A COCNTEY TOWN OF LYCAONIA. 



43 



religion, but circumstances have made IMaliometanism a centre 

 of Western barbarism. It was a central power which ravaged 

 the civilised town. We are accustomed to think that the 

 weakness of the Byzantine Empire lay in the fact that the 

 unarmed people was guarded by a professional army. The 

 population of clergy and tradesmen, entirely untrained to war, 

 and unsuited to contend for themselves and to defend their 

 homes against the barbarian armies, looked entirely to the 

 defence of the soldiery. The soldiery was mismanaged in the 

 decay of the Empire. When this was the case the little rustic 

 town adapted itself to the changed conditions. 



We find the proof that the Church did adapt itself to the 

 new situation and surroundings. The churches are our main 

 historical authority. They show the close relation which there 

 was between the people and the defences. There is an imperial 

 church built to a citizen who died in the war, another to one 

 who had endured many wounds, another to a general. 



The largest and most magnificent church in the whole town was 

 decorated and painted by a general who was monk, presbyter, 

 and eponiraus, which shows the influence of Christianity though 

 diluted and watered down. The fifth church is dedicated to a 

 tribune, that is an officer. So taking these evidences together 

 you have a conception of a Church wdiich marshalls the people, 

 and has tribunes decorating and adorning churches. The 

 angle of the fortifications are made by the churches. The 

 church forms the corner-stone in the actual defences of the 

 city. In the upper city monasteries make part of the lines of 

 defence, and the little hillocks immediately round, forming 

 part of the defence, are each crowned by a churcli. In all this 

 we see that the church is used as a defence against the 

 Mahometan. 



Then when one remembers from literature the facts of the 

 late defence against the Turks, we do know that in the case of 

 Philadelphia there was in the fourteenth century after Christ 

 a tow^n which, though left isolated for fifty or sixty years, 

 defended itself against the Turks, and finally fell only because 

 it had to yield to a combined army of Byzantine imperial forces, 

 and subject Turks. It was somewhat different in Smyrna ; 

 there the defence was conducted by Europeans, the Knights of 

 St. John, and was not purely national. 



Finally we come down to the transition from the Christian 

 period to the Turkish. After the Anatolian invasion had been 

 rolled back once again to the limits of the East, a new invasion 

 of the Turks began in 1070, and this little town was in the 



