TIMUR BEG. 
Ill 
siege of eighteen days it submitted to the conqueror, 
who ordered four thousand Arminian cavalry to be buried 
alive, and the walls of Sebaste to be levelled with the 
ground. The entire subjugation of Anatolia, a pro- 
vince of Asia Minor, immediately followed ; but as the 
Sultan of Egypt, no less than the Ottoman Emperor, 
had roused the anger of Timur, the vindictive Tartar 
resolved to invade the dominions of the former before 
he proceeded to chastise the insolence of the latter. 
Accordingly, he entered Syria with a vast army. 
While reconnoitring a fort built with extremely high 
and strong walls at the foot of a mountain, a stone, 
discharged at him from an engine, fell near his tent 
and rolled into it. He ordered an immediate assault 
to be made, took the place with very little loss, 
and by an act of capricious clemency spared the 
lives of the whole garrison. Hence he proceeded to 
Aleppo, which he reached on the eighth of November 
1400! The main body of his army, commanded by 
the monarch in person, was covered with a line of ele- 
phants, each with a tower upon its back, from which 
were discharged arrows and Greek fire. The Amyrs of 
Aleppo were dismayed by the formidable array ; thou- 
sands of the Syrian troops were slain ; and, after a 
feeble resistance, the citadel of Aleppo, hitherto held 
to be impregnable, was surrendered, either by coward- 
ice or treachery. When the conqueror entered this 
splendid capital, a scene of carnage ensued which it 
is equally painful to contemplate and record. “ The 
streets of Aleppo/' says Gibbon, “ streamed with 
blood, and re-echoed with the cries of mothers and 
children — with the shrieks of violated virgins. The net 
