nobles and people of the lower class, had fled from the city before the siege began. The remaining inhabitants would seem to have been for the most part an unwarlike crowd of mechanics, monks, women, and children.
The emperor directed his minister, Phranza, to make diligent search through the city, and to ascertain to the best of his ability how many of the citizens were really able or willing to fight in its defence. The result was deplorable. Phranza, with shame and grief, had to tell Constantine that he could not muster in this great emergency more than four thousand nine hundred and seventy-three volunteers for garrison duty out of the entire population. No more Romans, as Phranza styled these degenerate Greeks, were to be found to defend the city of the Cæsars. To these were to be added about two thousand regular soldiers. Of Greeks there were thus barely seven thousand in arms during the siege. Constantinople, however, was not quite left to its own unaided resources, or the struggle would have very quickly been ended. There was hardly a nation which had any commercial dealings with the city which did not do something, however small, for it in its time of need. Italian volunteers hurried thither, feeling that their own interests were bound up with its safety. Three large galleons and a small body of troops were furnished by the resident magistrate of the Venetians for the special defence of the harbour. The same officer also was charged with guarding the great imperial palace. The consul of the Catalans was likewise among the defenders. Cardinal Isidore, too, a Greek himself by birth, and the
