cultivation, is not unworthy of the preference. The heat of the climate
is tempered by the vicinity of the sea and mountains, by the plenty
of wood and water; and the produce of a fertile soil affords the
subsistence, and encourages the propagation, of men and animals. From
the age of David to that of Heraclius, the country was overspread
with ancient and flourishing cities: the inhabitants were numerous and
wealthy; and, after the slow ravage of despotism and superstition, after
the recent calamities of the Persian war, Syria could still attract
and reward the rapacious tribes of the desert. A plain, of ten days'
journey, from Damascus to Aleppo and Antioch, is watered, on the western
side, by the winding course of the Orontes. The hills of Libanus and
Anti-Libanus are planted from north to south, between the Orontes and
the Mediterranean; and the epithet of _hollow_ (Clesyria) was applied to
a long and fruitful valley, which is confined in the same direction,
by the two ridges of snowy mountains. Among the cities, which are
enumerated by Greek and Oriental names in the geography and conquest
of Syria, we may distinguish Emesa or Hems, Heliopolis or Baalbec, the
former as the metropolis of the plain, the latter as the capital of the
valley. Under the last of the CÊsars, they were strong and populous; the
turrets glittered from afar: an ample space was covered with public and
private buildings; and the citizens were illustrious by their spirit, or
at least by their pride; by their riches, or at least by their luxury.
In the days of Paganism, both Emesa and Heliopolis were addicted to the
worship of Baal, or the sun; but the decline of their superstition and
splendor has been marked by a singular variety of fortune. Not a vestige
remains of the temple of Emesa, which was equalled in poetic style to
the summits of Mount Libanus, while the ruins of Baalbec, invisible
to the writers of antiquity, excite the curiosity and wonder of the
European traveller. The measure of the temple is two hundred feet in
length, and one hundred in breadth: the front is adorned with a double
portico of eight columns; fourteen may be counted on either side; and
each column, forty-five feet in height, is composed of three massy
blocks of stone or marble. The proportions and ornaments of the
Corinthian order express the architecture of the Greeks: but as Baalbec
has never been the seat of a monarch, we are at a loss to conceive how
the expense of these magnificent structures could be supplied by private
or municipal liberality. From the conquest of Damascus the Saracens
proceeded to Heliopolis and Emesa: but I shall decline the repetition of
the sallies and combats which have been already shown on a larger scale.
In the prosecution of the war, their policy was not less effectual than
their sword. By short and separate truces they dissolved the union of
the enemy; accustomed the Syrians to compare their friendship with their
enmity; familiarized the idea of their language, religion, and manners;
and exhausted, by clandestine purchase, the magazines and arsenals of
the cities which they returned to besiege. They aggravated the ransom of
the more wealthy, or the more obstinate; and Chalcis alone was taxed
at five thousand ounces of gold, five thousand ounces of silver, two
thousand robes of silk, and as many figs and olives as would load five
thousand asses. But the terms of truce or capitulation were faithfully
observed; and the lieutenant of the caliph, who had promised not to
enter the walls of the captive Baalbec, remained tranquil and immovable
in his tent till the jarring factions solicited the interposition of
a foreign master. The conquest of the plain and valley of Syria was
achieved in less than two years. Yet the commander of the faithful
reproved the slowness of their progress; and the Saracens, bewailing
their fault with tears of rage and repentance, called aloud on their
chiefs to lead them forth to fight the battles of the Lord. In a recent
action, under the walls of Emesa, an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled,
was heard aloud to exclaim, "Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking
upon me; one of whom, should she appear in this world, all mankind would
die for love of her. And I see in the hand of one of them a handkerchief
of green silk, and a cap of precious stones, and she beckons me, and
calls out, Come hither quickly, for I love thee." With these words,
charging the Christians, he made havoc wherever he went, till, observed
at length by the governor of Hems, he was struck through with a javelin.
It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of their valor
and enthusiasm against the forces of the emperor, who was taught, by
repeated losses, that the rovers of the desert had undertaken, and would
speedily achieve, a regular and permanent conquest. From the provinces
of Europe and Asia, fourscore thousand soldiers were transported by sea
and land to Antioch and CÊsarea: the light troops of the army consisted
of sixty thousand Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the
banner of Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the
van; and it was a maxim of the Greeks, that for the purpose of cutting
diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius withheld his person
from the dangers of the field; but his presumption, or perhaps his
despondency, suggested a peremptory order, that the fate of the province
and the war should be decided by a single battle. The Syrians were
attached to the standard of Rome and of the cross: but the noble, the
citizen, the peasant, were exasperated by the injustice and cruelty of
a licentious host, who oppressed them as subjects, and despised them as
strangers and aliens. A report of these mighty preparations was conveyed
to the Saracens in their camp of Emesa, and the chiefs, though resolved
to fight, assembled a council: the faith of Abu Obeidah would have
expected on the same spot the glory of martyrdom; the wisdom of Caled
advised an honorable retreat to the skirts of Palestine and Arabia,
where they might await the succors of their friends, and the attack of
the unbelievers. A speedy messenger soon returned from the throne of
Medina, with the blessings of Omar and Ali, the prayers of the widows of
the prophet, and a reÎnforcement of eight thousand Moslems. In their way
they overturned a detachment of Greeks, and when they joined at Yermuk
the camp of their brethren, they found the pleasing intelligence, that
Caled had already defeated and scattered the Christian Arabs of the
tribe of Gassan. In the neighborhood of Bosra, the springs of Mount
Hermon descend in a torrent to the plain of Decapolis, or ten cities;
and the Hieromax, a name which has been corrupted to Yermuk, is lost,
after a short course, in the Lake of Tiberias. The banks of this obscure
stream were illustrated by a long and bloody encounter. On this
momentous occasion, the public voice, and the modesty of Abu Obeidah,
restored the command to the most deserving of the Moslems. Caled assumed
his station in the front, his colleague was posted in the rear, that the
disorder of the fugitive might be checked by his venerable aspect, and
the sight of the yellow banner which Mahomet had displayed before the
walls of Chaibar. The last line was occupied by the sister of Derar,
with the Arabian women who had enlisted in this holy war, who were
accustomed to wield the bow and the lance, and who in a moment of
captivity had defended, against the uncircumcised ravishers, their
chastity and religion. The exhortation of the generals was brief and
forcible: "Paradise is before you, the devil and hell-fire in your
rear." Yet such was the weight of the Roman cavalry, that the right wing
of the Arabs was broken and separated from the main body. Thrice did
they retreat in disorder, and thrice were they driven back to the charge
by the reproaches and blows of the women. In the intervals of action,
Abu Obeidah visited the tents of his brethren, prolonged their repose
by repeating at once the prayers of two different hours, bound up their
wounds with his own hands, and administered the comfortable reflection,
that the infidels partook of their sufferings without partaking of their
reward. Four thousand and thirty of the Moslems were buried in the field
of battle; and the skill of the Armenian archers enabled seven hundred
to boast that they had lost an eye in that meritorious service. The
veterans of the Syrian war acknowledged that it was the hardest and most
doubtful of the days which they had seen. But it was likewise the most
decisive: many thousands of the Greeks and Syrians fell by the swords
of the Arabs; many were slaughtered, after the defeat, in the woods and
mountains; many, by mistaking the ford, were drowned in the waters of
the Yermuk; and however the loss may be magnified, the Christian writers
confess and bewail the bloody punishment of their sins. Manuel, the
Roman general, was either killed at Damascus, or took refuge in the
monastery of Mount Sinai. An exile in the Byzantine court, Jabalah
lamented the manners of Arabia, and his unlucky preference of the
Christian cause. He had once inclined to the profession of Islam; but
in the pilgrimage of Mecca, Jabalah was provoked to strike one of his
brethren, and fled with amazement from the stern and equal justice of
the caliph These victorious Saracens enjoyed at Damascus a month of
pleasure and repose: the spoil was divided by the discretion of Abu
Obeidah: an equal share was allotted to a soldier and to his horse,
and a double portion was reserved for the noble coursers of the Arabian
breed.
After the battle of Yermuk, the Roman army no longer appeared in the
field; and the Saracens might securely choose, among the fortified towns
of Syria, the first object of their attack. They consulted the caliph
whether they should march to CÊsarea or Jerusalem; and the advice of
Ali determined the immediate siege of the latter. To a profane eye,
Jerusalem was the first or second capital of Palestine; but after Mecca
and Medina, it was revered and visited by the devout Moslems, as the
temple of the Holy Land which had been sanctified by the revelation of
Moses, of Jesus, and of Mahomet himself. The son of Abu Sophian was
sent with five thousand Arabs to try the first experiment of surprise
or treaty; but on the eleventh day, the town was invested by the whole
force of Abu Obeidah. He addressed the customary summons to the chief
commanders and people of _∆lia_.
"Health and happiness to every one that follows the right way! We
require of you to testify that there is but one God, and that Mahomet is
his apostle. If you refuse this, consent to pay tribute, and be under us
forthwith. Otherwise I shall bring men against you who love death better
than you do the drinking of wine or eating hog's flesh. Nor will I ever
stir from you, if it please God, till I have destroyed those that fight
for you, and made slaves of your children." But the city was defended
on every side by deep valleys and steep ascents; since the invasion of
Syria, the walls and towers had been anxiously restored; the bravest of
the fugitives of Yermuk had stopped in the nearest place of refuge; and
in the defence of the sepulchre of Christ, the natives and strangers
might feel some sparks of the enthusiasm, which so fiercely glowed in
the bosoms of the Saracens. The siege of Jerusalem lasted four months;
not a day was lost without some action of sally or assault; the military
engines incessantly played from the ramparts; and the inclemency of
the winter was still more painful and destructive to the Arabs. The
Christians yielded at length to the perseverance of the besiegers.
The patriarch Sophronius appeared on the walls, and by the voice of an
interpreter demanded a conference. After a vain attempt to dissuade
the lieutenant of the caliph from his impious enterprise, he proposed,
in the name of the people, a fair capitulation, with this extraordinary
clause, that the articles of security should be ratified by the
authority and presence of Omar himself. The question was debated in the
council of Medina; the sanctity of the place, and the advice of Ali,
persuaded the caliph to gratify the wishes of his soldiers and enemies;
and the simplicity of his journey is more illustrious than the royal
pageants of vanity and oppression. The conqueror of Persia and Syria
was mounted on a red camel, which carried, besides his person, a bag
of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern bottle of water.
Wherever he halted, the company, without distinction, was invited to
partake of his homely fare, and the repast was consecrated by the prayer
and exhortation of the commander of the faithful. But in this expedition
or pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the administration of
justice: he reformed the licentious polygamy of the Arabs, relieved the
tributaries from extortion and cruelty, and chastised the luxury of the
Saracens, by despoiling them of their rich silks, and dragging them on
their faces in the dirt. When he came within sight of Jerusalem, the
caliph cried with a loud voice, "God is victorious. O Lord, give us an
easy conquest!" and, pitching his tent of coarse hair, calmly seated
himself on the ground. After signing the capitulation, he entered the
city without fear or precaution; and courteously discoursed with the
patriarch concerning its religious antiquities. Sophronius bowed before
his new master, and secretly muttered, in the words of Daniel, "The
abomination of desolation is in the holy place." At the hour of prayer
they stood together in the church of the resurrection; but the caliph
refused to perform his devotions, and contented himself with praying on
the steps of the church of Constantine. To the patriarch he disclosed
his prudent and honorable motive. "Had I yielded," said Omar, "to your
request, the Moslems of a future age would have infringed the treaty
under color of imitating my example." By his command the ground of
the temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a mosch; and,
during a residence of ten days, he regulated the present and future
state of his Syrian conquests. Medina might be jealous, lest the
caliph should be detained by the sanctity of Jerusalem or the beauty of
Damascus; her apprehensions were dispelled by his prompt and voluntary
return to the tomb of the apostle.
To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war the caliph had formed two
separate armies; a chosen detachment, under Amrou and Yezid, was left in
the camp of Palestine; while the larger division, under the standard
of Abu Obeidah and Caled, marched away to the north against Antioch
and Aleppo. The latter of these, the BerÊa of the Greeks, was not
yet illustrious as the capital of a province or a kingdom; and the
inhabitants, by anticipating their submission and pleading their
poverty, obtained a moderate composition for their lives and religion.
But the castle of Aleppo, distinct from the city, stood erect on a lofty
artificial mound the sides were sharpened to a precipice, and faced with
free-stone; and the breadth of the ditch might be filled with water
from the neighboring springs. After the loss of three thousand men, the
garrison was still equal to the defence; and Youkinna, their valiant and
hereditary chief, had murdered his brother, a holy monk, for daring
to pronounce the name of peace. In a siege of four or five months, the
hardest of the Syrian war, great numbers of the Saracens were killed and
wounded: their removal to the distance of a mile could not seduce the
vigilance of Youkinna; nor could the Christians be terrified by the
execution of three hundred captives, whom they beheaded before the
castle wall. The silence, and at length the complaints, of Abu Obeidah
informed the caliph that their hope and patience were consumed at the
foot of this impregnable fortress. "I am variously affected," replied
Omar, "by the difference of your success; but I charge you by no means
to raise the siege of the castle. Your retreat would diminish the
reputation of our arms, and encourage the infidels to fall upon you on
all sides. Remain before Aleppo till God shall determine the event, and
forage with your horse round the adjacent country." The exhortation of
the commander of the faithful was fortified by a supply of volunteers
from all the tribes of Arabia, who arrived in the camp on horses or
camels. Among these was Dames, of a servile birth, but of gigantic
size and intrepid resolution. The forty-seventh day of his service he
proposed, with only thirty men, to make an attempt on the castle. The
experience and testimony of Caled recommended his offer; and Abu Obeidah
admonished his brethren not to despise the baser origin of Dames, since
he himself, could he relinquish the public care, would cheerfully serve
under the banner of the slave. His design was covered by the appearance
of a retreat; and the camp of the Saracens was pitched about a league
from Aleppo. The thirty adventurers lay in ambush at the foot of the
hill; and Dames at length succeeded in his inquiries, though he was
provoked by the ignorance of his Greek captives. "God curse these
dogs," said the illiterate Arab; "what a strange barbarous language they
speak!" At the darkest hour of the night, he scaled the most accessible
height, which he had diligently surveyed, a place where the stones
were less entire, or the slope less perpendicular, or the guard less
vigilant. Seven of the stoutest Saracens mounted on each other's
shoulders, and the weight of the column was sustained on the broad and
sinewy back of the gigantic slave. The foremost in this painful ascent
could grasp and climb the lowest part of the battlements; they silently
stabbed and cast down the sentinels; and the thirty brethren, repeating
a pious ejaculation, "O apostle of God, help and deliver us!" were
successively drawn up by the long folds of their turbans. With bold
and cautious footsteps, Dames explored the palace of the governor, who
celebrated, in riotous merriment, the festival of his deliverance. From
thence, returning to his companions, he assaulted on the inside the
entrance of the castle. They overpowered the guard, unbolted the gate,
let down the drawbridge, and defended the narrow pass, till the arrival
of Caled, with the dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured
their conquest. Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and useful
proselyte; and the general of the Saracens expressed his regard for the
most humble merit, by detaining the army at Aleppo till Dames was cured
of his honorable wounds. The capital of Syria was still covered by the
castle of Aazaz and the iron bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of
those important posts, and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies,
the luxury of Antioch trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed with
three hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the throne of the successors
of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government of the East, which had
been decorated by CÊsar with the titles of free, and holy, and inviolate
was degraded under the yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a
provincial town.
In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war are clouded on
either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his more early and his later
days. When the successors of Mahomet unsheathed the sword of war and
religion, he was astonished at the boundless prospect of toil and
danger; his nature was indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of
the emperor be kindled to a second effort. The sense of shame, and the
importunities of the Syrians, prevented the hasty departure from the
scene of action; but the hero was no more; and the loss of Damascus and
Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk, may be imputed in
some degree to the absence or misconduct of the sovereign. Instead of
defending the sepulchre of Christ, he involved the church and state in a
metaphysical controversy for the unity of his will; and while Heraclius
crowned the offspring of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped
of the most valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of
Antioch, in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix,
he bewailed the sins of the prince and people; but his confession
instructed the world, that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to resist
the judgment of God. The Saracens were invincible in fact, since they
were invincible in opinion; and the desertion of Youkinna, his false
repentance and repeated perfidy, might justify the suspicion of
the emperor, that he was encompassed by traitors and apostates, who
conspired to betray his person and their country to the enemies of
Christ. In the hour of adversity, his superstition was agitated by
the omens and dreams of a falling crown; and after bidding an eternal
farewell to Syria, he secretly embarked with a few attendants, and
absolved the faith of his subjects. Constantine, his eldest son, had
been stationed with forty thousand men at CÊsarea, the civil metropolis
of the three provinces of Palestine. But his private interest recalled
him to the Byzantine court; and, after the flight of his father, he
felt himself an unequal champion to the united force of the caliph. His
vanguard was boldly attacked by three hundred Arabs and a thousand black
slaves, who, in the depth of winter, had climbed the snowy mountains of
Libanus, and who were speedily followed by the victorious squadrons
of Caled himself. From the north and south the troops of Antioch and
Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their banners were joined
under the walls of the Phnician cities: Tripoli and Tyre were betrayed;
and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered without distrust the
captive harbors, brought a seasonable supply of arms and provisions to
the camp of the Saracens. Their labors were terminated by the unexpected
surrender of CÊsarea: the Roman prince had embarked in the night; and
the defenceless citizens solicited their pardon with an offering of two
hundred thousand pieces of gold. The remainder of the province, Ramlah,
Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, Sidon,
Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no longer presumed to dispute the
will of the conqueror; and Syria bowed under the sceptre of the
caliphs seven hundred years after Pompey had despoiled the last of the
Macedonian kings.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.--Part VI.
The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many thousands
of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and the cheerfulness of
martyrs; and the simplicity of their faith may be expressed in the words
of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for the last time, his sister and
mother: "It is not," said he, "the delicacies of Syria, or the fading
delights of this world, that have prompted me to devote my life in the
cause of religion. But I seek the favor of God and his apostle; and I
have heard, from one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits
of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall
taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers, of paradise. Farewell, we
shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has provided
for his elect." The faithful captives might exercise a passive and more
arduous resolution; and a cousin of Mahomet is celebrated for refusing,
after an abstinence of three days, the wine and pork, the only
nourishment that was allowed by the malice of the infidels. The frailty
of some weaker brethren exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism;
and the father of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostasy
and damnation of a son, who had renounced the promises of God, and the
intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with the priests and deacons,
the lowest mansions of hell. The more fortunate Arabs, who survived the
war and persevered in the faith, were restrained by their abstemious
leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a refreshment of three days,
Abu Obeidah withdrew his troops from the pernicious contagion of the
luxury of Antioch, and assured the caliph that their religion and virtue
could only be preserved by the hard discipline of poverty and labor. But
the virtue of Omar, however rigorous to himself, was kind and liberal
to his brethren. After a just tribute of praise and thanksgiving, he
dropped a tear of compassion; and sitting down on the ground, wrote
an answer, in which he mildly censured the severity of his lieutenant:
"God," said the successor of the prophet, "has not forbidden the use
of the good things of this world to faithful men, and such as have
performed good works. Therefore you ought to have given them leave
to rest themselves, and partake freely of those good things which the
country affordeth. If any of the Saracens have no family in Arabia, they
may marry in Syria; and whosoever of them wants any female slaves, he
may purchase as many as he hath occasion for." The conquerors prepared
to use, or to abuse, this gracious permission; but the year of their
triumph was marked by a mortality of men and cattle; and twenty-five
thousand Saracens were snatched away from the possession of Syria.
The death of Abu Obeidah might be lamented by the Christians; but his
brethren recollected that he was one of the ten elect whom the prophet
had named as the heirs of paradise. Caled survived his brethren
about three years: and the tomb of the Sword of God is shown in the
neighborhood of Emesa. His valor, which founded in Arabia and Syria
the empire of the caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special
providence; and as long as he wore a cap, which had been blessed
by Mahomet, he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the
infidels.