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96 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE accepted the arrangement, entered by the Golden Gate and Death of his nephew fled. In 1391, the elder Emperor John died John " after a reign of fifty-one years. During his long occupancy of the throne the power of the Turks had enormously increased and the empire had almost become a vassal of Murad. In the last year of his reign there occurred an incident, already alluded to, which illustrates at once the weakness of John and his practical vassalage to the Turks. Wishing to strengthen the landward walls and especially at and near the Golden Gate, where the defences had fallen into decay, he gave out that he was about to clear the city of its accumulated rubbish and to ornament that gate. Bajazed, who was now the Ottoman sultan and successor of his father, Murad, when he learned what had been done, insisted that the new defensive works should be destroyed, threatening that if his wishes were not complied with he would put out the eyes of John's son Manuel, who had gone by the Sultan's orders to accompany the Turkish army on a campaign in Pamphylia. John obeyed the orders he had received. 1 1 Ducas, xiii.