[36] Baronius, Pagi.
For four centuries the Turks are little or hardly
heard of; then suddenly in the course of as many
tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make
the whole world resound with their deeds; and,
while they have pushed to the East through[{25}]
Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down
to the coasts of the Mediterranean and the
Archipelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatened
Constantinople. In their long period of silence
they had been sowing the seeds of future[{30}]
conquests; in their short period of action they were
gathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings.
The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before;
but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head
of a military force within its territory, he found
himself surrounded by the armies of his kindred[{5}]
which had been so long in its pay; he was joined
by the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romans
in a former age had shown the passes of the
Caucasus; and he could rely on the reserve of
innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his[{10}]
native desert, and following in his track. Such
was the state of Western Asia in the middle of
the eleventh century.
Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of
Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the[{15}]
courageous lion": and the Caliph gave its possessor the
Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector of
Religion." It was the distinctive work of his
short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to
attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul had[{20}]
already invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor,
from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles,
and here it was that he had achieved his
tremendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan
renewed the war; he penetrated to Cæesarea in[{25}]
Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearls
which incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil.
He then turned his arms against Armenia and
Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers
of the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble[{30}]
to the Russians. After this he encountered,
defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. He
began the battle with all the solemnity and
pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away
his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and
scimeter; he perfumed his body with musk, as[{5}]
if for his burial, and dressed himself in white,
that he might be slain in his winding sheet.
After his victory, the captive Emperor of New
Rome was brought before him in a peasant's
dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his[{10}]
feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then,
raising him up, he struck or patted him three times
with his hand, and gave him his life and, on a
large ransom, his liberty.
At this time the Sultan was only forty-four[{15}]
years of age, and seemed to have a career of glory
still before him. Twelve hundred nobles stood
before his throne; two hundred thousand soldiers
marched under his banner. As if dissatisfied
with the South, he turned his arms against his[{20}]
own paternal wildernesses, with which his
family, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes
of Turks seem to have poured down, and were
wresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as
the Seljukians had wrested it from the[{25}]
Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced far into the
country, when he met his death from the hand of a
captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his
progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a
lingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he[{30}]
rushed forward upon Alp Arslan; and the Sultan,
disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent his
bow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger of
his prisoner in his breast. His death, which
followed, brings before us that grave dignity of the
Turkish character, of which we have already had[{5}]
an example in Mahmood. Finding his end
approaching, he has left on record a sort of dying
confession: "In my youth," he said, "I was
advised by a sage to humble myself before God,
to distrust my own strength, and never to despise[{10}]
the most contemptible foe. I have neglected
these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly
punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I
beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit
of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under[{15}]
my feet, and I said in my heart, Surely thou art
the king of the world, the greatest and most
invincible of warriors. These armies are no
longer mine; and, in the confidence of my
personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an[{20}]
assassin." On his tomb was engraven an
inscription, conceived in a similar spirit. "O ye, who
have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the
heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it
buried in the dust." [37] Alp Arslan was adorned[{25}]
with great natural qualities both of intellect and
of soul. He was brave and liberal: just, patient,
and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent in
his alms, and, it is added, witty in his
conversation; but his gifts availed him not.[{30}]
[37] Gibbon.
It often happens in the history of states and
races, in which there is found first a rise and then
a decline, that the greatest glories take place just
then when the reverse is beginning or begun.
Thus, for instance, in the history of the[{5}]
Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come,
Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and
greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it
as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the
son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom[{10}]
its glories ended, is represented to us in history
in colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficult
to believe we are not reading the account of some
mythical personage. He came to the throne at
the early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped,[{15}]
handsome, polished both in manners and in
mind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere.
He engaged himself even more in the
consolidation of his empire than in its extension. He
reformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he[{20}]
repaired the highroads, bridges, and canals; he
built an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he founded
and nobly endowed a college. He patronized
learning and poetry, and he reformed the
calendar. He provided marts for commerce; he[{25}]
upheld the pure administration of justice, and
protected the helpless and the innocent. He
established wells and cisterns in great numbers
along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed
the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums[{30}]
among the poor.
He was in every respect a great prince; he
extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the
very borders of China. He subdued by his
lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took
Jerusalem. He is said to have traveled round[{5}]
his vast dominions twelve times. So potent was
he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and
had for feudatories great princes. He gave to
his cousin his territories in Asia Minor, and
planted him over against Constantinople, as an[{10}]
earnest of future conquests; and he may be said
to have finally allotted to the Turcomans the
fair regions of Western Asia, over which they
roam to this day.
All human greatness has its term; the more[{15}]
brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the more
sudden was his extinction; and the earlier he
came to his power, the earlier did he lose it. He
had reigned twenty years, and was but
thirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride[{20}]
and came to his end. He disgraced and
abandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age
of ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the
servant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk.
After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar[{25}]
and almost incommunicable title of "the
commander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, he
wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to
deprive his impotent superior of his few
remaining honors. He demanded the hand of the[{30}]
daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in
marriage. A few days, and he was no more;
he had gone out hunting, and returned
indisposed; a vein was opened, and the blood would
not flow. A burning fever took him off, only
eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and[{5}]
less than ten before the day when the Caliph was
to have been removed from Bagdad.
Such is human greatness at the best, even were
it ever so innocent; but as to this poor Sultan,
there is another aspect even of his glorious deeds.[{10}]
If I have seemed here or elsewhere in these
Lectures to speak of him or his with interest or
admiration, only take me, Gentlemen, as giving
the external view of the Turkish history, and that
as introductory to the determination of its true[{15}]
significance. Historians and poets may celebrate
the exploits of Malek; but what were they in the
sight of Him who has said that whoso shall strike
against His cornerstone shall be broken; but
on whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to[{20}]
powder? Looking at this Sultan's deeds as
mere exhibitions of human power, they were
brilliant and marvelous; but there was another
judgment of them formed in the West, and other
feelings than admiration roused by them in the[{25}]
faith and the chivalry of Christendom.
Especially was there one, the divinely appointed
shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious
steward of His Church, who from his high and
ancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic[{30}]
charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on at
thousands of miles from him, and with prophetic
eye looked into the future age; and scarcely had
that enemy, who was in the event so heavily to
smite the Christian world, shown himself, when
he gave warning of the danger, and prepared[{5}]
himself with measures for averting it. Scarcely
had the Turk touched the shores of the
Mediterranean and the Archipelago, when the Pope
detected and denounced him before all Europe.
The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was[{10}]
then upon the throne of the Apostle; and though
he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts
which Pope has ever sustained, not only against
the secular power, but against bad bishops and
priests, yet at a time when his very life was not[{15}]
his own, and present responsibilities so urged
him, that one would fancy he had time for no
other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind
to the consideration of a contingent danger in the
almost fabulous East. In a letter written during[{20}]
the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea
of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later
popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of
Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had
50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he[{25}]
would fain have led in person. This was in the
year 1074.