the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience broke forth in the
province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of Aglab, the lieutenant of the
vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed to the dynasty of the _Aglabite_
the inheritance of his name and power. The indolence or policy of the
caliphs dissembled the injury and loss, and pursued only with poison the
founder of the _Edrisites_, who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on
the shores of the Western ocean. In the East, the first dynasty was
that of the _Taherites_; the posterity of the valiant Taher, who, in
the civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served with too much zeal and
success the cause of Almamon, the younger brother. He was sent
into honorable exile, to command on the banks of the Oxus; and the
independence of his successors, who reigned in Chorasan till the fourth
generation, was palliated by their modest and respectful demeanor, the
happiness of their subjects and the security of their frontier. They
were supplanted by one of those adventures so frequent in the annals
of the East, who left his trade of a brazier (from whence the name of
_Soffarides_) for the profession of a robber. In a nocturnal visit to
the treasure of the prince of Sistan, Jacob, the son of Leith, stumbled
over a lump of salt, which he unwarily tasted with his tongue. Salt,
among the Orientals, is the symbol of hospitality, and the pious robber
immediately retired without spoil or damage. The discovery of this
honorable behavior recommended Jacob to pardon and trust; he led an army
at first for his benefactor, at last for himself, subdued Persia, and
threatened the residence of the Abbassides. On his march towards Bagdad,
the conqueror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience in bed to the
ambassador of the caliph; and beside him on a table were exposed a naked
cimeter, a crust of brown bread, and a bunch of onions. "If I die,"
said he, "your master is delivered from his fears. If I live, _this_ must
determine between us. If I am vanquished, I can return without
reluctance to the homely fare of my youth." From the height where he
stood, the descent would not have been so soft or harmless: a timely
death secured his own repose and that of the caliph, who paid with the
most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother Amrou to the palaces
of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend, too
proud to forgive: they invited the powerful dynasty of the _Samanides_,
who passed the Oxus with ten thousand horse so poor, that their stirrups
were of wood: so brave, that they vanquished the Soffarian army, eight
times more numerous than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in
chains, a grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor
was content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the realms
of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the caliphs. The
provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their Turkish
slaves of the race of _Toulon_ and _Ilkshid_. These Barbarians, in
religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet, emerged from the bloody
factions of the palace to a provincial command and an independent
throne: their names became famous and formidable in their time; but the
founders of these two potent dynasties confessed, either in words or
actions, the vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the
mercy of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power:
the second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight
thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he
attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of kings;
and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by the Abbassides
during an interval of thirty years. In the decline of their empire,
Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul and Aleppo, was occupied
by the Arabian princes of the tribe of _Hamadan_. The poets of their
court could repeat without a blush, that nature had formed their
countenances for beauty, their tongues for eloquence, and their hands
for liberality and valor: but the genuine tale of the elevation and
reign of the _Hamadanites_ exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and
parricide. At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again
usurped by the dynasty of the _Bowides_, by the sword of three brothers,
who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of the
state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would suffer no
tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language and genius of
Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and four years after the
death of Mahomet, were deprived of the sceptre of the East.
Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth of the
successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of commander
of the faithful; the last (says Abulfeda) who spoke to the people,
or conversed with the learned; the last who, in the expense of his
household, represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient
caliphs. After him, the lords of the Eastern world were reduced to the
most abject misery, and exposed to the blows and insults of a servile
condition. The revolt of the provinces circumscribed their dominions
within the walls of Bagdad: but that capital still contained an
innumerable multitude, vain of their past fortune, discontented with
their present state, and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which
had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of nations. Their
idleness was exercised by faction and controversy. Under the mask of
piety, the rigid followers of Hanbal invaded the pleasures of domestic
life, burst into the houses of plebeians and princes, the wine, broke
the instruments, beat the musicians, and dishonored, with infamous
suspicions, the associates of every handsome youth. In each profession,
which allowed room for two persons, the one was a votary, the other an
antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides were awakened by the clamorous
grief of the sectaries, who denied their title, and cursed their
progenitors. A turbulent people could only be repressed by a military
force; but who could satisfy the avarice or assert the discipline of the
mercenaries themselves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their
swords against each other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra,
imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary of
the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the camp or court of any
neighboring prince, their deliverance was a change of servitude, till
they were prompted by despair to invite the Bowides, the sultans of
Persia, who silenced the factions of Bagdad by their irresistible arms.
The civil and military powers were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second
of the three brothers, and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling
was assigned by his generosity for the private expense of the commander
of the faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the
ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling multitude,
the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon, by the command
of the stranger, and the rude hands of his Dilemites. His palace was
pillaged, his eyes were put out, and the mean ambition of the Abbassides
aspired to the vacant station of danger and disgrace. In the school
of adversity, the luxurious caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious
virtues of the primitive times. Despoiled of their armor and silken
robes, they fasted, they prayed, they studied the Koran and the
tradition of the Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowledge,
the functions of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of nations
still waited on the successors of the apostle, the oracles of the law
and conscience of the faithful; and the weakness or division of their
tyrants sometimes restored the Abbassides to the sovereignty of
Bagdad. But their misfortunes had been imbittered by the triumph of
the Fatimites, the real or spurious progeny of Ali. Arising from the
extremity of Africa, these successful rivals extinguished, in Egypt and
Syria, both the spiritual and temporal authority of the Abbassides; and
the monarch of the Nile insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of the
Tigris.
In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which elapsed after
the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hostile transactions of the two
nations were confined to some inroads by sea and land, the fruits of
their close vicinity and indelible hatred. But when the Eastern world
was convulsed and broken, the Greeks were roused from their lethargy
by the hopes of conquest and revenge. The Byzantine empire, since the
accession of the Basilian race, had reposed in peace and dignity; and
they might encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty
emir, whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national foes of
the Mahometan faith. The lofty titles of the morning star, and the death
of the Saracens, were applied in the public acclamations to Nicephorus
Phocas, a prince as renowned in the camp, as he was unpopular in the
city. In the subordinate station of great domestic, or general of the
East, he reduced the Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates
who had so long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire.
His military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the
enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and dishonor. The
Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on safe and level
bridges, which he cast from the vessels to the shore. Seven months were
consumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of the native Cretans was
stimulated by the frequent aid of their brethren of Africa and Spain;
and after the massy wall and double ditch had been stormed by the Greeks
a hopeless conflict was still maintained in the streets and houses
of the city. The whole island was subdued in the capital, and a
submissive people accepted, without resistance, the baptism of the
conqueror. Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp of a
triumph; but the Imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay
the services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus.
After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal descent of
the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively married Nicephorus
Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two heroes of the age. They
reigned as the guardians and colleagues of her infant sons; and the
twelve years of their military command form the most splendid period of
the Byzantine annals. The subjects and confederates, whom they led to
war, appeared, at least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand
strong; and of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses:
a train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their evening
camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron spikes. A series
of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing more than an anticipation
of what would have been effected in a few years by the course of nature;
but I shall briefly prosecute the conquests of the two emperors from the
hills of Cappadocia to the desert of Bagdad. The sieges of Mopsuestia
and Tarsus, in Cilicia, first exercised the skill and perseverance of
their troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow
the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is divided
by the River Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were predestined to
death or slavery, a surprising degree of population, which must at least
include the inhabitants of the dependent districts. They were surrounded
and taken by assault; but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of
famine; and no sooner had the Saracens yielded on honorable terms than
they were mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval
succors of Egypt. They were dismissed with a safe-conduct to the
confines of Syria: a part of the old Christians had quietly lived under
their dominion; and the vacant habitations were replenished by a new
colony. But the mosch was converted into a stable; the pulpit was
delivered to the flames; many rich crosses of gold and gems, the spoils
of Asiatic churches, were made a grateful offering to the piety or
avarice of the emperor; and he transported the gates of Mopsuestia and
Tarsus, which were fixed in the walls of Constantinople, an eternal
monument of his victory. After they had forced and secured the narrow
passes of Mount Amanus, the two Roman princes repeatedly carried their
arms into the heart of Syria. Yet, instead of assaulting the walls of
Antioch, the humanity or superstition of Nicephorus appeared to respect
the ancient metropolis of the East: he contented himself with drawing
round the city a line of circumvallation; left a stationary army; and
instructed his lieutenant to expect, without impatience, the return
of spring. But in the depth of winter, in a dark and rainy night, an
adventurous subaltern, with three hundred soldiers, approached the
rampart, applied his scaling-ladders, occupied two adjacent towers,
stood firm against the pressure of multitudes, and bravely maintained
his post till he was relieved by the tardy, though effectual, support of
his reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter and rapine subsided;
the reign of CÊsar and of Christ was restored; and the efforts of a
hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria and the fleets of
Africa, were consumed without effect before the walls of Antioch. The
royal city of Aleppo was subject to Seifeddowlat, of the dynasty of
Hamadan, who clouded his past glory by the precipitate retreat which
abandoned his kingdom and capital to the Roman invaders. In his stately
palace, that stood without the walls of Aleppo, they joyfully seized a
well-furnished magazine of arms, a stable of fourteen hundred mules,
and three hundred bags of silver and gold. But the walls of the city
withstood the strokes of their battering-rams: and the besiegers pitched
their tents on the neighboring mountain of Jaushan. Their retreat
exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen and mercenaries; the guard of
the gates and ramparts was deserted; and while they furiously charged
each other in the market-place, they were surprised and destroyed by the
sword of a common enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword;
ten thousand youths were led into captivity; the weight of the precious
spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of burden; the
superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after a licentious possession of
ten days, the Romans marched away from the naked and bleeding city. In
their Syrian inroads they commanded the husbandmen to cultivate their
lands, that they themselves, in the ensuing season, might reap the
benefit; more than a hundred cities were reduced to obedience; and
eighteen pulpits of the principal moschs were committed to the flames to
expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. The classic names
of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for a moment in the list of
conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the paradise of Damascus,
and accepted the ransom of a submissive people; and the torrent was
only stopped by the impregnable fortress of Tripoli, on the sea-coast of
Phnicia. Since the days of Heraclius, the Euphrates, below the passage
of Mount Taurus, had been impervious, and almost invisible, to the
Greeks. The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces;
and the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the once
famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, and Nisibis, the
ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood of the Tigris. His
ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping the virgin treasures
of Ecbatana, a well-known name, under which the Byzantine writer has
concealed the capital of the Abbassides. The consternation of the
fugitives had already diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied
riches of Bagdad had already been dissipated by the avarice and
prodigality of domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the
stern demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to
provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied, that
his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn from his hands,
and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which he was unable to
support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture of the palace was sold;
and the paltry price of forty thousand pieces of gold was instantly
consumed in private luxury. But the apprehensions of Bagdad were
relieved by the retreat of the Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the
desert of Mesopotamia; and the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden
with Oriental spoils, returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his
triumph, the silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and
silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by this
transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the fugitive
princes returned to their capitals; the subjects disclaimed their
involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems again purified their
temples, and overturned the idols of the saints and martyrs; the
Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a Saracen to an orthodox master; and
the numbers and spirit of the Melchites were inadequate to the support
of the church and state. Of these extensive conquests, Antioch, with
the cities of Cilicia and the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a
permanent and useful accession to the Roman empire.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.--Part I.
Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.--Extent And
Division.--Wealth And Revenue.--Palace Of Constantinople.--
Titles And Offices.--Pride And Power Of The Emperors.--
Tactics Of The Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.--Loss Of The Latin
Tongue.--Studies And Solitude Of The Greeks.
A ray of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the tenth
century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal volumes of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which he composed at a mature age for the
instruction of his son, and which promise to unfold the state of the
eastern empire, both in peace and war, both at home and abroad. In the
first of these works he minutely describes the pompous ceremonies of the
church and palace of Constantinople, according to his own practice, and
that of his predecessors. In the second, he attempts an accurate survey
of the provinces, the _themes_, as they were then denominated, both of
Europe and Asia. The system of Roman tactics, the discipline and
order of the troops, and the military operations by land and sea, are
explained in the third of these didactic collections, which may be
ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. In the fourth, of the
administration of the empire, he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine
policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the
earth. The literary labors of the age, the practical systems of law,
agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject
and the honor of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the
_Basilics_, the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually
framed in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of
agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of the best
and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts are comprised in
the twenty books of the _Geoponics_ of Constantine. At his command, the
historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized in fifty-three
books, and every citizen might apply, to his contemporaries or himself,
the lesson or the warning of past times. From the august character of a
legislator, the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office
of a teacher and a scribe; and if his successors and subjects were
regardless of his paternal cares, _we_ may inherit and enjoy the
everlasting legacy.
A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the
gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial treasures we
may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the fading glories
of their authors will be obliterated by indifference or contempt. The
Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version, in
the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the
old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the
absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money,
enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the
historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable
virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a pitch of energy
and elevation the human character had formerly aspired. But a contrary
effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the
saints, which the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was
directed to prepare; and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by
the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the _Metaphrast_. The merits
and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a
sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts
of the Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal
authors of the _Geoponics_ were more seriously employed in expounding
the precepts of the destroying art, which had been taught since the days
of Xenophon, as the art of heroes and kings. But the _Tactics_ of Leo
and Constantine are mingled with the baser alloy of the age in which
they lived. It was destitute of original genius; they implicitly
transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories.
It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly
confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of
Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus
and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these
military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory is
dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists
in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise
rather than by study: the talents of a commander are appropriated to
those calm, though rapid, minds, which nature produces to decide the
fate of armies and nations: the former is the habit of a life, the
latter the glance of a moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics
may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism.
The book of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the
despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state since the
gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of the other.
A review of the themes or provinces might promise such authentic and
useful information, as the curiosity of government only can obtain,
instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities, and
malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants. Such information
the historian would have been pleased to record; nor should his silence
be condemned if the most interesting objects, the population of the
capital and provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers
of subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial standard, have
been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son Constantine.
His treatise of the public administration is stained with the same
blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit; the antiquities of
the nations may be doubtful or fabulous; but the geography and manners
of the Barbaric world are delineated with curious accuracy. Of these
nations, the Franks alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and
to describe, the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great
Otho, a bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Constantinople about
the middle of the tenth century: his style is glowing, his narrative
lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices and passions of
Liutprand are stamped with an original character of freedom and genius.
From this scanty fund of foreign and domestic materials, I shall
investigate the form and substance of the Byzantine empire; the
provinces and wealth, the civil government and military force, the
character and literature, of the Greeks in a period of six hundred
years, from the reign of Heraclius to his successful invasion of the
Franks or Latins.