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394 DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE to reduce Mitylene and Lemnos he visited the rains of Troy and the traditional tombs of Achilles and Ajax and ad- mired the good fortune of the heroes who had a poet like Homer to commemorate their deeds. ' It is said,' cautiously remarks his biographer, ' that he believed that God had charged him to be the avenger of the ancient city.' 1 He frequently called the patriarch, the learned Gennadius, and discussed with him questions of theology. Was Mahomet cannot justly be represented as a religious a religious fanatic. He of course conformed to the practices of Islam, fanatic? Du iit many mosques, and did nothing to show irreverence for the teaching of the Prophet. He was possibly in his youth a devout believer in the tenets of Islam. But it is difficult to believe that a man who conversed freely with Gennadius on the difference between Christianity and his own religion, and who had paid as much attention as he had paid to Greek and Arabian philosophy, should be a fanatic. Mahomet's most recent Turkish biographer claims that he was tolerant and alleges as a reason for this statement that he did not follow the example of the Arab conquerors and put all to the sword who did not accept Islam. The more fanatical Mahometans probably urged him to take this course. 2 The hope of plunder and the value of captives as slaves probably furnished a more effective argument against general extermination. Moreover, Mahomet had need of an industrious popula- tion, not only for the repeopling of the capital but to furnish a revenue. His subjects, even of both religions, regarded him as a Gallio, or as a man of no religion. 3 The statements that in private he branded the Prophet as a robber and impostor, or that he was half converted to Christianity by Gennadius and that shortly before his death he became a great worshipper of relics and burned candles before them, 1 Crit. bk. v. ch. xi. It is possible that as some of the Latin writers spoke of the Turks as Teucri, in the belief that they were the descendants of the Trojans, Mahomet may have been under the same illusion. 2 Les Sultans Ottomans, par Halil Ganem, p. 129 (Paris, 1901). 3 Chalcondylas.