A word to the wise

476 AD The fall of the Roman Empire ? 

Once upon a time...

Beginning with the mythic Romulus who along with his brother Remus were said to have founded the city of Rome. The city of Rome had achieved a grandeur befitting the capital of an empire dominating the whole of the Mediterranean. 

It was, at the time, the largest city in the world. In 330 AD, Constantine I established as capital of the empire, and named Constantinople. At this time, part of the Roman aristocratic class moved to the new centre. The vast empire constantly attacked by many enemies on all sides. Temporarily lost territories and after a while by continuous wars regain the lost territories. 

What happened in 476 AD compared to the huge size (Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, part of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and part of Iran) of the empire were insignificant. A small part of the empire which included Rome lost, which later was taken back by Emperor Justinian.... Emperor of an unnamed Empire..

Here would end my story, if I was not discovering that the same year and the same period there was that empire without a name ..

This unnamed Empire (by historians) after one thousand years, acquired thanks to the German historian Hieronymous Wolf (1577) the name "Byzantine Empire"

Thanks Hieronymous !!!!!

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The Holy Fleet

THE HOLY FLEET 

(The naval battle between the Christians and Ottomans fought in the strait

between the gulfs of Pátrai and Corinth, off Lepanto (Návpaktos), Greece)

By the 1500s the Ottoman Empire’s naval fleet had become very powerful. They controlled most of the Mediterranean and often attacked parts of the Spanish and Italian coastlines, forcing the Christian inhabitants into slavery in North Africa.

On Sunday, October 7, 1571 The fleet of the Holy League, a group of naval forces from Spain, Naples, Sicily, Venice and Genoa, led by Don Juan of Austria, met the Ottoman forces in the Gulf of Lepanto, off of Western Greece.

The Holy fleet (about 200 galleys, not counting smaller ships) consisted mainly of Spanish, Venetian, and papal ships and of vessels sent by a number of Italian states. It carried approximately 30,000 fighting men and was about evenly matched with the Ottoman fleet. The battle ended with the virtual destruction of the Ottoman navy (except 40 galleys, with which Uluç Ali escaped). Approximately 15,000 Turks were slain or captured, some 10,000 Christian galley slaves were liberated, and much booty was taken. The victors, however, lost over 7,000 men.

Lepanto was the first major Ottoman defeat by the Christian powers, and it ended the myth of Ottoman naval invincibility. It did not, however, affect Ottoman supremacy on the land, and a new Turkish fleet was speedily built by Sokollu, grand vizier of Selim II. Nevertheless, the battle was decisive in the sense that an Ottoman victory probably would have made the Ottoman Empire supreme in the Mediterranean.

ps:

Among the allied wounded was Cervantes, (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra) who lost the use of his left arm. Cervantes’ own ship, the Marquesa, was part of the Christian fleet..

Yes the known Cervantes of the famous Don Quixote….

(Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Goleden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It has had major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas "The Three Musketeers" (1844) and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). In a 2992 list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written")

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