From the moment of his conquest of the city he saw the importance of keeping up a strong fleet. He maintained and enlarged that which he had prepared for the blockade of the city, and was at all times able, upon any sign of revolt, to send a sufficient force by sea to maintain his rule. Indeed, it may be said that once he had imposed his peace upon all the districts round the Marmora and the Aegean, his fleet enabled him to preserve it. With its aid, too, he succeeded in exacting tribute from Egypt and Syria. Critobulus notes that his master, having observed that the Venetians and Genoese had gained their success in the Mediterranean by means of large ships, constructed a number of new vessels which were able to cope with them, and raised a sufficient number of oarsmen to resist their attacks on the Turkish coasts.
Mahomet as reformer of the administration.
Nor was Mahomet less active in improving the civil organisation of his government. We have already seen that before his conquest of the city, he commenced reforms in the collection of the taxes. He dismissed incompetent pashas and replaced them by others distinguished by their intelligence, their honesty, and their military capacity, for it must always be remembered that militarism was and is the vital part of Turkish administration. Critobulus claims that the aim he had most completely at heart was to secure the best and the most just administration possible. The finances of the country he found in the utmost disorder. One third of the revenue was wasted, and this in a short time he made available for his own purposes. He continued his reform in the system of tax-collecting and, while thus increasing the revenue, took care to strike terror into the farmers of the taxes and all those whose duty it was to see that money entered the public treasury and that it was not plundered when it got there. Both in the government of the army and in the civil administration Mahomet bestowed the utmost care upon details, and trusted nothing to his subordinates until he had seen every preparation made for a satisfactory control.
Mahomet as law-giver.
The Turks speak of Mahomet as the Canouni or Lawgiver, and the epithet is deserved. But while his edicts in aid of better organisation and less corrupt administration are deservedly praised by them, it is as the lawgiver that we come upon one of the darkest sides of his character. Von Hammer points out that the Turkish histories of many centuries furnish examples of political fratricides, but that it was reserved to the law of Mahomet the Second to legitimise the slaughter of younger brothers by the Ottoman sultans.[523] His predecessors had practised the crime. Mahomet not only followed their example but made the practice legal.
His recklessness of human life.
Connected with all his achievements there is the stain of blood. Many contemporary writers speak of him as a monster of cruelty. We may discredit the statement that he caused Christians to be put to death while he feasted, as insufficiently proved. But even Critobulus, who is usually an apologist, has, as a faithful historian, to speak of his cruel deeds. When Castrion surrendered, he killed every man in the garrison and sent the women and children into slavery. When Gardikion submitted, its defenders were treated in a similar manner.[524] Von Hammer dismisses as unfounded the story of Mahomet having the bodies of fourteen pages ripped open to find who had eaten a poor woman’s cucumbers, and the singularly dramatic story of the slaughter of Irene in order to demonstrate to his troops that though he loved the most beautiful woman in the world he was yet master of himself, justly remarking that the massacre of garrisons faithful to their trust, the execution of the members of the imperial family of Trebizond and of the king of Bosnia, cry sufficiently aloud without need of exaggeration. Resistance to his lusts or even to his lawful desires was punished relentlessly by death.[525] He executed his grand vizier Mahmoud because of his independence. He tortured and then put to death his old tutor and vizier Halil Pasha. He sawed five hundred prisoners in halves whom he had captured in Achaia. ‘He was more cruel than Nero, and delighted in bloodshed,’ says Tetaldi. Probably it would be impossible to find a contemporary writer who does not employ similar language. Many of his acts are without the shadow of excuse. They are the result of wild impulse which had never been under control, and deserve to be classed as wanton cruelties inflicted by a man who was reckless of human suffering. There are others which may be put down to what he probably regarded as the exigencies of his position. If in his opinion the assassination of a brother, the slaughter of a great number of his enemies in war, and the murder of those of his subjects who opposed him were necessary to the accomplishment of his objects, he never hesitated. Like other great military rulers, Caesar yesterday, Napoleon to-day, Mahomet regarded men as so many counters, to be kept so long as they were useful in his game, to be cast aside when no longer wanted. Belonging to a family accustomed to absolute rule of the Eastern type, to a race which has never valued life as against military success, and having been reared amid dangers where his struggle for power and even for life was almost daily, he swept away every man who opposed him. His enemies would have dealt hardly with him, and he never appeared to doubt that he was justified in dealing hardly with or getting rid of them. It was part of the game of war. Vae victis! And yet this man seems occasionally to have sympathised with the suffering he had caused, and even to have exercised rigorous justice. Critobulus, after recounting many cruel deeds, adds that Mahomet showed special kindness towards prisoners of war, and whenever in his rides through the city he encountered them would stop his horse and give generously to all. According to Cantemir and other Turkish historians, this monster of cruelty and legaliser of fratricide bowstrung his eldest son for having violated the wife of another.
Mahomet as student.
It is a welcome change to turn from Mahomet the blood-drinker, the lawgiver who first made the horrible practice legal which was to shock Europe during nearly four centuries, to Mahomet the student, the patron and companion of scholars and artists, and the man who was interested in questions of religion. He was a linguist and knew, says Phrantzes,[526] five languages besides his own—Greek, Latin, Arabic, Chaldean, and Persian. His favourite study was history. The achievements of Alexander the Great had filled the world from India westward with his fame, had been the subject of romance, and had caused his name to be regarded throughout the East as that of an almost supernatural hero. Alexander figures constantly in the lives of the Turkish sultans as a fascinating historical figure. As late as 1621 a French writer notes that the then reigning sultan while at dinner had the history of his predecessors read over to him or the Life of Alexander the Great.[527] But upon none had the memory of the Macedonian made so great an impression as upon Mahomet. Alexander was the leader whose career was to be imitated and whose conquests were to be rivalled. His contemporaries frequently compare the two men. ‘It was,’ says Critobulus, ‘the Alexanders and the Pompeys, Caesar and the like rulers, whom Mahomet proposed to himself as models.’ ‘This young Alexander,’ says Ducas, referring to the transport of part of Mahomet’s fleet over land, ‘has surpassed the former one, and has led his ships over the hills as over the waves.’ ‘He wished,’ says Tetaldi, ‘to conquer the whole world, to see more than Alexander and Caesar or any other valiant man who has ever lived.’ Phrantzes describes him as a careful reader of the Lives of Alexander, of Octavius Caesar, of the Great Constantine, and of Theodosius.
Mahomet had continued from his boyhood to show his interest in studies, not only by his own reading but by welcoming other students, ‘for he was constantly striving to acquire those arts by which he should excel his predecessors and extend the bounds of his kingdom as far as possible.’ ‘He gathered to himself virtuous and learned men,’ says Phrantzes. He was, says Lonicerus,[528] an admirer of intellect and of the arts. He caused learned men and skilled artists to be brought to him at great expense. He employed Bellini,[529] a Venetian, and other artists, and loaded them with gifts. Virtue strove with vice within him. He had read all the history, says Critobulus, that was accessible to him in Arabic and Persian, and such Greek literature as had been translated into either of these languages, including Aristotle and the writings of the Stoics, and was skilled in astrology and in mathematics. A few years after he became sultan a certain George Ameroukes is found attached to his suite, a man described by Critobulus[530] as learned in philosophy, natural science, and mathematics. Mahomet made much of him, and called him often to discuss philosophical questions. Not a day passed without interviews with him or with other learned men attached to the court. In matters relating to foreign countries he was especially curious. Having met with the geographical writings of Ptolemy, he not only had them translated into Arabic, but charged George to make a map of the world with all the indications that he could give of the various countries, rivers, lakes, mountains, cities, and distances; for, says Critobulus, ‘the science of geography appeared to him necessary and most useful.’[531] In the course of his expedition to reduce Mitylene and Lemnos he visited the ruins of Troy and the traditional tombs of Achilles and Ajax and admired the good fortune of the heroes who had a poet like Homer to commemorate their deeds. ‘It is said,’ cautiously remarks his biographer, ‘that he believed that God had charged him to be the avenger of the ancient city.’[532] He frequently called the patriarch, the learned Gennadius, and discussed with him questions of theology.