HISTORY
OF THE
MOORISH EMPIRE
IN EUROPE
BY
S. P. SCOTT
AUTHOR OF “THROUGH SPAIN”
Corduba famosa locuples de nomine dicta,
Inclyta deliciis, rebus quoque splendida cunctis
HROSWITHA, PASSIO S. PELAGII
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
Published March, 1904
_Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A._
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
CHAPTER XV
THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SICILY
PAGE
Classic Souvenirs of Sicily--Its Great Natural
Advantages--It becomes the Stronghold of the
Papacy--Invasion of the Arabs--They besiege
Syracuse--Strength of that City--Failure of the
Enterprise--Capture of Palermo--Rapid Progress of
the Moslems--Condition of Italy--Arab Alliance with
Naples--Messina taken--Betrayal of Castrogiovanni--Rout of
the Greeks near Syracuse--Feuds of the Conquerors--Their
Successes in Italy--Second Siege of Syracuse--The
City is stormed and destroyed by Ibn-Mohammed--Peril
of Rome--Appearance of the Normans in the South of
Europe--They invade Sicily--Siege of Palermo--Subjection
of the Island--Influence of the Moslems over their
Conquerors--General Condition of Sicily--Its
Civilization--Palermo and its Environs--Science, Art, and
Literature--The Great Work of Edrisi--Arab Occupation of
Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta 1
CHAPTER XVI
THE PRINCIPALITIES OF MOORISH SPAIN
Immobility of the African Race--Its Hostility to
Civilization--Its Pernicious Influence on the
Politics of the Western Khalifate--Character of
Suleyman--Invasion of Ali--He ascends the Throne--His
Tyranny--He is assassinated--Abd-al-Rahman IV. succeeds
Him--Yahya--Abd-al-Rahman V.--Mohammed--Hischem
III.--Organization of the Council of State--Ibn-Djahwar,
the Minister--His Talents and Power--Abul-Kasim-Mohammed,
Kadi of Seville--Berber Conspiracy--The Impostor Khalaf
is raised to the Throne as Hischem II.--Almeria--The
Vizier Ibn-Abbas--Influence of the Jews at
Granada--The Rabbi Samuel-- Rivalry of Granada and
Almeria--Abu-al-Fotuh--Motadhid ascends the Throne of
Seville--His Cruel and Dissolute Character--His Collection
of Skulls--Badis, King of Granada--Increasing Power of
Castile--Valencia and Malaga--Atrocities of the Christians
at Barbastro 77
CHAPTER XVII
WARS WITH THE CHRISTIANS; THE ALMORAVIDES
Dissensions in Castile--Alfonso the Guest of the Emir of
Toledo--Civilization of that Moorish Capital--Motamid,
Prince of Seville--His Prodigality--Valencia and Murcia
become subject to Mamun--Motamid takes Cordova--Military
Genius of Alfonso VI.--The Famous Game of Chess--Siege of
Toledo--Capitulation of that City--Depredations of Bands
of Outlaws--Danger and Distress of the Moslems--Rise
of the Almoravides--Their Fanaticism and Prowess--They
conquer Northern Africa--The Spanish Emirs appeal to
Yusuf--He crosses the Strait--Rout of the Christians at
Zallaca--Second Expedition of Yusuf--His Popularity--He
claims the Sovereignty of the Peninsula--The Cid: His
Character and His Exploits--He serves the Emir of
Saragossa--He obtains Control of Valencia--Revolt and
Siege of that City--Cruelties of the Cid--Death of
Yusuf--Greatness of the Almoravide Empire--Accession of
Ali--Demoralization of the Conquerors 159
CHAPTER XVIII
THE EMPIRE OF THE ALMOHADES
Rise of Abu-Abdallah, the Mahdi--His Character
and Talents--He rebels against Ali--His Eventful
Career--Abd-al-Mumen succeeds Him--Decline of the
Almoravide Power in Spain--Raid of Alfonso of Aragon--Rout
of Fraga--Death of Alfonso--Indecisive Character of the
Campaigns in the War of the Reconquest--Progress of
Abd-al-Mumen in Africa--Victories of the Almohades--Natural
Hostility of Moor and Berber--Anarchy in the Peninsula--It
is invaded by the Africans--Establishment of the Almohade
Empire in Andalusia--Almeria taken by the Christians--Its
Recapture by the Berbers--Death of Abd-al-Mumen--His
Genius and Greatness--Accession of Yusuf--His Public
Works--He organizes a Great Expedition--He dies and is
succeeded by Yakub--The Holy War proclaimed--Battle of
Alarcos--Effects of African Supremacy--Death of Yakub--The
Giralda--Mohammed--He attempts the Subjugation of the
Christians--Despair of the Latter--Battle of Las Navas de
Tolosa--Utter Rout of the Almohade Army 247
CHAPTER XIX
THE PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN ARMS
General Disorder in the Peninsula--Aggressive Policy
of the Christians--Capture of Ubeda--Al-Mamun--Rise
of Mohammed-Ibn-Hud--Merida taken by the King of
Leon--Prosperity of Barcelona--Jaime I. of Aragon--Siege
of Majorca--Terrible Sack of that City--Extinction
of the Almohades--Siege and Capture of Cordova
by Ferdinand--Valencia surrenders to the King of
Aragon--Character of the Struggle between Christian
and Moslem--Xativa--Its Prosperity--Murcia becomes the
Property of Castile--Xativa acquired by Aragon--Death and
Character of Jaime--Rise of the Kingdom of Granada--Its
Wealth and Literary Culture--Ferdinand captures
Jaen--Mohammed-Ibn-Ahmar, King of Granada, renders Homage
to Ferdinand--Seville invested by the Castilians--Great
Strength of that City--Its Obstinate Defence--It is reduced
by Famine--Character of Ferdinand the Saint 334
CHAPTER XX
PROSECUTION OF THE RECONQUEST
Condition of Moorish Spain after the Death of Ferdinand
III.--Invasion of Ibn-Yusuf--Vast Wealth and Power of the
Spanish Clergy--Public Disorder--Energy of Mohammed I.--His
Achievements--Mohammed II.--Peace with Castile--Character
of Alfonso X.--Siege of Tarifa--Mohammed
III.--Al-Nazer--Ismail--Baza taken--Mohammed IV.--The
Empire of Fez--Defeat of the Africans in the Plain
of Pagana--Yusuf--Rout of the Salado--Alfonso XI.
captures Algeziras--Splendid Public Works of the Kings
of Granada--Mohammed V.--Ismail II.--Abu-Said--He
repairs to the Court of Pedro el Cruel, and is
murdered--Yusuf II.--Mohammed VI.--Yusuf III.--Mohammed
VII.--Mohammed VIII.--Ibn-Ismail--Gibraltar taken by the
Castilians--Character of Muley Hassan--Critical Condition
of the Spanish Arabs--Impending Destruction of the Kingdom
of Granada 418
CHAPTER XXI
THE LAST WAR WITH GRANADA
Description of Granada--Its Wealth, Prosperity, and
Civilization--Its Cities--Beauty and Splendor of the
Capital--The Alhambra--Condition and Power of the
Spanish Monarchy--Character of Ferdinand--Character
of Isabella--Muley Hassan and His Family--Storming
of Zahara--Alhama surprised by the Christians--Siege
of that City and Repulse of the Moors--Sedition at
Granada--Ferdinand routed at Loja--Foray of Muley
Hassan--Expedition to the Ajarquia--Defeat and Massacre
of the Castilians--Boabdil attacks Lucena and is
captured--Destructive Foray of the Christians--Boabdil
is released and returns to Granada--Renewal of Factional
Hostility in the Moorish Capital--Moslem and Christian
Predatory Inroads--Siege and Capture of Ronda--Embassy from
Fez--Al-Zagal becomes King--Defeat of the Court of Cabra at
Moclin--Division of the Kingdom of Granada--Its Disastrous
Effects 510
CHAPTER XXII
TERMINATION OF THE RECONQUEST
Summary of the Causes of the Decay of the Moslem
Empire--Loja taken by Storm--Progress of the Feud
between Al-Zagal and Boabdil--The Christians assist the
Latter--Anarchy in Granada--Siege of Velez--Ineffectual
Attempt of Al-Zagal to relieve it--Surrender of the
City--Situation of Malaga--Its Delightful Surroundings--Its
Vast Commercial and Manufacturing Interests--It is invested
by Ferdinand--Desperate Resistance of the Garrison--Its
Sufferings--Capitulation of the City--Enslavement of the
Population--Duplicity of the Spanish Sovereigns--War with
Al-Zagal--Siege of Baza--Discontent of the Christian
Soldiery--Energy and Firmness of the Queen--Embassy from
the Sultan--Baza surrenders--Al-Zagal relinquishes His
Crown--War with Boabdil--The Last Campaign--Blockade of
Granada--Distress of Its Inhabitants--Submission of the
Capital--Fate of Boabdil--Isabella the Inspiring Genius of
the Conquest 595
HISTORY
OF THE
MOORISH EMPIRE IN EUROPE
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XV
THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SICILY
827–1072
Classic Souvenirs of Sicily--Its Great Natural Advantages--It
becomes the Stronghold of the Papacy--Invasion of the
Arabs--They besiege Syracuse--Strength of that City--Failure
of the Enterprise--Capture of Palermo--Rapid Progress of the
Moslems--Condition of Italy--Arab Alliance with Naples--Messina
taken--Betrayal of Castrogiovanni--Rout of the Greeks near
Syracuse--Feuds of the Conquerors--Their Successes in
Italy--Second Siege of Syracuse--The City is stormed and
destroyed by Ibn-Mohammed--Peril of Rome--Appearance of the
Normans in the South of Europe--They invade Sicily--Siege of
Palermo--Subjection of the Island--Influence of the Moslems
over their Conquerors--General Condition of Sicily--Its
Civilization--Palermo and its Environs--Science, Art, and
Literature--The Great Work of Edrisi--Arab Occupation of
Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta.
The island of Sicily, by reason of its geographical position, its
extraordinary fertility, and its commercial advantages, was one of the
most renowned and coveted domains of the ancient world. Its situation,
near the centre of the Mediterranean, afforded rare facilities for
participation in the trade and enjoyment of the culture of those
polished nations whose shores were washed by that famous sea. Its
soil yielded, with insignificant labor, the choicest products of
both the temperate and the torrid zones. Its coast was provided with
numerous and commodious harbors. That of Messina permitted vessels
of the heaviest tonnage to discharge their cargoes in security at
her quays. Those of Syracuse and Palermo were double, for the use
of men-of-war and merchantmen, as were the port of Tyre and the
Kothon of Carthage. The Phœnicians, at a period far anterior to any
mentioned in history, had established and maintained important trading
stations at points subsequently marked by the erection of vast and
flourishing cities. Doric and Ionic colonists, in their turn, carried
thither the elegant luxury and fastidious tastes which distinguished
the finished civilization of antiquity. This mysterious island,
where were manifested some of the most appalling and inexplicable
phenomena of nature, was the home of frightful monsters, the scene of
dire enchantments, the inspiration of Homeric fable and mythological
legend. Here was the haunt of the dreaded Cyclops. A short distance
from its shores were practised the infernal arts of the beauteous
but vindictive Circe. Here passed the Argonauts on their triumphant
return from Colchis. To the Greek succeeded the Carthaginian, who might
assert, with no little show of justice, a claim to the inheritance of
his Phœnician ancestors. Next came the mighty and resistless supremacy
of Rome. Sicily was one of the first, as it was among the richest, of
the provinces early acquired by her arms. It long shared with Egypt
the honorable distinction of being one of the granaries of Italy. The
great resources of the island in the days of the Republic are indicated
by the value of the spoils appropriated by the avarice of a rapacious
governor. The corrupt accumulations of Verres, during the course of his
magistracy, amounted to forty million sesterces. Besides the money
of which he plundered the unfortunate dependents of the Republic are
enumerated statues, paintings, bronzes, utensils sacred to the service
of the gods, the ornaments of the altars, the costly offerings with
which the affectionate gratitude of the pious and the opulent had
enriched her magnificent temples. In intellectual advancement Sicily
kept well abreast of her enlightened neighbors. The choicest works of
the Attic and of the Roman muse were read with delight by the polished
society of her cities. The masterpieces of Aristophanes and Terence
were enacted with applause in her spacious theatres, resplendent with
many colored marbles and decorations of beaten gold. The intimate
social and commercial relations maintained with the cities of Magna
Græcia aided, in no inconsiderable degree, the development of Sicilian
civilization. The citizens of Messina and Palermo could perhaps claim a
common origin with the refined inhabitants of Crotona and Tarentum.
Thus had Sicily, by her amalgamation of widely different races
and through her political affiliations, inherited all the noblest
traditions of antiquity, all the maxims of Oriental philosophy, of
Grecian culture, of Phœnician enterprise, and of Roman power. With
her history are associated the names of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, of
Pyrrhus and Marcellus, of Dionysius and Archimedes. But long before
the period of Byzantine degeneracy so fatal to the Empire, her
prosperity had greatly declined. Even in the time of the Cæsars the
evils of a venal and rapacious administration had been felt in the
imposition of onerous taxes, and the consequent and inevitable decay
of agriculture. Insurrections were common, and characterized by all
the atrocities of anarchy. The harvests were wantonly destroyed. The
villas of the Roman nobles, whose extensive domains embraced the
larger portion of the arable land, were given to the flames. Bands of
robbers roamed at will through the deserted settlements. The cities
were not infrequently stormed and plundered. The tillage of the soil
was no longer safe or profitable. Extensive tracts of territory, whose
extraordinary and varied productiveness had formerly astonished the
stranger, were abandoned to pasturage, an unfailing sign of national
decadence. The care of the flocks was committed to slaves, whose savage
aspect and brutal habits proclaimed their barbarian lineage. Clothed
in skins and armed with rude weapons, they were a menace alike to the
industrious citizen and the belated wayfarer. No wages or sustenance
was bestowed upon these outlaws, who were expected and encouraged
to supply by acts of violence the necessaries denied by the neglect
and parsimony of their masters. Others, whose ferocious temper and
habitual insubordination demanded restraint, labored from early dawn
in fetters, and were confined in filthy dungeons during the night.
The most shocking crimes were perpetrated with impunity. The spoils
which had escaped the robber could not be rescued from the vigilant
perquisitions of the farmer of the revenue. The tax upon grain amounted
to twenty-five per cent., and the impositions upon articles of commerce
and the scanty manufactures which had survived the general destruction
of trade and the mechanical arts were apportioned in a corresponding
ratio, and were collected with uncompromising severity. With the
prevalent insecurity of person and property, maritime enterprise was
checked, and the fleets of foreign merchantmen which had once crowded
the seaports of the island disappeared. The weak and corrupt government
of Constantinople, dominated by eunuchs and disgraced by the political
intrigues of ecclesiastics and women, was powerless to correct the
disorders of a distant and almost unknown province. Theological
disputes and the pleasures of the circus engrossed the attention of
the successors of the martial Constantine, whose authority, disputed
at home, was often scarcely acknowledged in their insular possessions.
The exaggerated perils of the strait, aided perhaps by a knowledge
of the impoverished condition of the country, may have deterred the
victorious barbarians from any prolonged occupation of Sicily. While
they overran the country at different times, they left no traces of
their sojourn,--neither colonies, institutions, racial impressions,
nor physical peculiarities. But this comparative exemption from the
common ruin seems to have been productive of no substantial benefit.
The spirit of the people was not adapted either to the requirements
of self-government or to the imperious demands of vassalage. They
were at once turbulent, rebellious, servile. In the character of the
Sicilian of the ninth century, as in that of the Calabrian of modern
times, every evil instinct was predominant. The seditious spirit of
the peasantry, aided by their proverbial inconstancy, was one of the
principal causes which prevented the consolidation of the Mohammedan
power.
From being the seat of Grecian civilization, the granary of Rome,
the theatre of barbarian license, Sicily had become the nursery of
the Papacy. It furnished bold and zealous defenders of the chair of
St. Peter. Its opportune contributions replenished the exhausted
treasury of the Vatican. There the genius of St. Gregory first laid the
foundations of the temporal power of the Holy See. There was situated
the richest portion of the possessions of the Roman hierarchy. There
were matured political measures which were destined to exercise for
generations the talents of the ablest statesmen of Europe. At an early
period the popes acquired an important following among the peasantry
of the island. The ignorance of the populace, and the eagerness with
which it received impressions of the supernatural; the associations
derived from the legends of antiquity, many of which, with political
foresight, had been bodily appropriated by the Fathers of the Church;
the absolution promised, without reserve, for the most heinous
offences, had allured thousands upon thousands of proselytes to the
gorgeous altars of Rome. The institution of the monastic orders and the
vast number of idlers increased tenfold the burdens of an oppressed and
impoverished country. It was said that the Benedictines alone possessed
nearly half of the island. Convents surrounded with beautiful gardens
and supplied with all the requirements of luxury arose on every side.
The mountain-caves swarmed with hermits. The miracles performed by
holy men and women surpassed in wonder and mystery the achievements
of mythological heroes,--the conquerors of Cyclops, the captors of
dragons. Martyrs underwent the most exquisite tortures with unshaken
constancy. In no other province which recognized the predominance of
the Papacy was there greater reverence for ecclesiastical tradition;
and, as a legitimate consequence, in no other was prevalent a more
marked degree of ignorance in the masses, or a more habitual defiance
of the laws of morality and justice by those indebted for their
superiority to the influence of the Church. The number of slaves owned
by the Holy See and employed upon its estates was enormous. The greater
part of its wealth was computed to be derived from their labor and
from the traffic in their children. The arts of the confessor secured
from the wealthy penitent immense estates and valuable legacies, the
reluctant tribute of terror and remorse. These possessions, once in
the iron grasp of the sacerdotal order, a master endowed with legal
immortality, were never relinquished. The oblations of grateful
convalescents enriched the treasuries of chapel and cathedral.
Pilgrims flocked in great numbers to those shrines which enjoyed an
extensive reputation for sanctity, and whose relics were believed to
possess unfailing virtues for the cure of the sick and the relief of
the afflicted. A profitable trade was supported at the expense of
the superstitious credulity of these devout strangers. Well aware
of its importance as an adjunct to their temporal power, and taking
advantage of the relations of its parishioners with the Byzantine
court, the early bishops of Rome extended every aid to the Sicilian
branch of the Catholic hierarchy. It enjoyed peculiar privileges. It
was exempted from vexatious impositions. Its legates were received
with distinguished courtesy by the papal court. Gregory founded from
his private purse seven monasteries in the island. Adrian frequently
referred to it as the citadel of the Italian clergy. No portion of the
patrimony of St. Peter could boast a priesthood more opulent, more
arrogant, more powerful, more corrupt.
At the time of the Moorish invasion Sicily had become thoroughly
Byzantine. The glorious traditions of the Greek occupation were
forgotten. In Messina alone the style of architecture, the physical
characteristics of the people, the comparative purity of language,
revealed significant traces of the influence of the most polished
nation of antiquity. In no other province subject to Rome had the
brutal doctrine of force, the basis of both republican and imperial
power, been so sedulously inculcated and applied. The harvests of
Sicily aided largely to sustain the idle population of the metropolis
of the world. Its commerce and its revenues furnished inexhaustible
resources to the venality and peculations of the proconsul. The Roman
aristocracy had there its most sumptuous villas, its largest and most
productive estates, its most numerous bodies of retainers. It was
not unusual for a patrician in the days of the Empire to own twenty
thousand slaves.
Byzantine degeneracy had not failed to cast its blight over this, one
of the fairest possessions of the emperors of the East. After the reign
of Justinian, no attempt was made by the exhausted state, scarcely able
to defend its capital, to send colonists to the island. The debased
populace, the refuse of a score of nations, ignorant of the very name
of patriotism, destitute of every principle of honor or virtue, sank
each day still lower in the scale of humanity.
The condition of Italy was even worse. The Lombards had conquered
all of that peninsula except the Exarchate of Ravenna. To their
dominion had succeeded the contentions of a multitude of insignificant
principalities, inflamed with mutual and irreconcilable hostility,
united in nothing except jealousy of the papal power. The incredible
perfidy and fraud which afterwards became the peculiar attributes of
the Italian political system--whose maxims, elaborated by Machiavelli,
have excited the wonder and contempt of succeeding ages--had then
their origin. The entire country was the scene of perpetual discord,
treachery, and intrigue. In the latter the Pope, urged by necessity
and inclination alike, bore no insignificant share. The prevalence
of such conditions came within a hair’s-breadth of changing, perhaps
forever, the political complexion of Europe and the sphere of Christian
influence. The feuds of petty rulers were aggravated rather than
reconciled in the presence of the common danger. The general anarchy
was eminently favorable to foreign conquest. The Lombard princes
solicited the aid of the Saracens. The latter profited by every
occasion of dissension and enmity. They enlisted with equal facility
and disloyalty under the banners of every faction. Twice they ravaged
the environs of Rome. At different times they were in the pay of
the Holy See. A series of fortunate accidents alone prevented the
enthronement of an Arab emir in the Vatican and the transformation of
St. Peter’s into a Mohammedan mosque.
The vicinity of Sicily to the main-land of Africa had early suggested
to the Saracens the conquest of that island. In the seventh century
it had been visited by marauding expeditions from Egypt. Syracuse was
stormed in 669, and the treasures of the Roman churches, placed there
for security from barbarian attack, were borne away to Alexandria.
Before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, and even while the Berber
tribes still threatened the security of his outposts, the enterprising
Musa--as has already been recounted in these pages--had despatched
his son Abdallah upon a predatory expedition among the islands of
the Mediterranean. In Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, and Sicily a large
quantity of plunder was obtained and carried off by these adventurous
freebooters. Other expeditions from time to time, and with varying
success for the space of more than a century, followed the example
of that organized by Musa. Despite these inroads, amicable relations
subsisted, for the most part, between the Byzantine governors of Sicily
and the Aghlabite princes of Africa. They despatched embassies, made
protestations of mutual attachment, negotiated treaties, exchanged
presents. But under all these plausible appearances of peace and
friendship there lurked, on the one side, the deadly hatred and
ambitious hopes of the fanatic whose creed was sustained by arms, and,
on the other, an indefinable dread of inevitable calamity which could
not long be averted.
A strong resemblance exists between the historical legends from which
are derived our information concerning the Saracen occupations of
Spain and Sicily. In both cases a real or pretended injury to female
innocence is said to have been the indirect cause of the invasion of
the Moslems. In the army of the Byzantine emperor stationed in Sicily
was one Euphemius, an officer of high rank, eminent talents, and
unquestioned courage, who, having become enamored of a nun, invaded
the sanctity of the cloister, carried off the recluse, and, despite
her remonstrances, made her his wife. This act of sacrilege, while
far from being without precedent in the lawless condition of society
under the lax and cruel administration of the Greek emperors, was not
in this instance committed by a personage of sufficient authority to
enable him to escape the consequences of his rashness. The relatives
of the damsel appealed for redress to the Byzantine court, the demand
was heeded, and a mandate was despatched by the Emperor to the governor
of Sicily to deprive the daring ravisher of his nose, the penalty
prescribed by the sanguinary code of Greek jurisprudence for the
offence. Euphemius, having learned of the punishment with which he was
threatened and relying on his popularity, endeavored to frustrate the
execution of the sentence by exciting an insurrection. The enterprise
failed through the cowardice and treachery of some of the leading
conspirators, and the baffled rebel was compelled to seek refuge
among the Saracens of Africa. The reigning sovereign of the Aghlabite
dynasty, whose seat of government was at Kairoan, was Ziadet-Allah, a
prince of warlike tastes, implacable ferocity, and licentious manners.
No sooner had he landed than Euphemius sent messages to the African
Sultan, imploring his assistance, and promising that in case it was
afforded Sicily should be erected into an Aghlabite principality,
evidenced by the payment of tribute and the acknowledgment of
supremacy. The offer was tempting to the cupidity and ambition of
the Moslem ruler, and the powerful following of the fugitive made its
accomplishment apparently a matter of little difficulty. In the mean
time, however, envoys had arrived from the Sicilian government charged
to remonstrate, in the name of the Emperor, against this encouragement
of rebellion and violation of neutrality by a friendly power. Thus
harassed by the arguments of the rival emissaries, and weighing the
political advantages which might result from the observation of the
faith of treaties on the one hand, and from the acquisition of valuable
territory and the extension of the spiritual domain of Islam on the
other, Ziadet-Allah remained for a long time undecided. In the time
of the early khalifs the material benefits accruing from warfare with
the infidel--a duty enjoined upon every Moslem--would hardly have
been subordinated to a mere question of casuistry. But the condition
of the provinces subject to the Aghlabite dynasty, whose throne had
recently been shaken by a religious revolution, rendered the cordial
acquiescence and co-operation of the discordant elements of African
society indispensably requisite in a measure of national moment. The
chieftains and nobles were convoked in solemn assembly. The avarice
of the soldier, the fanaticism of the dervish, the aspirations of the
commander were stimulated by every device of intrigue and by every
resource of oratory. The scruples of the conscientious were overcome
by quotations from the Koran inculcating the obligation of unremitting
hostility to the infidel. A plausible pretext for breaking the treaty
was found in the fact that one of its main provisions had already been
evaded by the Greeks themselves, who had neglected to liberate certain
Moslems who had fallen into their hands. The arguments of those who
favored hostilities finally prevailed. The opposition--which had been
organized from purely interested motives--disappeared; the assembly,
controlled by the skilful arts of the representatives of the government
animated by enthusiastic zeal for conquest, declared for immediate
action, and the sounds of preparation were soon heard in the city of
Susa, whose harbor had been made the rendezvous of the expedition.
The supreme command was intrusted to Asad-Ibn-Forat, Kadi of Tunis, a
personage more renowned as a jurist and a theologian than as a master
of the art of war, and who, like Musa, had already passed the ordinary
limit of manly vigor and military ambition. A great force was mustered
for the enterprise from every part of Northern Africa. The wild
Berbers, whose faith was weak and vacillating except when revived by
the prospect of booty, assembled in vast numbers. A fleet of a hundred
vessels, exclusive of the squadron of the rebels, was equipped, and
sailed from Susa on the thirteenth of June, 827. Three days afterwards
the army disembarked at Mazara, which city was at once surrendered by
the partisans of Euphemius, who outnumbered the garrison. The imperial
army soon appeared, and a bloody engagement took place, in which the
great numerical superiority of the Sicilians availed nothing against
the desperate valor of the invaders, well aware that there was no
refuge for them in case of defeat. The shouts of the Christians mingled
with the chants of the soldiers of Islam as they repeated, according
to custom, the verses of the Koran; the shock of the Arab cavalry was
irresistible, and, their lines once broken, the Sicilians were routed
on every side and dispersed in headlong flight. The Moslem victory
was complete. The booty was enormous, not the least of it being the
slaves who were sent in ship-loads to Africa. Such was the distrust of
their allies, that Euphemius and his followers, although constituting
a body respectable in numbers, were not permitted to take part in the
battle. Neither the remembrance of personal indignity and disappointed
ambition, nor the thirst for vengeance cherished by the exiles, was
sufficient to remove from the mind of the Moslem general the feeling of
suspicion which he entertained for their professions, and the contempt
with which he regarded the proverbial duplicity of the Byzantine
character.
A garrison having been stationed at Mazara, the Moslems marched on
Syracuse. This city, although it had lost much of its former wealth
and splendor, was still one of the most important seaports of the
Mediterranean. Its ancient circumference of one hundred and eighty
stadii--eleven and a half miles--was practically the same as when
described by Strabo. A triple line of defences still encompassed it.
Almost surrounded by the sea, it possessed two harbors--or rather
basins--which afforded not only a safe anchorage for merchant vessels,
but excellent means of protection in time of war. As at Carthage,
these artificial harbors were supplied with well-appointed dock-yards
and arsenals, and constituted the stronghold of the naval power of
Sicily. The reverses of fortune it had experienced had not entirely
deprived Syracuse of its superb monuments of antiquity. Many of the
palaces which antedated the Roman occupation had been preserved. The
fortifications which had repelled so many invaders were standing. At
every turn the eye was delighted with the view of elegant porticoes
and arches, towering columns, vast amphitheatres. In the suburbs
were scattered the villas of the nobility, built upon the sites once
occupied by the winter homes of those Roman patricians whose extortions
had impoverished the island, and whose wealth had enabled them to
command the services of the ministers of dissipation and luxury from
every quarter of the globe. Strong in its natural situation, the
city had been rendered doubly formidable by the skill of the military
engineer. Its walls were lofty and of great thickness. Upon the side of
the sea the aid of a powerful navy was indispensable to an attacking
enemy. Aware of the great strategic value of the place, the imperial
government had exercised unusual care in the preservation and repair
of its defences. The only obstacle to a successful resistance was
the extent of the fortifications, which required a garrison of many
thousand soldiers to man them properly. The habitual carelessness and
imaginary security of her pleasure-loving citizens had left Syracuse
totally unprepared for a siege. At the approach of the Moslems, every
expedient was adopted to remedy this culpable neglect. Supplies
were hastily collected from the villages and fertile lands in the
neighborhood. The precious vessels and furniture of the churches and
religious houses were carried into the citadel. From the trembling
artisans and laborers, who, with their families, had fled in haste to
the city to escape the lances of the Berber cavalry, already scouting
in the neighborhood, a numerous but inefficient militia was organized.
In order to gain time, the progress of the Moslems was stayed by
unprofitable negotiations, and a large sum of money was offered as
a condition of their leaving the city unmolested. Euphemius, true
to the base instincts of his race, and apparently eager to secure
an ignominious distinction among his unprincipled countrymen by the
commission of a double treason, secretly exhorted the garrison to a
vigorous defence by promises of assistance and by the inculcation of
patriotic maxims. The pretexts prompted by Byzantine perfidy could not
long impose upon the wily and penetrating Ibn-Forat. His spies revealed
the plans of the enemy; the Moslem army broke camp; and a few days
afterwards the invaders appeared before the walls.
Notwithstanding their extensive preparations for the campaign, the
Saracens were unprovided with the military appliances necessary to
make the siege successful. Their engineers had not yet attained that
superiority in their profession which subsequently enabled them to
rank with the best soldiers of the age. Their great victories had
been won, for the most part, by the activity of their operations, and
by their intrepid behavior in the face of an enemy rather than by
endurance and discipline. The transports were inadequate to an attack
by water, which required the services of a fleet of well-built and
well-protected galleys. In addition to these disadvantages, the force
of Ibn-Forat had been reduced by the establishment of garrisons, by
the casualties of battle, by disease, by desertion. A large detachment
was constantly detailed to guard the prisoners and the spoil. Entire
companies of Berbers, weary of the monotony and restraints of the
camp, had abandoned the army after the battle, to indulge in their
favorite pastimes of rapine and massacre. Thus hampered, a partial
and ineffectual blockade was all that the Moorish general could hope
to accomplish. He therefore threw up intrenchments and despatched a
messenger to Africa for reinforcements.
It was not long before a more formidable enemy than the Byzantines
attacked the camp of the besiegers. The country had been completely
stripped of provisions by the foraging parties of both armies. Such
supplies as had been overlooked by the Sicilians were wasted or
destroyed by the Moors, who began to experience the effects of their
improvidence in the sufferings of starvation. The soldiers devoured
their horses. But these were not sufficiently numerous to satisfy the
cravings of hunger, and the famishing Moslems were driven to the use of
unwholesome plants and herbs. A mutiny broke out, which was at once
suppressed by the iron will of the undaunted commander, who threatened,
in case the mutineers did not return to their duty, to burn his ships.
At length reinforcements and an abundant supply of provisions appeared
in the camp, and, the spirits of the soldiery having revived, the lines
were drawn still closer around the beleaguered city.
The latter had been strengthened by an army of Venetians under the
Doge, Justinian Participazus, who had been ordered by the Emperor,
Michael the Stammerer, to drive the Moslems from Syracuse. The task,
however, proved too arduous for the dignitary, who seems to have
been endowed with more conceit than military ability. While their
communications by sea were not intercepted, the people of Syracuse were
in no danger of famine, but on the land side the city was completely
invested. The country was gradually occupied by the Saracens; a large
force commanded by the governor of Palermo was decoyed into an ambush
and cut to pieces; the prestige of victory tempted many subjects of
the Emperor to renounce their allegiance and their faith for the code
of Mohammed; and, although no impression had yet been made on the
stupendous fortifications, the advantages of the war seemed to be
entirely on the side of the Moslems. Disheartened by their enforced
inactivity, and harassed by the clamors of the peasantry, who had
witnessed from the ramparts the spoliation and ruin of their homes, the
Sicilian authorities made overtures for peace, which were disdainfully
refused.
But fortune, which had hitherto favored the invader, now deserted
his standard. A pestilence, the result of exposure and unwholesome
food, decimated the besiegers. Among the first to succumb was the
veteran general, whose martial spirit and indomitable energy had been
the soul of the enterprise. With him perished the only hand capable
of restraining and utilizing the unruly elements which composed the
Saracen army. Insubordination and tumult immediately arose. Amidst
the confusion, the hostages and the commanders of fortresses and
towns subdued by the Moslem arms who were detained as prisoners
escaped. Information was at once spread throughout the island of the
loss sustained by the enemy and of the demoralized condition of his
camp. Confidence and order were not restored by the announcement
that Mohammed-Ibn-al-Gewari had, by the suffrages of the soldiery,
been raised to the dignity of lieutenant of the Sultan, when it was
disclosed that his promotion had been brought about by the enemies
of the sovereign; his chief title to their favor being subserviency
to a faction whose overthrow had been mainly effected by the courage
and address of the deceased commander. The favorable auspices under
which the operations of the Moslems had hitherto been conducted no
longer encouraged them with the prospect of success. Disease in its
most appalling form, aggravated by neglect of the simplest sanitary
precautions, stalked through their encampment. In addition to these
misfortunes, the kingdom of Ziadet-Allah was harassed by the incursion
of a band of Tuscan adventurers, who defeated the Sultan’s troops in
a series of encounters and carried their victorious standards almost
to the gates of Kairoan. Under these discouraging circumstances it was
determined to raise the siege. The troops and baggage were embarked;
but just as the fleet was ready to sail, a great squadron, sent by
the Emperor to relieve the city, closed the entrance to the harbor.
The Moorish army was hastily landed, the supplies and camp equipage
were thrown into the sea, and the ships set on fire to avoid their
seizure by the enemy. The sick were abandoned to their fate, and the
disheartened soldiery, almost without provisions or the means of
shelter, took refuge in the mountains, a day’s journey from the scene
of their privations and discomfiture. Thus ended the first siege of
Syracuse, whose immunity from capture was due more to the strength of
its walls and the deficiency of its besiegers in military engines than
to the resolution and intrepidity of its defenders. Half a century was
to elapse before the cry of the muezzin would be heard from the tower
of the cathedral, or the tramp of the Arab squadrons resound through
the streets which had witnessed the exploits of Pyrrhus, Agathocles,
and Marcellus.
In the elevated and salubrious region where stood the city of Mineo,
to which they were led by Euphemius, the Saracens speedily found
relief. The plague disappeared. Foraging parties were sent out, which
returned with an abundance of supplies. The strength and courage of the
despairing Moslems were restored; several fortified places fell into
the hands of their flying squadrons, and, finally, they felt themselves
strong enough to attempt an enterprise of the greatest importance. Near
the interior of the island stood the fortress of Castrogiovanni,--the
Castrum-Ennæ of antiquity. It was built upon a rock rising high above
a table-land, whose surface, broken and rugged from the effects of
volcanic action, resembled in its sharp and undulating ridges the
billows of a stormy sea. Upon the summit of the rock once stood a
temple dedicated to the worship of the goddess Ceres, the favorite
deity of the pagan Sicilians. Every resource of engineering skill had
been brought to bear to insure the impregnability of this formidable
citadel. Numerous springs supplied the inhabitants with fresh water.
With its natural advantages for defence, supplemented thus with all
the artifices of human ingenuity, the siege of Castrogiovanni might
well have deterred the boldest captain. But, undismayed by their
unfortunate experience at Syracuse, the Moslems intrenched themselves
before this stronghold. A sally of the Byzantine garrison was repulsed
with great carnage. Communication with the surrounding country was cut
off. In order publicly to announce the permanence of their occupancy,
substantial barracks were raised for the troops, and money bearing
the name and device of the Aghlabite dynasty was coined from silver
reserved from the share of royal spoil. Once more the Saracens were
called upon to pay the last honors to their general, and the army chose
as its commander, Zobeir-Ibn-Ghauth. The latter proved no match for the
active Theodotus, governor of Castrogiovanni, who craftily intercepted
and cut to pieces a foraging detachment, and soon afterwards defeated
the Moslems in a pitched battle in which they lost a thousand men.
The siege was raised; the invaders retreated in confusion to Mineo;
the inhabitants of the smaller fortresses, which the Moslems had
occupied on their route, rebelled and massacred the garrisons; the
sight of a turbaned horseman was sufficient to infuriate the peasantry
of an entire province; and after two years of frightful privation
and incessant conflict, the Moslems saw themselves restricted to the
isolated fortified towns of Mineo and Mazara, which they themselves had
taken without difficulty, and of whose possession they were scarcely
sure for a single day in the face of a vindictive and determined enemy.
While the affairs of the invaders had grown desperate, and the speedy
abandonment of the island seemed inevitable, fortune, with her
proverbial fickleness, once more smiled upon them. A fleet manned
by Spanish adventurers and commanded by an experienced officer,
Asbagh-Ibn-Wikil, landed supplies and troops which strengthened the
position of the despairing Saracens. The Greek emperor, Michael the
Stammerer, died, and was succeeded by the weak and cruel Theophilus,
who, amidst the pleasures of the Byzantine capital and the indulgence
of his savage and perfidious instincts, had neither time nor treasure
to devote to the recovery of the most important island of his
dominions. The Venetian squadron in the pay of the Emperor, left
without co-operation with the land forces, seeing little prospect of
victory and still less of plunder, sailed ingloriously away, abandoning
the decimated Byzantine army to the tender mercies of the Moorish
pirates, who landing on all sides again swarmed over the island.
The civil commotions which had for a time seriously menaced the power
of Ziadet-Allah having been quelled, he now felt himself at liberty to
afford substantial aid to his subjects in Sicily. An imposing fleet
of three hundred ships, transporting an army of twenty thousand men,
sailed in the year 830 from the harbors of Africa. A force including
such a great variety of nationalities had rarely assembled under the
banner of any leader. Every tribe of Berbers and Arabs, from the
Nile to the Atlantic, was represented in this motley and turbulent
host. Yemenite exiles, refugees from Persia, renegade Greeks, and
Spanish Moors of every faction which, in turn, had desolated the most
enchanting and fertile provinces of the Peninsula, hastened to enlist
in the invading army. The politic Ziadet-Allah offered with success
tempting inducements to the enrolment of the Tunisian rebels who had
recently disputed his authority; convinced that few of those dangerous
subjects who could be prevailed upon to face the pestilential climate
of the Sicilian coast and the weapons of the Byzantine veterans would
ever return to vex the tranquillity of his empire. This expedition
also was placed under the command of Asbagh-Ibn-Wikil, whose former
attempt, already mentioned, had been merely in the nature of a
reconnoissance. The invading army, despite its formidable appearance,
failed to realize the expectations which had been raised by its numbers
and its boasted valor. Without discipline, and wholly bent on plunder,
its force was consumed in mutinous tumults and predatory excursions.
The country, already devastated by the roving squadrons of both
nations, was now compelled to sustain another oppressive visitation
by robbers more pitiless and more insatiable than their predecessors.
Still the enterprise of Asbagh was not entirely fruitless. Theodotus,
the Byzantine general, was defeated and slain under the walls of Mineo,
and the strong town of Ghalulia was taken by storm. But here the
plague broke out in the Moslem camp. Asbagh and his principal officers
perished; the deaths increased so rapidly that a retreat was resolved
upon, and the Saracens, after sustaining considerable loss at the hands
of the enemy, embarked in disorder and returned, a portion to Africa,
but the majority to Spain.
Meanwhile a great blow had been struck by a detachment of Asbagh’s
army acting, as it seems, independently of his orders. A division
of Africans appeared suddenly before Palermo. The siege, which
lasted a year, was pushed with an energy and a perseverance hitherto
unprecedented in the military operations of the impetuous but easily
disheartened Moslems. The defeat of the Greeks before Mineo deprived
the garrison of all hope of relief from that quarter. The Emperor,
with characteristic negligence, afforded but slight and ineffectual
aid. Abandoned to their fate, the soldiery, reinforced by the
public-spirited citizens, conducted an heroic but unavailing defence.
In addition to the inevitable casualties of war, their ranks were
reduced by hunger and the plague. From seventy thousand their numbers
fell to three thousand within twelve months,--an almost incredible
mortality. It was not in the power of human endurance to longer support
such sufferings and privations. The governor negotiated an honorable
capitulation, and the remnant of the garrison was permitted to depart
without hinderance, retaining their arms and effects. The slaves of
the Byzantine patricians experienced a change of masters, and the most
famous insular emporium of the Mediterranean, whose traditions dated
to the highest antiquity, whose history was inseparably interwoven
with the stirring events of the fierce struggle of Rome and Carthage
for the supremacy of the world, whose magnificence and sensuality
were proverbial among the polished voluptuaries of Italy and the
Orient, passed into the hands of the Saracen, to be raised under his
auspices to a still higher degree of commercial greatness and material
prosperity.
With the excellent base of operations afforded by the capture of
Palermo, the affairs of the Moslems assumed a more promising aspect. No
longer were they confined to the insufficient and precarious shelter of
isolated castles and insignificant hamlets. The naval advantages of the
city, whose harbor had been improved and enlarged by the labor of many
successive nations, were incalculable. Easy and rapid communication
was now possible with the ports of Africa. Supplies and reinforcements
could be introduced into any part of the island in defiance of the
utmost exertions of the naval power of Constantinople. The fertile
territory included in this new conquest was capable, even under an
imperfect and negligent system of cultivation, of furnishing support to
a numerous army. Nor was the prestige attaching to the name of Palermo
the least of the manifold benefits resulting from its possession.
No city was better known throughout the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean. It was founded by the Phœnicians. It had been one of
the most frequented marts of antiquity. Tyre, Carthage, Athens, Rome,
Constantinople, had in turn been enriched by its commerce, and had
contaminated it with their vices. In natural advantages, in facility
of intercourse with distant countries, in the possession of a trade
established long before any mentioned in the earliest historical
records, in the boundless agricultural possibilities of its adjacent
territory, in the convenience and excellence of its port as a naval
station, Palermo could vie with even the greatest commercial centres of
the ancient or the medieval world. For the power which could take and
hold such a city, the subjugation of Sicily was but a question of time.
The serious results of its occupation soon became apparent even to the
inefficient and corrupt government of the Bosphorus. The depopulation
of the city, where streets of palaces and rows of elegant suburban
villas awaited the claim of the military adventurer, allured from every
settlement of Northern Africa swarms of ferocious and intrepid soldiers
of fortune. From a Christian community, Palermo was, as if by magic,
metamorphosed into a colony of Islam. The cathedral became a Djalma;
the churches were transformed into mosques. In accordance with Moorish
custom, separate quarters were assigned to the votaries of different
religions, and set apart for the maintenance of various branches of
traffic. The entire city assumed an Oriental aspect. Flowing robes and
lofty turbans took the place of the ungraceful Byzantine and Italian
costumes. The veiled ladies of the harems, attended by gorgeously
attired eunuchs, glided silently through the streets or peered
coquettishly through projecting lattices at the passing stranger.
The beasts of burden peculiar to the East, trooping along like the
march of a caravan, became too common to excite the attention of the
curious multitude. Everywhere appeared canals, aqueducts, fountains.
The vegetation recalled to the traveller the date plantations and
oleander groves of the Nile and the Euphrates. The villas of the
military chieftain and the opulent merchant were counterparts of
the exquisite palaces of Seville and Damascus. The genius of Arab
civilization found nowhere a more favorable field for its exercise than
at Palermo. Within a few months after its capture scarcely anything
remained to suggest that the city had not always been Mohammedan. Every
circumstance of time and locality was propitious to the foundation of
a new and powerful Moslem state which, in subsequent times, was fated
to influence the destiny and to form the civilization of some of the
greatest monarchies of Christendom.
The factious character of the troops composing the victorious army was
disclosed as soon as Palermo had fallen into their hands. A division
of Spanish Moors which had been prominent in the attack upon the city
claimed the conquest for the Ommeyades. But the superior numbers of the
Africans, as well as the fact that the expedition had been equipped at
the expense of the Sultan of Kairoan, soon disposed of this demand,
and Ziadet-Allah appointed his cousin, Abu-Fihr-Mohammed, as his
representative in Sicily. The Moslems, now secure of a refuge in case
of disaster and constantly receiving reinforcements, began to make
rapid progress in the subjection of the island. Their foraging parties
infested every accessible portion of the country, and carried their
ravages to the gates of Taormina on the eastern coast. The general
success attending their arms was, however, clouded by the assassination
of Abu-Fihr, whose murderers found an asylum with the enemy. His
successor, Fadl-Ibn-Yakub, defeated the Greeks in a pitched battle;
but the victory was rendered unprofitable by the incessant contentions
of the hostile parties which infested every portion of the military and
naval service of the Saracens. The unfavorable condition of affairs
having been reported to Ziadet-Allah, he sent Abu-al-Aghlab, the
brother of Abu-Fihr, to assume the supreme command. Under the direction
of this wise prince, whose talents speedily reconciled the disputes and
suppressed the insolence of the soldiery, the conquest was prosecuted
with renewed energy. He equipped a squadron of vessels provided with
projectiles of Greek fire, the most formidable weapon of the age, and
by its means soon became the master of the coast. The neighboring
islands which had hitherto escaped the calamities with which Sicily
had been visited were laid waste. Corleone, Platani, Marineo, and many
smaller towns were taken. The garrisons of the cities still held by
the Christians were so intimidated that they feared to venture beyond
their walls. At the end of the year 840 one-third of the island was
in the possession of the Arabs; their occupancy had lost its original
character of a desultory inroad, and now began to assume the appearance
of a permanent settlement; a truce, welcomed if not actually solicited
by the fears of the Greeks, imparted an assurance of at least temporary
security to the inhabitants, while an increasing trade with Egypt,
Africa, and Spain assured the commercial fortunes of the new colony,
whose power and prestige had already advanced to such a height that its
alliance was eagerly sought by its natural enemies on the other side of
the Strait of Messina.
With the death of Charlemagne, the Papacy, deprived of its protector,
was compelled to rely for the enforcement of its edicts upon the
celestial power from which its traditions derived both their origin
and their authority. Its divine claims to the obedience and reverence
of mankind had, however, little weight with the fierce nobles of the
age, when those pretensions were not sustained by armed force. At that
time the princes of Beneventum, descendants of the Lombards, ruled the
greater portion of Southern Italy. The little republics of Naples,
Gaeta, Sorrento, and Amalfi, whose independence was a political anomaly
in an era of feudal servitude, presented an unexpected and formidable
barrier to the ambitious designs of the Lombard barons. Aware of the
ultimate result of the struggle if fought unaided, and seeing no
opportunity of obtaining assistance from the monarchs of Christendom,
the despairing citizens of Naples applied to the Sicilian Moslems.
The alliance then concluded endured for fifty years, in defiance of
the proclamations of crusades, of the anathemas of the Church, and of
the campaigns inaugurated under its auspices, and on more than one
memorable occasion seriously menaced the perpetuity of the conditions
which prevailed in the political and religious society of Europe.
The Emir, Abu-al-Aghlab, lost no time in despatching a fleet to assist
the Neapolitans, already besieged by the Lombard prince, Sicardus. The
city was relieved, and the besiegers so taken at a disadvantage that
they were compelled to negotiate a truce with the republic, and to
release without ransom the prisoners whom they had captured. Scarcely
a year elapsed before the Neapolitans were called upon to enlist
their services in an enterprise of not inferior importance. A Moslem
squadron descended without warning upon Messina. Naples responded with
alacrity to the summons of her new allies; and while the attention
of the garrison was distracted by a furious attack by the combined
fleets, a picked detachment scaled the walls from the rear, and
almost without bloodshed another of the great Sicilian capitals was
added to the rapidly increasing Moorish empire. Encouraged by their
victory, the Saracens redoubled their efforts to extend and consolidate
their dominion. Their annals have preserved for us the names and the
memory of many flourishing cities, among them, Alimena, Lentini, and
Butera, whose prosperity had survived the pernicious effects of Roman
oppression and Byzantine neglect, whose capture was an important factor
in the conquest, but whose history and location are now more or less
involved in obscurity.
About this time the veteran Emir, Abu-al-Aghlab, died, full of years
and glory. The populace of Palermo, elated by success, and desirous
to assert, upon every occasion, their independent and seditious
spirit, without notice to the court of Kairoan, chose by acclamation,
as governor of the colony, Abbas-Ibn-Fadl, a captain noted for the
determination of his character and the ferocity of his manners. Under
his administration the war was prosecuted more vigorously than ever.
The fields of the industrious peasant, however remote, were never
secure from the destructive visits of the Arab freebooter. Such
Christian settlements as were sufficiently wealthy were permitted
to retain their lands upon payment of a tribute usually largely in
excess of that prescribed by Mohammedan law, and which was but a
doubtful guaranty of safety when the caprice of the conqueror suggested
an increase of his already rapacious and extravagant demands. The
requirements of a population constantly engaged in warfare necessitated
the employment of a large number of slaves in the cultivation of the
soil. These were obtained not only from captives taken in battle, but
as a portion of the tribute wrung from the cowardly Greeks, who did
not hesitate to sacrifice their retainers, and even their kinsmen,
for the enjoyment of a temporary security. The Moors, conscious of
the helplessness of their infidel tributaries, whom they considered
as already vanquished and indebted for even existence to their own
moderation, often refused offerings of gold and precious commodities,
and exacted instead the delivery of a prescribed number of human
cattle, whose lives were speedily extinguished by the severe labor to
which they were subjected in the pestilential atmosphere of the coast
and of the marshy valleys of the interior, where the culture of rice
was conducted with great profit and with a flagrant disregard of the
mortality it occasioned.
An incident, trivial in itself, but, in the event, most important, now
occurred to further exalt the reputation of the Moslem arms. A Greek of
high rank was seized by a scouting party of Saracens in the environs
of Castrogiovanni. The prisoner, conducted to Palermo, and found to
be incapable of manual labor and without means to procure the heavy
ransom demanded, was condemned to death by the merciless governor,
whose practical but cruel policy did not encourage the maintenance of
useless captives. As he was being led away by the executioner, the
Greek patrician implored with passionate entreaties the clemency of the
Emir, promising him the possession of Castrogiovanni if his life were
spared. Abbas listened with eagerness to a proposal so congenial to his
adventurous and ambitious spirit. A detachment of a thousand horsemen
and seven hundred foot, selected for their prowess, was assembled with
all diligence and secrecy, and, guided by the renegade and commanded
by the Emir in person, departed in silence from Palermo by night, and
proceeded to its destination by unfrequented roads and the dangerous
paths of mountain solitudes. Arriving without molestation in the
vicinity of the city, the Arab general placed all of his cavalry and
a portion of his infantry in ambush on the south, where the approach
was the least difficult, and the groves of the suburban residences
occupied by the wealthier inhabitants afforded excellent facilities
for concealment. A chosen band of warriors, directed by the Byzantine
traitor, ascended with infinite trouble the precipitous face of the
rock on the north side of the citadel, and at the foot of the wall
awaited with impatience the first rays of the sun. With the approach of
dawn, the vigilance of the sentinels was relaxed, for the impregnable
character of the fortress seemed of itself sufficient protection in
the glare of open day, and, forgetting that vigilance is one of the
first duties of a soldier, the guards sought repose after the fatigues
of the night. No sooner had they disappeared from the ramparts, when
the Moslems, in single file, introduced themselves into the citadel by
means of an aqueduct which passed under the wall. The few stragglers
abroad at that early hour were cut down; the gates were thrown open,
and, amidst the clash of arms and the war-cry of the Moslems, the main
body of the detachment, headed by the Emir, dashed into the city.
The lustre of the triumph was sadly tarnished by the atrocities with
which it was accompanied. The garrison was deliberately butchered. Not
a single soldier escaped. The women and children were condemned to
slavery. Within the walls of Castrogiovanni, as a place of absolute
security, were collected the most distinguished and opulent of the
Christian inhabitants, with the bulk of the remaining treasure of the
island. The priesthood had stored here the wealth amassed by the fears
and the generosity of the superstitious and devout populace during
many centuries. All became the prey of the conqueror. The value of the
booty was immense. Hardly a patrician family could be found in all
Sicily which did not mourn the captivity of some relative or friend.
The children of nobles who traced their genealogy to the most brilliant
epoch of Roman grandeur were ruthlessly consigned to the guard-rooms
and the harems of Moorish captains. The loss of Castrogiovanni was the
greatest calamity which had befallen the Sicilians since the Saracens
first landed on the island. The customary changes instituted by the
latter on the capture of a city were perfected without delay, the
churches were purified and turned into mosques, the estates of the
vanquished were partitioned among the principal officers, the tribute
of the surviving citizens was regulated, the slaves were apportioned
among their new masters, and the plunder was classified and divided
according to the regulations of Islam. The boundless exultation of the
victors led them to set apart, in addition to the usual fifth of the
spoil due to the Sultan, a portion of the richest booty and a number of
the most beautiful captives for the Khalif of Bagdad, whose supremacy
was not acknowledged by the Moorish princes of the West. Thus in the
hour of triumph these sanguinary fanatics, many of whom recognized
no law but that of force, and no faith save the idolatrous worship
proscribed by the Koran, could forget the national hatred engendered
by generations of hostility and the acrimony of religious controversy,
in their magnanimous desire to honor the Successor of the Prophet, the
most exalted potentate of the Mohammedan world.
The political results that followed the surprise of Castrogiovanni
were not less weighty than the physical advantages which enured to the
victorious Saracens. The military prestige of the latter was immensely
increased. While the Christians held the fortress it was confidently
believed that no enemy could take it. The flower of the Moslem army
had already retired in disgrace from before its walls. It was the
bulwark of imperial power, the refuge of the Church, the asylum of the
timid. Its possession was a guaranty that the hated invader could never
extend his dominion over the island; the pledge that the ceremonies of
his blasphemous ritual would never pollute the holy precincts of its
temples. Relics, whose miraculous virtues were attested by the votive
offerings of the pious of many generations, were exhibited upon its
shrines. And now that this stronghold had fallen, men lost confidence
in the protecting power of Heaven, as they had already done in the
efficacy of human weapons. The unfortunate garrison had paid for its
negligence with death. The sacred mementos of the saints had been
discredited. To a feeling of apathy, however, soon succeeded a desire
for vengeance. Even the idle and licentious court of Constantinople was
stirred to action, and a fleet of three hundred sail was despatched
from the Bosphorus to retrieve the disaster and to re-establish the
imperial authority. Landing at Syracuse, the Greeks advanced along the
coast accompanied by the fleet. The Emir, advised of their movements,
fell upon them unexpectedly; the astonished and ill-disciplined
soldiers of the East were unable to withstand the furious attack of
the Arabs, and in the rout which followed the savage victors indulged
to satiety their thirst for carnage. No prisoners were taken. The
terrified Greeks, huddled together in disorder, were massacred without
pity. Hundreds were drowned in an ineffectual attempt to reach the
fleet by swimming. The intrepid Moslems, with the aid of boats obtained
from Palermo, captured a hundred vessels from the enemy; their crews
being driven into the water at the edge of the scimetar. Undaunted by
this catastrophe, a second expedition was organized for the reconquest
of the island; the imperial army was increased by a considerable number
of Sicilians, and the combined forces marched upon Palermo. Again the
wily Abbas, by the celerity of his movements and the bravery of his
troops, disconcerted the plans of the enemy. After a furious battle
near Cefalu, the advantage of the day remained with the Saracens;
the Greeks were compelled to retreat, and the Emir, enraged by the
obstinate resistance he had encountered, retaliated by carrying fire
and sword to the gates of Syracuse.
Soon after his return from this expedition, Abbas became ill and died,
and his remains, committed to the grave by his sorrowing followers,
were, after the departure of the latter, dug up by the Greeks, insulted
by every device of impotent malice which hatred and fear could suggest,
and finally consumed by fire; the only means of revenge available to
his pusillanimous adversaries, who had so frequently experienced the
vindictiveness of his temper and the power of his arms. During the
eleven years of his administration, the Christians were subjected to
continuous warfare. Like the Great Al-Mansur, he understood perfectly
the advantages of allowing an enemy no time to replenish his treasury
or to recruit his strength. By the efforts of his military genius the
boundaries of the imperial domain had been annually contracted, until
little territory acknowledged the supremacy of Constantinople except
that in the immediate vicinity of Syracuse. His political sagacity
suggested the alliance with the disaffected states of Italy, and the
establishment of Moslem settlements on the main-land as a basis of
future military operations and a perpetual menace to both the imperial
and the papal courts.
The death of the Emir Abbas was the signal of discord and contention
in every Saracen community in Sicily. The tribal prejudices of the
different factions which had been temporarily repressed by the iron
will of the deceased governor now manifested themselves with greater
violence than ever. The Berbers, the Yemenites, and the Ismailians
arrayed themselves against one another in a bitter triangular
contest. Assassination became of every-day occurrence. The property
of citizens was not secure from the rapacious and insubordinate
soldiery even within the walls of castles. With the commission of
every fresh outrage, the animosity of the rival factions was inflamed
and intensified. Towns and districts became mutually and vindictively
hostile. As was the case in all the countries governed by the
Mohammedan polity, whose regulations were incapable of controlling
the antagonistic elements which from the very foundation of a state
threatened its dismemberment, the Sicilian colony disclosed the same
symptoms of ruin, and began to exhibit a tendency to disintegration
even before the sovereignty of the Moslems had been fully established
over the island.
A monarch of far different temper from his predecessors was now seated
upon the throne of the Cæsars. The career of Basil, the Macedonian,
whose statesmanlike qualities and inflexible resolution had reformed
the administration of the Empire, had suppressed the abuses of the
Church, and had challenged the respect of the barbarians, seemed to
indicate an adversary far more to be feared than the two Michaels,--the
“Stammerer” and the “Drunkard,”--under whose disgraceful reigns the
successes of the Moslems had been principally obtained.
Before this epoch the Christians of Sicily, notwithstanding the
prejudices of race and religious belief, and the grievous injuries they
had sustained at the hands of their enemies, had begun to observe with
increasing favor the equitable government of the Moslems as compared
with the capricious and extortionate exactions of the officials of the
Empire. The condition of the tributaries under Mussulman dominion,
while unquestionably less favorable than that of their co-religionists
in almost any other Mohammedan country, was still worthy of envy by
the subjects of the Byzantine Emperor. Their tax was certain and
fixed by law. They enjoyed, unmolested by persecution, the practice
of their faith and the observance of their social customs, so far as
they did not interfere with those peculiar to their rulers. Their own
magistrates dispensed justice in ordinary causes according to the
forms of legal procedure to which they had always been accustomed.
The frequent impositions of the court of Constantinople were far
more onerous than the tribute demanded at a defined period by the
collectors of the Moorish treasury. All things considered, there is
little doubt that, had it not been for the pernicious example of
anarchy afforded by hostile factions at the death of every emir, the
remaining portion of the island would have voluntarily submitted within
a few years to the authority of Islam. The excesses of the ferocious
partisans, who, during the interregnum preceding the election of every
new governor, plundered friend and foe alike, deterred the timid
Christians from seeking a change of masters, and the accession of the
Emperor Basil confirmed them in their allegiance. The first effort
of the new sovereign was to raise the aspirations of the tributaries
to independence. Conspiracies were formed. A considerable part of
the territory held by the Moslems, visited by the emissaries of the
Emperor, and encouraged by the disturbances following the death of
Abbas, revolted. The insurrection was quelled, but the misconduct
of the captains appointed by the new governor, Khafagia-Ibn-Sofian,
brought disgrace and disaster upon the Saracen arms. The Emir himself
was repulsed before Syracuse, which had been reinforced and greatly
strengthened by the Emperor, who recognized it as the key of the
imperial power in Sicily. Not long afterwards this misfortune was
retrieved by a great victory gained over the imperial forces under
the walls of that city, in which the army of the Greeks was almost
annihilated, and the Moslems, laden with the rich spoil of the East,
returned in triumph to Palermo. In the year 869 Khafagia lost his life
in an ineffectual attempt to capture Syracuse by storm. The next year
his son Mohammed, who succeeded him, was assassinated by his own
slaves.
The repeated reverses sustained by the Greeks had impaired confidence
in their leaders, whose incompetency was more responsible for the
defeats of the imperial army than the want of discipline which was
so conspicuous among the rank and file. Although the progress of the
Moslems was slow, it was certain. Their losses were easily repaired,
their impetuosity was rather stimulated than checked by misfortune,
and in every respect their recuperative power proved itself superior
to that of their enemies. The territory of Sicily, although far from
subdued, seemed too limited for their daring ambition. Passing the
Strait of Messina they swept the ancient province of Magna-Græcia
with destruction. They conquered Apulia and Calabria. They ravaged
the duchy of Spoleto. They surprised Ancona. They seized Beneventum,
Brindisi, Tarentum, Bari. They occupied the promontory of Misenum,
under the very walls of Naples. They established themselves on the
coast of Dalmatia. They sacked and burned the ancient city of Capua.
They founded the colony of Garigliano, a constant menace to the
Papal States, and long the scourge of the Christian principalities
of Italy. Independent settlements, composed of soldiers of fortune
who had become familiarized with their pitiless calling in the civil
wars of Spain and Africa, were founded throughout the south of the
Italian Peninsula. The captains of these outlaws assumed the titles of
sovereignty, robbed and massacred the Christian peasants, and acquired
for the name of Moslem a terror and an execration not inferior to that
which distinguished the powers of darkness. Neapolitan pilots guided
their corsairs along the shores of the Adriatic. The squadrons of the
Sultan of Africa routed the Venetians in several naval encounters,
landed forces at the mouth of the Po, drove the commerce of the Italian
republics from the sea, and pushed their incursions as far as the
confines of Istria. They penetrated to the gates of Rome, destroyed
the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, which were situated outside
the walls, and insulted the dignity of the Holy See by horrible acts
of sacrilege. The relics of the Saints were subjected to unspeakable
insult. Monks were slaughtered without mercy or driven away in crowds
to toil in the Sicilian marshes. Nuns were seized to be exposed for
sale in the slave-markets of Palermo and Kairoan. Had it not been that
the Eternal City was too well fortified for an army unprovided with the
military engines necessary for a siege to attack it with any prospect
of success, the Mohammedan worship might have been introduced into the
stronghold of Christianity. With the exception of the sack of Rome by
the Constable of Bourbon in a subsequent age, the throne of the Papacy
was never subjected to a more humiliating indignity. The constant
dissensions of the semi-independent principalities of Italy aided
in maintaining the foothold of the Saracens far more than their own
valor or resources. Their colonies existed by the sufferance of their
foes. The feudal barons, in most instances, detested their Christian
neighbors--not infrequently connected with them by ties of blood as
well as by the obligations of a common religious belief--far more than
the blaspheming Moslems. In vain was the aid of the Emperor of Germany
invoked; his plans were thwarted by the discord and treachery of his
allies. The forces he despatched for the relief of the Italians were
constantly at variance with the Byzantines, and armies, almost equal to
the conquest of an empire, were fruitlessly employed in the quarrels
of petty sovereigns, whose union was indispensable to the expulsion
of a crafty and audacious enemy. The Pope, either through weakness or
from motives of policy, seems to have generally kept aloof from this
crusade, prosecuted in his behalf as the head of Christendom, as well
as to assure the stability of his temporal power.
During the course of these events, Ibrahim-Ibn-Ahmed, a prince of
rare administrative talents, of vast accomplishments, of boundless
ambition, and of a character remarkable for barbarity even in an age of
tyrants, had ascended the throne of Kairoan. Desirous of signalizing
his accession by the successful prosecution of an enterprise which
his predecessors had in vain attempted, he determined to capture
Syracuse. A numerous army was raised. In accordance with the favorite
policy of the sovereigns of Africa, special care was exercised that
the malcontents who had manifested hostility towards the government
should be enrolled in the expedition. When pecuniary inducements
failed to tempt these disturbers of the peace, they were seized and
forced to embark. The preparations were worthy of the importance and
difficulties of the undertaking. The fleet consisted of the swiftest
and largest vessels of the Moorish navy. The army was provided with the
most formidable engines ever constructed by the Arabs for the siege
of any city. The command was intrusted to Giafar-Ibn-Mohammed, the
newly appointed Emir of Sicily, an officer of ability, experience, and
courage.
It was fifty years since the Moslems had made their first attempt to
wrest from the Byzantines this great city renowned from the earliest
antiquity. Its conquest had been the cherished dream of many emirs,
one after another of whom had retired in disgrace from before its
walls. In every campaign, its suburbs, and the lands upon which its
population were mainly dependent for subsistence, had been ravaged by
squadrons of Moorish horsemen. The diminution of tribute consequent
upon the failure and destruction of agricultural products, the massacre
and enslavement of the cultivators of the soil, the stagnation of
commerce, and the emigration of wealthy citizens, had induced the court
of Constantinople--which viewed every question with an eye single to
pecuniary advantage--to almost withdraw its support from the last
remaining bulwark against the Moslem supremacy in Sicily. The number of
inhabitants had been greatly diminished within a quarter of a century.
The troops who still maintained the shadow of imperial power in the
island were largely recruited from the martial youth of Syracuse. The
pestilence, which had so often decimated the besiegers, had not spared
the defenders of the city. Thousands had perished from this cause
alone. These facts being considered, and the vast extent of its walls
being remembered, it is probable that at no previous period of its
history was Syracuse so ill qualified to sustain a siege.