"advised by a sage to humble myself before God; to distrust my "own strength; and never to despise the most contemptible foe. I "have neglected these lessons; and my neglect has been deservedly "punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the numbers, "the discipline, and the spirit of my armies, the earth seemed to "tremble under my feet; and I said in my heart, Surely thou art the "king of the world, the greatest and most invincible of warriors. “These armies are no longer mine; and, in the confidence of my "personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an assassin." 39 Alp Arslan possessed the virtues of a Turk and a Musulman; his voice and stature commanded the reverence of mankind; his face was shaded with long whiskers; and his ample turban was fashioned in the shape of a crown. The remains of the sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty; and the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: 40 OYE WHO HAVE SEEN THE "GLORY OF ALP ARSLAN EXALTED TO THE HEAVENS, REPAIR TO MARU, (6 AND YOU WILL BEHOLD IT BURIED IN THE DUST." The annihilation of the inscription, and the tomb itself, more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness.

Reign and

Malek Shah,

A.D. 1072-1092.

66

During the life of Alp Arslan his eldest son had been acknowledged as the future sultan of the Turks. On his father's death prosperity of the inheritance was disputed by an uncle, a cousin, and a brother they drew their scimitars and assembled their followers; and the triple victory of Malek Shah " established his own reputation and the right of primogeniture. In every age, and more especially in Asia, the thirst of power has inspired the same passions and occasioned the same disorders; but, from the long series of civil war, it would not be easy to extract a sentiment more pure and magnanimous than is contained in a saying of the Turkish prince. On the eve of the battle he performed his devotions at Thous, before the tomb of the Imam Riza. As the sultan rose from the ground he asked his vizir Nizam, who had knelt beside him, what had been the object of his secret petition: "That your arms may be "crowned with victory," was the prudent, and most probably the sincere, answer of the minister. "For my part," replied the generous

39 This interesting death is told by D'Herbelot (p. 103, 104) and M. de Guignes (tom. iii. p. 212, 213), from their Oriental writers; but neither of them have transfused the spirit of Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 344, 345).

40 A critic of high renown (the late Dr. Johnson), who has severely scrutinised the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in this sublime inscription at the words "repair to Maru," since the reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse the inscription.

The Bibliothèque Orientale has given the text of the reign of Malek (p. 542, 543, 544, 654, 655); and the Histoire Générale des Huns (tom. iii. p. 214-224) has added the usual measure of repetition, emendation, and supplement. Without those two learned Frenchmen I should be blind indeed in the Eastern world.

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Malek, "I implored the Lord of hosts that he would take from me my life and crown, if my brother be more worthy than myself to "reign over the Moslems." The favourable judgment of Heaven was ratified by the caliph; and for the first time the sacred title of Commander of the Faithful was communicated to a barbarian. But this barbarian, by his personal merit and the extent of his empire, was the greatest prince of his age. After the settlement of Persia and Syria he marched at the head of innumerable armies to achieve the conquest of Turkestan, which had been undertaken by his father. In his passage of the Oxus the boatmen, who had been employed in transporting some troops, complained that their payment was assigned on the revenues of Antioch. The sultan frowned at this preposterous choice; but he smiled at the artful flattery of his vizir. "It was not "to postpone their reward that I selected those remote places, but to "leave a memorial to posterity, that, under your reign, Antioch and "the Oxus were subject to the same sovereign." But this description of his limits was unjust and parsimonious: beyond the Oxus he reduced to his obedience the cities of Bochara, Carizme, and Samarcand, and crushed each rebellious slave or independent savage who dared to resist. Malek passed the Sihon or Jaxartes, the last boundary of Persian civilisation: the hordes of Turkestan yielded to his supremacy: his name was inserted on the coins and in the prayers of Cashgar, a Tartar kingdom on the extreme borders of China. From the Chinese frontier he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of Georgia, the neighbourhood of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of resigning himself to the luxury of his haram, the shepherd king, both in peace and war, was in action and in the field. By the perpetual motion of the royal camp each province was successively blessed with his presence; and he is said to have perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions, which surpassed the Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs. Of these expeditions the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of Mecca the freedom and safety of the caravans were protected by his arms; the citizens and pilgrims were enriched by the profusion of his alms; and the desert was cheered by the places of relief and refreshment which he instituted for the use of his brethren. Hunting was the pleasure, and even the passion, of the sultan, and his train consisted of forty-seven thousand horses; but after the massacre of a Turkish chase, for each piece of game he bestowed a piece of gold on the poor, a slight atonement, at the expense of the people, for the cost and mischief of the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of his reign the cities of Asia were adorned with palaces and hospitals,

:

with moschs and colleges: few departed from his divan without reward, and none without justice. The language and literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk; 42 and if Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself, 43 his palace might resound with the songs of a hundred poets. The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet the Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar months; in Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolution of the sun has been known and celebrated as an annual festival; " but after the fall of the Magian empire, the intercalation had been neglected; the fractions of minutes and hours. were multiplied into days; and the date of the spring was removed from the sign of Aries to that of Pisces. The reign of Malek was illustrated by the Gelalaan æra; and all errors, either past or future, were corrected by a computation of time, which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian, style."

In a period when Europe was plunged in the deepest barbarism, His death, the light and splendour of Asia may be ascribed to the A.D. 1092. docility rather than the knowledge of the Turkish conquerors. An ample share of their wisdom and virtue is due to a Persian vizir, who ruled the empire under the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son. Nizam, one of the most illustrious ministers of the East, was honoured by the caliph as an oracle of religion and science; he was trusted by the sultan as the faithful vicegerent of his power and justice. After an administration of thirty years, the fame of the vizir, his wealth, and even his services, were transformed into crimes. He was overthrown by the insidious arts of a woman and a rival; and his fall was hastened by a rash declaration, that his cap and inkhorn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine decree with the throne and diadem of the sultan. At the age of ninety-three years the venerable statesman was dismissed by his master, accused by his

42 See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir William Jones's History of Nadir Shah, and the articles of the poets Amak, Anvari, Raschidi, &c., in the Bibliothèque Orientale.

43 His name was Kheder Khan. Four bags were placed round his sofa, and, as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls of gold and silver to the poets (D'Herbelot, p. 107). All this may be true; but I do not understand how he could reign in Transoxiana in the time of Malek Shah, and much less how Kheder could surpass him in power and pomp. I suspect that the beginning, not the end, of the xith century is the true æra of his reign.

44 See Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 235.

45 The Gelalæan æra (Gelaleddin, Glory of the Faith, was one of the names or titles of Malek Shah) is fixed to the xvth of March, A.H. 471-A.D. 1079. Dr. Hyde has produced the original testimonies of the Persians and Arabians (de Religione veterum Persarum, c. 16, p. 200-211).

a

enemies, and murdered by a fanatic: the last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder of Malek's life was short and inglorious. From Ispahan, the scene of this disgraceful transaction, the sultan moved to Bagdad, with the design of transplanting the caliph, and of fixing his own residence in the capital of the Moslem world. The feeble successor of Mahomet obtained a respite of ten days; and before the expiration of the term the barbarian was summoned by the angel of death. His ambassadors at Constantinople had asked in marriage a Roman princess; but the proposal was decently eluded, and the daughter of Alexius, who might herself have been the victim, expresses her abhorrence of this unnatural conjunction.46 The daughter of the sultan was bestowed on the caliph Moctadi, with the imperious condition that, renouncing the society of his wives and concubines, he should for ever confine himself to this honourable alliance.

The greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the person of Malek Shah. His vacant throne was disputed by

b

Division of

empire.

his brother and his four sons; and, after a series of civil the Seljukian wars, the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and principal branch of the house of Seljuk. The three younger dynasties were those of Kerman, of Syria, and of Roum: the first of these commanded an extensive, though obscure, 47 dominion on the shores of the Indian Ocean; 48 the second expelled the Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus; and the third, our peculiar care, invaded the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. The generous policy of Malek contributed to their elevation: he allowed the princes of his blood, even those whom he had vanquished in the field, to seek new kingdoms worthy of their ambition; nor was he displeased that they

4 She speaks of this Persian royalty as ἁπάσης κακοδαιμονέστερον πενίας. Anna Comnena was only nine years old at the end of the reign of Malek Shah (A.D. 1092), and when she speaks of his assassination she confounds the sultan with the vizir (Alexias, 1. vi. p. 177, 178 [tom. i. p. 314-317, ed. Bonn]).

47 So obscure, that the industry of M. de Guignes could only copy (tom. i. p. 244; tom. iii. part i. p. 269, &c.) the history, or rather list, of the Seljukides of Kerman, in Bibliothèque Orientale. They were extinguished before the end of the xiith century.

48 Tavernier, perhaps the only traveller who has visited Kerman, describes the capital as a great ruinous village, twenty-five days' journey from Ispahan, and twentyseven from Ormus, in the midst of a fertile country (Voyages en Turquie et en Perse, p. 107, 110).

He was the first great victim of his enemy, Hassan Sabek, founder of the Assassins. Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 95.-M.

b See Von Hammer, Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 16. The Seljukian do

minions were for a time re-united in the person of Sandjar, one of the sons of Malek Shah, who ruled "from Kashgar to "Antioch, from the Caspian to the straits "of Babelmandeb."-M.

Conquest of Asia Minor by the Turks,

A.D.

1074-1084.

should draw away the more ardent spirits who might have disturbed the tranquillity of his reign. As the supreme head of his family and nation, the great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his royal brethren: the thrones of Kerman and Nice, of Aleppo and Damascus, the Atabeks and emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia, erected their standards under the shadow of his sceptre : 49 and the hordes of Turkmans overspread the plains of the Western Asia. After the death of Malek the bands of union and subordination were relaxed and finally dissolved: the indulgence of the house of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms; and, in the Oriental style, a crowd of princes arose from the dust of their feet.50 A prince of the royal line, Cutulmish, the son of Izrail, the son of Seljuk, had fallen in a battle against Alp Arslan: and the humane victor had dropped a tear over his grave. His five sons, strong in arms, ambitious of power, and eager for revenge, unsheathed their scimitars against the son of Alp Arslan. The two armies expected the signal, when the caliph, forgetful of the majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his venerable mediation. "Instead of shedding the blood of your "brethren, your brethren both in descent and faith, unite your forces "in a holy war against the Greeks, the enemies of God and his apostle." They listened to his voice; the sultan embraced his rebellious kinsmen; and the eldest, the valiant Soliman, accepted the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from Arzeroum to Constantinople and the unknown regions of the West.1 Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates: the Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighbourhood of Kutaieh in Phrygia; and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as the Hellespont and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the empire the peninsula of Asia Minor had been exposed to the transient though destructive inroads of the Persians and Saracens; but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for the Turkish sultan; and his arms were introduced by the Greeks, who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudocia

66

49 It appears from Anna Comnena that the Turks of Asia Minor obeyed the signet and chiauss of the great sultan (Alexias, 1. vi. p. 170 [tom. i. p. 302, ed. Bonn]), and that the two sons of Soliman were detained in his court (p. 180 [p. 319, ib.]).

50 This expression is quoted by Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, p. 161) from some poet, most probably a Persian.

On the conquest of Asia Minor, M. de Guignes has derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who produce a naked list of the Seljukides of Roum. The Greeks are unwilling to expose their shame, and we must extort some hints from Scylitzes (p. 860, 863 [p. 731, 736, ed. Bonn]), Nicephorus Bryennius (p. 88, 91, 92, &c., 103, 104 [p. 130, 136, sqq., 158, sqq., ed. Bonn], and Anna Comnena (Alexias, p. 91, 92, &c., 168, &c. [tom. i. p. 169, sqq., 299, sqq., ed. Bonn]).