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who was in company with those merchants, and who was called Milono, which is as much as to say 'a thousand thousand pounds,' for so goes the phrase in Venice. So this Messer Marco Milono the Venetian, with the other Venetian prisoners, is carried off to the prison of Genoa, and there kept for a long time. This Messer Marco was a long time with his father and uncle in Tartary, and he there saw many things, and made much wealth, and also learned many things, for he was a man of ability. And so, being in prison
at Genoa, he made a Book concerning the great wonders of the World, i.e., concerning such of them as he had seen. And what he told in the Book was not as much as he had really seen, because of the tongues of detractors, who, being ready to impose their own lies on others, are over hasty to set down as lies what they in their perversity disbelieve, or do not understand. And because there are many great and strange things in that Book, which are reckoned past all credence, he was asked by his friends on his deathbed to correct the Book by removing everything that went beyond the facts. To which his reply was that he had not told one-half of what he had really seen!"[30]
This statement regarding the capture of Marco at the Battle of Ayas is one which cannot be true, for we know that he did not reach Venice till 1295, travelling from Persia by way of Trebizond and the Bosphorus, whilst the Battle of Ayas of which we have purpose-ly given some detail, was fought in May, 1294. The date MCCLXXXXVI assigned to it in the preceding extract has given rise to some unprofitable discussion. Could that date be accepted, no doubt it would enable us also to accept this, the sole statement from the Traveller's own age of the circumstances which brought him into a Genoese prison; it would enable us to place that imprisonment within a few months of his return from the East, and to extend its duration to three years, points which would thus accord better
with the general tenor of Ramusio's tradition than the capture of Curzola. But the matter is not open to such a solution. The date of the Battle of Ayas is not more doubtful than that of the Battle of the Nile. It is clearly stated by several independent chroniclers, and is carefully established in the Ballad that we have quoted above.[31] We shall see repeatedly in the course of this Book how uncertain are the transcriptions of dates in Roman numerals, and in the present case the LXXXXVI is as certainly a mistake for LXXXXIV as is Boniface VI. in the same quotation a mistake for Boniface VIII.
But though we cannot accept the statement that Polo was taken prisoner at Ayas, in the spring of 1294, we may accept the passage as evidence from a contemporary source that he was taken prisoner in some sea-fight with the Genoese, and thus admit it in corroboration of the Ramusian Tradition of his capture in a sea-fight at Curzola in 1298, which is perfectly consistent with all other facts in
our possession.
[1] In this part of these notices I am repeatedly indebted to Heyd. (See supra, p. 9.)
[2] On or close to the Hill called Monjoie; see the plan from Marino
Sanudo at p. 18.
[3] "Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work upon the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and smashing and overthrowing everything within their range. There were at least ten of those engines that shot stones so big and heavy that they weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Champagne; insomuch that nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, and only the religious houses were left. And there were slain in this same war good 20,000 men on the two sides, but chiefly of Genoese and Spaniards." (Lettre de Jean Pierre Sarrasin, in Michel's Joinville, p. 308.)
[4] The origin of these columns is, however, somewhat uncertain. [See Cicogna, I. p. 379.]
[5] In 1262, when a Venetian squadron was taken by the Greek fleet in alliance with the Genoese, the whole of the survivors of the
captive crews were blinded by order of Palaeologus. (Roman. ii. 272.) [6] See pp. 16, 41, and Plan of Ayas at beginning of Bk. I.
[7] See Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendice, tom. iv.
[8] Niente ne resta a prender Se no li corpi de li legni: Preixi som senza difender; De bruxar som tute degni!
Como li fom aproximai Queli si levan lantor Como leon descaenai
Tuti criando "Alor! Alor!"
This Alor! Alor! ("Up, Boys, and at 'em"), or something similar, appears to have been the usual war-cry of both parties. So a
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trumpet-like poem of the Troubadour warrior Bertram de Born, whom Dante found in such evil plight below (xxviii. 118 seqq.), in which he sings with extraordinary spirit the joys of war:--
"Le us die que tan no m'a sabor Manjars, ni beure, ni dormir, Cum a quant ang cridar, ALOR! D'ambas la partz; et aug agnir
Cavals voits per l'ombratge...." "I tell you a zest far before
Aught of slumber, or drink, or of food, I snatch when the shouts of ALOR
Ring from both sides: and out of the wood
Comes the neighing of steeds dimly seen...."
In a galley fight at Tyre in 1258, according to a Latin narrative, the Genoese shout "Ad arma, ad arma! ad ipsos, ad ipsos!" The cry
of the Venetians before engaging the Greeks is represented by Martino da Canale, in his old French, as "or a yaus! or a yaus!" that of the Genoese on another occasion as Aur! Aur! and this last is the shout of the Catalans also in Ramon de Muntaner. (Villemain, Litt. du Moyen Age, i. 99; Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 364, 506; Pertz, Script. xviii. 239; Muntaner, 269, 287.) Recently in a Sicilian newspaper, narrating an act of gallant and successful reprisal (only too rare) by country folk on a body of the brigands who are such a scourge
to parts of the island, I read that the honest men in charging the villains raised a shout of "Ad iddi! Ad iddi!"
[9] A phrase curiously identical, with a similar sequence, is attributed to an Austrian General at the battle of Skalitz in 1866. (Stoffel's
Letters.)
[10] E no me posso aregordar Dalcuno romanzo vertade Donde oyse uncha cointar Alcun triumfo si sobre!
[11] Stella in Muratori, xvii. 984.
[12] Dandulo, Ibid. xii. 404-405.
[13] Or entram con gran vigor,
En De sperando aver triumpho, Queli zerchando inter lo Gorfo Chi menazeram zercha lor!
And in the next verse note the pure Scotch use of the word bra:--
Siche da Otranto se partim
Quella bra compagnia, Per assar in Ihavonia, D'Avosto a vinte nove di.
[14] The island of Curzola now counts about 4000 inhabitants; the town half the number. It was probably reckoned a dependency
of Venice at this time. The King of Hungary had renounced his claims on the Dalmatian coasts by treaty in 1244. (Romanin, ii. 235.) The gallant defence of the place against the Algerines in 1571 won for Curzola from the Venetian Senate the honourable title in all documents of fedelissima. (Paton's Adriatic, I. 47.)
[15] Ma se si gran colmo avea Perche andava mendigando Per terra de Lombardia Peccunia, gente a sodi? Pone mente tu che l'odi
Se noi tegnamo questa via?
No, ma piu! ajamo omi nostrar
Destri, valenti, e avisti,
Che mai par de lor n' o visti
In tuti officj de mar.
[16] In July 1294, a Council of Thirty decreed that galleys should be equipped by the richest families in proportion to their wealth. Among the families held to equip one galley each, or one galley among two or more, in this list, is the CA' POLO. But this was
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before the return of the travellers from the East, and just after the battle of Ayas. (Romanin, ii. 332; this author misdates Ayas, however.) When a levy was required in Venice for any expedition the heads of each contrada divided the male inhabitants, between the ages of twenty and sixty, into groups of twelve each, called