lent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount. The ears of the Byzantine 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. 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; 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 sea-coast, the well-known cities of Bugia and Tangier1 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. The province of Mauritania Tingitana, which assumed the name of the capital, had been imperfectly discovered and settled by the Ro m k h 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. I. v. c. 13.) that at this time they sent a fleet from Alexandria into the Sicilian and African seas. i See Novairi, (apud Otter, p. 118.) Leo Africanus, (fol. 81. verso,) who reckons only cinque citta è infinite casal; Marmol, (Description de l'Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33.) and Shaw, (Travels, p. 57. 65-68.) k Leo African. fol. 58. verso, 59. recto. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 415. Shaw, p. 43. 1 Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228. m Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre sortita, parvis oppidis babitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris melior et seguitie 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 af terwards, Pliny (Hist. Nat. v. i.) complains of his authors, too lazy to inquire, too proud to confess, their ignorance of that wild and remote province. ocean. mans; 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," and the shores of the ocean for the purple shell-fish. 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, and at length penetrated to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert. The river Sus 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 Fortunate, 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 afterwards sold for a thousand pieces of gold. The career, though not the zeal, of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless 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 any other gods than thee." 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 scymitars, broke their scabbards, and maintained an obstinate combat, till they fell by each other's side on the last of their slaughtered n 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, (latifundii 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 Linnæan 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. (Plinian. Exercitat. tom. ii. p. 666, &c.) o 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. p 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. 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. Foundation of Cairoan, 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 to 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, Cairoan still holds the second rank in the kingdom of Tunis, from which it is distant about fifty miles to the south: its inland situation, twelve miles westward of the sea, has protected the city from the Greek and Silician 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 mosch 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 fierce The foundation of Cairoan is mentioned by Ockley; (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129, 130.) and the situation, mosch, &c. of the city are described by Leo Africanus, (fol. 75.) Marmol, (tom. ii. p. 532.) and Shaw, (p. 115.) 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 sea-coast. The great Thuanus has not escaped this fault, the less excusable as it is connected with a formal and elaborate description of Africa, (Historiar. I. vii. c. 2. in tom. i. p. 240. edit. Buckley.) Besides the Arabic chronicles of Abulfeda, Elmacin, and Abulpharagius, under the seventy-third year of the Hegira, we may consult D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 7.) and Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 339-349.) The latter has given the last and pathetic dia. logue 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. • Λεοντιος . . . . άπαντα τα 'Ρωμαικα εξωπλισε πλοιμα, πρατηγον τε επ' αυτοις Ιωαννην τον Πατρίκιον εμπείρον των πολεμίων προχειρισαμενος προς Καρχηδόνα κατά των Σαρακηνων εξέπεμψεν. Nicephori Constantinopolitani Breviar. p. 28. The patriarch of Constantinople, ness of the lion with the subtilty of the fox; but if he inherited the courage, he was devoid of the generosity, of his father. Conquest of Carthage, 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 sea-coast 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 operation of a regular siege. But the joy of the conquerors was soon disturbed by the appearance of the christian succours. The præfect and patrician John, a general of experience and renown, embarked at Constantinople the forces of the eastern empire; they were joined by the ships and soldiers of Sicily, and a powerful reinforcement of Goths" was obtained from the fears and religion of the Spanish monarch. 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 faithful 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: the Greeks and Goths were again defeated; and their timid 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 Dido and Cæsar lay desolate above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a with Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 309.) have slightly mentioned this last attempt for the relief of 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.) u Dove s'erano ridotti i nobili Romani e i Gotti; and afterwards, i Romani suggirono e i Gotti, lasciarono Carthagine. (Leo African, fol. 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. * This commander is styled by Nicephorus Βασιλευς Σαρακηνών, ο vague though not improper definition of the caliph. Theophanes introduces the strange appellation of Ipoтoovusolos, 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 kateb, or secretary, and that the office of Vizir was not revived or instituted till the 132d year of the Hegira. (D'Herbelot, p. 912.) y 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. Plin. Exercit. tom. i. p. 228.) The former of these accounts, which gives 823 years before twentieth, of the old circumference was repeopled | that their ignorance of antiquity, the love of the by the first of the Fatimite caliphs. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the second capital of the west was represented by a mosch, 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." Final conquest of Africa, 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, so feeble under the first Cæsars, 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. Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect Christ, is more consistent with the well-weighed testimony of Vellius Paterenlus: but the latter is preferred by our chronologists (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 398.) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and Tyrian annals. z Leo African. fol. 71. verso; 72. recto. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 445–447. Shaw, p. 80. a 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. Kapes Bapßapopovo. (Iliad ii. 867. with the Oxford scholiast, Clarke's Annotations, and Henry Stephen's Greek Thesaurus, tom. i. p. 720.) 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 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 the 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 Adoption of the adopt the language, name, and origin, Moors. 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 Libyan 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." to the insult, (Pompeius Festus, I. 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. b 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 Ro. man, learning. Many of his gross mistakes might be detected in the first period of the Mahometan history. tained. 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 two fatally shown that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held in his hand 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 Pyrenæan mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long peace; the walls of the cities 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 per fare. As early as the time of Othmana their piratical | the injuries which Roderic and his family had sussquadrons had ravaged the coasts of Andalusia;e 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. If we inquire into the cause of his treachery, the Spaniards will repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava ;s 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. After the decease or deposition of Wi-mission of Walid to annex the unknown kingdoms tiza, 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 Gothic monar- victim to the preceding tyranny. The chy. 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 State of the e 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. d Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 78. vers. Reiske. * 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. The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy are related by Mariana, (tom. i. p. 238-260. 1. vi. c. 19–26. 1. vii. c. 1, 2.) That historian has infused into his noble work (Historiæ de Rebus Hispaniæ, libri xxx. Hage Comitum 1733, in four volumes in folio, with the Con. tinuation 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 Badajos (Pacen | of the west to the religion and throne of the caliphs. The first descent of the Arabs, A. D. 710. July. g Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile à faire qu'à prouver. Des evêques se seroient-ils lignes pour une fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically conclusive. h In the story of Cava, Mariana (1. 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 Lucas Tudensis, a Gallician deacon of the thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam pro concubinâ utebatur. The orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagius, Abulfeda, pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single word. The text of No. vairi, 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 vol. in 12mo, tom. I. p. 55-114.) and more concisely by M. de Guigues. (Hist. des Huns, 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. 319-332. On this occasion, the industry of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the Abbé de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am deeply indebted. k A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the æra, has determined Baronius, month of Ramadan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of July, seven hundred and fortyeight years from the Spanish æra of Cæsar,' 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: 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 transTheir second ports were provided by the industry of descent, their too faithful ally. The Saracens A. D. 711. | bay, divided the two camps, and marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and bloody days. 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 of suspicion to consult his personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were scattered or destroyed in 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 Guadalquivir. 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." April. landed at the pillar or point of Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel al 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 neigh-│“The king of the Goths is slain; their princes are bourhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres has been and victory, illustrated by the encounter which July 19-26. determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Gaudalete, which falls into the 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 indus try of modern chronogolists, above all, of Pagi, (Critica, tom. ii. p. 169. 171-174.) who have restored the genuine date 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, 1 The æra of Cæsar, which in Spain was in legal and popular use till the fourteenth 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 Cas. sius, 1. xlviii. p. 547. 553. Appian de Bell. Civil. I. v. p. 1034, edit, fol.) Spain was a province of Cæsar Octavian; and Tarragona, which raised the first temple to Augustus, (Tacit. Annal. i. 78.) might borrow from the orientals this mode of flattery. m The road, the country, the old castle of Count Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden treasures, &c. are described A. D. 711. Count Julian had plunged so deep Ruin of the Gointo guilt and infamy, that his only thie monarchy, hope was in the ruin of his country. After the battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to the victorious Saracen. 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 by Père Labat, (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, ton. i. p. 207-217.) with his usual pleasantry. n 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. o Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two leagues from Cadiz. In the sixteenth century it was a granary of corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe. (Lud. Nonii His. pania, c. 13. p. 54-56. a work of correct and concise knowledge; D'Anville, Etats de l'Europe, &c. p. 154.) p Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie referentibus sæpe cor.. tingit. Ben Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327. Some credulotis Spaniards believe that king Roderic, or Roderigo, escaped to a hermit's cell; and others, that be 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. 1. iii. c. i.) |