Note 215 — Chapter X

The elder Mordtmann makes the suggestion that the Bashi-Bazouks are in this estimate excluded, and I agree with him. The same remark applies also to Philelphus who gives 60,000 foot and 20,000 horse. Other writers include all those who were present with Mahomet and thus make the number of the besiegers very much higher. Ducas’s estimate is 250,000; Montaldo’s, 240,000 (of whom 30,000 were cavalry, ch. xxvii.). Phrantzes states that 258,000 were present; Leonard the archbishop, with whom Critobulus and Thysellius agree, gives 300,000 men, while Chalcondylas increases this to 400,000.