14. The Mongols Reduced the Assassins From Terrifying to “But a Tale on Men’s Lips“
In the runup to their invasion of the Middle East, the Mongols, led by Genghis Khan’s grandson Hulagu, began attacking and seizing Assassin fortresses. As a preliminary to his conquest of the region, Hulagu took a detour in 1256 to storm the cult’s strongholds in Persia. He captured the last Old Man of the Mountain, and forced him to order the remaining Assassin fortresses in Persia to surrender. Forty of them, including the main fortress of Alamout Castle, did so, and the Mongols razed them to the ground.
Hulagu then sent the Old Man of the Mountain in chains to the Grand Khan in Mongolia, who had him executed. The Mongols then slaughtered all whom they could lay their hands on of the Nizari cult to which the Assassins belonged, along with their families. It was a thorough bloodletting that broke the Assassins’ power for good. It reduced the cultists, according to a contemporary historian, to “but a tale on men’s lips and a tradition in the world“.