appeared in arms under the walls of Constantinople. They were animated
by a genuine or fictitious saying of the prophet, that, to the first
army which besieged the city of the CÊsars, their sins were forgiven:
the long series of Roman triumphs would be meritoriously transferred to
the conquerors of New Rome; and the wealth of nations was deposited in
this well-chosen seat of royalty and commerce. No sooner had the caliph
Moawiyah suppressed his rivals and established his throne, than he
aspired to expiate the guilt of civil blood, by the success and glory of
this holy expedition; his preparations by sea and land were adequate to
the importance of the object; his standard was intrusted to Sophian,
a veteran warrior, but the troops were encouraged by the example and
presence of Yezid, the son and presumptive heir of the commander of
the faithful. The Greeks had little to hope, nor had their enemies any
reason of fear, from the courage and vigilance of the reigning emperor,
who disgraced the name of Constantine, and imitated only the inglorious
years of his grandfather Heraclius. Without delay or opposition, the
naval forces of the Saracens passed through the unguarded channel of the
Hellespont, which even now, under the feeble and disorderly government
of the Turks, is maintained as the natural bulwark of the capital. The
Arabian fleet cast anchor, and the troops were disembarked near the
palace of Hebdomon, seven miles from the city. During many days, from
the dawn of light to the evening, the line of assault was extended from
the golden gate to the eastern promontory and the foremost warriors were
impelled by the weight and effort of the succeeding columns. But the
besiegers had formed an insufficient estimate of the strength and
resources of Constantinople. The solid and lofty walls were guarded by
numbers and discipline: the spirit of the Romans was rekindled by
the last danger of their religion and empire: the fugitives from the
conquered provinces more successfully renewed the defence of Damascus
and Alexandria; and the Saracens were dismayed by the strange and
prodigious effects of artificial fire. This firm and effectual
resistance diverted their arms to the more easy attempt of plundering
the European and Asiatic coasts of the Propontis; and, after keeping
the sea from the month of April to that of September, on the approach of
winter they retreated fourscore miles from the capital, to the Isle
of Cyzicus, in which they had established their magazine of spoil and
provisions. So patient was their perseverance, or so languid were their
operations, that they repeated in the six following summers the same
attack and retreat, with a gradual abatement of hope and vigor, till the
mischances of shipwreck and disease, of the sword and of fire, compelled
them to relinquish the fruitless enterprise. They might bewail the loss,
or commemorate the martyrdom, of thirty thousand Moslems, who fell in
the siege of Constantinople; and the solemn funeral of Abu Ayub, or Job,
excited the curiosity of the Christians themselves. That venerable Arab,
one of the last of the companions of Mahomet, was numbered among the
_ansars_, or auxiliaries, of Medina, who sheltered the head of the
flying prophet. In his youth he fought, at Beder and Ohud, under the
holy standard: in his mature age he was the friend and follower of Ali;
and the last remnant of his strength and life was consumed in a distant
and dangerous war against the enemies of the Koran. His memory was
revered; but the place of his burial was neglected and unknown, during
a period of seven hundred and eighty years, till the conquest of
Constantinople by Mahomet the Second. A seasonable vision (for such are
the manufacture of every religion) revealed the holy spot at the foot of
the walls and the bottom of the harbor; and the mosch of Ayub has been
deservedly chosen for the simple and martial inauguration of the Turkish
sultans.
The event of the siege revived, both in the East and West, the
reputation of the Roman arms, and cast a momentary shade over the
glories of the Saracens. The Greek ambassador was favorably received at
Damascus, a general council of the emirs or Koreish: a peace, or
truce, of thirty years was ratified between the two empires; and the
stipulation of an annual tribute, fifty horses of a noble breed, fifty
slaves, and three thousand pieces of gold, degraded the majesty of the
commander of the faithful. The aged caliph was desirous of possessing
his dominions, and ending his days in tranquillity and repose: while the
Moors and Indians trembled at his name, his palace and city of Damascus
was insulted by the Mardaites, or Maronites, of Mount Libanus, the
firmest barrier of the empire, till they were disarmed and transplanted
by the suspicious policy of the Greeks. After the revolt of Arabia and
Persia, the house of Ommiyah was reduced to the kingdoms of Syria
and Egypt: their distress and fear enforced their compliance with the
pressing demands of the Christians; and the tribute was increased to
a slave, a horse, and a thousand pieces of gold, for each of the three
hundred and sixty-five days of the solar year. But as soon as the empire
was again united by the arms and policy of Abdalmalek, he disclaimed
a badge of servitude not less injurious to his conscience than to his
pride; he discontinued the payment of the tribute; and the resentment
of the Greeks was disabled from action by the mad tyranny of the second
Justinian, the just rebellion of his subjects, and the frequent change
of his antagonists and successors. Till the reign of Abdalmalek, the
Saracens had been content with the free possession of the Persian and
Roman treasures, in the coins of Chosroes and CÊsar. By the command of
that caliph, a national mint was established, both for silver and gold,
and the inscription of the Dinar, though it might be censured by some
timorous casuists, proclaimed the unity of the God of Mahomet. Under
the reign of the caliph Walid, the Greek language and characters were
excluded from the accounts of the public revenue. If this change was
productive of the invention or familiar use of our present numerals, the
Arabic or Indian ciphers, as they are commonly styled, a regulation
of office has promoted the most important discoveries of arithmetic,
algebra, and the mathematical sciences.
Whilst the caliph Walid sat idle on the throne of Damascus, whilst his
lieutenants achieved the conquest of Transoxiana and Spain, a third army
of Saracens overspread the provinces of Asia Minor, and approached the
borders of the Byzantine capital. But the attempt and disgrace of
the second siege was reserved for his brother Soliman, whose ambition
appears to have been quickened by a more active and martial spirit. In
the revolutions of the Greek empire, after the tyrant Justinian had been
punished and avenged, an humble secretary, Anastasius or Artemius, was
promoted by chance or merit to the vacant purple. He was alarmed by
the sound of war; and his ambassador returned from Damascus with the
tremendous news, that the Saracens were preparing an armament by sea and
land, such as would transcend the experience of the past, or the belief
of the present age. The precautions of Anastasius were not unworthy of
his station, or of the impending danger. He issued a peremptory mandate,
that all persons who were not provided with the means of subsistence for
a three years' siege should evacuate the city: the public granaries
and arsenals were abundantly replenished; the walls were restored and
strengthened; and the engines for casting stones, or darts, or fire,
were stationed along the ramparts, or in the brigantines of war, of
which an additional number was hastily constructed. To prevent is safer,
as well as more honorable, than to repel, an attack; and a design was
meditated, above the usual spirit of the Greeks, of burning the naval
stores of the enemy, the cypress timber that had been hewn in Mount
Libanus, and was piled along the sea-shore of Phnicia, for the service
of the Egyptian fleet. This generous enterprise was defeated by the
cowardice or treachery of the troops, who, in the new language of the
empire, were styled of the _Obsequian Theme_. They murdered their chief,
deserted their standard in the Isle of Rhodes, dispersed themselves over
the adjacent continent, and deserved pardon or reward by investing with
the purple a simple officer of the revenue. The name of Theodosius might
recommend him to the senate and people; but, after some months, he sunk
into a cloister, and resigned, to the firmer hand of Leo the Isaurian,
the urgent defence of the capital and empire. The most formidable of the
Saracens, Moslemah, the brother of the caliph, was advancing at the head
of one hundred and twenty thousand Arabs and Persians, the greater
part mounted on horses or camels; and the successful sieges of Tyana,
Amorium, and Pergamus, were of sufficient duration to exercise their
skill and to elevate their hopes. At the well-known passage of Abydus,
on the Hellespont, the Mahometan arms were transported, for the first
time, from Asia to Europe. From thence, wheeling round the Thracian
cities of the Propontis, Moslemah invested Constantinople on the land
side, surrounded his camp with a ditch and rampart, prepared and planted
his engines of assault, and declared, by words and actions, a patient
resolution of expecting the return of seed-time and harvest, should
the obstinacy of the besieged prove equal to his own. The Greeks would
gladly have ransomed their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment
of a piece of gold on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the
liberal offer was rejected with disdain, and the presumption of Moslemah
was exalted by the speedy approach and invincible force of the natives
of Egypt and Syria. They are said to have amounted to eighteen hundred
ships: the number betrays their inconsiderable size; and of the twenty
stout and capacious vessels, whose magnitude impeded their progress,
each was manned with no more than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers. This
huge armada proceeded on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards
the mouth of the Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was overshadowed,
in the language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal
night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for a general assault by sea
and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the emperor had thrown
aside the chain that usually guarded the entrance of the harbor; but
while they hesitated whether they should seize the opportunity, or
apprehend the snare, the ministers of destruction were at hand. The
fire-ships of the Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs, their
arms, and vessels, were involved in the same flames; the disorderly
fugitives were dashed against each other or overwhelmed in the waves;
and I no longer find a vestige of the fleet, that had threatened to
extirpate the Roman name. A still more fatal and irreparable loss was
that of the caliph Soliman, who died of an indigestion, in his camp
near Kinnisrin or Chalcis in Syria, as he was preparing to lead against
Constantinople the remaining forces of the East. The brother of Moslemah
was succeeded by a kinsman and an enemy; and the throne of an active
and able prince was degraded by the useless and pernicious virtues of
a bigot. While he started and satisfied the scruples of a blind
conscience, the siege was continued through the winter by the neglect,
rather than by the resolution of the caliph Omar. The winter proved
uncommonly rigorous: above a hundred days the ground was covered with
deep snow, and the natives of the sultry climes of Egypt and Arabia lay
torpid and almost lifeless in their frozen camp. They revived on the
return of spring; a second effort had been made in their favor; and
their distress was relieved by the arrival of two numerous fleets, laden
with corn, and arms, and soldiers; the first from Alexandria, of four
hundred transports and galleys; the second of three hundred and sixty
vessels from the ports of Africa. But the Greek fires were again
kindled; and if the destruction was less complete, it was owing to the
experience which had taught the Moslems to remain at a safe distance, or
to the perfidy of the Egyptian mariners, who deserted with their ships
to the emperor of the Christians. The trade and navigation of the
capital were restored; and the produce of the fisheries supplied the
wants, and even the luxury, of the inhabitants. But the calamities of
famine and disease were soon felt by the troops of Moslemah, and as the
former was miserably assuaged, so the latter was dreadfully propagated,
by the pernicious nutriment which hunger compelled them to extract from
the most unclean or unnatural food. The spirit of conquest, and even of
enthusiasm, was extinct: the Saracens could no longer struggle, beyond
their lines, either single or in small parties, without exposing
themselves to the merciless retaliation of the Thracian peasants.
An army of Bulgarians was attracted from the Danube by the gifts and
promises of Leo; and these savage auxiliaries made some atonement for
the evils which they had inflicted on the empire, by the defeat and
slaughter of twenty-two thousand Asiatics. A report was dexterously
scattered, that the Franks, the unknown nations of the Latin world, were
arming by sea and land in the defence of the Christian cause, and their
formidable aid was expected with far different sensations in the camp
and city. At length, after a siege of thirteen months, the hopeless
Moslemah received from the caliph the welcome permission of retreat.
* The march of the Arabian cavalry over the Hellespont and through the
provinces of Asia, was executed without delay or molestation; but an
army of their brethren had been cut in pieces on the side of Bithynia,
and the remains of the fleet were so repeatedly damaged by tempest and
fire, that only five galleys entered the port of Alexandria to relate
the tale of their various and almost incredible disasters.
In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be chiefly
ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real efficacy of the
_Greek fire_. The important secret of compounding and directing this
artificial flame was imparted by Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis
in Syria, who deserted from the service of the caliph to that of the
emperor. The skill of a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the
succor of fleets and armies; and this discovery or improvement of the
military art was fortunately reserved for the distressful period, when
the degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with the
warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigor of the Saracens. The historian who
presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition should suspect
his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the
marvellous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the truth.
From their obscure, and perhaps fallacious, hints it should seem that
the principal ingredient of the Greek fire was the _naphtha_, or liquid
bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, which springs from the
earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in contact with the air. The
naphtha was mingled, I know not by what methods or in what proportions,
with sulphur and with the pitch that is extracted from evergreen firs.
From this mixture, which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion,
proceeded a fierce and obstinate flame, which not only rose in
perpendicular ascent, but likewise burnt with equal vehemence in descent
or lateral progress; instead of being extinguished, it was nourished and
quickened by the element of water; and sand, urine, or vinegar, were the
only remedies that could damp the fury of this powerful agent, which was
justly denominated by the Greeks the _liquid_, or the _maritime_, fire.
For the annoyance of the enemy, it was employed with equal effect, by
sea and land, in battles or in sieges. It was either poured from the
rampart in large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and
iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow,
which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was deposited
in fire-ships, the victims and instruments of a more ample revenge, and
was most commonly blown through long tubes of copper which were planted
on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into the mouths of savage
monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of liquid and consuming fire.
This important art was preserved at Constantinople, as the palladium of
the state: the galleys and _artillery_ might occasionally be lent to the
allies of Rome; but the composition of the Greek fire was concealed with
the most jealous scruple, and the terror of the enemies was increased
and prolonged by their ignorance and surprise. In the treaties of the
administration of the empire, the royal author suggests the answers and
excuses that might best elude the indiscreet curiosity and importunate
demands of the Barbarians. They should be told that the mystery of the
Greek fire had been revealed by an angel to the first and greatest of
the Constantines, with a sacred injunction, that this gift of Heaven,
this peculiar blessing of the Romans, should never be communicated to
any foreign nation; that the prince and the subject were alike bound to
religious silence under the temporal and spiritual penalties of treason
and sacrilege; and that the impious attempt would provoke the sudden
and supernatural vengeance of the God of the Christians. By these
precautions, the secret was confined, above four hundred years, to the
Romans of the East; and at the end of the eleventh century, the Pisans,
to whom every sea and every art were familiar, suffered the effects,
without understanding the composition, of the Greek fire. It was at
length either discovered or stolen by the Mahometans; and, in the holy
wars of Syria and Egypt, they retorted an invention, contrived against
themselves, on the heads of the Christians. A knight, who despised the
swords and lances of the Saracens, relates, with heartfelt sincerity,
his own fears, and those of his companions, at the sight and sound of
the mischievous engine that discharged a torrent of the Greek fire, the
_feu Gregeois_, as it is styled by the more early of the French
writers. It came flying through the air, says Joinville, like a winged
long-tailed dragon, about the thickness of a hogshead, with the report
of thunder and the velocity of lightning; and the darkness of the night
was dispelled by this deadly illumination. The use of the Greek, or, as
it might now be called, of the Saracen fire, was continued to the middle
of the fourteenth century, when the scientific or casual compound of
nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, effected a new revolution in the art of
war and the history of mankind.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.--Part II.
Constantinople and the Greek fire might exclude the Arabs from the
eastern entrance of Europe; but in the West, on the side of the
Pyrenees, the provinces of Gaul were threatened and invaded by the
conquerors of Spain. The decline of the French monarchy invited the
attack of these insatiate fanatics. The descendants of Clovis had
lost the inheritance of his martial and ferocious spirit; and their
misfortune or demerit has affixed the epithet of _lazy_ to the last
kings of the Merovingian race. They ascended the throne without power,
and sunk into the grave without a name. A country palace, in the
neighborhood of Compiegne was allotted for their residence or prison:
but each year, in the month of March or May, they were conducted in a
wagon drawn by oxen to the assembly of the Franks, to give audience to
foreign ambassadors, and to ratify the acts of the mayor of the palace.
That domestic officer was become the minister of the nation and the
master of the prince. A public employment was converted into the
patrimony of a private family: the elder Pepin left a king of mature
years under the guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these
feeble regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his
bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost
dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and the
territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of the monarch,
and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among these independent
chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful was Eudes, duke of
Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of Gaul usurped the authority,
and even the title of king. The Goths, the Gascons, and the Franks,
assembled under the standard of this Christian hero: he repelled the
first invasion of the Saracens; and Zama, lieutenant of the caliph, lost
his army and his life under the walls of Thoulouse. The ambition of his
successors was stimulated by revenge; they repassed the Pyrenees with
the means and the resolution of conquest. The advantageous situation
which had recommended Narbonne as the first Roman colony, was again
chosen by the Moslems: they claimed the province of Septimania or
Languedoc as a just dependence of the Spanish monarchy: the vineyards
of Gascony and the city of Bourdeaux were possessed by the sovereign of
Damascus and Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of
the Garonne to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of
Arabia.
But these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of Abdalraman, or
Abderame, who had been restored by the caliph Hashem to the wishes of
the soldiers and people of Spain. That veteran and daring commander
adjudged to the obedience of the prophet whatever yet remained of France
or of Europe; and prepared to execute the sentence, at the head of a
formidable host, in the full confidence of surmounting all opposition
either of nature or of man. His first care was to suppress a domestic
rebel, who commanded the most important passes of the Pyrenees: Manuza,
a Moorish chief, had accepted the alliance of the duke of Aquitain;
and Eudes, from a motive of private or public interest, devoted his
beauteous daughter to the embraces of the African misbeliever. But the
strongest fortresses of Cerdagne were invested by a superior force; the
rebel was overtaken and slain in the mountains; and his widow was sent
a captive to Damascus, to gratify the desires, or more probably the
vanity, of the commander of the faithful. From the Pyrenees, Abderame
proceeded without delay to the passage of the Rhone and the siege of
Arles. An army of Christians attempted the relief of the city: the tombs
of their leaders were yet visible in the thirteenth century; and many
thousands of their dead bodies were carried down the rapid stream into
the Mediterranean Sea. The arms of Abderame were not less successful
on the side of the ocean. He passed without opposition the Garonne and
Dordogne, which unite their waters in the Gulf of Bourdeaux; but he
found, beyond those rivers, the camp of the intrepid Eudes, who had
formed a second army and sustained a second defeat, so fatal to the
Christians, that, according to their sad confession, God alone could
reckon the number of the slain. The victorious Saracen overran the
provinces of Aquitain, whose Gallic names are disguised, rather than
lost, in the modern appellations of Perigord, Saintonge, and Poitou: his
standards were planted on the walls, or at least before the gates,
of Tours and of Sens; and his detachments overspread the kingdom of
Burgundy as far as the well-known cities of Lyons and Besancon. The
memory of these devastations (for Abderame did not spare the country or
the people) was long preserved by tradition; and the invasion of France
by the Moors or Mahometans affords the groundwork of those fables,
which have been so wildly disfigured in the romances of chivalry, and
so elegantly adorned by the Italian muse. In the decline of society and
art, the deserted cities could supply a slender booty to the Saracens;
their richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which
they stripped of their ornaments and delivered to the flames: and the
tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours, forgot
their miraculous powers in the defence of their own sepulchres. A
victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from
the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an
equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland
and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than
the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a
naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of
the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits
might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the
revelation of Mahomet.