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.
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