance of their past grandeur, and at the present moment the duration of
the Turkish power in Constantinople is less probable than the revival of a new Greek empire.
(Phranzes, lib. iii., &c.; Ducas, c. 34, &c.; Chalcocondyles, lib. vii., &c.; Leonardus Chiensis, Hist.
Constant. a Turc. expugnatae, 1st ed., Niirnberg,
1544, 4to., a small but curious work, written a few
months after the fall of Constantinople.) [W. P.]
CONSTANTI'NUS ACROPOLI'TA. [AcRoPOLITA, GEORGIUS.]
CONSTANTI'NUS, of ANTIOCH, also called
Constantius, was a presbyter at the metropolitan church of Antioch, lived about A. D. 400,
and was destined to succeed bishop Flavianus.
Porphyrius, however, who wished to obtain that
see, intrigued at the court of Constantinople,
and succeeded in obtaining an order from the
emperor Arcadius for the banishment of Constantine. With the aid of some friends, Constan