The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [2213]
[Footnote 35: They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]
[Footnote 36: I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersoms robes are stuck with many false jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p. 229.]
[Footnote 37: His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]
[Footnote 38: Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403; since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was novennis, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II., who must have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave. Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31, 1443, No. 14.]
[Footnote 39: His revenue and forces are luckily given by Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]
[Footnote 40: There were two Dibras, the upper aud lower, the Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i. p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good map of Epirus.]
[Footnote 41: Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92) with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the tribe of strangers and moderns.]
[Footnote 42: In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188 - 192) kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who agree in the time and manner of Amurath's death at Adrianople.]
[Footnote 43: See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus Francisci Sfortiae, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p. 728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of Stradiots, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Memoires de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]
[Footnote 44: Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467, No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza, (l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu, demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]
[Footnote 45: See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam. Dalmaticae, &c, xviii. p. 348 - 350.)]
[Footnote 46: This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr. Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350 - 354.)]
In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I have reached at length the last reign of the princes of Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of the Caesars. On the decease of John Palaeologus, who survived about four years the Hungarian crusade, ^47 the royal family, by