The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 6

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Phillips, Sampson,, 1851 - Byzantine Empire

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Page 387 - In the confusion of darkness an assailant may sometimes succeed ; but in this great and general attack, the military judgment and astrological knowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the morning, the memorable twenty-ninth of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian era.
Page 387 - The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command ; of the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the most audacious to climb...
Page 502 - The place and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on the vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave...
Page 508 - The servitude of rivers is the noblest and most important victory which man has obtained over the licentiousness of nature...
Page 378 - A circumstance that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople, is the reunion of the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts ; the bullet and the battering-ram were directed against the same walls ; nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and inextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the largest size was advanced on rollers : this portable magazine of ammunition and fascines was protected by a...
Page 221 - The desolation is complete ; and the temple of Diana or the church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes ; Sardis is reduced to a miserable village ; the God of...
Page 38 - ... cannot be devised than that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite...
Page 28 - Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, the sepulchre of Christ!
Page 382 - A level way was covered with a broad platform of strong and solid planks ; and, to render them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore light galleys and brigantines, of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarked on the Bosphorus shore ; arranged successively on rollers, and drawn forward by the power of men and pulleys.
Page 227 - Let them be called Janizaries, (Tengi cheri. or new soldiers;) may their countenance be ever bright ! their hand victorious ! their sword keen ! may their spear always hang over the heads of their enemies ! and wheresoever they go, may they return with a white face...

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