222 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. within the cit}^, though even here they interfered upon occa- sion, when a ruler became altogether bad. In political affairs there was a public opinion which was in marked contrast to the absolute indifference of the Turkish population of the city in our own time. The frequent insurrections were at least a mark of public interest in politics. But public spirit was especially strong w^iere it has been under Ottoman rule the most strikingl}^ weak. The populace was disposed to take too little interest in political changes. Touch, however, a private individual, and the corporation or guild to which he belonged would at once claim redress. The phmder of private persons by arbitrary exactions was what the population would never submit to. It had the trading instinct, the respect for prop- erty, the feeling of the necessity for solidarity, which the great trading communities of Europe have always possessed — the feeling which made the Venetians and the Genoese regard the robbery of one of their merchants as the business of state; but to this in the minds of the dweller in the Xew Eome was added a wider sentiment, since he remembered with pride that he was a Roman citizen. Nicetas records an incident, hap- pening within the last two or three years of the twelfth cent- ury, which shows how completely the popular feeling was op- posed to arbitrary dealing with citizens. There dwelt in the capital a banker named Kalomodios, who during long years and under difficult circumstances had acquired great riches, to which he greedily clung. His reputation for wealth was wide- spread, and had exposed him to the wiles of some of the nobles, who wished to share it. A number of these seized Kalomodios. When the merchants heard of wliat had been done, they went in a body to the Great Church, found the patriarch, and threatened to throw him out of the window if he did not take steps to release the banker. The patriarch sympathized with the mob, promised to do his best, and succeeded in snatching this sheep with the fleece of gold from the teeth of the wolves who would have stripped him. The voluminous annals of Constantinople under the empire are singularly free from at- tempts against the property of private individuals. So long as the merchant did not take part in conspiracy or revolution,
