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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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24
MARCO POLO PROT,.
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Damascus, and off on a different expedition, by 7th December. Ilence, if the
travellers arrived at ~-Ayas towards the latter part of November they would probably find alarm existing at the advance of Bundúldár, though matters did not turn out so serious as they imply.
" Babylon," of which Bundúl dár is here styled Sultan, means Cairo, commonly so styled (Bambellonia d'Egitto) in that age. Babylon of Egypt is mentioned by
Diodorus quoting Ctesias, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy ; it was the station of a Roman Legion in the days of Augustus, and still survives in the name of Babul, close to old Cairo.
Malik Dáhir Ruknuddín Bíbars Bundúkdári, a native of Kipchak, was originally sold at Damascus for Soo dirhems (about i8/.), and returned by his purchaser because
of a blemish. He was then bought by the Amir Aláuddín A idekín Bra;adaíkdár (" The
Arblasteer ") whose surname he afterwards adopted. He became the fourth of the Mameluke Sultans, and reigned from 1259 to 1276. rI'he two great objects of his
life were the repression of the Tartars and the expulsion of the Christians from Syria,
so that his reign was one of constant war and enormous activity. William of Tripoli, in the work above mentioned, says : " Bondogar, as a soldier, was not inferior to
Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero." He admits, however, that the Sultan was sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects ; whilst 1\lakrizi calls him one of the best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans. Yet if
we take Bibars as painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, the second of Friar William's comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a devil in
malignity as well as in activity. More than once he played tennis at Damascus and Cairo within the same week. A strange sample of the man is the letter which he wrote to Boemond, Prince of Antioch and Tripoli, to announce to him the capture of the former city. After an ironically polite address to Boemond as having by the loss of his great city had his title changed from Princeship (Al-Brensiyalz) to Countship (Al-h o;;iasíyalz), alld describing his own devastations round Tripoli, he comes to the attack of Antioch : " We carried the place, sword in hand, at the 4th hour of Saturday,
the 4th day of Ramadhán, . . . . Hadst thou but seen thy Knights trodden under the hoofs of the horses ! thy palaces invaded by plunderers and ransacked for booty ! thy
treasures weighed out by the hundredweight ! thy ladies (Dáiná'aka, ` tes DAMES')
bought and sold with thine own gear., at four for a dinár ! hadst thou but seen thy churches demolished, thy crosses sawn in sunder, thy garbled Gospels hawked about
before the sun, the tombs of thy nobles cast to the ground ; thy foe the Moslem
treading thy Holy of the Hohes ; the monk, the priest, the deacon slaughtered on the Altar; the rich given up to misery ; princes of royal blood reduced to slavery !
Couldst thou but have seen the flames devouring thy halls ; thy dead cast into the fires temporal with the fires eternal hard at hand ; the churches of Paul and of Cosmas
rocking and going down , then wouldst thou have said, ` Would God that I were
dust !' . . . . As not a man hath escaped to tell thee the tale, I TELL IT THEE ! "
A little later, when a mission went to treat with Boemond, Bibars himself accompanied it in disguise, to have a look at the defences of Tripoli. In drawing out the
terms, the Envoys styled Boemond Count, not Prince, as in the letter just quoted. He lost patience at their persistence, and made a movement which alarmed them. Bibars nudged the Envoy Mohiuddin (who tells the story) with his foot to give up the point, and the treaty was made. On their way back the Sultan laughed heartily at their narrow escape, " sending to the devil all the counts and princes on the face of the earth."
(Quatremère's 1lfakrizi, II. 92-101, and 190 seem, ; J. As. sér. I. tom. xi. p. 89 ; D'Ohsson, III. 459-474 Marino Sanulo in Bongars, 224-226, etc.)
NOTE 4.—The ruling :Taster of the Temple was Thomas Berard (1256-1275), but there is little detail about the Order in the East at this time. They had, however, considerable possessions and great influence in Cilician Armenia, and how much they were mixed up in its affairs is shown by a circumstance related by \Iakrizi. In 1285,
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