(1.) “took the city by force, although there were in it five thousand horsemen sent by Weyasit.”—The walls of Sebaste, originally constructed by Aladin Kekobady, a Seljouk king, were of extraordinary strength, being twenty cubits in height, and ten cubits in thickness at the base, narrowing to six cubits at the top. The place was stubbornly defended, the besieged being well supplied with munitions of war; but the besiegers constructed towers of greater height than the town, and planted upon them machines for hurling huge stones, so that, at the expiration of 18 days (the text says 21 days), the besieged sued for quarter. Timour spared all the Mussulmans, but the Christians were sent into slavery. The 4000 horsemen (5000 horsemen in the text) being Armenians, were flung alive into pits and covered with earth (Petis de la Croix, _Histoire de Timur Bec_, liv. v, 268).—ED.
(2.) “There were also nine thousand virgins taken into captivity by Tämerlin to his own country.”—The contemporary historians, Aboul-Mahazin and Arabshah (Weil, 81), describe in like manner the cruelties practised on the inhabitants of Sebaste in 1400, by Timour, whose admirer even, Shereef uddin, differs but slightly in the horrible details (Hammer, _Hist. de l’E. O._, ii, 59).—BRUUN.
(1.) “Scarcely had Tämerlin returned to his own country.”—After the fall of Sebaste, Timour proceeded to Syria, where he took several cities, Damascus being of the number; and having recrossed the Euphrates, he entered Baghdad. Bajazet had in the meantime seized upon Erzingan, which belonged to Taharten, who had already acknowledged the supremacy of Timour; an act on the part of the sultan which accelerated the struggle between himself and Timour, and to which Schiltberger alludes in this chapter. In chapters 14–19, he depicts the above-mentioned campaigns and other expeditions of Timour, imagining that they were conducted after the battle of Angora; but as he reports from hearsay only, he was not in a position to form a correct idea of the chronological order in which they occurred.—BRUUN.
(2.) “Tarathan.”—It is by the name of Tabarten that Eastern writers know this prince, who, at that time, possessed the city of Erzingan; whilst Clavigo, who enters into numerous details on the private affairs of the “gran Caballero”, calls him Zaratan. The residence of this ruler was near the Kara-sou, at that time the great western arm of the Euphrates, at a place called by the Turks, Erznga or Eznga, a name derived from the Armenian, Eriza, as I am informed by Bishop Aïvazoffsky of the Armenian church at Theodosia. According to Marco Polo, who called it Arzinga (Yule, 2nd edit., i, 47), it was the capital of Greater Armenia, Sis being that of Lesser Armenia. The apparent contradiction in our author’s statements arises from the fact that, in another chapter, he represents Sis, Erzingan, and Tiflis, as being the chief towns of the three divisions of Armenia. The first belonged to the sultan of Egypt; the others to the Timourides, actually to Shah Rokh, the son of Timour. In ancient times, Erzingan was celebrated for the temple of Anaïtis (Strabo, xi, 14, 16), destroyed by St. Gregory the Enlightener. Procopius calls the place, Aurea Comana, and tells us that it contained a temple of Artemis, founded, according to tradition, by Orestes and Iphigenia; a temple already transformed into a Christian church at the time he wrote (_De Bell. Pers._, i, 177; Ritter, _Die Erdkunde_, etc., x, 774).