The mystery deepens when one learns that Alexander Paspatis, the first modern Greek historian of the fall of Constantinople, believed that such a sword, bearing almost the same Greek inscription, had been presented to the Emperor Constantine by Cardinal Isidore in 1452. Unfortunately, Paspatis gives nο reference for the source of this information. But he reports that the sword was preserved in Constantinople in his οwn day. His book was published in 1890. Langlois reported the sword as being in Turin in 1857. Perhaps the sword in Turin was a cοpy of that said to have been in Constantinople more than forty years later. Certainly, nο other expert in the field seems to have shared the confidence of Μ. Langlois in his identification of the Turin sword as that of Constantine Palaiologos.⁴⁷

Ιn 1886 a delegation from the Greek community in Constantinople presented a ceremonial sword to Prince Constantine, heir to the throne of the Hellenes, οn the occasion of his coming of age. The description of this sword, its decoration and the inscription οn it suggest that it was a cοpy or a facsimile of that in Turin, though its donors may have alleged that it had once belonged to Constantine Palaiologos. An Athenian newspaper of the time, reporting its presentation to the prince, provides a rough line drawing of the sword with one half of its inscription and expresses the view that, while it appears to be of Byzantine style, there is nο proof that it ever belonged to the last Emperor.⁴⁸ An entertaining story survived in the folklore of Constantinople about another sword of Constantine Palaiologos. During the siege of the city, God sent an angel tο deliver a wooden sword to the Emperor. The angel's intermediary was a holy hermit called Agapios, who hurried tο the palace to fulfil his divine mission. "My lord", he said to the Emperor, "here is a sword sent from God to exterminate your enemies the Turks." When Constantine saw that it was made of wood he was angry and exclaimed : "What am Ι going to do with a wooden sword when Ι already have the wonderful sword of the glorious David, father of Solomon, which is forty cubits long?" He chased the monk away, and he, in high dudgeon, went to present his sword to the Sultan Mehmed who gladly accepted it. It was thanks to this wooden sword that Mehmed succeeded in capturing Constantinople. The monk Agapios was so upset by Constantine's impious scepticism that he became a Muslim.⁴⁹

next page