Figure 89 Detail of fresco in the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus in Rome, showing the sun god
Sol driving his chariot through the heaven; early fourth century AD. Source: Photo PCSA Archives.
The Byzantine Empire came to an end on a Tuesday, on May 29, 1453, when the forces of the ruler of the
Ottoman Empire, Sultan Mehmed II, entered the city of Constantinople following an intensive siege. The
fall of Constantinople is chronicled in detail by a Greek historian named Critobulus, who puts into the
mouth of the conqueror Mehmed an address to his troops before the final assault that is modeled on the
speeches in Thucydides. Although, as a Greek, Critobulus regretted the end of Greek independence, he
was a great admirer of Mehmed, and he treats the new Muslim overlord with much the same reverence as
the Greeks centuries earlier had treated the Latin-speaking Roman emperors who ruled Greece. This
conqueror, however, came not from the west but from Asia, and the new situation had somehow to be
accommodated to the pattern of the past. And so Critobulus represents Mehmed as paying a visit, some
years after the conquest of Constantinople, to the ancient city of Troy, the supposed site of the first conflict
between Europeans and Asiatics. Perhaps Mehmed did actually visit Troy, but if so it was because he
was persuaded by his Greek subjects that it was traditional for conquerors, or would-be conquerors, to
do so. According to Herodotus, Xerxes had stopped at Troy before he crossed over into Europe to attack
the Greeks, and Alexander made a point of visiting Troy on his way into Asia, supposedly with the
intention of exacting vengeance on the Persians for their invasion of Greece. The Sultan, however, was a
Turk and a Muslim. He had no connection with the ancient Persians, who worshipped Ahura Mazda, or
with the Trojans, whose gods were the same as those of the Greeks under Agamemnon's command. But for
a Greek, sense could once again be made of the present by seeing it in the light of the past, and the