Note (1) — 10.—How Weyasit took a country that belonged to the Sultan.

(1.) “Malathea.”—Malatia, the ancient Melitene, on the Euphrates, was the station of the xiith Legion. Marcus Aurelius surnamed it “Fulminatrix”, in consequence of a miracle that was there operated (Ritter, Die Erdkunde, etc., x, 860). Hammer (Hist. de l’E. O., 345), and Zinkeisen (Gesch. d. O. R., 356), assert, on the authority of Saad uddin, that the Ottomans took this and other cities subject to the sultans of Egypt, between the years 798 and 800 of the Mahommedan era. Weil (Gesch. d. Chalifen, 70–73), however, does not think that this occupation could have taken place earlier than 801, founding his opinion on the authority of Arabian writers, who have recorded Turkish aggression as having occurred after the advent to the throne, of Faradj, who succeeded his father in 801 = 1399 (June 20). In support of this argument, Weil quotes the testimony of one of those writers who had himself seen the letter, in which was announced to Itmish, the atabek of the new sultan, the capture of Malatia; but it is also possible that the great dignitary had received this same letter in the time of Barkok, by whom he must have been highly esteemed, for, when on his death-bed, the sultan nominated him his executor. This view of the case agrees with Schiltberger’s recital, whilst his observations, towards the end of this chapter, on the taking of Adalia, will serve to explain the strange passage that occurs in the Italian translation of the book of Saad uddin. “Et havendo spedito al Conquisto di Chianchria” (Kiankary the ancient Gangra) “Timurtas-Bassa” (Bajazet’s general) “però tutto quel Paese insieme con la Città d’Atena (la qual’ è patria de’ Filosofi) col suo Distretto pervenne in poter del Rè; il quale prese anco dalle mani de’ Turcomani la Città di Bechsenia” (Behesna) “e di Mallatie”, etc. “There is clearly a mistake in the text or in the translation”, says Weil (70), after showing that Hammer and Zinkeisen are greatly in error in supposing, upon the authority of this defective passage, that the city of Socrates could have been taken by the Turks in the course of the same campaign as that in which Malatia fell into their hands; but there would have been nothing extraordinary in the fact of their attacking Angora after the fall of this city, and then Satalia, near the ruins of the ancient Attalia in Pamphylia, in which Neumann fancies that he recognises the Adalia of Schiltberger, because it was situated on the sea-shore opposite to the island of Cyprus. In support of this, the esteemed editor of the edition of 1859 might have quoted another passage, from the Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani (Zap. Odess., v, 966), wherein we find it asserted, that the city of Satalia, having been occupied by the Infidels in 1400, the bishop of that city took his departure for Aenos. Notwithstanding these arguments, it appears to me that the Adalia of Schiltberger could not have been Satalia, but rather Adana in Cicilia, for the following reasons.