prolog

 PROLOGUE

After the death of Constantine in battle during the fall of Constantinople, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as the "Marble Emperor" who would awaken and recover the Empire and Constantinople from the Turks.

The only way the Emperor was later identified was by his Imperial boots. His body was then decapitated and his head sent across Asia Minor to legitimize the victory.

Although it is claimed by some that his corpse was identified after the battle by his purple boots, others claim that the Turks were never able to identify his body, and that the last Roman Emperor was very likely buried in a mass grave alongside his soldiers.

A legend tells that when the Ottomans entered the city, an angel rescued the emperor, turned him into marble and placed him in a cave under the earth near the Golden Gate, where he waits to be brought to life again to conquer the city back for Christians.

While serving as ambassador to Russia in February 1834, Achmet Pacha presented Tsar Nicholas with a number of gifts, including a jewel-encrusted sword supposedly taken from Constantine XI's corpse .

Constantine XI's legacy was used as a rallying cry for Greeks during their war for Independence with the Ottoman Empire. Today the Emperor is considered a national hero in Greece.

During the Balkan Wars and the Greco-Turkish War, under the influence of the Megali Idea the name of the then Greek king used in Greece as a popular confirmation of the prophetic myth about the Marble King who would liberate Constantinople and recreate the lost Empire.

It is said that when Mehmed stepped into the ruins of the Boukoleon, known to the Ottomans and Persians as the Palace of the Caesars, probably built over a thousand years before by Theodosius II, he uttered the famous lines of Persian poetry:The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars;the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.



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