94 (return) [ Every passage and every fact that relates to the

isle, the city, and the colossus of Rhodes, are compiled in the

laborious treatise of Meursius, who has bestowed the same

diligence on the two larger islands of the Crete and Cyprus. See,

in the iiid vol. of his works, the Rhodus of Meursius, (l. i. c.

15, p. 715-719.) The Byzantine writers, Theophanes and

Constantine, have ignorantly prolonged the term to 1360 years,

and ridiculously divide the weight among 30,000 camels.]

95 (return) [ Centum colossi alium nobilitaturi locum, says

Pliny, with his usual spirit. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 18.]

III. The conquest of Egypt may be explained by the character of

the victorious Saracen, one of the first of his nation, in an age

when the meanest of the brethren was exalted above his nature by

the spirit of enthusiasm. The birth of Amrou was at once base and

illustrious; his mother, a notorious prostitute, was unable to

decide among five of the Koreish; but the proof of resemblance

adjudged the child to Aasi, the oldest of her lovers. 96 The

youth of Amrou was impelled by the passions and prejudices of his

kindred: his poetic genius was exercised in satirical verses

against the person and doctrine of Mahomet; his dexterity was

employed by the reigning faction to pursue the religious exiles

who had taken refuge in the court of the Aethiopian king. 97 Yet

he returned from this embassy a secret proselyte; his reason or

his interest determined him to renounce the worship of idols; he

escaped from Mecca with his friend Caled; and the prophet of

Medina enjoyed at the same moment the satisfaction of embracing

the two firmest champions of his cause. The impatience of Amrou

to lead the armies of the faithful was checked by the reproof of

Omar, who advised him not to seek power and dominion, since he

who is a subject to-day, may be a prince to-morrow. Yet his merit

was not overlooked by the two first successors of Mahomet; they

were indebted to his arms for the conquest of Palestine; and in

all the battles and sieges of Syria, he united with the temper of

a chief the valor of an adventurous soldier. In a visit to

Medina, the caliph expressed a wish to survey the sword which had

cut down so many Christian warriors; the son of Aasi unsheathed a

short and ordinary cimeter; and as he perceived the surprise of

Omar, “Alas,” said the modest Saracen, “the sword itself, without

the arm of its master, is neither sharper nor more weighty than

the sword of Pharezdak the poet.” 98 After the conquest of Egypt,

he was recalled by the jealousy of the caliph Othman; but in the

subsequent troubles, the ambition of a soldier, a statesman, and

an orator, emerged from a private station. His powerful support,

both in council and in the field, established the throne of the

Ommiades; the administration and revenue of Egypt were restored

by the gratitude of Moawiyah to a faithful friend who had raised

himself above the rank of a subject; and Amrou ended his days in

the palace and city which he had founded on the banks of the

Nile. His dying speech to his children is celebrated by the

Arabians as a model of eloquence and wisdom: he deplored the

errors of his youth but if the penitent was still infected by the

vanity of a poet, he might exaggerate the venom and mischief of

his impious compositions. 99

96 (return) [ We learn this anecdote from a spirited old woman,

who reviled to their faces, the caliph and his friend. She was

encouraged by the silence of Amrou and the liberality of

Moawiyah, (Abulfeda, Annal Moslem. p. 111.)]

97 (return) [ Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 46, &c., who

quotes the Abyssinian history, or romance of Abdel Balcides. Yet

the fact of the embassy and ambassador may be allowed.]

98 (return) [ This saying is preserved by Pocock, (Not. ad Carmen

Tograi, p 184,) and justly applauded by Mr. Harris,

(Philosophical Arrangements, p. 850.)]

99 (return) [ For the life and character of Amrou, see Ockley

(Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 28, 63, 94, 328, 342, 344, and

to the end of the volume; vol. ii. p. 51, 55, 57, 74, 110-112,

162) and Otter, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi.

p. 131, 132.) The readers of Tacitus may aptly compare Vespasian

and Mucianus with Moawiyah and Amrou. Yet the resemblance is

still more in the situation, than in the characters, of the men.]

From his camp in Palestine, Amrou had surprised or anticipated

the caliph’s leave for the invasion of Egypt. 100 The magnanimous

Omar trusted in his God and his sword, which had shaken the

thrones of Chosroes and Caesar: but when he compared the slender

force of the Moslems with the greatness of the enterprise, he

condemned his own rashness, and listened to his timid companions.

The pride and the greatness of Pharaoh were familiar to the

readers of the Koran; and a tenfold repetition of prodigies had

been scarcely sufficient to effect, not the victory, but the

flight, of six hundred thousand of the children of Israel: the

cities of Egypt were many and populous; their architecture was

strong and solid; the Nile, with its numerous branches, was alone

an insuperable barrier; and the granary of the Imperial city

would be obstinately defended by the Roman powers. In this

perplexity, the commander of the faithful resigned himself to the

decision of chance, or, in his opinion, of Providence. At the

head of only four thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou had marched

away from his station of Gaza when he was overtaken by the

messenger of Omar. “If you are still in Syria,” said the

ambiguous mandate, “retreat without delay; but if, at the receipt

of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers of Egypt,

advance with confidence, and depend on the succor of God and of

your brethren.” The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence,

of Amrou had taught him to suspect the mutability of courts; and

he continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched

on Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the

seal, perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and

situation of the place, and declared his ready obedience to the

commands of the caliph. After a siege of thirty days, he took

possession of Farmah or Pelusium; and that key of Egypt, as it

has been justly named, unlocked the entrance of the country as

far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the neighborhood of the modern

Cairo.

100 (return) [ Al Wakidi had likewise composed a separate history

of the conquest of Egypt, which Mr. Ockley could never procure;

and his own inquiries (vol. i. 344-362) have added very little to

the original text of Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 296-323,

vers. Pocock,) the Melchite patriarch of Alexandria, who lived

three hundred years after the revolution.]

On the Western side of the Nile, at a small distance to the east

of the Pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Delta,

Memphis, one hundred and fifty furlongs in circumference,

displayed the magnificence of ancient kings. Under the reign of

the Ptolemies and Caesars, the seat of government was removed to

the sea-coast; the ancient capital was eclipsed by the arts and

opulence of Alexandria; the palaces, and at length the temples,

were reduced to a desolate and ruinous condition: yet, in the age

of Augustus, and even in that of Constantine, Memphis was still

numbered among the greatest and most populous of the provincial

cities. 101 The banks of the Nile, in this place of the breadth

of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges of sixty and

of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream by the small

island of Rouda, which was covered with gardens and habitations.

102 The eastern extremity of the bridge was terminated by the

town of Babylon and the camp of a Roman legion, which protected

the passage of the river and the second capital of Egypt. This

important fortress, which might fairly be described as a part of

Memphis or Misrah, was invested by the arms of the lieutenant of

Omar: a reenforcement of four thousand Saracens soon arrived in

his camp; and the military engines, which battered the walls, may

be imputed to the art and labor of his Syrian allies. Yet the

siege was protracted to seven months; and the rash invaders were

encompassed and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. 103

Their last assault was bold and successful: they passed the

ditch, which had been fortified with iron spikes, applied their

scaling ladders, entered the fortress with the shout of “God is

victorious!” and drove the remnant of the Greeks to their boats

and the Isle of Rouda. The spot was afterwards recommended to the

conqueror by the easy communication with the gulf and the

peninsula of Arabia; the remains of Memphis were deserted; the

tents of the Arabs were converted into permanent habitations; and

the first mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore

companions of Mahomet. 104 A new city arose in their camp, on the

eastward bank of the Nile; and the contiguous quarters of Babylon

and Fostat are confounded in their present decay by the

appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of which they form an

extensive suburb. But the name of Cairo, the town of victory,

more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded in

the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. 105 It has gradually

receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be

traced by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to

those of Saladin. 106

101 (return) [ Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator,

observes of Heliopolis, (Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1158;) but of

Memphis he notices, however, the mixture of inhabitants, and the

ruin of the palaces. In the proper Egypt, Ammianus enumerates

Memphis among the four cities, maximis urbibus quibus provincia

nitet, (xxii. 16;) and the name of Memphis appears with

distinction in the Roman Itinerary and episcopal lists.]

102 (return) [ These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946

feet) and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the

Danish traveller and the Nubian geographer, (p. 98.)]

103 (return) [ From the month of April, the Nile begins

imperceptibly to rise; the swell becomes strong and visible in

the moon after the summer solstice, (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 10,) and

is usually proclaimed at Cairo on St. Peter’s day, (June 29.) A

register of thirty successive years marks the greatest height of

the waters between July 25 and August 18, (Maillet, Description

de l’Egypte, lettre xi. p. 67, &c. Pocock’s Description of the

East, vol. i. p. 200. Shaw’s Travels, p. 383.)]

104 (return) [ Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte, 243, 259. He

expatiates on the subject with the zeal and minuteness of a

citizen and a bigot, and his local traditions have a strong air

of truth and accuracy.]

105 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 233.]

106 (return) [ The position of New and of Old Cairo is well

known, and has been often described. Two writers, who were

intimately acquainted with ancient and modern Egypt, have fixed,

after a learned inquiry, the city of Memphis at Gizeh, directly

opposite the Old Cairo, (Sicard, Nouveaux Memoires des Missions

du Levant, tom. vi. p. 5, 6. Shaw’s Observations and Travels, p.

296-304.) Yet we may not disregard the authority or the arguments

of Pocock, (vol. i. p. 25-41,) Niebuhr, (Voyage, tom. i. p.

77-106,) and above all, of D’Anville, (Description de l’Egypte,

p. 111, 112, 130-149,) who have removed Memphis towards the

village of Mohannah, some miles farther to the south. In their

heat, the disputants have forgot that the ample space of a

metropolis covers and annihilates the far greater part of the

controversy.]

Yet the Arabs, after a glorious and profitable enterprise, must

have retreated to the desert, had they not found a powerful

alliance in the heart of the country. The rapid conquest of

Alexander was assisted by the superstition and revolt of the

natives: they abhorred their Persian oppressors, the disciples of

the Magi, who had burnt the temples of Egypt, and feasted with

sacrilegious appetite on the flesh of the god Apis. 107 After a

period of ten centuries, the same revolution was renewed by a

similar cause; and in the support of an incomprehensible creed,

the zeal of the Coptic Christians was equally ardent. I have

already explained the origin and progress of the Monophysite

controversy, and the persecution of the emperors, which converted

a sect into a nation, and alienated Egypt from their religion and

government. The Saracens were received as the deliverers of the

Jacobite church; and a secret and effectual treaty was opened

during the siege of Memphis between a victorious army and a

people of slaves. A rich and noble Egyptian, of the name of

Mokawkas, had dissembled his faith to obtain the administration

of his province: in the disorders of the Persian war he aspired

to independence: the embassy of Mahomet ranked him among princes;

but he declined, with rich gifts and ambiguous compliments, the

proposal of a new religion. 108 The abuse of his trust exposed

him to the resentment of Heraclius: his submission was delayed by

arrogance and fear; and his conscience was prompted by interest

to throw himself on the favor of the nation and the support of

the Saracens. In his first conference with Amrou, he heard

without indignation the usual option of the Koran, the tribute,

or the sword. “The Greeks,” replied Mokawkas, “are determined to

abide the determination of the sword; but with the Greeks I

desire no communion, either in this world or in the next, and I

abjure forever the Byzantine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and

his Melchite slaves. For myself and my brethren, we are resolved

to live and die in the profession of the gospel and unity of

Christ. It is impossible for us to embrace the revelations of

your prophet; but we are desirous of peace, and cheerfully submit

to pay tribute and obedience to his temporal successors.” The

tribute was ascertained at two pieces of gold for the head of

every Christian; but old men, monks, women, and children, of both

sexes, under sixteen years of age, were exempted from this

personal assessment: the Copts above and below Memphis swore

allegiance to the caliph, and promised a hospitable entertainment

of three days to every Mussulman who should travel through their

country. By this charter of security, the ecclesiastical and

civil tyranny of the Melchites was destroyed: 109 the anathemas

of St. Cyril were thundered from every pulpit; and the sacred

edifices, with the patrimony of the church, were restored to the

national communion of the Jacobites, who enjoyed without

moderation the moment of triumph and revenge. At the pressing

summons of Amrou, their patriarch Benjamin emerged from his

desert; and after the first interview, the courteous Arab

affected to declare that he had never conversed with a Christian

priest of more innocent manners and a more venerable aspect. 110

In the march from Memphis to Alexandria, the lieutenant of Omar

intrusted his safety to the zeal and gratitude of the Egyptians:

the roads and bridges were diligently repaired; and in every step

of his progress, he could depend on a constant supply of

provisions and intelligence. The Greeks of Egypt, whose numbers

could scarcely equal a tenth of the natives, were overwhelmed by

the universal defection: they had ever been hated, they were no

longer feared: the magistrate fled from his tribunal, the bishop

from his altar; and the distant garrisons were surprised or

starved by the surrounding multitudes. Had not the Nile afforded

a safe and ready conveyance to the sea, not an individual could

have escaped, who by birth, or language, or office, or religion,

was connected with their odious name.

107 (return) [ See Herodotus, l. iii. c. 27, 28, 29. Aelian,

Hist. Var. l. iv. c. 8. Suidas in, tom. ii. p. 774. Diodor.

Sicul. tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 197, edit. Wesseling. Says the last

of these historians.]

108 (return) [ Mokawkas sent the prophet two Coptic damsels, with

two maids and one eunuch, an alabaster vase, an ingot of pure

gold, oil, honey, and the finest white linen of Egypt, with a

horse, a mule, and an ass, distinguished by their respective

qualifications. The embassy of Mahomet was despatched from Medina

in the seventh year of the Hegira, (A.D. 628.) See Gagnier, (Vie

de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 255, 256, 303,) from Al Jannabi.]

109 (return) [ The praefecture of Egypt, and the conduct of the

war, had been trusted by Heraclius to the patriarch Cyrus,

(Theophan. p. 280, 281.) “In Spain,” said James II., “do you not

consult your priests?” “We do,” replied the Catholic ambassador,

“and our affairs succeed accordingly.” I know not how to relate

the plans of Cyrus, of paying tribute without impairing the

revenue, and of converting Omar by his marriage with the

Emperor’s daughter, (Nicephor. Breviar. p. 17, 18.)]

110 (return) [ See the life of Benjamin, in Renaudot, (Hist.

Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 156-172,) who has enriched the conquest

of Egypt with some facts from the Arabic text of Severus the

Jacobite historian]

By the retreat of the Greeks from the provinces of Upper Egypt, a

considerable force was collected in the Island of Delta; the

natural and artificial channels of the Nile afforded a succession

of strong and defensible posts; and the road to Alexandria was

laboriously cleared by the victory of the Saracens in

two-and-twenty days of general or partial combat. In their annals

of conquest, the siege of Alexandria 111 is perhaps the most

arduous and important enterprise. The first trading city in the

world was abundantly replenished with the means of subsistence

and defence. Her numerous inhabitants fought for the dearest of

human rights, religion and property; and the enmity of the

natives seemed to exclude them from the common benefit of peace

and toleration. The sea was continually open; and if Heraclius

had been awake to the public distress, fresh armies of Romans and

Barbarians might have been poured into the harbor to save the

second capital of the empire. A circumference of ten miles would

have scattered the forces of the Greeks, and favored the

stratagems of an active enemy; but the two sides of an oblong

square were covered by the sea and the Lake Maraeotis, and each

of the narrow ends exposed a front of no more than ten furlongs.

The efforts of the Arabs were not inadequate to the difficulty of

the attempt and the value of the prize. From the throne of

Medina, the eyes of Omar were fixed on the camp and city: his

voice excited to arms the Arabian tribes and the veterans of

Syria; and the merit of a holy war was recommended by the

peculiar fame and fertility of Egypt. Anxious for the ruin or

expulsion of their tyrants, the faithful natives devoted their

labors to the service of Amrou: some sparks of martial spirit

were perhaps rekindled by the example of their allies; and the

sanguine hopes of Mokawkas had fixed his sepulchre in the church

of St. John of Alexandria. Eutychius the patriarch observes, that

the Saracens fought with the courage of lions: they repulsed the

frequent and almost daily sallies of the besieged, and soon

assaulted in their turn the walls and towers of the city. In

every attack, the sword, the banner of Amrou, glittered in the

van of the Moslems. On a memorable day, he was betrayed by his

imprudent valor: his followers who had entered the citadel were

driven back; and the general, with a friend and slave, remained a

prisoner in the hands of the Christians. When Amrou was conducted

before the praefect, he remembered his dignity, and forgot his

situation: a lofty demeanor, and resolute language, revealed the

lieutenant of the caliph, and the battle-axe of a soldier was

already raised to strike off the head of the audacious captive.

His life was saved by the readiness of his slave, who instantly

gave his master a blow on the face, and commanded him, with an

angry tone, to be silent in the presence of his superiors. The

credulous Greek was deceived: he listened to the offer of a

treaty, and his prisoners were dismissed in the hope of a more

respectable embassy, till the joyful acclamations of the camp

announced the return of their general, and insulted the folly of

the infidels. At length, after a siege of fourteen months, 112

and the loss of three-and-twenty thousand men, the Saracens

prevailed: the Greeks embarked their dispirited and diminished

numbers, and the standard of Mahomet was planted on the walls of

the capital of Egypt. “I have taken,” said Amrou to the caliph,

“the great city of the West. It is impossible for me to enumerate

the variety of its riches and beauty; and I shall content myself

with observing, that it contains four thousand palaces, four

thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of amusement,

twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food, and forty

thousand tributary Jews. The town has been subdued by force of

arms, without treaty or capitulation, and the Moslems are

impatient to seize the fruits of their victory.” 113 The

commander of the faithful rejected with firmness the idea of

pillage, and directed his lieutenant to reserve the wealth and

revenue of Alexandria for the public service and the propagation

of the faith: the inhabitants were numbered; a tribute was

imposed, the zeal and resentment of the Jacobites were curbed,

and the Melchites who submitted to the Arabian yoke were indulged

in the obscure but tranquil exercise of their worship. The

intelligence of this disgraceful and calamitous event afflicted

the declining health of the emperor; and Heraclius died of a

dropsy about seven weeks after the loss of Alexandria. 114 Under

the minority of his grandson, the clamors of a people, deprived

of their daily sustenance, compelled the Byzantine court to

undertake the recovery of the capital of Egypt. In the space of

four years, the harbor and fortifications of Alexandria were

twice occupied by a fleet and army of Romans. They were twice

expelled by the valor of Amrou, who was recalled by the domestic

peril from the distant wars of Tripoli and Nubia. But the

facility of the attempt, the repetition of the insult, and the

obstinacy of the resistance, provoked him to swear, that if a

third time he drove the infidels into the sea, he would render

Alexandria as accessible on all sides as the house of a

prostitute. Faithful to his promise, he dismantled several parts

of the walls and towers; but the people was spared in the

chastisement of the city, and the mosch of Mercy was erected on

the spot where the victorious general had stopped the fury of his

troops.

111 (return) [ The local description of Alexandria is perfectly

ascertained by the master hand of the first of geographers,

(D’Anville, Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 52-63;) but we may borrow

the eyes of the modern travellers, more especially of Thevenot,

(Voyage au Levant, part i. p. 381-395,) Pocock, (vol. i. p.

2-13,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 34-43.) Of the

two modern rivals, Savary and Volmey, the one may amuse, the

other will instruct.]

112 (return) [ Both Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 319) and

Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 28) concur in fixing the taking of

Alexandria to Friday of the new moon of Moharram of the twentieth

year of the Hegira, (December 22, A.D. 640.) In reckoning

backwards fourteen months spent before Alexandria, seven months

before Babylon, &c., Amrou might have invaded Egypt about the end

of the year 638; but we are assured that he entered the country

the 12th of Bayni, 6th of June, (Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte,

p. 164. Severus, apud Renaudot, p. 162.) The Saracen, and

afterwards Lewis IX. of France, halted at Pelusium, or Damietta,

during the season of the inundation of the Nile.]

113 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 316, 319.]

114 (return) [ Notwithstanding some inconsistencies of Theophanes

and Cedrenus, the accuracy of Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 824) has

extracted from Nicephorus and the Chronicon Orientale the true

date of the death of Heraclius, February 11th, A.D. 641, fifty

days after the loss of Alexandria. A fourth of that time was

sufficient to convey the intelligence.]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI.

I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in

silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described

by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more

curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his leisure

hours, the Arabian chief was pleased with the conversation of

John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who derived the surname

of Philoponus from his laborious studies of grammar and

philosophy. 115 Emboldened by this familiar intercourse,

Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his

opinion, contemptible in that of the Barbarians—the royal

library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had not

been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror.

Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his

rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without

the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was

inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. “If these writings of the

Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not

be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to

be destroyed.” The sentence was executed with blind obedience:

the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four

thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible

multitude, that six months were barely sufficient for the

consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of

Abulpharagius 116 have been given to the world in a Latin

version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every

scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable

shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of

antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both

the fact and the consequences. 1161 The fact is indeed

marvellous. “Read and wonder!” says the historian himself: and

the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six

hundred years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the

silence of two annalist of a more early date, both Christians,

both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the

patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of

Alexandria. 117 The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnant to the

sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists they

expressly declare, that the religious books of the Jews and

Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never

be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane

science, historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be

lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. 118 A more

destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first

successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance, the conflagration

would have speedily expired in the deficiency of materials. I

should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian library,

the involuntary flame that was kindled by Caesar in his own

defence, 119 or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who

studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry. 120 But if we

gradually descend from the age of the Antonines to that of

Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain of contemporary

witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple of Serapis no

longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand

volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and

magnificence of the Ptolemies. 121 Perhaps the church and seat of

the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books; but

if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were

indeed consumed in the public baths, 122 a philosopher may allow,

with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of

mankind. I sincerely regret the more valuable libraries which

have been involved in the ruin of the Roman empire; but when I

seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and

the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are

the objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts

are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have

been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are

deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and

dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember,

that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic

works to which the suffrage of antiquity 123 had adjudged the

first place of genius and glory: the teachers of ancient

knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and compared the

writings of their predecessors; 124 nor can it fairly be presumed

that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature,

has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

115 (return) [ Many treatises of this lover of labor are still

extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and

unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and

Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one

of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric.

Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,)

who sometimes assumed the same name was equal to old Philoponus

in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real knowledge.]

116 (return) [ Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock. Audi

quid factum sit et mirare. It would be endless to enumerate the

moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish

with honor the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex.

Patriarch, p. 170: ) historia... habet aliquid ut Arabibus

familiare est.]

1161 (return) [ Since this period several new Mahometan

authorities have been adduced to support the authority of

Abulpharagius. That of, I. Abdollatiph by Professor White: II. Of

Makrizi; I have seen a Ms. extract from this writer: III. Of Ibn

Chaledun: and after them Hadschi Chalfa. See Von Hammer,

Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 17. Reinhard, in a German

Dissertation, printed at Gottingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin

Encyclop. tom. iv. p. 433,) have examined the question. Among

Oriental scholars, Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer.

and Silv. de Sacy, consider the fact of the burning the library,

by the command of Omar, beyond question. Compare St. Martin’s

note. vol. xi. p. 296. A Mahometan writer brings a similar charge

against the Crusaders. The library of Tripoli is said to have

contained the incredible number of three millions of volumes. On

the capture of the city, Count Bertram of St. Giles, entering the

first room, which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the

whole to be burnt, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia.

See Wilken. Gesch der Kreux zuge, vol. ii. p. 211.—M.]

117 (return) [ This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the

annals of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin. The

silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less

conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature.]

118 (return) [ See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in

his iiid volume of Dissertations, p. 37. The reason for not

burning the religious books of the Jews or Christians, is derived

from the respect that is due to the name of God.]

119 (return) [ Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement.

Livian, c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had

styled the Alexandrian library, elegantiae regum curaeque

egregium opus; a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly

criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate

Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into

nonsense.]

120 (return) [ See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.]

121 (return) [ Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticae, vi. 17,) Ammianus

Marcellinua, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (l. vi. c. 15.) They all

speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably

strong: fuerunt Bibliothecae innumerabiles; et loquitum

monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.]

122 (return) [ Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible,

Hexapla, Catenoe Patrum, Commentaries, &c., (p. 170.) Our

Alexandrian Ms., if it came from Egypt, and not from

Constantinople or Mount Athos, (Wetstein, Prolegom. ad N. T. p.

8, &c.,) might possibly be among them.]

123 (return) [ I have often perused with pleasure a chapter of

Quintilian, (Institut. Orator. x. i.,) in which that judicious

critic enumerates and appreciates the series of Greek and Latin

classics.]

124 (return) [ Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this

subject Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p.

85-95) argues, with solid sense, against the lively exotic

fancies of Sir William Temple. The contempt of the Greeks for

Barbaric science would scarcely admit the Indian or Aethiopic

books into the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that

philosophy has sustained any real loss from their exclusion.]

In the administration of Egypt, 125 Amrou balanced the demands of

justice and policy; the interest of the people of the law, who

were defended by God; and of the people of the alliance, who were

protected by man. In the recent tumult of conquest and

deliverance, the tongue of the Copts and the sword of the Arabs

were most adverse to the tranquillity of the province. To the

former, Amrou declared, that faction and falsehood would be

doubly chastised; by the punishment of the accusers, whom he

should detest as his personal enemies, and by the promotion of

their innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to injure

and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion

and honor to sustain the dignity of their character, to endear

themselves by a modest and temperate conduct to God and the

caliph, to spare and protect a people who had trusted to their

faith, and to content themselves with the legitimate and splendid

rewards of their victory. In the management of the revenue, he

disapproved the simple but oppressive mode of a capitation, and

preferred with reason a proportion of taxes deducted on every

branch from the clear profits of agriculture and commerce. A

third part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual repairs

of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare.

Under his administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the

dearth of Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and

provisions, covered almost without an interval the long road from

Memphis to Medina. 126 But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the

maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by

the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Caesars; and a canal, at least

eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile to the Red Sea.

1261 This inland navigation, which would have joined the

Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as

useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to

Damascus, and the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to

the holy cities of Arabia. 127

125 (return) [ This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi

(p. 284-289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or by

the self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History.]

126 (return) [ Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist.

Saracen. p. 35.]

1261 (return) [ Many learned men have doubted the existence of a

communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean

by the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the ancients.

Diodorus Siculus (l. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the most distinct

manner as existing in his time. So, also, Strabo, (l. xvii. p.

805.) Pliny (vol. vi. p. 29) says that the canal which united the

two seas was navigable, (alveus navigabilis.) The indications

furnished by Ptolemy and by the Arabic historian, Makrisi, show

that works were executed under the reign of Hadrian to repair the

canal and extend the navigation; it then received the name of the

River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis, p. 44,) says that

he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the Red Sea.

Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that the

communication was not interrupted at that time. See the French

translation of Strabo, vol. v. p. 382. St. Martin vol. xi. p.

299.—M.]

127 (return) [ On these obscure canals, the reader may try to

satisfy himself from D’Anville, (Mem. sur l’Egypte, p. 108-110,

124, 132,) and a learned thesis, maintained and printed at

Strasburg in the year 1770, (Jungendorum marium fluviorumque

molimina, p. 39-47, 68-70.) Even the supine Turks have agitated

the old project of joining the two seas. (Memoires du Baron de

Tott, tom. iv.)]

Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge

from the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested

that his lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of

Pharaoh and the Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou exhibits a

lively and not unfaithful picture of that singular country. 128

“O commander of the faithful, Egypt is a compound of black earth

and green plants, between a pulverized mountain and a red sand.

The distance from Syene to the sea is a month’s journey for a

horseman. Along the valley descends a river, on which the

blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening and

morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of the

sun and moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks

the springs and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls

his swelling and sounding waters through the realm of Egypt: the

fields are overspread by the salutary flood; and the villages

communicate with each other in their painted barks. The retreat

of the inundation deposits a fertilizing mud for the reception of

the various seeds: the crowds of husbandmen who blacken the land

may be compared to a swarm of industrious ants; and their native

indolence is quickened by the lash of the task-master, and the

promise of the flowers and fruits of a plentiful increase. Their

hope is seldom deceived; but the riches which they extract from

the wheat, the barley, and the rice, the legumes, the

fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally shared between those

who labor and those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of

the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver

wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden

harvest.” 129 Yet this beneficial order is sometimes interrupted;

and the long delay and sudden swell of the river in the first

year of the conquest might afford some color to an edifying

fable. It is said, that the annual sacrifice of a virgin 130 had

been interdicted by the piety of Omar; and that the Nile lay

sullen and inactive in his shallow bed, till the mandate of the

caliph was cast into the obedient stream, which rose in a single

night to the height of sixteen cubits. The admiration of the

Arabs for their new conquest encouraged the license of their

romantic spirit. We may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt

was crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages: 131 that,

exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on

the assessment, six millions of tributary subjects, 132 or twenty

millions of either sex, and of every age: that three hundred

millions of gold or silver were annually paid to the treasury of

the caliphs. 133 Our reason must be startled by these extravagant

assertions; and they will become more palpable, if we assume the

compass and measure the extent of habitable ground: a valley from

the tropic to Memphis seldom broader than twelve miles, and the

triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one hundred

square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of

France. 134 A more accurate research will justify a more

reasonable estimate. The three hundred millions, created by the

error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent revenue of four

millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which nine

hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers. 135

Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century,

are circumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand

seven hundred villages and towns. 136 After a long residence at

Cairo, a French consul has ventured to assign about four millions

of Mahometans, Christians, and Jews, for the ample, though not

incredible, scope of the population of Egypt. 137

128 (return) [ A small volume, des Merveilles, &c., de l’Egypte,

composed in the xiiith century by Murtadi of Cairo, and

translated from an Arabic Ms. of Cardinal Mazarin, was published

by Pierre Vatier, Paris, 1666. The antiquities of Egypt are wild

and legendary; but the writer deserves credit and esteem for his

account of the conquest and geography of his native country, (see

the correspondence of Amrou and Omar, p. 279-289.)]

129 (return) [ In a twenty years’ residence at Cairo, the consul

Maillet had contemplated that varying scene, the Nile, (lettre

ii. particularly p. 70, 75;) the fertility of the land, (lettre

ix.) From a college at Cambridge, the poetic eye of Gray had seen

the same objects with a keener glance:—

What wonder in the sultry climes that spread,

Where Nile, redundant o’er his summer bed,

From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,

And broods o’er Egypt with his watery wings:

If with adventurous oar, and ready sail,

The dusky people drive before the gale:

Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride.

That rise and glitter o’er the ambient tide.

(Mason’s Works and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200.)]

130 (return) [ Murtadi, p. 164-167. The reader will not easily

credit a human sacrifice under the Christian emperors, or a

miracle of the successors of Mahomet.]

131 (return) [ Maillet, Description de l’Egypte, p. 22. He

mentions this number as the common opinion; and adds, that the

generality of these villages contain two or three thousand

persons, and that many of them are more populous than our large

cities.]

132 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308, 311. The twenty

millions are computed from the following data: one twelfth of

mankind above sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of

men to women as seventeen or sixteen, (Recherches sur la

Population de la France, p. 71, 72.) The president Goguet

(Origine des Arts, &c., tom. iii. p. 26, &c.) Bestows

twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seventeen

hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day.]

133 (return) [ Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 218; and this gross

lump is swallowed without scruple by D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.

Orient. p. 1031,) Ar. buthnot, (Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 262,)

and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 135.) They might

allege the not less extravagant liberality of Appian in favor of

the Ptolemies (in praefat.) of seventy four myriads, 740,000

talents, an annual income of 185, or near 300 millions of pounds

sterling, according as we reckon by the Egyptian or the

Alexandrian talent, (Bernard, de Ponderibus Antiq. p. 186.)]

134 (return) [ See the measurement of D’Anville, (Mem. sur

l’Egypte, p. 23, &c.) After some peevish cavils, M. Pauw

(Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. i. p. 118-121) can only

enlarge his reckoning to 2250 square leagues.]

135 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p. 334, who

calls the common reading or version of Elmacin, error librarii.

His own emendation, of 4,300,000 pieces, in the ixth century,

maintains a probable medium between the 3,000,000 which the Arabs

acquired by the conquest of Egypt, (idem, p. 168.) and the

2,400,000 which the sultan of Constantinople levied in the last

century, (Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 352 Thevenot, part i. p.

824.) Pauw (Recherches, tom. ii. p. 365-373) gradually raises the

revenue of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Caesars, from six

to fifteen millions of German crowns.]

136 (return) [ The list of Schultens (Index Geograph. ad calcem

Vit. Saladin. p. 5) contains 2396 places; that of D’Anville,

(Mem. sur l’Egypte, p. 29,) from the divan of Cairo, enumerates

2696.]

137 (return) [ See Maillet, (Description de l’Egypte, p. 28,) who

seems to argue with candor and judgment. I am much better

satisfied with the observations than with the reading of the

French consul. He was ignorant of Greek and Latin literature, and

his fancy is too much delighted with the fictions of the Arabs.

Their best knowledge is collected by Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt.

Arab. et Lat. a Joh. David Michaelis, Gottingae, in 4to., 1776;)

and in two recent voyages into Egypt, we are amused by Savary,

and instructed by Volney. I wish the latter could travel over the

globe.]

IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean,

138 was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman.

The pious design was approved by the companions of Mahomet and

the chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand Arabs marched from

Medina, with the gifts and the blessing of the commander of the

faithful. They were joined in the camp of Memphis by twenty

thousand of their countrymen; and the conduct of the war was

intrusted to Abdallah, 139 the son of Said and the foster-brother

of the caliph, who had lately supplanted the conqueror and

lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favor of the prince, and the merit

of his favorite, could not obliterate the guilt of his apostasy.

The early conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had

recommended him to the important office of transcribing the

sheets of the Koran: he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text,

derided the errors which he had made, and fled to Mecca to escape

the justice, and expose the ignorance, of the apostle. After the

conquest of Mecca, he fell prostrate at the feet of Mahomet; his

tears, and the entreaties of Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon;

but the prophet declared that he had so long hesitated, to allow

time for some zealous disciple to avenge his injury in the blood

of the apostate. With apparent fidelity and effective merit, he

served the religion which it was no longer his interest to

desert: his birth and talents gave him an honorable rank among

the Koreish; and, in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was renowned

as the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia. At the head

of forty thousand Moslems, he advanced from Egypt into the

unknown countries of the West. The sands of Barca might be

impervious to a Roman legion but the Arabs were attended by their

faithful camels; and the natives of the desert beheld without

terror the familiar aspect of the soil and climate. After a

painful march, they pitched their tents before the walls of

Tripoli, 140 a maritime city in which the name, the wealth, and

the inhabitants of the province had gradually centred, and which

now maintains the third rank among the states of Barbary. A

reenforcement of Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the

sea-shore; but the fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first

assaults; and the Saracens were tempted by the approach of the

praefect Gregory 141 to relinquish the labors of the siege for

the perils and the hopes of a decisive action. If his standard

was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand men, the regular

bands of the empire must have been lost in the naked and

disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who formed the strength,

or rather the numbers, of his host. He rejected with indignation

the option of the Koran or the tribute; and during several days

the two armies were fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to

the hour of noon, when their fatigue and the excessive heat

compelled them to seek shelter and refreshment in their

respective camps. The daughter of Gregory, a maid of incomparable

beauty and spirit, is said to have fought by his side: from her

earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to draw the

bow, and to wield the cimeter; and the richness of her arms and

apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks of the battle. Her

hand, with a hundred thousand pieces of gold, was offered for the

head of the Arabian general, and the youths of Africa were

excited by the prospect of the glorious prize. At the pressing

solicitation of his brethren, Abdallah withdrew his person from

the field; but the Saracens were discouraged by the retreat of

their leader, and the repetition of these equal or unsuccessful

conflicts.

138 (return) [ My conquest of Africa is drawn from two French

interpreters of Arabic literature, Cardonne (Hist. de l’Afrique

et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. i. p. 8-55)

and Otter, (Hist. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p.

111-125, and 136.) They derive their principal information from

Novairi, who composed, A.D. 1331 an Encyclopaedia in more than

twenty volumes. The five general parts successively treat of, 1.

Physics; 2. Man; 3. Animals; 4. Plants; and, 5. History; and the

African affairs are discussed in the vith chapter of the vth

section of this last part, (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji

Chalifae Tabulas, p. 232-234.) Among the older historians who are

quoted by Navairi we may distinguish the original narrative of a

soldier who led the van of the Moslems.]

139 (return) [ See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit.

Mohammed. p. 108) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.

45-48.)]

140 (return) [ The province and city of Tripoli are described by

Leo Africanus (in Navigatione et Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.

Venetia, 1550, fol. 76, verso) and Marmol, (Description de

l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 562.) The first of these writers was a

Moor, a scholar, and a traveller, who composed or translated his

African geography in a state of captivity at Rome, where he had

assumed the name and religion of Pope Leo X. In a similar

captivity among the Moors, the Spaniard Marmol, a soldier of

Charles V., compiled his Description of Africa, translated by

D’Ablancourt into French, (Paris, 1667, 3 vols. in 4to.) Marmol

had read and seen, but he is destitute of the curious and

extensive observation which abounds in the original work of Leo

the African.]

141 (return) [ Theophanes, who mentions the defeat, rather than

the death, of Gregory. He brands the praefect with the name: he

had probably assumed the purple, (Chronograph. p. 285.)]

A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali, and

the father of a caliph, had signalized his valor in Egypt, and

Zobeir 142 was the first who planted the scaling-ladder against

the walls of Babylon. In the African war he was detached from the

standard of Abdallah. On the news of the battle, Zobeir, with

twelve companions, cut his way through the camp of the Greeks,

and pressed forwards, without tasting either food or repose, to

partake of the dangers of his brethren. He cast his eyes round

the field: “Where,” said he, “is our general?” “In his tent.” “Is

the tent a station for the general of the Moslems?” Abdallah

represented with a blush the importance of his own life, and the

temptation that was held forth by the Roman praefect. “Retort,”

said Zobeir, “on the infidels their ungenerous attempt. Proclaim

through the ranks that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with

his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand

pieces of gold.” To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the

lieutenant of the caliph intrusted the execution of his own

stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favor of

the Saracens. Supplying by activity and artifice the deficiency

of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents,

while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the

enemy till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they

retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled, their

armor was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed

to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the encounter

of the ensuing day. On a sudden the charge was sounded; the

Arabian camp poured forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors;

and the long line of the Greeks and Africans was surprised,

assaulted, overturned, by new squadrons of the faithful, who, to

the eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels

descending from the sky. The praefect himself was slain by the

hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and death, was

surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives involved in their

disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the

sabres and lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred

and fifty miles to the south of Carthage: a gentle declivity is

watered by a running stream, and shaded by a grove of

juniper-trees; and, in the ruins of a triumpha arch, a portico,

and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet

admire the magnificence of the Romans. 143 After the fall of this

opulent city, the provincials and Barbarians implored on all

sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be

flattered by offers of tribute or professions of faith: but his

losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease,

prevented a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a

campaign of fifteen months, retreated to the confines of Egypt,

with the captives and the wealth of their African expedition. The

caliph’s fifth was granted to a favorite, on the nominal payment

of five hundred thousand pieces of gold; 144 but the state was

doubly injured by this fallacious transaction, if each

foot-soldier had shared one thousand, and each horseman three

thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder. The author

of the death of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most

precious reward of the victory: from his silence it might be

presumed that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and

exclamations of the praefect’s daughter at the sight of Zobeir

revealed the valor and modesty of that gallant soldier. The

unfortunate virgin was offered, and almost rejected as a slave,

by her father’s murderer, who coolly declared that his sword was

consecrated to the service of religion; and that he labored for a

recompense far above the charms of mortal beauty, or the riches

of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper was the

honorable commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the

success of his arms. The companions the chiefs, and the people,

were assembled in the mosch of Medina, to hear the interesting

narrative of Zobeir; and as the orator forgot nothing except the

merit of his own counsels and actions, the name of Abdallah was

joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of Caled and Amrou.

145

142 (return) [ See in Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p.

45) the death of Zobeir, which was honored with the tears of Ali,

against whom he had rebelled. His valor at the siege of Babylon,

if indeed it be the same person, is mentioned by Eutychius,

(Annal. tom. ii. p. 308)]

143 (return) [ Shaw’s Travels, p. 118, 119.]

144 (return) [ Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat haec, et mira

donatio; quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex aerario prius

ablatos aerario praestabat, (Annal. Moslem. p. 78.) Elmacin (in

his cloudy version, p. 39) seems to report the same job. When the

Arabs be sieged the palace of Othman, it stood high in their

catalogue of grievances.`]

145 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 235 edit. Paris. His

chronology is loose and inaccurate.]

[A. D. 665-689.] The western conquests of the Saracens were

suspended near twenty years, till their dissensions were composed

by the establishment of the house of Ommiyah; and the caliph

Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the Africans themselves. The

successors of Heraclius had been informed of the tribute which

they had been compelled to stipulate with the Arabs; but instead

of being moved to pity and relieve their distress, they imposed,

as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount.

The ears of the zantine ministers were shut against the

complaints of their poverty and ruin their despair was reduced to

prefer the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the

patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and military

power, provoked the sectaries, and even the Catholics, of the

Roman province to abjure the religion as well as the authority of

their tyrants. The first lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just

renown, subdued an important city, defeated an army of thirty

thousand Greeks, swept away fourscore thousand captives, and

enriched with their spoils the bold adventurers of Syria and

Egypt.146 But the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due

to his successor Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of

ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the

Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many

thousand Barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is it necessary,

to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The interior

regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious armies

and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or

Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might assemble in

arms; but the number of three hundred and sixty towns is

incompatible with the ignorance or decay of husbandry;147 and a

circumference of three leagues will not be justified by the ruins

of Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland

country. As we approach the seacoast, the well-known titles of

Bugia,148 and Tangier149 define the more certain limits of the

Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the

commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous age, is

said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the

plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might

have supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence.

The remote position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier,

have been decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the

figurative expressions of the latter, that the walls were

constructed of brass, and that the roofs were covered with gold

and silver, may be interpreted as the emblems of strength and

opulence.

146 (return) [ Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293.) inserts the

vague rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western

conquests of the Arabs; and I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon

of Aquileia (de Gestis Langobard. 1. v. c. 13), that at this time

they sent a fleet from Alexandria into the Sicilian and African

seas.]

147 (return) [ See Novairi (apud Otter, p. 118), Leo Africanus

(fol. 81, verso), who reckoned only cinque citta e infinite

casal, Marmol (Description de l’Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33,) and

Shaw (Travels, p. 57, 65-68)]

148 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 58, verso, 59, recto. Marmol,

tom. ii. p. 415. Shaw, p. 43]

149 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228.]

The province of Mauritania Tingitana,150 which assumed the name

of the capital had been imperfectly discovered and settled by the

Romans; the five colonies were confined to a narrow pale, and the

more southern parts were seldom explored except by the agents of

luxury, who searched the forests for ivory and the citron

wood,151 and the shores of the ocean for the purple shellfish.

The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country,

traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the

splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco,152 and at length penetrated

to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert. The river Suz

descends from the western sides of mount Atlas, fertilizes, like

the Nile, the adjacent soil, and falls into the sea at a moderate

distance from the Canary, or adjacent islands. Its banks were

inhabited by the last of the Moors, a race of savages, without

laws, or discipline, or religion: they were astonished by the

strange and irresistible terrors of the Oriental arms; and as

they possessed neither gold nor silver, the richest spoil was the

beauty of the female captives, some of whom were afterward sold

for a thousand pieces of gold. The career, though not the zeal,

of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He

spurred his horse into the waves, and raising his eyes to heaven,

exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic: “Great God! if my course

were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown

kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and

putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship another

gods than thee.” 153 Yet this Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for

new worlds, was unable to preserve his recent conquests. By the

universal defection of the Greeks and Africans he was recalled

from the shores of the Atlantic, and the surrounding multitudes

left him only the resource of an honourable death. The last scene

was dignified by an example of national virtue. An ambitious

chief, who had disputed the command and failed in the attempt,

was led about as a prisoner in the camp of the Arabian general.

The insurgents had trusted to his discontent and revenge; he

disdained their offers and revealed their designs. In the hour of

danger, the grateful Akbah unlocked his fetters, and advised him

to retire; he chose to die under the banner of his rival.

Embracing as friends and martyrs, they unsheathed their

scimeters, broke their scabbards, and maintained an obstinate

combat, till they fell by each other’s side on the last of their

slaughtered countrymen. The third general or governor of Africa,

Zuheir, avenged and encountered the fate of his predecessor. He

vanquished the natives in many battles; he was overthrown by a

powerful army, which Constantinople had sent to the relief of

Carthage.

150 (return) [ Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre sortita,

parvis oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris

meleor et segnitie gentis obscura. Pomponius Mela, i. 5, iii. 10.

Mela deserves the more credit, since his own Phoenician ancestors

had migrated from Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6, a passage of

that geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius,

and the most virulent of critics, James Gronovius). He lived at

the time of the final reduction of that country by the emperor

Claudius: yet almost thirty years afterward, Pliny (Hist. Nat. v.

i.) complains of his authors, to lazy to inquire, too proud to

confess their ignorance of that wild and remote province.]

151 (return) [ The foolish fashion of this citron wood prevailed

at Rome among the men, as much as the taste for pearls among the

women. A round board or table, four or five feet in diameter,

sold for the price of an estate (latefundii taxatione), eight,

ten, or twelve thousand pounds sterling (Plin. Hist. Natur. xiii.

29). I conceive that I must not confound the tree citrus, with

that of the fruit citrum. But I am not botanist enough to define

the former (it is like the wild cypress) by the vulgar or

Linnaean name; nor will I decide whether the citrum be the orange

or the lemon. Salmasius appears to exhaust the subject, but he

too often involves himself in the web of his disorderly

erudition. (Flinian. Exercitat. tom. ii. p 666, &c.)]

152 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 16, verso. Marmol, tom. ii. p.

28. This province, the first scene of the exploits and greatness

of the cherifs is often mentioned in the curious history of that

dynasty at the end of the third volume of Marmol, Description de

l’Afrique. The third vol. of The Recherches Historiques sur les

Maures (lately published at Paris) illustrates the history and

geography of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco.]

153 (return) [ Otter (p. 119,) has given the strong tone of

fanaticism to this exclamation, which Cardonne (p. 37,) has

softened to a pious wish of preaching the Koran. Yet they had

both the same text of Novairi before their eyes.]

[A. D. 670-675.] It had been the frequent practice of the Moorish

tribes to join the invaders, to share the plunder, to profess the

faith, and to revolt in their savage state of independence and

idolatry, on the first retreat or misfortune of the Moslems. The

prudence of Akbah had proposed to found an Arabian colony in the

heart of Africa; a citadel that might curb the levity of the

Barbarians, a place of refuge to secure, against the accidents of

war, the wealth and the families of the Saracens. With this view,

and under the modest title of the station of a caravan, he

planted this colony in the fiftieth year of the Hegira. In its

present decay, Cairoan154 still holds the second rank in the

kingdom of Tunis, from which it is distant about fifty miles to

the south;155 its inland situation, twelve miles westward of the

sea, has protected the city from the Greek and Sicilian fleets.

When the wild beasts and serpents were extirpated, when the

forest, or rather wilderness, was cleared, the vestiges of a

Roman town were discovered in a sandy plain: the vegetable food

of Cairoan is brought from afar; and the scarcity of springs

constrains the inhabitants to collect in cisterns and reservoirs

a precarious supply of rain water. These obstacles were subdued

by the industry of Akbah; he traced a circumference of three

thousand and six hundred paces, which he encompassed with a brick

wall; in the space of five years, the governor’s palace was

surrounded with a sufficient number of private habitations; a

spacious mosque was supported by five hundred columns of granite,

porphyry, and Numidian marble; and Cairoan became the seat of

learning as well as of empire. But these were the glories of a

later age; the new colony was shaken by the successive defeats of

Akbah and Zuheir, and the western expeditions were again

interrupted by the civil discord of the Arabian monarchy. The son

of the valiant Zobeir maintained a war of twelve years, a siege

of seven months against the house of Ommiyah. Abdallah was said

to unite the fierceness of the lion with the subtlety of the fox;

but if he inherited the courage, he was devoid of the generosity,

of his father.156

[A. D. 692-698.] The return of domestic peace allowed the caliph

Abdalmalek to resume the conquest of Africa; the standard was

delivered to Hassan governor of Egypt, and the revenue of that

kingdom, with an army of forty thousand men, was consecrated to

the important service. In the vicissitudes of war, the interior

provinces had been alternately won and lost by the Saracens. But

the seacoast still remained in the hands of the Greeks; the

predecessors of Hassan had respected the name and fortifications

of Carthage; and the number of its defenders was recruited by the

fugitives of Cabes and Tripoli. The arms of Hassan were bolder

and more fortunate: he reduced and pillaged the metropolis of

Africa; and the mention of scaling-ladders may justify the

suspicion, that he anticipated, by a sudden assault, the more

tedious operations of a regular siege. But the joy of the

conquerors was soon disturbed by the appearance of the Christian

succours. The praefect and patrician John, a general of

experience and renown, embarked at Constantinople the forces of

the Eastern empire;157 they were joined by the ships and soldiers

of Sicily, and a powerful reinforcement of Goths158 was obtained

from the fears and religion of the Spanish monarch.

154 (return) [ The foundation of Cairoan is mentioned by Ockley

(Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129, 130); and the situation,

mosque, &c. of the city are described by Leo Africanus (fol. 75),

Marmol (tom. ii. p. 532), and Shaw (p. 115).]

155 (return) [ A portentous, though frequent mistake, has been

the confounding, from a slight similitude of name, the Cyrene of

the Greeks, and the Cairoan of the Arabs, two cities which are

separated by an interval of a thousand miles along the seacoast.

The great Thuanus has not escaped this fault, the less excusable

as it is connected with a formal and elaborate description of

Africa (Historiar. l. vii. c. 2, in tom. i. p. 240, edit.

Buckley).]

156 (return) [ Besides the Arabic Chronicles of Abulfeda,

Elmacin, and Abulpharagius, under the lxxiiid year of the Hegira,

we may consult nd’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 7,) and Ockley

(Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 339-349). The latter has

given the last and pathetic dialogue between Abdallah and his

mother; but he has forgot a physical effect of her grief for his

death, the return, at the age of ninety, and fatal consequences

of her menses.]

157 (return) [ The patriarch of Constantinople, with Theophanes

(Chronograph. p. 309,) have slightly mentioned this last attempt

for the relief or Africa. Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. p. 129. 141,)

has nicely ascertained the chronology by a strict comparison of

the Arabic and Byzantine historians, who often disagree both in

time and fact. See likewise a note of Otter (p. 121).]

158 (return) [ Dove s’erano ridotti i nobili Romani e i Gotti;

and afterward, i Romani suggirono e i Gotti lasciarono

Carthagine. (Leo African. for. 72, recto) I know not from what

Arabic writer the African derived his Goths; but the fact, though

new, is so interesting and so probable, that I will accept it on

the slightest authority.]

The weight of the confederate navy broke the chain that guarded

the entrance of the harbour; the Arabs retired to Cairoan, or

Tripoli; the Christians landed; the citizens hailed the ensign of

the cross, and the winter was idly wasted in the dream of victory

or deliverance. But Africa was irrecoverably lost: the zeal and

resentment of the commander of the faithful159 prepared in the

ensuing spring a more numerous armament by sea and land; and the

patrician in his turn was compelled to evacuate the post and

fortifications of Carthage. A second battle was fought in the

neighbourhood of Utica; and the Greeks and Goths were again

defeated; and their timely embarkation saved them from the sword

of Hassan, who had invested the slight and insufficient rampart

of their camp. Whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to

the flames, and the colony of Dido160 and Cesar lay desolate

above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the

old circumference was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite

caliphs. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the second

capital of the West was represented by a mosque, a college

without students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts of

five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed

the arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry village was

swept away by the Spaniards whom Charles the Fifth had stationed

in the fortress of the Goletta. The ruins of Carthage have

perished; and the place might be unknown if some broken arches of

an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive

traveller.161

[A. D. 698-709.] The Greeks were expelled, but the Arabians were

not yet masters of the country. In the interior provinces the

Moors or Berbers,162 so feeble under the first Cesars, so

formidable to the Byzantine princes, maintained a disorderly

resistance to the religion and power of the successors of

Mahomet. Under the standard of their queen Cahina, the

independent tribes acquired some degree of union and discipline;

and as the Moors respected in their females the character of a

prophetess, they attacked the invaders with an enthusiasm similar

to their own. The veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the

defence of Africa: the conquests of an age were lost in a single

day; and the Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired

to the confines of Egypt, and expected, five years, the promised

succours of the caliph. After the retreat of the Saracens, the

victorious prophetess assembled the Moorish chiefs, and

recommended a measure of strange and savage policy. “Our cities,”

said she, “and the gold and silver which they contain,

perpetually attract the arms of the Arabs. These vile metals are

not the objects of OUR ambition; we content ourselves with the

simple productions of the earth. Let us destroy these cities; let

us bury in their ruins those pernicious treasures; and when the

avarice of our foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps

they will cease to disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people.”

The proposal was accepted with unanimous applause. From Tangier

to Tripoli the buildings, or at least the fortifications, were

demolished, the fruit-trees were cut down, the means of

subsistence were extirpated, a fertile and populous garden was

changed into a desert, and the historians of a more recent period

could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity and

devastation of their ancestors.

159 (return) [ This commander is styled by Nicephorus, ———— a

vague though not improper definition of the caliph. Theophanes

introduces the strange appellation of —————, which his

interpreter Goar explains by Vizir Azem. They may approach the

truth, in assigning the active part to the minister, rather than

the prince; but they forget that the Ommiades had only a kaleb,

or secretary, and that the office of Vizir was not revived or

instituted till the 132d year of the Hegira (d’Herbelot, 912).]

160 (return) [ According to Solinus (1.27, p. 36, edit. Salmas),

the Carthage of Dido stood either 677 or 737 years; a various

reading, which proceeds from the difference of MSS. or editions

(Salmas, Plinian. Exercit tom i. p. 228) The former of these

accounts, which gives 823 years before Christ, is more consistent

with the well-weighed testimony of Velleius Paterculus: but the

latter is preferred by our chronologists (Marsham, Canon. Chron.

p. 398,) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and Syrian annals.]

161 (return) [ Leo African. fo1. 71, verso; 72, recto. Marmol,

tom. ii. p.445-447. Shaw, p.80.]

162 (return) [ The history of the word Barbar may be classed

under four periods, 1. In the time of Homer, when the Greeks and

Asiatics might probably use a common idiom, the imitative sound

of Barbar was applied to the ruder tribes, whose pronunciation

was most harsh, whose grammar was most defective. 2. From the

time, at least, of Herodotus, it was extended to all the nations

who were strangers to the language and manners of the Greeks. 3.

In the age, of Plautus, the Romans submitted to the insult

(Pompeius Festus, l. ii. p. 48, edit. Dacier), and freely gave

themselves the name of Barbarians. They insensibly claimed an

exemption for Italy, and her subject provinces; and at length

removed the disgraceful appellation to the savage or hostile

nations beyond the pale of the empire. 4. In every sense, it was

due to the Moors; the familiar word was borrowed from the Latin

Provincials by the Arabian conquerors, and has justly settled as

a local denomination (Barbary) along the northern coast of

Africa.]

Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect

that their ignorance of antiquity, the love of the marvellous,

and the fashion of extolling the philosophy of Barbarians, has

induced them to describe, as one voluntary act, the calamities of

three hundred years since the first fury of the Donatists and

Vandals. In the progress of the revolt, Cahina had most probably

contributed her share of destruction; and the alarm of universal

ruin might terrify and alienate the cities that had reluctantly

yielded to her unworthy yoke. They no longer hoped, perhaps they

no longer wished, the return of their Byzantine sovereigns: their

present servitude was not alleviated by the benefits of order and

justice; and the most zealous Catholic must prefer the imperfect

truths of the Koran to the blind and rude idolatry of the Moors.

The general of the Saracens was again received as the saviour of

the province; the friends of civil society conspired against the

savages of the land; and the royal prophetess was slain in the

first battle which overturned the baseless fabric of her

superstition and empire. The same spirit revived under the

successor of Hassan; it was finally quelled by the activity of

Musa and his two sons; but the number of the rebels may be

presumed from that of three hundred thousand captives; sixty

thousand of whom, the caliph’s fifth, were sold for the profit of

thee public treasury. Thirty thousand of the Barbarian youth were

enlisted in the troops; and the pious labours of Musa to

inculcate the knowledge and practice of the Koran, accustomed the

Africans to obey the apostle of God and the commander of the

faithful. In their climate and government, their diet and

habitation, the wandering Moors resembled the Bedoweens of the

desert. With the religion, they were proud to adopt the language,

name, and origin of Arabs: the blood of the strangers and natives

was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic

the same nation might seem to be diffused over the sandy plains

of Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that fifty thousand tents

of pure Arabians might be transported over the Nile, and

scattered through the Lybian desert: and I am not ignorant that

five of the Moorish tribes still retain their barbarous idiom,

with the appellation and character of white Africans.163

[A. D. 709.] V. In the progress of conquest from the north and

south, the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the

confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the

difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and

warfare.164 As early as the time of Othman165 their piratical

squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia;166 nor had they

forgotten the relief of Carthage by the Gothic succours. In that

age, as well as in the present, the kings of Spain were possessed

of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of Hercules, which

is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point

of Europe. A small portion of Mauritania was still wanting to the

African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed

from the walls of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of count

Julian, the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and

perplexity, Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the

Christian chief, who offered his place, his person, and his

sword, to the successors of Mahomet, and solicited the

disgraceful honour of introducing their arms into the heart of

Spain.167

163 (return) [ The first book of Leo Africanus, and the

observations of Dr. Shaw (p. 220. 223. 227. 247, &c.) will throw

some light on the roving tribes of Barbary, of Arabian or Moorish

descent. But Shaw had seen these savages with distant terror; and

Leo, a captive in the Vatican, appears to have lost more of his

Arabic, than he could acquire of Greek or Roman, learning. Many

of his gross mistakes might be detected in the first period of

the Mahometan history.]

164 (return) [ In a conference with a prince of the Greeks, Amrou

observed that their religion was different; upon which score it

was lawful for brothers to quarrel. Ockley’s History of the

Saracens, vol. i. p. 328.]

165 (return) [ Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p 78, vers. Reiske.]

166 (return) [ The name of Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not

only to the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain

(Geograph. Nub. p. 151, d’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114,

115). The etymology has been most improbably deduced from

Vandalusia, country of the Vandals. (d’Anville Etats de l’Europe,

p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of Casiri, which signifies,

in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the West, in a word, the

Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly apposite. (Bibliot.

Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327, &c.)]

167 (return) [ The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy

are related by Mariana (tom. l. p. 238-260, l. vi. c. 19-26, l.

vii. c. 1, 2). That historian has infused into his noble work

(Historic de Rebus Hispaniae, libri xxx. Hagae Comitum 1733, in

four volumes, folio, with the continuation of Miniana), the style

and spirit of a Roman classic; and after the twelfth century, his

knowledge and judgment may be safely trusted. But the Jesuit is

not exempt from the prejudices of his order; he adopts and

adorns, like his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the national

legends; he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and

supplies, from a lively fancy, the chasms of historical evidence.

These chasms are large and frequent; Roderic archbishop of

Toledo, the father of the Spanish history, lived five hundred

years after the conquest of the Arabs; and the more early

accounts are comprised in some meagre lines of the blind

chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III.

king of Leon, which I have seen only in the Annals of Pagi.]

If we inquire into the cause of this treachery, the Spaniards

will repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava;168 of a

virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a

father who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of

revenge. The passions of princes have often been licentious and

destructive; but this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is

indifferently supported by external evidence; and the history of

Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy more

congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.169 After the

decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by

the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or

governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding

tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza,

educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private

station. Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was

varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were

excited by the remembrance of favours and the promise of a

revolution: and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and

Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in

the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the

disgrace of the unsuccessful faction, that he had little to hope

and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king

could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his

family had sustained. The merit and influence of the count

rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were

ample, his followers bold and numerous, and it was too fatally

shown that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held

in his hands the keys of the Spanish monarchy. Too feeble,

however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a

foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs

produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles,

or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness

of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the

degeneracy of an effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the

victorious Barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome,

despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to

the Atlantic ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenean

mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long

peace: the walls of the city were mouldered into dust: the youth

had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the presumption of their

ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the

first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by

the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was

delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and

his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the

unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the

caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and

caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his

preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by

the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the

glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond

the sea that separates Africa from Europe.170

168 (return) [ Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a

faire qu’a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une

fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically

conclusive.]

169 (return) [ In the story of Cava, Mariana (I. vi. c. 21, p.

241, 242,) seems to vie with the Lucretia of Livy. Like the

ancients, he seldom quotes; and the oldest testimony of Baronius

(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 713, No. 19), that of Lucus Tudensis, a

Gallician deacon of the thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam

pro concubina utebatur.]

170 (return) [ The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagins, Abolfeda,

pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single

word. The text of Novairi, and the other Arabian writers, is

represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne

(Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des

Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. 12mo. tom. i. p. 55-114), and more

concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist. des Hune. tom. i. p. 347-350).

The librarian of the Escurial has not satisfied my hopes: yet he

appears to have searched with diligence his broken materials; and

the history of the conquest is illustrated by some valuable

fragments of the genuine Razis (who wrote at. Corduba, A. H.

300), of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p.

32. 105, 106. 182. 252. 315-332. On this occasion, the industry

of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the

Abbe de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am deeply

indebted.]

[A. D. 710.] Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to

the traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less

dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs

and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from

Tangier or Ceuta; the place of their descent on the opposite

shore of the strait, is marked by the name of Tarif their chief;

and the date of this memorable event171 is fixed to the month of

Ramandan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of

July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the Spanish era of

Cesar,172 seven hundred and ten after the birth of Christ. From

their first station, they marched eighteen miles through a hilly

country to the castle and town of Julian;173 on which (it is

still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green

Island, from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their

hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their

standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded province, the

richness of their spoil and the safety of their return, announced

to their brethren the most favourable omens of victory. In the

ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were

embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful

soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the

necessary transports were provided by the industry of their too

faithful ally. The Saracens landed174 at the pillar or point of

Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel

el Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments

of his camp were the first outline of those fortifications,

which, in the hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and

power of the house of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed

the court of Toledo of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and

the defeat of his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to

seize and bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of

the magnitude of the danger. At the royal summons, the dukes and

counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy assembled

at the head of their followers; and the title of king of the

Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may be excused

by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners, between

the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred

thousand men: a formidable power, if their fidelity and

discipline had been adequate to their numbers. The troops of

Tarik had been augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the

Christian malcontents were attracted by the influence of Julian,

and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal

blessings of the Koran. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town

of Xeres175 has been illustrated by the encounter which

determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete,

which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the

advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and

bloody days.

171 (return) [ A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the

lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has

determined Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish

historians, to place the first invasion in the year 713, and the

battle of Xeres in November, 714. This anachronism of three years

has been detected by the more correct industry of modern

chronologists, above all, of Pagi (Critics, tom. iii. p. 164.

171-174), who have restored the genuine state of the revolution.

At the present time, an Arabian scholar, like Cardonne, who

adopts the ancient error (tom. i. p. 75), is inexcusably ignorant

or careless.]

172 (return) [ The Era of Cesar, which in Spain was in legal and

popular use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years

before the birth of Christ. I would refer the origin to the

general peace by sea and land, which confirmed the power and

partition of the triumvirs. (Dion. Cassius, l. xlviii. p. 547.

553. Appian de Bell. Civil. l. v. p. 1034, edit. fol.) Spain was

a province of Cesar Octavian; and Tarragona, which raised the

first temple to Augustus (Tacit Annal. i. 78), might borrow from

the orientals this mode of flattery.]

173 (return) [ The road, the country, the old castle of count

Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden

treasures, &c. are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et

en Italie, tom i. p. 207-217), with his usual pleasantry.]

174 (return) [ The Nubian geographer (p. 154,) explains the

topography of the war; but it is highly incredible that the

lieutenant of Musa should execute the desperate and useless

measure of burning his ships.]

175 (return) [ Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two

leagues from Cadiz. In the xvith century It was a granary of

corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe

(Lud. Nonii Hispania, c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and

concise knowledge; d’Anville, Etats de l’Europe &c p 154).]

On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and

decisive issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his

unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls,

encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and

reclining on a litter, or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules.

Notwithstanding the valour of the Saracens, they fainted under

the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was overspread

with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. “My brethren,” said

Tarik to his surviving companions, “the enemy is before you, the

sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your general I am

resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate

king of the Romans.” Besides the resource of despair, he confided

in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of count

Julian, with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes

and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post;

their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians;

each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his

personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were

scattered or destroyed to the flight and pursuit of the three

following days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderic started from

his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his Horses; but he

escaped from a soldier’s death to perish more ignobly in the

waters of the Boetis or Guadalquiver. His diadem, his robes, and

his courser, were found on the bank; but as the body of the

Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the pride and ignorance of

the caliph must have been gratified with some meaner head, which

was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus. “And such,”

continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, “is the fate of those

kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle.” 176

[A. D. 711.] Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and

infamy, that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After

the battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to

the victorious Saracens. “The king of the Goths is slain; their

princes are fled before you, the army is routed, the nation is

astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the cities of

Boetica; but in person and without delay, march to the royal city

of Toledo, and allow not the distracted Christians either time or

tranquillity for the election of a new monarch.” Tarik listened

to his advice. A Roman captive and proselyte, who had been

enfranchised by the caliph himself, assaulted Cordova with seven

hundred horse: he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove

the Christians into the great church, where they defended

themselves above three months. Another detachment reduced the

seacoast of Boetica, which in the last period of the Moorish

power has comprised in a narrow space the populous kingdom of

Grenada. The march of Tarik from the Boetis to the Tagus,177 was

directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and

Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of Toledo.178

The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the relics of

their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only till the

victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. The

voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven

churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the

archbishop and his clergy were at liberty to exercise their

functions, the monks to practise or neglect their penance; and

the Goths and Romans were left in all civil or criminal cases to

the subordinate jurisdiction of their own laws and magistrates.

But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his

gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or open

aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions.

Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often

pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast

nation embraced the moment of revenge: the comparison of their

past and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the

alliance between the disciples of Moses and those of Mahomet, was

maintained till the final era of their common expulsion.

176 (return) [ Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie

referentibus saepe contingit. Den Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot.

Arabico-Hispana. tom. ii. p. 337. Some credulous Spaniards

believe that king Roderic, or Rodrigo, escaped to a hermit’s

cell; and others, that he was cast alive into a tub full of

serpents, from whence he exclaimed with a lamentable voice, “they

devour the part with which I have so grievously sinned.” (Don

Quixote, part ii. l. iii. c. 1.)]

177 (return) [ The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was

measured by Mr. Swinburne’s mules in 72 1/2 hours: but a larger

computation must be adopted for the slow and devious marches of

an army. The Arabs traversed the province of La Mancha, which the

pen of Cervantes has transformed into classic ground to the

reader of every nation.]

178 (return) [ The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parva in the Punic

wars, Urbs Regia in the sixth century, are briefly described by

Nonius (Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-136). He borrows from Roderic the

fatale palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates,

that it was no more than a Roman amphitheatre.]

From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his

conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and

Leon; but it is heedless to enumerate the cities that yielded on

his approach, or again to describe the table of emerald,179

transported from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths

among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the

throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime

town of Gijon was the term180 of the lieutenant of Musa, who had

performed with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march of

seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the bay of

Biscay. The failure of land compelled him to retreat: and he was

recalled to Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a

kingdom in the absence of his general. Spain, which in a more

savage and disorderly state, had resisted, two hundred years, the

arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of the

Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and treaty,

that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who

fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The cause

of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres;

and in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a

contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united

strength of the whole.181 That strength had been wasted by two

successive seasons of famine and pestilence; and the governors,

who were impatient to surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty

of collecting the provisions of a siege. To disarm the

Christians, superstition likewise contributed her terrors: and

the subtle Arab encouraged the report of dreams, omens, and

prophecies, and of the portraits of the destined conquerors of

Spain, that were discovered on the breaking open an apartment of

the royal palace. Yet a spark of the vital flame was still alive;

some invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom

in the Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineers repulsed the

slaves of the caliph; and the sword of Pelagius has been

transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic kings.182

179 (return) [ In the Historia Arabum (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem

Elmacin), Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and

inserts the name of Medinat Ahneyda in Arabic words and letters.

He appears to be conversant with the Mahometan writers; but I

cannot agree with M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 350)

that he had read and transcribed Novairi; because he was dead a

hundred years before Novairi composed his history. This mistake

is founded on a still grosser error. M. de Guignes confounds the

governed historian Roderic Ximines, archbishop of Toledo, in the

xiiith century, with cardinal Ximines, who governed Spain in the

beginning of the xvith, and was the subject, not the author, of

historical compositions.]

180 (return) [ Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the

boast of Regnard and his companions in their Lapland journey,

“Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis.”]

181 (return) [ Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and

every chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the

spirit of Pelagius; Omnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine

Gothorum, omnis exercitus Hispaniae in uno congregatus

Ismaelitarum non valuit sustinere impetum. Chron. Alphonsi Regis,

apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 177.]

182 (return) [ The revival of tire Gothic kingdom in the Asturias

is distinctly though concisely noticed by d’Anville (Etats de

l’Europe, p. 159)]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VII.

On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of Musa

degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain, but to

fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue. At the head

of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand Africans, he passed over

in person from Mauritania to Spain: the first of his companions

were the noblest of the Koreish; his eldest son was left in the

command of Africa; the three younger brethren were of an age and

spirit to second the boldest enterprises of their father. At his

landing in Algezire, he was respectfully entertained by Count

Julian, who stifled his inward remorse, and testified, both in

words and actions, that the victory of the Arabs had not impaired

his attachment to their cause. Some enemies yet remained for the

sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths had compared

their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities from

which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as

impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications

of Seville and Merida. They were successively besieged and

reduced by the labor of Musa, who transported his camp from the

Boetis to the Anas, from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When

he beheld the works of Roman magnificence, the bridge, the

aqueducts, the triumphal arches, and the theatre, of the ancient

metropolis of Lusitania, “I should imagine,” said he to his four

companions, “that the human race must have united their art and

power in the foundation of this city: happy is the man who shall

become its master!” He aspired to that happiness, but the

Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honor of their descent

from the veteran legionaries of Augustus 183 Disdaining the

confinement of their walls, they gave battle to the Arabs on the

plain; but an ambuscade rising from the shelter of a quarry, or a

ruin, chastised their indiscretion, and intercepted their return.

The wooden turrets of assault were rolled forwards to the foot of

the rampart; but the defence of Merida was obstinate and long;

and the castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of the

losses of the Moslems. The constancy of the besieged was at

length subdued by famine and despair; and the prudent victor

disguised his impatience under the names of clemency and esteem.

The alternative of exile or tribute was allowed; the churches

were divided between the two religions; and the wealth of those

who had fallen in the siege, or retired to Gallicia, was

confiscated as the reward of the faithful. In the midway between

Merida and Toledo, the lieutenant of Musa saluted the vicegerent

of the caliph, and conducted him to the palace of the Gothic

kings. Their first interview was cold and formal: a rigid account

was exacted of the treasures of Spain: the character of Tarik was

exposed to suspicion and obloquy; and the hero was imprisoned,

reviled, and ignominiously scourged by the hand, or the command,

of Musa. Yet so strict was the discipline, so pure the zeal, or

so tame the spirit, of the primitive Moslems, that, after this

public indignity, Tarik could serve and be trusted in the

reduction of the Tarragonest province. A mosch was erected at

Saragossa, by the liberality of the Koreish: the port of

Barcelona was opened to the vessels of Syria; and the Goths were

pursued beyond the Pyrenaean mountains into their Gallic province

of Septimania or Languedoc. 184 In the church of St. Mary at

Carcassone, Musa found, but it is improbable that he left, seven

equestrian statues of massy silver; and from his term or column

of Narbonne, he returned on his footsteps to the Gallician and

Lusitanian shores of the ocean. During the absence of the father,

his son Abdelaziz chastised the insurgents of Seville, and

reduced, from Malaga to Valentia, the sea-coast of the

Mediterranean: his original treaty with the discreet and valiant

Theodemir 185 will represent the manners and policy of the times.

“The conditions of peace agreed and sworn between Abdelaziz, the

son of Musa, the son of Nassir, and Theodemir prince of the

Goths. In the name of the most merciful God, Abdelaziz makes

peace on these conditions: that Theodemir shall not be disturbed

in his principality; nor any injury be offered to the life or

property, the wives and children, the religion and temples, of

the Christians: that Theodemir shall freely deliver his seven

1851 cities, Orihuela, Valentola, Alicanti Mola, Vacasora,

Bigerra, (now Bejar,) Ora, (or Opta,) and Lorca: that he shall

not assist or entertain the enemies of the caliph, but shall

faithfully communicate his knowledge of their hostile designs:

that himself, and each of the Gothic nobles, shall annually pay

one piece of gold, four measures of wheat, as many of barley,

with a certain proportion of honey, oil, and vinegar; and that

each of their vassals shall be taxed at one moiety of the said

imposition. Given the fourth of Regeb, in the year of the Hegira

ninety-four, and subscribed with the names of four Mussulman

witnesses.” 186 Theodemir and his subjects were treated with

uncommon lenity; but the rate of tribute appears to have

fluctuated from a tenth to a fifth, according to the submission

or obstinacy of the Christians. 187 In this revolution, many

partial calamities were inflicted by the carnal or religious

passions of the enthusiasts: some churches were profaned by the

new worship: some relics or images were confounded with idols:

the rebels were put to the sword; and one town (an obscure place

between Cordova and Seville) was razed to its foundations. Yet if

we compare the invasion of Spain by the Goths, or its recovery by

the kings of Castile and Arragon, we must applaud the moderation

and discipline of the Arabian conquerors.

183 (return) [ The honorable relics of the Cantabrian war (Dion

Cassius, l. liii p. 720) were planted in this metropolis of

Lusitania, perhaps of Spain, (submittit cui tota suos Hispania

fasces.) Nonius (Hispania, c. 31, p. 106-110) enumerates the

ancient structures, but concludes with a sigh: Urbs haec olim

nobilissima ad magnam incolarum infrequentiam delapsa est, et

praeter priscae claritatis ruinas nihil ostendit.]

184 (return) [ Both the interpreters of Novairi, De Guignes

(Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 349) and Cardonne, (Hist. de

l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, tom. i. p. 93, 94, 104, 135,) lead

Musa into the Narbonnese Gaul. But I find no mention of this

enterprise, either in Roderic of Toledo, or the Mss. of the

Escurial, and the invasion of the Saracens is postponed by a

French chronicle till the ixth year after the conquest of Spain,

A.D. 721, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 177, 195. Historians of

France, tom. iii.) I much question whether Musa ever passed the

Pyrenees.]

185 (return) [ Four hundred years after Theodemir, his

territories of Murcia and Carthagena retain in the Nubian

geographer Edrisi (p, 154, 161) the name of Tadmir, (D’Anville,

Etats de l’Europe, p. 156. Pagi, tom. iii. p. 174.) In the

present decay of Spanish agriculture, Mr. Swinburne (Travels into

Spain, p. 119) surveyed with pleasure the delicious valley from

Murcia to Orihuela, four leagues and a half of the finest corn

pulse, lucerne, oranges, &c.]

1851 (return) [ Gibbon has made eight cities: in Conde’s

translation Bigera does not appear.—M.]

186 (return) [ See the treaty in Arabic and Latin, in the

Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 105, 106. It is signed

the 4th of the month of Regeb, A. H. 94, the 5th of April, A.D.

713; a date which seems to prolong the resistance of Theodemir,

and the government of Musa.]

187 (return) [ From the history of Sandoval, p. 87. Fleury (Hist.

Eccles. tom. ix. p. 261) has given the substance of another

treaty concluded A Ae. C. 782, A.D. 734, between an Arabian chief

and the Goths and Romans, of the territory of Conimbra in

Portugal. The tax of the churches is fixed at twenty-five pounds

of gold; of the monasteries, fifty; of the cathedrals, one

hundred; the Christians are judged by their count, but in capital

cases he must consult the alcaide. The church doors must be shut,

and they must respect the name of Mahomet. I have not the

original before me; it would confirm or destroy a dark suspicion,

that the piece has been forged to introduce the immunity of a

neighboring convent.]

The exploits of Musa were performed in the evening of life,

though he affected to disguise his age by coloring with a red

powder the whiteness of his beard. But in the love of action and

glory, his breast was still fired with the ardor of youth; and

the possession of Spain was considered only as the first step to

the monarchy of Europe. With a powerful armament by sea and land,

he was preparing to repass the Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul

and Italy the declining kingdoms of the Franks and Lombards, and

to preach the unity of God on the altar of the Vatican. From

thence, subduing the Barbarians of Germany, he proposed to follow

the course of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea, to

overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and

returning from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with

Antioch and the provinces of Syria. 188 But his vast enterprise,

perhaps of easy execution, must have seemed extravagant to vulgar

minds; and the visionary conqueror was soon reminded of his

dependence and servitude. The friends of Tarik had effectually

stated his services and wrongs: at the court of Damascus, the

proceedings of Musa were blamed, his intentions were suspected,

and his delay in complying with the first invitation was

chastised by a harsher and more peremptory summons. An intrepid

messenger of the caliph entered his camp at Lugo in Gallicia, and

in the presence of the Saracens and Christians arrested the

bridle of his horse. His own loyalty, or that of his troops,

inculcated the duty of obedience: and his disgrace was alleviated

by the recall of his rival, and the permission of investing with

his two governments his two sons, Abdallah and Abdelaziz. His

long triumph from Ceuta to Damascus displayed the spoils of

Africa and the treasures of Spain: four hundred Gothic nobles,

with gold coronets and girdles, were distinguished in his train;

and the number of male and female captives, selected for their

birth or beauty, was computed at eighteen, or even at thirty,

thousand persons. As soon as he reached Tiberias in Palestine, he

was apprised of the sickness and danger of the caliph, by a

private message from Soliman, his brother and presumptive heir;

who wished to reserve for his own reign the spectacle of victory.

Had Walid recovered, the delay of Musa would have been criminal:

he pursued his march, and found an enemy on the throne. In his

trial before a partial judge against a popular antagonist, he was

convicted of vanity and falsehood; and a fine of two hundred

thousand pieces of gold either exhausted his poverty or proved

his rapaciousness. The unworthy treatment of Tarik was revenged

by a similar indignity; and the veteran commander, after a public

whipping, stood a whole day in the sun before the palace gate,

till he obtained a decent exile, under the pious name of a

pilgrimage to Mecca. The resentment of the caliph might have been

satiated with the ruin of Musa; but his fears demanded the

extirpation of a potent and injured family. A sentence of death

was intimated with secrecy and speed to the trusty servants of

the throne both in Africa and Spain; and the forms, if not the

substance, of justice were superseded in this bloody execution.

In the mosch or palace of Cordova, Abdelaziz was slain by the

swords of the conspirators; they accused their governor of

claiming the honors of royalty; and his scandalous marriage with

Egilona, the widow of Roderic, offended the prejudices both of

the Christians and Moslems. By a refinement of cruelty, the head

of the son was presented to the father, with an insulting

question, whether he acknowledged the features of the rebel? “I

know his features,” he exclaimed with indignation: “I assert his

innocence; and I imprecate the same, a juster fate, against the

authors of his death.” The age and despair of Musa raised him

above the power of kings; and he expired at Mecca of the anguish

of a broken heart. His rival was more favorably treated: his

services were forgiven; and Tarik was permitted to mingle with

the crowd of slaves. 189 I am ignorant whether Count Julian was

rewarded with the death which he deserved indeed, though not from

the hands of the Saracens; but the tale of their ingratitude to

the sons of Witiza is disproved by the most unquestionable

evidence. The two royal youths were reinstated in the private

patrimony of their father; but on the decease of Eba, the elder,

his daughter was unjustly despoiled of her portion by the

violence of her uncle Sigebut. The Gothic maid pleaded her cause

before the caliph Hashem, and obtained the restitution of her

inheritance; but she was given in marriage to a noble Arabian,

and their two sons, Isaac and Ibrahim, were received in Spain

with the consideration that was due to their origin and riches.

188 (return) [ This design, which is attested by several Arabian

historians, (Cardonne, tom. i. p. 95, 96,) may be compared with

that of Mithridates, to march from the Crimaea to Rome; or with

that of Caesar, to conquer the East, and return home by the

North; and all three are perhaps surpassed by the real and

successful enterprise of Hannibal.]

189 (return) [ I much regret our loss, or my ignorance, of two

Arabic works of the viiith century, a Life of Musa, and a poem on

the exploits of Tarik. Of these authentic pieces, the former was

composed by a grandson of Musa, who had escaped from the massacre

of his kindred; the latter, by the vizier of the first

Abdalrahman, caliph of Spain, who might have conversed with some

of the veterans of the conqueror, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom.

ii. p. 36, 139.)]

A province is assimilated to the victorious state by the

introduction of strangers and the imitative spirit of the

natives; and Spain, which had been successively tinctured with

Punic, and Roman, and Gothic blood, imbibed, in a few

generations, the name and manners of the Arabs. The first

conquerors, and the twenty successive lieutenants of the caliphs,

were attended by a numerous train of civil and military

followers, who preferred a distant fortune to a narrow home: the

private and public interest was promoted by the establishment of

faithful colonies; and the cities of Spain were proud to

commemorate the tribe or country of their Eastern progenitors.

The victorious though motley bands of Tarik and Musa asserted, by

the name of Spaniards, their original claim of conquest; yet they

allowed their brethren of Egypt to share their establishments of

Murcia and Lisbon. The royal legion of Damascus was planted at

Cordova; that of Emesa at Seville; that of Kinnisrin or Chalcis

at Jaen; that of Palestine at Algezire and Medina Sidonia. The

natives of Yemen and Persia were scattered round Toledo and the

inland country, and the fertile seats of Grenada were bestowed on

ten thousand horsemen of Syria and Irak, the children of the

purest and most noble of the Arabian tribes. 190 A spirit of

emulation, sometimes beneficial, more frequently dangerous, was

nourished by these hereditary factions. Ten years after the

conquest, a map of the province was presented to the caliph: the

seas, the rivers, and the harbors, the inhabitants and cities,

the climate, the soil, and the mineral productions of the earth.

191 In the space of two centuries, the gifts of nature were

improved by the agriculture, 192 the manufactures, and the

commerce, of an industrious people; and the effects of their

diligence have been magnified by the idleness of their fancy. The

first of the Ommiades who reigned in Spain solicited the support

of the Christians; and in his edict of peace and protection, he

contents himself with a modest imposition of ten thousand ounces

of gold, ten thousand pounds of silver, ten thousand horses, as

many mules, one thousand cuirasses, with an equal number of

helmets and lances. 193 The most powerful of his successors

derived from the same kingdom the annual tribute of twelve

millions and forty-five thousand dinars or pieces of gold, about

six millions of sterling money; 194 a sum which, in the tenth

century, most probably surpassed the united revenues of the

Christians monarchs. His royal seat of Cordova contained six

hundred moschs, nine hundred baths, and two hundred thousand

houses; he gave laws to eighty cities of the first, to three

hundred of the second and third order; and the fertile banks of

the Guadalquivir were adorned with twelve thousand villages and

hamlets. The Arabs might exaggerate the truth, but they created

and they describe the most prosperous aera of the riches, the

cultivation, and the populousness of Spain. 195

190 (return) [ Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. ii. p. 32, 252. The

former of these quotations is taken from a Biographia Hispanica,

by an Arabian of Valentia, (see the copious Extracts of Casiri,

tom. ii. p. 30-121;) and the latter from a general Chronology of

the Caliphs, and of the African and Spanish Dynasties, with a

particular History of the kingdom of Grenada, of which Casiri has

given almost an entire version, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom.

ii. p. 177-319.) The author, Ebn Khateb, a native of Grenada, and

a contemporary of Novairi and Abulfeda, (born A.D. 1313, died

A.D. 1374,) was an historian, geographer, physician, poet, &c.,

(tom. ii. p. 71, 72.)]

191 (return) [ Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, tom.

i. p. 116, 117.]

192 (return) [ A copious treatise of husbandry, by an Arabian of

Seville, in the xiith century, is in the Escurial library, and

Casiri had some thoughts of translating it. He gives a list of

the authors quoted, Arabs as well as Greeks, Latins, &c.; but it

is much if the Andalusian saw these strangers through the medium

of his countryman Columella, (Casiri, Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana,

tom. i. p. 323-338.)]

193 (return) [ Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 104. Casiri

translates the original testimony of the historian Rasis, as it

is alleged in the Arabic Biographia Hispanica, pars ix. But I am

most exceedingly surprised at the address, Principibus

caeterisque Christianis, Hispanis suis Castellae. The name of

Castellae was unknown in the viiith century; the kingdom was not

erected till the year 1022, a hundred years after the time of

Rasis, (Bibliot. tom. ii. p. 330,) and the appellation was always

expressive, not of a tributary province, but of a line of castles

independent of the Moorish yoke, (D’Anville, Etats de l’Europe,

p. 166-170.) Had Casiri been a critic, he would have cleared a

difficulty, perhaps of his own making.]

194 (return) [ Cardonne, tom. i. p. 337, 338. He computes the

revenue at 130,000,000 of French livres. The entire picture of

peace and prosperity relieves the bloody uniformity of the

Moorish annals.]

195 (return) [ I am happy enough to possess a splendid and

interesting work which has only been distributed in presents by

the court of Madrid Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis,

opera et studio Michaelis Casiri, Syro Maronitoe. Matriti, in

folio, tomus prior, 1760, tomus posterior, 1770. The execution of

this work does honor to the Spanish press; the Mss., to the

number of MDCCCLI., are judiciously classed by the editor, and

his copious extracts throw some light on the Mahometan literature

and history of Spain. These relics are now secure, but the task

has been supinely delayed, till, in the year 1671, a fire

consumed the greatest part of the Escurial library, rich in the

spoils of Grenada and Morocco. * Note: Compare the valuable work

of Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de las Arabes en Espana.

Madrid, 1820.—M.]