[Illustration: Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice.]
The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with their success,
and both in seamanship and in splendour they began almost to surpass their
old rivals. The fall of Acre (1291), and the total expulsion of the Franks
from Syria, in great measure barred the southern routes of Indian trade,
whilst the predominance of Genoa in the Euxine more or less obstructed the
free access of her rival to the northern routes by Trebizond and Tana.
[Sidenote: Battle in Bay of Ayas in 1294.]
32. Truces were made and renewed, but the old fire still smouldered. In
the spring of 1294 it broke into flame, in consequence of the seizure in
the Grecian seas of three Genoese vessels by a Venetian fleet. This led to
an action with a Genoese convoy which sought redress. The fight took place
off Ayas in the Gulf of Scanderoon,[6] and though the Genoese were
inferior in strength by one-third they gained a signal victory, capturing
all but three of the Venetian galleys, with rich cargoes, including that
of Marco Basilio (or Basegio), the commodore.
This victory over their haughty foe was in its completeness evidently a
surprise to the Genoese, as well as a source of immense exultation, which
is vigorously expressed in a ballad of the day, written in a stirring
salt-water rhythm.[7] It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay,
in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as
having deserted their ships to skulk on shore. They are described as
saying: -
"'Off they've slunk! and left us nothing;
We shall get nor prize nor praise;
Nothing save those crazy timbers
Only fit to make a blaze.'"
So they advance carelessly -
"On they come! But lo their blunder!
When our lads start up anon,
Breaking out like unchained lions,
With a roar, 'Fall on! Fall on!'"[8]
After relating the battle and the thoroughness of the victory, ending in
the conflagration of five-and-twenty captured galleys, the poet concludes
by an admonition to the enemy to moderate his pride and curb his arrogant
tongue, harping on the obnoxious epithet porci leproxi, which seems to
have galled the Genoese.[9] He concludes: -
"Nor can I at all remember
Ever to have heard the story
Of a fight wherein the Victors
Reaped so rich a meed of glory!"[10]
The community of Genoa decreed that the victory should be commemorated by
the annual presentation of a golden pall to the monastery of St. German's,
the saint on whose feast (28th May) it had been won.[11]
