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The other sons became rich and powerful; they had numerous flocks and fertile pastures in Sogdiana, till at length they attracted the notice of the Sultan Mahmood, who, having dispossessed the Saracens of the country where Seljuk had placed himself, looked about for mercenary troops to keep his possession of it.
Here Ertogrul was to be a Warden of the Marches, to hold his territory for the Seljuk and extend it for himself at the expense of Nicaea if he could. If he won through, so much the better for Sultan Alaeddin; if he failed, vile damnum! Hardly were his tribesmen settled, however, among the Bithynians and Greeks of Yenishehr, before the Seljuk collapse became a fact.
The first, Togrul, was the son and grandson of Mahometan Martyrs, and he inherited that fanaticism, which made the old Seljuk and the young Michael surrender their lives in their missionary warfare against the enemies of their faith.
Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish "the courageous lion:" and the Caliph gave its possessor the Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or "Protector of Religion." It was the distinctive work of his short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to attacking the Greek Emperor.
But the panic had not lasted long, for the few score of Seljuk riders who had fallen upon the van of the retreating column for the last time had been finally scattered by the Duke of Suabia, so that the remainder of the army came in with a show of order, bringing the greater part of the baggage.
'Nothing, said Calidas; 'though to speak truth, I did not much believe in the efficacy of Solomon's sceptre, till his Majesty clove the head of the valiant Seljuk with it. 'But now there's no doubt of it, said the Guebre. 'We should indeed be infidels if we doubted now, replied the Indian. 'How lucky, grinned the Negro, 'as I had no religion before, that I have now fixed upon the right one!
His vacant throne was disputed by his brother and his four sons; and, after a series of civil wars, the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a lasting separation in the Persia dynasty, the eldest and principal branch of the house of Seljuk.
Seljuk was banished from Turkestan: with a numerous tribe of his friends and vassals, he passed the Jaxartes, encamped in the neighborhood of Samarcand, embraced the religion of Mahomet, and acquired the crown of martyrdom in a war against the infidels.
The language and literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk; and if Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself, his palace might resound with the songs of a hundred poets. The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general assembly of the astronomers of the East.
It was from him that they derived their name of Ottoman Turks, to distinguish them from the Seljuk Turks, with whom the crusaders had come into contact. The leaders of the Ottoman Turks showed great energy. They not only extended their Asiatic territory far toward the east, and later into Africa, but they gained a footing in Europe as early as 1353.
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