and
strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains of
the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted without
success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron,
who proved unwilling, or unable, to open the gates of the metropolis.
The next spring, his favorite general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he
had decorated with the title of Caesar, passed the Hellespont with
eight hundred horse and some infantry, [58] on a secret expedition. His
instructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to
risk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The adjacent
territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was cultivated by
a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in arms, uncertain
in their allegiance, but inclined by language, religion, and
present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were styled the
_volunteers_; [59] and by their free service the army of Alexius, with
the regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, [60] was augmented
to the number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardor of the
volunteers, and by his own ambition, the Caesar was stimulated to disobey
the precise orders of his master, in the just confidence that success
would plead his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and
the distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observation
of the volunteers; and they represented the present moment as the most
propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the new governor of
the Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys, and the best
of the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the
Black Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; [601] and the remaining Latins
were without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by the
smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had not watched
the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main body to second
and support his operations, he might advance unperceived in the night
with a chosen detachment. While some applied scaling-ladders to the
lowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old Greek, who would
introduce their companions through a subterraneous passage into his
house; they could soon on the inside break an entrance through the
golden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would
be in the