392 DESTRUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE man seems occasionally to have sympathised with the suffering he had caused, and even to have exercised rigorous justice. Critobulus, after recounting many cruel deeds, adds that Mahomet showed special kindness towards prisoners of war, and whenever in his rides through the city he encountered them would stop his horse and give generously to all. According to Cantemir and other Turkish historians, this monster of cruelty and legaliser of fratricide bowstrung his eldest son for having violated the wife of another. Mahomet It is a welcome change to turn from Mahomet the blood- drinker, the lawgiver who first made the horrible practice legal which was to shock Europe during nearly four centuries, to Mahomet the student, the patron and companion of scholars and artists, and the man who was interested in questions of religion. He was a linguist and knew, says Phrantzes, 1 five languages besides his own — Greek, Latin, Arabic, Chaldean, and Persian. His favourite study was history. The achievements of Alexander the Great had filled the world from India westward with his fame, had been the subject of romance, and had caused his name to be regarded throughout the East as that of an almost supernatural hero. Alexander figures constantly in the lives of the Turkish sultans as a fascinating historical figure. As late as 1621 a French writer notes that the then reigning sultan while at dinner had the history of his pre- decessors read over to him or the Life of Alexander the Great. 2 But upon none had the memory of the Macedonian made so great an impression as upon Mahomet. Alexander was the leader whose career was to be imitated and whose conquests were to be rivalled. His contemporaries frequently compare the two men. 'It was,' says Critobulus, 'the Alexanders and the Pompeys, Caesar and the like rulers, whom Mahomet proposed to himself as models.' 'This young Alexander,' says Ducas, referring to the transport of part of Mahomet's fleet over land, ' has surpassed the former one, and has led his ships over the hills as over the waves.' ' He wished,' says Tetaldi, * to conquer the whole world, to see 1 i. 32. 2 Voyage au Levant par ordre du roy, 1630.
