14 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. She had defeated external and internal foes. But these con- quests, by their very success hardly less than by the expendi- ture of her force, were weakening her, and when, during the last quarter of a century which preceded the Latin conquest, she added to her other troubles those which arose from a series of dynastic revolutions among thoroughly incompetent men, she found herself too weak to resist the invader from the West. The troubles of the century and a half preceding her fall Attacks upon comc respectively from the side of Asia and from empire. ^j^^^ ^£ ^m-^p^j^ Tliosc from the former were the more serious, and arose from the attacks of the Turks — a race which had recently commenced to push its way southward and westward. The Asiatic hordes, known under the generic name of Turks, included various tribes spoken of sometimes as Comans, at other times as Turcomans, and more rarely at first as Turks. The Patchinaks, the Uzes, and other less-known . . divisions, were also occasionally called Turks. All from Asia. ^ . *' who were called by this name were probably of the same stock as the ancient Scythians, who were famous as bow- men. Tiie terms Scythian and Turk or Turcoman had come to be synonymous with each other and with barbarian ; and Turk bears the same signification among the Moslem subjects of the sultan to this day.^ The people so designated came from Central Asia, and especially from the country which still bears the name Turkestan. They belonged to the Tura- nian race, and were thus cut off from the traditions, the com- mon stock of language, and the influences which have always formed a tie among peoples of Aryan origin. The central plains of Asia furnished during many centuries a constant supply of new emigrants of this race, who, from various causes — the commonest being probably the pressure of the Chinese — were constantly pushing their way to the West. The inhabitants of these plains were then as now mostly ^ The Turks call themselves Osmanlis. This is, of course, a modern name, and ouglit only to distinguish them from other Turks as being the descendants of Osman or Othman, the leader of the tribes who finally captured Constantinople.
