The Battle of Ayas of which we have purposely given some detail, was
fought in May, 1294. The date MCCLXXXXVI assigned to it in the preceding
extract has given rise to some unprofitable discussion. Could that date be
accepted, no doubt it would enable us also to accept this, the sole
statement from the Traveller's own age of the circumstances which brought
him into a Genoese prison; it would enable us to place that imprisonment
within a few months of his return from the East, and to extend its
duration to three years, points which would thus accord better with the
general tenor of Ramusio's tradition than the capture of Curzola. But the
matter is not open to such a solution. The date of the Battle of Ayas is
not more doubtful than that of the Battle of the Nile. It is clearly
stated by several independent chroniclers, and is carefully established in
the Ballad that we have quoted above.[31] We shall see repeatedly in the
course of this Book how uncertain are the transcriptions of dates in Roman
numerals, and in the present case the LXXXXVI is as certainly a mistake
for LXXXXIV as is Boniface VI. in the same quotation a mistake for
Boniface VIII.
But though we cannot accept the statement that Polo was taken prisoner at
Ayas, in the spring of 1294, we may accept the passage as evidence from
a contemporary source that he was taken prisoner in some sea-fight with
the Genoese, and thus admit it in corroboration of the Ramusian Tradition
of his capture in a sea-fight at Curzola in 1298, which is perfectly
consistent with all other facts in our possession.
[1] In this part of these notices I am repeatedly indebted to Heyd.
(See supra, p. 9.)
[2] On or close to the Hill called Monjoie; see the plan from Marino
Sanudo at p. 18.
[3] "Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work
upon the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and
smashing and overthrowing everything within their range. There were at
least ten of those engines that shot stones so big and heavy that they
weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Champagne; insomuch that
nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, and only the
religious houses were left. And there were slain in this same war good
20,000 men on the two sides, but chiefly of Genoese and Spaniards."
(Lettre de Jean Pierre Sarrasin, in Michel's Joinville, p. 308.)
[4] The origin of these columns is, however, somewhat uncertain.
[See Cicogna, I. p. 379.]
[5] In 1262, when a Venetian squadron was taken by the Greek fleet in
alliance with the Genoese, the whole of the survivors of the captive
crews were blinded by order of Palaeologus.
