IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST
~Ir
Pr
been thrown some 18 years before when the Tartar cata-
clysm had threatened to engulph it. The Tartars State of the
themselves were already becoming an object of curi- Levant.
osity rather than of fear, and soon became an object of hope, as
a possible help against the old Mahomedan foe. The frail
Latin throne in Constantinople was still standing, but tottering
to its fall. The successors of the Crusaders still held the Coast
of Syria from Antioch to Jaffa, though a deadlier brood of
enemies than they had yet encountered was now coming to
maturity in the Dynasty of the Mamelukes, which had one
foot firmly planted in Cairo, the other in Damascus. The
jealousies of the commercial republics of Italy were daily waxing
greater. The position of Genoese trade on the coasts of the
Aegean was greatly depressed, through the predominance which
Venice had acquired there by her part in the expulsion of the
Greek Emperors, and which won for the Doge the lofty style of
Lord of Three-Eighths of the Empire of Romania. But Genoa
was biding her time for an early revenge, and year by year her
naval strength and skill were increasing. Both these republics
held possessions and establishments in the ports of Syria, which
were often the scene of sanguinary conflicts between their
citizens. Alexandria was still largely frequented in the
intervals of war as the great emporium of Indian wares, but the
facilities afforded by the Mongol conquerors who now held the
whole tract from the Persian Gulf to the shores of the Caspian
and of the Black Sea, or nearly so, were beginning to give a
great advantage to the caravan routes which debouched at the
ports of Cilician Armenia in the Mediterranean and at Trebizond
on the Euxine. Tana (or Azov) had not as yet become the
outlet of a similar traffic ; the Venetians had apparently
frequented to some extent the coast of the Crimea for local
trade, but their rivals appear to have been in great measure
excluded from this commerce, and the Genoese establishments
which so long flourished on that coast, are first heard of some
years after a Greek dynasty was again in possession of
Constantinople.*
IO. In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark
without Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the Gulf
* See Heyd, Le Colonie Commerciali degli Italiani, etc., passim.
VOL. I. JL
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