PLAN OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1481 AT THE DEATH OF THE CONQUEROR

to order. To repeople the devastated, depopulated city was his first concern. For this he sought to appease the terror of the vanquished, to whom safety of life and freedom of worship were guaranteed. The Patriarch having withdrawn to Mount Athos before the siege, the surviving Bishops were ordered to elect a successor. The new Patriarch he received with distinguished honor, presented him with a robe and staff, assured him of his protection and favor, and sent him with a splendid escort to the patriarchal residence. Most of the churches between the Golden Horn and the Gate of Adrianople were left to the Christians; eight the Sultan converted into mosques.

To the plain red cloth of the Ottoman standard were added the crescent and star, the symbol of old Byzantium, still seen on the Ottoman flag. The enormous Eski Seraï, or Old Palace, in the heart of Stamboul, even more than the Mosque of Sultan Mohammed, or Yeni Seraï, the New Palace, vindicated the Sultan's claim to architectural distinction. Twenty-eight years he survived his conquest; then dying, he left behind him the reputation of a mighty, always fierce, and often cruel conqueror, of a sagacious legislator and statesman, and of an enlightened lover of learning.

His immediate successors were warriors like himself, to whom their capital was, above all, headquarters for an army and a base of military operations, always resounding with preparations for war, or with the triumphal return of victorious troops. Almost every Ottoman was a soldier, priest, or official. By the sword the capital had been won; by the sword its possession was to be maintained. The Christian population, forbidden to bear arms or hold any public office, not allowed to give testimony in the courts, yet with life, occupation, and property protected to

a certain degree, exercised the various handicrafts or were the merchants and bankers of the city. The tribute in children, torn from non-Moslem parents, to be fashioned into janissaries, the most merciless and inhuman extortion ever wrung from a conquered people, - continued over two hundred years.

Under Sultan Souleïman I, the Magnificent, the Sublime, the Empire attained its apogee of glory and began its decline. Thirteen times he marched through the city gates at the head of an army on some distant campaign; thirteen times he returned in triumph. In architectural

concerned himself less with military affairs and dwelt in

greater seclusion. Some, indeed, like Mourad IV, fought

in the van of armies, which they commanded in person, and won splendid victories. But the Ottomans of later

times did not wish that the person of the Sultan should be exposed to the dangers of the field. Under Sultan Moustapha III, Constantinople saw the beginning of those

efforts after municipal and national reform, which, like his successors, Abd-ul Hamid I, and Selim III, he was