2 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. kniglit out of Syria, and the victories of the Third Crusade liad proved fruitless. Sahadin, however, was now dead, and members of his family were quarrelling about the division of his territor}'. In Asia Minor the Seljukian Turks had firmly established themselves in the interior, with unbroken com- munication into Central Asia. But in 1200 a quarrel similar to that which was weakening the Saracens was dividing also the Turks. The ten sons of the famous Sultan Kilidji Arslan of Iconium had apportioned his empire among them, and were themselves quarrelling about the division. The Ar- menians and the Georgians, or Iberians, had again struggled into national life. Under Leo the Second the former had established themselves in Little Armenia around Marash, where they were destined to hold their own for centuries, and to play a part which recalls the struggle for independence of the Montenegrins down to our own time. The shores of Asia Minor on all its three sides, with the exception of a few isolated points, still acknowledged the rule of the New Rome. In the Balkan peninsula, at the close of the twelfth century, the empire, though still supreme, had many troublesome neighbors. The Normans had indeed been expelled from Durazzo and from Salonica. But on the northwest of the peninsula, Dalmatia and Croatia had fallen under the rule of Venice, with the exception of two or three cities on the coast held by Hungary. Branitzova and Belgrade had been capt- ured by Bela, King of Hungary, though Emeric, his successor, had not been able to extend his dominions farther south. Yolk, King of the Servians, held his own on the eastern frontier of Hungary, and was attempting to conquer territory from the Huns rather than from the empire. The Wallachs and the Bulgarians were unsettled, but were attempting, on the north of the Balkans, to shake off the imperial yoke. South of the Danube, as far westward as Belgrade, and thence westward still to the boundary of Dalmatia, the whole of the peninsula, with the exception of a territory pretty closely corresponding to the newly established Bulgaria, remained loyal to the capital. Until the accession of the first of the Basils, in 867, the
