FANA'RIOTS. To the Greeks who assisted him in obtaining an entrance to Constantinople after his ships had been transported overland to the Golden Horn, Mohammed 11. granted the Fanar quarter of the city, on the Golden Ilorn adjoining the Blacherne. The district was so called from the lighthouse that stood on the promontory jutting from it into the Golden Horn. The district is described by Grosvenor as "pros perous, cleanly, and well-kept," and Theophile Gautier says of it, "Hither has fled ancient Byzantium." Its Greek inhabitants, many of them descendants of the oldest and noblest By zantine families, were known as Fanariots, and came to be a special class in the Ottoman Em pire, recruited by emigrants from different parts of the old Byzantine Empire. Subtle, insinuat ing, intriguing, they soon took advantage of the ignorance of the Turkish governors, and made themselves politically indispensable to their rul ers. They filled the offices of dragomans, tanks, bankers. etc. Through their influence the lucrative office of dragoman of the fleet was called into existence, which gave them almost un limited power in the islands of the Archipelago.
From them were chosen, until the outbreak of the Revolution. in 1821, the hospodars of Wal lachia and Moldavia, while in addition the dis posal of most of the civil and military posts un der the Turkish Government was in their hands. In spite of their power, however, they never ex hibited much patriotism; they were animated by the petty motives of a caste, and when the War of Liberation broke out among their countrymen. the part they took in it, though fairly important, was not what their station and their wealth should have contributed to the patriot cause. In the present altered state of affairs in Turkey they have no political influence. Consult: Ten nent, History of Modern Greece (2 vols., London, 18.15) : Samuelson, Roumania (London, ISS2).
FAN-CHENG, I:111'6(qm'. A town in the Province of Hi-peh, China, situated on the Han kiang, miles northwest of Ilankow (Map: China, D 5). It is an important commercial centre on account of its position en the trade routes between southern and northern China. The population is estimated at 100,000.