A.D. 1097.] BATTLE BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND TURKS. 393 Hellespont, proceeded with their troops to Nice, where they were joyfully hailed by the princes who had preceded them, and pitched their tents with the greatest magnificence in the place which the others had left vacant for them. In this manner, then, for the first time was one army of God formed out of diverse bodies of troops, consisting, as they were numbered, of six hundred thousand infantry and a hundred thousand mailed cavalry, all of whom, sitting down in a large circle round the walls of the aforesaid city, with all devotion consecrated to God the fruits of their pious labours, Of the battle between the Christians and Turks, in which the latter were defeated. Nice is a large city of Bithynia, abounding in all kinds of riches. Its lord was a powerful Turkish chieftain, named Soliman,* which in the Persian language means "king," who ruled the whole of the neighbouring country. ' His ancestors had gained this country from the Grecian emperor Bomanus, who reigned in the third degree before Alexius, and had handed it down to this Soliman, together with all the provinces from Tar3us in Cilicia to the Hellespont, so that his officers came close up to the suburbs of Constantinople, and gathered tribute and taxes from all those countries for their sovereign's use. Soliman himself, with a great multitude of armed men, was encamped among the neighbouring mountains, scarcely ten miles off, watching in what manner he might best free his city from the siege laid to it by the crusaders. To raise the spirits of the besieged, he sent two messengers, who were to find their way into the city by means of a boat on the lake, and so deliver his commands ; but one of them was taken by the Christians and the other was slain. The prisoner was examined and forced to confess ;f by which means they learned that Soliman would come down from the mountains the next day and try to raise the siege. Accordingly, the next day about the third hour, * Many of the very common oriental names, both in ancient and modern times, are rather names of offices or of dignity, than personal appellation. t In ardo ponenles may mean that he was put to the torture, but does not necessarily bear this interpretation.