level 1
"A different account of the death is recorded by the Ottoman historian Tursun Beg who was an eyewitness at the siege, according to him Constantine was killed by Ottoman azab soldiers while trying to flee with his retinue."
level 2
It's quite fun to see the bias at work within the two different reports of his death.
level 2
Inaccurate, if he was indeed killed by the turks knowingly then his body would have been found
level 1
After reading the story it doesn't seem this guy did anything of significance other than die. He took a couple of cities from the Ottomans - pissed them off - they took back the cities. Then he was attacked by a later Ottoman, got whooped, and died in battle.
level 2
True, but to be fair, he was kind of doomed from the getgo due to centuries of decline in the Byzantine Empire. Those last words are pretty striking, though.
level 2
He made a valiant effort with an army of 6 thousand. The Byzantintes never had much wealth after the Fourth Crusade.
level 1
Holding back Islam valiantly until the end, a hero. Every little bit counted to slow their advance while the west gathered strength.
level 2
The Byzantines should get major credit for that indeed. Even from the Turks. If not for the Byzantines, then Anatolia, Greece and the balkans would probably be fully arabized and the Turkish national identity would likely not exist.
Constantine XI Palaiologos "God forbid that I should live as an Emperor without an Empire. As my city falls, I will fall with it. Whosoever wishes to
escape, let him save himself if he can, and whoever is ready to face death, let him follow me"
Did he really die in action? I read Warren Treadgold's book and he says that he died fighting (A concise history of Byzantium, p. 280).
On Wikipedia other accounts are presented:
"Constantine died the day Constantinople fell. There were no known surviving eyewitnesses to the death of the emperor and none of his entourage survived to offer any credible account of his
death.[101][102] The Greek historian Michael Critobulus, who later worked in the service of Mehmed, wrote that Constantine died fighting the Ottomans. Later Greek historians accepted Critobulus's account, never doubting that Constantine died as a hero and martyr, an idea never seriously questioned in the Greek-speaking world.[103] Though none of the authors were eyewitnesses, a vast majority of those who wrote of Constantinople's fall, both Christians and Muslims, agree that Constantine died in
the battle, with only three accounts claiming that the emperor escaped the city. It also seems probable that his body was later found and decapitated.[104] According to Critobulus, the last words of Constantine before he charged at the Ottomans were "the city is fallen and I am still alive".[105]"
- #2
I am always highly suspicious when sources put words in the mouths of famous people, doubly so when it happens during/before a battle. Who, exactly, was there to write them down and transmit then faithfully? Last words (even more so than pre battle speeches) are a common literary trope. That makes me even less inclined to take them at face value.
- #3
I am always highly suspicious when sources put words in the mouths of famous people, doubly so when it happens during/before a battle. Who, exactly, was there to write them down and transmit then faithfully? Last words (even more so than pre battle speeches) are a common literary
trope. That makes me even less inclined to take them at face value. Such apothegms are indeed often considered to be apocriphal. Some have a ring of authenticity imprinted onto them (presumably uttered in a public context, or referencing common saying and so on), others, i.e. those prononunced into a suspiciously private context (bedrooms, palaces and so on) are, almost certainly, apt dramatisations and fruit of transfereable motifs, which tell us less about what an
historical character really said/really was and more about how an historical character is depicted. This is by no mean something strange. Even nowadays, in a world where modern medias can capture words and voices so easily, fake speeches ascribed to people like Steve Jobs are in circulation and widely believed.
- #4
I imagine his last utterance before he died was more along the lines of "Arrrrgggh!"
- #6
I am always highly suspicious when sources put words in the mouths of famous people, doubly so when it happens during/before a battle. Who, exactly, was there to write them down and transmit then faithfully? Last words (even more so than pre battle speeches) are a common literary trope.
That makes me even less inclined to take them at face value. Yeah, he 100% did not say that. Thucydides did something similar but at least its speeches were more "realistic". I feel like It was a long tradition. Every ancient author has them ahaha
- #7
Out of curiosity, what is the corpus of sources regarding the siege of Constantinople?
- #8
The Fall of the City is probably the best documented event of XVth century. There are 15 eyewitness reports, Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim. Tursun Beg who was in Mehmed' army during the Fall, presents the emperor's conduct in his last hours in less favourable manner. The infidel lord and his retinue fled for their lives, taking the road tο the sea & trying to find a
ship οn which to escape the slaughter. Thus they came across a group of plundering Ottomans, seeing the enemy emperor charged one of them and felled him, the half dead Turk hit back and cut off the
emperor's head.
EDIT: Michael Kritoboulos story is
contemporary indeed, but non-eyewitness account.
Last edited: May 30, 2022
- #9
The Muslim version purports to be an eye witness account and seems more likely than the herioc speeches.
Probably there are so many accounts survive because this was viewed as a momentous event at the time. The fall of the Roman Empire and the center of the Orthodox Church to the Muslims. It was almost like if the Muslims took Rome and turned St. Peters into a mosque. However, the
Byzantine Empire was tiny then, just a small area around Constantinople. The defenders were a small force, even with foreign Christians.