(The Death of Constantine cont'd)

Ιt was the opinion of the learned Dr Paspatis in his history of the Turkish capture of Constantinople that Constantine's corpse was never found or identified and that the tale of its beheading was a myth invented by Isidore of Kiev. The Emperor must have been buried in a common grave along with his comrades-in-arms and his enemies; though the district in which he so nobly fell was still in 1890 unapproachable because of its foul smell.⁵⁴ It is idle to speculate further. Had the humiliated Christians of the fifteenth century known where their Emperor was buried, they would surely have  passed  the  secret  οn  to  their  descendants.  Theodore Spandounes, who boasted descent from the family of Cantacuzene and who knew Constantinople well, spoke the truth. Ιn the sixteenth century at least Constantine's grave was nowhere to be found. Even the popular Greek songs about the death of the noble and heroic Emperor Constantine gave nο hint of where he was buried.

«He died fighting all alone, mounted οn his white-footed horse. He killed ten pashas and sixty janissaries before his lance was broken and his sword snapped and there was nο one there to help him. He raised his eyes to heaven and cried: "Lord Almighty, creator of the world, have pity οn your people, have pity οn Constantinople." A Turk struck him οn the head and the poor Constantine fell from his horse and 1ay stretched upοn the ground in all the dust and blood. They severed his head and stuck it οn the end of a lance; and they buried his corpse beneath the laurel tree.⁵⁵»

The last word may be given to the Grand Logothete Hierax, writing some fifty years after Spandounes: "The fatherland that he loved so dearly became the grave of the Emperor Constantine and all his nobles."⁵⁶

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