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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
44
MARCO POL() Boor. I.
Tartar of the Levant as their Suzerain.' We will now
leave this province, and speak of the Greater Armenia.
NOTE 1.—Ricold of Montecroce, a contemporary of Polo, calls the Turkmans Izomi izes bestiales. In our day Ainsworth notes of a Turkman village : ` ` The dogs were very ferocious ; . . . the people only a little better." (j. 1:. G. S. X. 292.) The ill report of the people of this region did not begin with the Turkmans, for the Emperor Constantine Porphyrog. quotes a Greek proverb to the disparagement of the three kaj5pas, Cappadocia, Crete, and Cilicia. (In Balzdzlri, I. 6.)
NOTE 2.—In Turcomania Marco perhaps embraces a great part of Asia Minor, but he especially means the territory of the decaying Seljukian monarchy, usually then called by Asiatics lirfzlz, as the Ottoman Empire is now, and the capital of which was Iconium, KUNIYAII, the Conia of the text, and Coyne of Joinville. Ibn Batuta calls the whole country Turkey (Al- T urkif alz), and the people Turk/at-in; exactly likewise does Ricold ( Thurclzia and Thurchimanni). ll ayton's account of the various classes of inhabitants is quite the same in substance as Polo's. [The Turkmans emigrated from Turkestan to Asia Minor before the arrival of the Seljukid Turks. " Their villages," says Cuinet, 7 urguie d'Asie, I I. p. 767, " are distinguished by the peculiarity of the houses being built of sun-baked bricks, whereas it is the general habit in the country to build them of earth or a kind of plaster, called djds. "—II. C.] The migratory and pastoral Turkmans still exist in this region, but the Kurds of like habits have taken their place to a large extent. The fine carpets and silk fabrics appear to be no longer produced here, any more than the excellent horses of which Polo speaks, which must have been the remains of the famous old breed of Cappadocia. [It appears, however (Vital Criinet's Turquie d'Asie, I. p. 224), that fine carpets are still manufactured at Koniah, also a kind of striped cotton cloth, called Aladja.—H. C.]
A grant of privileges to the Genoese by Leon II., King of Lesser Armenia, dated 23rd December, 1288, alludes to the export of horses and mules, etc., from Ayas, and specifies the duties upon them. The horses now of repute in Asia as Turkman come from the east of the Caspian. And Asia Minor generally, once the mother of so many breeds of high repute, is now poorer in horses than any province of the Ottoman empire.
(Pereg. Quat. p. 114 ; I. B. II. 255 seqq. ; Hayton, eh. xiii. ; Liber juriunz Reip. Januensis, IL 184 ; Tchihatclzej; As. Alin., 2de partie, 631.)
[The Seljukian Sultanate of Iconium or Rúm, was founded at the expense of the Byzantines by Suleiman (1074-1081) ; the last three sovereigns of the dynasty con temporaneous with Marco Polo are Ghiath ed-din Kaïkhosru III. (1267-1283), Ghiath ed-din Mas'ud II. (1283-1294), Ala ed-din Kaïkobad III. (1294-1308), when this kingdom was destroyed by the Mongols of Persia. Privileges had been granted to Venice by Ghiath ed-din Kaïkhosru I. ( + 1211), and his sons Izz ed-din Kaikaus (1211-1220)1 and Ala ed-din Kaïkobad I. (1220-1237) ; the diploma of 1220 1S unfortunately the only one of the three known to be preserved. (Cf. Hey-d, I. p. 302.)
H. C.]
Though the authors quoted above seem to make no distinction between Turks and Turkmans, that which we still understand does appear to have been made in the 12th century : " That there may be some distinction, at least in name, between those who made themselves a king, and thus achieved such glory, and those who still abide in their primitive barbarism and adhere to their old way of life, the former are nowadays termed Turks, the latter by their old name of Turkomans." ( William of Tyre, i. 7.)
Casaria is KAISARÍYA, the ancient Caesareia of Cappadocia, close to the foot of the great Mount Argaeus. Savast is the Armenian form (Sevasd) of Sebaste, the modern SIVAS. The three cities, Iconium, Caesareia, and Sebaste, were metropolitan sees under the Catholicos of Sis.
[The ruins of Sebaste are situated at about 6 miles to the east of modern Sivas,
Ir
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