CHAPTER VI

"The Terrible Turk"

The Greek Empire at Constantinople.--The invading Mohammedans.--The
Ottoman Turks.--The fall of Constantinople.--The enslaving of the
Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, and Roumanians.--One little part of
Serbia unconquered.--The further conquests of the Turks.--The attack
on Vienna.--John Sobieski to the rescue.--The waning of the Turkish
empire.--The Spanish Jews.--The jumble of languages and peoples in
southeastern Europe.


In the last chapter, we referred briefly to the Greek empire at
Constantinople. This city was originally called Byzantium, and was a
flourishing Greek commercial center six hundred years before Christ.
Eleven hundred years after this, a Roman emperor named Constantine
decided that he liked Byzantium better than Rome. Accordingly, he
moved the capital of the empire to the Greek city, and renamed it
Constantinopolis (the word polis means "city" in Greek). Before long,
we find the Roman empire divided into two parts, the capital of one at
Rome, of the other at Constantinople. This eastern government was
continued by the Greeks nearly one thousand years after the government
of the western empire had been seized by the invading Germanic tribes.

[Illustration: The Turkish Sultan before Constantinople]

For years, this Greek empire at Constantinople had been obliged to