 Osman I had succeeded in the leadership of his clan in c. 1282, and over the next two decades launched a series of ever-deeper raids into the Byzantine borderlands of Bithynia.By 1301, the Ottomans were besieging Nicaea, the former imperial capital, and harassing Prussa.The Turkish raids also threatened the port city of Nicomedia with famine, as they roamed the countryside and prohibited the collection of the harvest (see Akinji).