Time Is

Watch, Salvador Dali 

The New Year is a fluid concept if you live, as I do, mostly in the 15th century.  For the Byzantines, it is 1 September.  For the Venetians, it is 1 March.  When I am working on Cyriaco material, the New Year begins on Christmas Day.  The monomania of the media with its lists of bests and worsts and deaths for the year and the decade, and predictions for the next year, forces me to attend to the Roman calendar with 1 January.

This is the 147th entry in two and a half years, involving 177,000 words, and 500 or so pictures.  I have two different counters recording visitors which at the end of the year suggest an average of 120 a day.  I am recognizing quite a few of them -- of you -- now.  When there is a new post, the first readers to show up are usually a gracious woman in Texas or a correspondent from South Africa, followed very soon by correspondents in London and Athens. A few show up, briefly, almost every day.  Most visitors come briefly and never reappear.  Reasonably.  There are at least 112,000,000 blogs tangling the interwebs.

Ever since it was posted, The Lion in the Cloister has been the most-read entry. Readers in the Philippines -- with a single exception -- seem to read only Nick the Greek posted more than a year ago, and the picture of Magellan's ship has been downloaded more than any other this year. Otherwise, the most popular picture is of Byzantine trumpeters, and then one of the Magi -- the tracker counts the last 500 downloads.  A higher percentage of readers in Arabic-speaking countries than of readers in the West is interested in the post with a bare-breasted woman and links to other such.  Bosnians, Serbians, and Russians show a strong predilection for posts on the Palaiologues, and Albanians most often read entries mentioning stratioti.  The Villehardouin entries are most often read in France and Belgium.  I can tell when someone is planning a visit to Nauplion: the same IP address will show up through the thirty or so entries on aspects of Nauplion.  This summary is, of course, a simplification  of casual impressions. What puzzles me is when someone -- most recently from Slovakia on 21 December, is recorded as making 66 entries, over an hour and 15-plus minutes.  Something like this happens several times a week. I can only wonder: is there not something more enjoyable, more profitable, that someone could be doing in life?

The search terms that bring people here often seem unlikely: "Greek wemon," "forked beard after Exodus," "gold ark of the covenant Mycenae," "paintings of Apollo," "Pesaro caged cherubs" -- I am quite sure I have not used any of those phrases; "inside room" -- possibly the studioli in the entry on St. Jerome which has been the most read of all 148.  Whoever was looking for "Diana's Hats" or "Diana's Shoes" must have been disappointed, as were those who were looking for restaurants with various Greek and Albanian names.

This year, the largest percentage of non-American visitors have come from Greece, and a gratifying number of Greece-based blogs link to this one.  I am immensely pleased, and grateful, because Surprised by Time is in part the living out of a love affair with a city and country and culture.  Quite a few readers have written privately to ask questions -- a couple of these questions have forced new considerations in my own research, and several have sent me remarkable information, books, PDFs, and images I could not have found for myself -- thank you, Brigitte, Galo, Tim, Pavlos, Babis, Ersie, Voula, Tom, Keith, Nick.  The number of visitors in 2010 has doubled from 2009, with 15,889,  to the 32,333-plus for 2010, with more than 51,500 since I began in the summer of 2008. I have never been able to take the breadth of the internet for granted.  It is exciting to discover  readers in Kossovo, or Alexandria, Odense, Mumbai, Lamia, Jerusalem, Rawalpindi, Cape Town, Sarajevo, Tasmania, Costanta. Costanta is Ovid's Tomis.  I went around all day saying, "I have a reader in Tomis!"

When I am writing or researching or translating, Time Is, calendars dissolve, and I am present witness.  I finished translating the sack of Smyrna in tears, so closely did the event of 1472 and my visit there in May 1979 blend into a single present. Our first night ever in Turkey was in Izmir -- asking the taxi driver for a cheap hotel in the old city has always worked wonderfully for me, the weather was gentle, and the streets were lined with barrows heaped with plums and cherries.  We wandered through the streets of the old city, sticky with juice, saying "Merhaba," constantly as people handed my daughters more plums and cherries.  We bought water from the man who carried glasses and a tank of water on his back, and pastries from the pastry carts, rubbing the crumbs off on our jeans to enter yet another little green-painted mosque.  One evening we rode in a carriage up and down the waterfront.  First we saw cafes with old men smoking hubble-bubbles, and then after a certain street, the cafes had women in chic black dresses and cigarettes, and men with cigars.  The French and English and American fleets were in port, and the admirals of two were guests of the admiral of the third.  The ships were brilliant with lights, everyone was in white dress uniform, and as our carriage came abreast of the third flagship we saw the visiting admirals piped aboard.

We had to get up at four in the morning for our flight to Istanbul. There was a full moon and as we leaned out the window to look at this pearl-colored city held in the generous bowl of the hills, the calls to prayer began -- not perfectly synchronized -- so the moon-topped minarets called back and forth to each other, gently echoing in the great bowl.  I have always felt that if some power had said to me, "You will stay in Izmir for the rest of your life," I would have been perfectly content.

Thank you for coming here and spending time with me. I wish you a good year, an interesting one, one in which you will encounter joy, one in which you will be generous.

The Mocenigo War: Part Two

Continuing Coriolano Cippico's account of the war Pietro Mocenigo took to the Turkish coast in 1472.

The war had began in Greece in the summer of 1464, a Papal crusade with troops led by Sigismundo Malatesta.  The Pope died, Malatesta's troops died of plague while spreading it across the Morea, and there were several years of off-and-on war with disastrous effects on the Morea.  After several years and the disaster of the loss of Negroponte, with the Ottomans in control of the Morea, Mehmed turned his attentions elsewhere.  Venice built up her fleet, and accompanied by ships from the fleets of several other powers, took the war to the Turkish coast.

* * * * *

[After the hunt and the episode of the bear in Part One, while still on Samos] the commanders of the army discussed what they ought to do first, and all came to the opinion that they should immediately attack Satalia, a city of Panfilia which was built by Attalos Philadelphos, hoping that it might be assailed by surprise and without preparation, and that they might be able to acquire it without artillery and without ruin of the walls.  Satalia is the largest city with a marina in all the province of Asia, with a port fortified on both sides with many towers and closed with a chain. . . . The General ordered the sopracomiti that each galley should make two or three ladders and a "trellis" [for going up a wall]. . . . The number of galleys was 85: of these 19 had been sent by the Pope, 17 by the Kingdom [of Naple], 2 from Rhodes, the Venetians 47, of which 12 were from Schiavonia .  . . .

He directed Vettor Soranzo, provveditor of the fleet, to take the port with 10 galleys, and Stefano Malipiero, the other provveditor, that he should take the soldiers to assault the land side.  He directed the stratioti to occupy the hill near the city, to be able to come immediately to help.  He admonished everyone to return their weapons to their former virtue, since they had to fight against a vile, unprepared, and barbarian enemy, for the Christian religion and the majesty of the Venetian dominion; telling them the city was extremely rich in gold, silver, and precious goods.  If they took them, all would return home rich. . . .

The cavalry raided the coutryside and made great prey of men and animals, and put them on the hill.  Vettor Soranzo . . . broke the chain and entered the port.  The other galleys followed behind.  Our men immediately cut the defenders to pieces and took all the towers that were around the port.

There was, outside the city, a suburb, very well built, in which, for convenience of loading and unloading, the merchants lived. They, surprised and afraid, left their merchandise and fled into the city.  There were shops full of pepper, cinnamon, cloves, incense, carpets, and all manner of merchandise, which were sacked by our men and taken as booty to the galleys.  Then they set fire to the shops and burned everything.

[There was a tremendous battle for the walls of the city which was more difficult than they expected.]

The battle was atrocious on all sides.

There was in the city a Christian woman of Schiavonia, a slave for many years, who was seen on the wall, where she saw our men stop and proceed slowly to the attack.  She encouraged them and gave them heart, saying, "Why stop, soldiers? Do you want to abandon the attack, because of cowardice, to take this city so rich and full of every sort of barbarian possession.  I promise you that the major part of the defenders are already dead by your hand!"

Hearing this, a Turk started pulling at her and striking her, but she seemed unaware of her danger, intrepid in the face of what must be her fortune.  She settled her clothing and threw herself from the wall.  She was taken up by our men, half-dead, and commending her soul to Jesus Christ, she died in their arms.  . . . She was buried by our people. . . .

There were beautifully-built suburbs outside the city that appeared like another city.  The gardens were full, and cultivated with fruit-bearing trees, and bathed by many fountains of living water.  The next day our men set fire to the houses and burned them all, and cut down the trees, destroying everything all together.

* * * * *

The General had learned that Smyrna, the richest city of Ionia, was poorly guarded, for the reason that the greater part of the walls had disintegrated from age, and for a long time the citizens had not made the effort to repair them.  Because the city is situated in a long gulf and far from sailing routes, it has not suffered war, and its citizens live there secure and without fear. . . . one part of it is on a mountain, the other and large, in the plane, but the better houses are on the mountain.  So 16 of our galleys, without delay, drew up in a line around the city.  Many, by way of ladders, others through the ruined walls . . . passed into the city.  The people of Smyrna, shocked by such an unexpected attack, full of fear, did not know what to do.  Some took weapons and went to the broken-down city wall, and fought hand to hand with our men, who because of numbers and superior valor cut them to pieces.  Others mounted on the roofs of their houses and attacked ourmen with tiles and stones.  The women, as afraid, fled  -- hair disordered -- with their children to their mosques for refuge, embracing their altars and invoking their Prophet, Mohammed.  Many closed themselves with their little children in their houses.

Our men took the city, seizing everything, sacking everything.  Some tore the children from their mothers' arms, seizing also the mothers.  Others carried out of the temples [mosques] many women who resisted and called on their Mohammed, dragging them by their hair.  A widow passing near the tomb of her husband, embraced the tomb, almost as if it were alive, begging him to help her, saying, "Alas! no barbarian enemy will ever be able to separate us, while I live no force can ever part us!"  Not being able to pull her away, a soldier took his sword and cut off her head, she voluntarily extending her neck so he could do so, saying, "Go, now be with your husband!"  

Many did not concern themselves with prisoners, preferring to sack the houses, the precious ornaments of the women, the clothing of all sorts of colors, the damascened vases ornamented with gold and silver intaglio, and other possessions of great prices.  On every side weeping, from every direction one heard lamentations.  The whole city was full of tears and cries . . .    .

When they had sacked it all, and put fire in the houses, they burned everything.  So this city, ancient and adorned with many monuments, with its fortune changed in a few hours, was reduced to ashes.  I saw there many ancient monuments of fitted stone, and magnificently fabricated of marble.  Some of these were already in ruins, others still stood.  Among these were a monument of Homer with a statue and an inscription in Greek letters.  The territory near the city was well cultivated and bathed by the river Melos, and with many houses: everything was ruined by our men with fire and iron.

NOTE: My translations of Cippico have been made rapidly and without fine-tuning. If you need to make use of them, you will want to go over them carefully.