He saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood.  From these seeds of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son, Andronicus the Elder (1282-1332).  Thousands of Genoese and Catalans, released from the wars that Michael had aroused in the West, took service under his successor against the Turks.  Other mercenaries flocked to their standard, and, under the name of the Great Company, they subverted the authority of the emperor, defeated his troops, laid waste his territory, united themselves with his enemies, and, finally, abandoning the banks of the Hellespont, marched into Greece.  Here they overthrew the remnant of the Latin power, and for fourteen years (1311-1326) the Great Company was the terror of the Grecian states.

Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignity of the house of Arragon; and, during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens as a government or an appanage was successfully bestowed by the kings of Sicily.  Conquered in turn by the French and Catalans, Athens at length became the capital of a state that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly, and was ruled by the family of Accaioli, plebeians of Florence (1384-1456).  The last duke of this dynasty was strangled by Mahomet II., who educated his sons in the discipline of the seraglio.

During the reign of John Palaeologus, son of Andronicus the Younger, which began in 1355, the eastern empire was nearly subverted by the Genoese.  On the return of the legitimate sovereign to Constantinople, the Genoese, who had established their factories and industries in the suburb of Galata, or Pera, were allowed to remain.  During the civil wars the Genoese forces took advantage of the disunion of the Greeks, and by the skilful use of their power exacted a treaty by which they were granted a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of dominions.  The Roman Empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa if the ambition of the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power.  Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated the Euxine till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of Constantinople itself.

III.—­End of the Roman World

Only three more sovereigns ruled the remnants of the Roman world after the reign of John Palaeologus, but the final downfall of the empire was delayed above fifty years by a series of events that had sapped the strength of the Mahometan empire.  The rise and triumph of the Moguls and Tartars under their emperors, descendants of Zingis Khan, had shaken the globe from China to Poland and Greece (1206-1304).  The sultans were overthrown, and in the general disorder of the Mahometan world a veteran and adventurous army, which included many Turkoman hordes, was dissolved into factions who, under various chiefs, lived a life of rapine and plunder.  Some of these engaged in the service of Aladin (1219-1236), Sultan of Iconium, and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line.