Siege and conquest of Alexandria, 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 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 harbour to save the second capital of the empire. A circumference of ten miles would have scattered the forces of the Greeks, and favoured the stratagems of an active enemy; but the two sides of an oblong square were covered by the sea and the lake Maræotis, 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 labours 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 valour: his followers who had entered the citadel were driven back; and the general, with a friend and a slave, remained a prisoner in the hands of the christians. When Amrou was conducted before the præfect, he remembered his dignity, and forgot his situation; a lofty demeanour, 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 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 moderu rivals, Savary and Volney, the one may amuse, the other will instruct. u 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 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," 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." 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. Under the minority of his grandson, the clamours 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 harbour and fortifications of Alexandria were twice occupied by a fleet and army of Romans. They were twice expelled by the valour 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 were spared in the chastisement of the city, and 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. x Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 316. 319. y Notwithstanding some inconsistencies of Theophanes and Cedre. nus, the accuracy of Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 824.) has extracted from Nicephorus aud the Chronicon Orientale the true date of the death of Heraclius, February 11th, A. D. 641. fifty days after the loss of Alex. andria. A fourth of that time was sufficient to convey the intelligence. 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, his d The Alexandrian I should deceive the expectation of library. the reader, if I passed in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Am-torians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be rou 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. Imboldened 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 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. 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 annalists 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. The z Many treatises of this lover of labour (Aonovos) 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. Græc. 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. a 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 honour the rational scepticism of Renaudot: (Hist. Alex. Patriarch. p. 170.) historia habet aliquid anisov, ut Arabibus familiare est. b This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the annals of Euty. chius, 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. See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in his third 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. d Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement, Livian. c. 12. 43.) and Usher. (Annal. p. 469.) Livy himself had styled the Alexan. dr'an library, elegantia regum curæque egregium opus; a liberal en lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. 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 shall not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame that was kindled by Cæsar in his own defence, or the mischievous bigotry of the christians who studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry. 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. 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, 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 object 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 poctry 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 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; nor can it fairly be presumed that any important truth, any useful discomium, for which he is pertly criticised by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 9.) whose wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into nonsense. h See this History, p. 467. f Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticæ, vi. 17.) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxii. 16.) and Orosius, (1. vi. c. 15.) They all speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably strong: fuerunt Bibliothecæ innumerabiles; et loquitur monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.. g Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible, Hexapla, Catena 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. h 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. i Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this subject Wotton (Reflections on ancient and moderu 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 Ethiopic books into the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that philosophy has sustained any real loss from their ex. clusion. covery in art or nature, has been snatched away | his eyes the realm of Pharaoh and the Amalekites ; from the curiosity of modern ages. Administration k In the administration of Egypt, of Egypt. 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 laboured to injure and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion and honour 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 dykes 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. But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, or the Cæsars; and a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile to the Red sea. 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.m k This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi (p. 284-289.) has not been discovered either by Ockley, or by the self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History. 1 Eutychius, Annal, tom, ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 35. m 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 molina, p. 39-47. 68-70.) Even the supine Turks have agitated the old project of joining the two seas. (Mémoires du Baron de Tott, tom. iv.) n A small volume, des Merveilles, &c. de l'Egypte, composed in the thirteenth 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.) 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: and the answer of Amrou exhibits a lively and not What wonder in the sultry climes that spread, (Mason's Works, and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200,) p Murtadi, p. 164-167. The reader will not easily credit a human sacrifice under the christiau emperors, or a miracle of the successors of Mahomet. q 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 persous, and that many of them are more populous than our large cities. r Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308. 311. The twenty millions are com. puted from the following data: one twelfth of mankind above sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of men to women as seventeen to sixteen. (Recherches sur la population de la France, p. 71, 72.) The president Goguet (Origine des Arts, &c. tom. iii. p. 26, &c.) bestows silver were annually paid to the treasury of the caliph. 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. 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." 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. 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." AFRICA. Abdallah, A. D. 647. IV. The conquest of Africa, from First invasion by the Nile to the Atlantic ocean, 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, the son of Said and the fosterbrother of the caliph, who had lately supplanted the conqueror and lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favour of the prince, and the merit of his favourite, 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 a twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seventeen hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day. s Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 218; and this gross lump is swallowed without scruple by D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 1031.) Arbuthnot, (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 favour of the Ptolemies (in præfat.) 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.) 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. u 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 ninth 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 Cæsars, from six to fifteen millions of German crowns, 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. y See Maillet, (Description de l'Egypte, p. 28.) who seems to argue with candour and judgment. I am much better satisfied with the ob. servations 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. Egypt. Arab. et Lat. à Joh. David Michaelis, 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 honourable 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, 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 reinforcement 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 præfect Gregory, to relinquish the labours of The præfect the siege for the perils and the hopes Gregory and his daughter. 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 Gottinga, 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. 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 Encyclopedia 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 sixth chapter of the fifth section of this last part. (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifa Tabulas, p. 232-234.) Among the older historians who are quoted by Novairi we may distinguish the original narrative of a soldier who led the van of the Moslems. a See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda, (Vit. Mohammed. p. 109.) and Gagnier. (Vie de Mahomet, tom. in. p. 45-48.) b 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. e Theophanes, who mentions the defeat rather than the death of Gregory. He brands the præfect with the name of Tuparvos: he had probably assumed the purple. (Chronograph. p. 285.) 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 scymitar; and the richness of her arms and apparel was 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. Victory of the A noble Arabian, who afterwards Arabs. became the adversary of Ali, and the father of a caliph, had signalized his valour in Egypt, and Zobeird was the first who planted a 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 præfect. 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 favour 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 armour 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 præfect himself was slain by the hand of Zobeir: his daughter, d See in Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 45.) the death of Zobeir, which was honoured with the tears of Ali, against whom he had rebelled. His valour at the siege of Babylon, if indeed it be the same person, is mentioned by Eutychius. (Annal. tom. ii. p. 308.) e Shaw's Travels, p. 118, 119. f Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat hæc, et mira donatio; quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex ærario prius ablatos ærario præstabat. (Aunal. Moslem. p. 78.) Elmacin (in his cloudy 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 triumphal arch, a portico, and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet admire the magnificence of the Romans. 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 favourite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand pieces of gold; 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 præfect's daughter at the sight of Zobeir revealed the valour 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 laboured for a recompence far above the charms of mortal beauty, or the riches of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper, was the honourable 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. Saracens in The western conquests of the Sara- Progress of the cens were suspended near twenty Africa, years, till their dissensions were com- A. D. 665–689. posed 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 distresses, they imposed, as an equiva version, p. 39.) seems to report the same job. When the Arabs besieged the palace of Othman, it stood high in their catalogue of grievances. § Επεςρατευσαν Σαρακηνοί την Αφρικήν, και συμβάλοντες τῳ τυραννῳ Γρηγόριῳ τούτον τρέπουσι και τους συν αυτῷ κτείνουσι, και τοιχησαντες φόρους μετά των Αφρων ὑπέτρεψαν. Theophan. Chronograph. p. 285. edit. Paris. His chronology is loose and inaccurate. |