GIBBON'S STATEMENTS CRITICISED 307 G-enoese and Italians not merely as fighting for the interests of Venice and Genoa, but as helping them to keep their own, and the evidence is certainly insufficient to show that such animosity and discord as existed prevented Greeks and Italians alike from doing their utmost to keep the common enemy of Christendom out of the city. My reading of the contemporary narratives leads me to conclude that, in spite of the isolated examples of dissensions mentioned by Leonard, of deep differences of opinion on the great religious question, and of constant jealousies between Greeks and Italians and between Venetians and Genoese, the unity of sentiment among the besieged for the defence of the city was well maintained. They might quarrel on minor questions, but on the duty and the desirability of keeping Mahomet out they were united. I doubt the statement as to many defections and, remembering how many and grave the reasons for dissensions were, consider that if they could be shown to have taken place in any considerable numbers it would not be a matter for wonder. We have seen that during the seven weeks in which Prepara- Mahomet's army had been encamped before the triple walls a general of the Queen City he had attempted to capture it by attacks assault - directed almost exclusively against the landward walls. He was now preparing to make one directed upon all parts of the city together. Hitherto, notwithstanding his balistas, mangonels, and spingards, his turrets, his cannon and his mining operations, he had failed. But his preparations had all rendered the general assault which he contemplated more formidable in character and easier of accomplishment. He had collected together all the various appliances known to mediaeval engineers for attacking a walled city; two thousand scaling-ladders were ready for the assault, hooks for pulling down stones, destroying the walls, and forcing an entry. But the amassing of all his paraphernalia, and even all his mining operations, sink into insignificance as preparations for a general attack when compared with the work done by his great cannon. Primitive as they
