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A passage from " BYZANTIUM THE DECLINE AND FALL" by John Julius Norwich

"When the city was struggling to hold on, the omens had begun. Pessimists had been pointing out that just as the first emperor of Byzantium had been a Constantin born of a Hellana, so would be the last; but shortly before the full moon on 24 May the portents took a more sinister turn. On the 22nd there was a lunar eclipse; a day or two later as the holiest and most precious icon of the virgin was being carried through the streets in one last appeal for her intercession. It slipped from the platform on which it has been carried. With immense difficulty- for it suddenly seemed preternaturally heavy - it was replaced, and the barrers continued on their way; but they had gone no more than a few hundred yards further when a thunder storm burst over the city, the most violent and dramatic that anyone could remember. Such was the force of the rain and hail that all streets were flooded and the procession had to be abandoned.

The next morning the people of Constantinople awoke to find their city shrouded in thick fog, something quite unprecedented at the end of may; the same night the dome of Saint Sophia seemed suffused with an unearthly red glove that creepped slowly up from the base to the summit and then went out. This last phenomenon was also seen by the Turks in Galata and at the double columns (Dolmabahce); Mehmet himself was greatly disturbed by it and was reassured only after his astrologers had interpreted it as a sign that the building would soon be illuminated by the true faith. For the Byzantians there could be only one explanation; the spirit of God itself had departed from their city."

After the fall of the city Sultan Mehmet was wandering through the ancient halls of the palace founded by Constantin the Great, Mehmet is said to have murmured the lines of a Persian poet.

"The spider weaves the curtain in the palace of the Caesars

The owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab"

The author is unknown.

He had achieved his ambition. Constantinople was his. He was just twenty - one years old.

Constantine Dragenes was last seen alive by his friend George Phrantzes who later wrote 'the fall of Byzantium'. On the night of 28 May 1453 emperor accompanied by George Phrantzes had stopped at his palace and exchanged his last words with his family. He said goodbye to each one of his family members and asked their forgiveness for any unkindness he might have shown them. Phrantzes wrote 'Even a man of wood or stone could not help weeping' The emperor then left Blachernae palace to inspect his battlements.