dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured their con quest. Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and useful proselyte; and the general of the Saracens expressed his regard for the most humble merit, by detaining the army at Aleppo till Dames was cured of his honorable wounds. The capital of Syria was still covered by the castle of Aazaz and the iron bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of those important posts, and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies, the luxury of Antioch" trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed with three hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the throne of the successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government of the East, which had been decorated by Cæsar with the titles of free, and holy, and inviolate, was degraded under the yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town.

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In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war are clouded on either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his more early and his later days. When the successors of Ma homet unsheathed the sword of war and religion, he was astonished at the boundless prospect of toil and danger; his nature was indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of the emperor be kindled to a second effort. The sense of shame, and the importunities of the Syrians, prevented the hasty de parture from the scene of action; but the hero was no more; and the loss of Damascus and Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk, may be imputed in some degree to the absence or misconduct of the sovereign. Instead of de fending the sepulchre of Christ, he involved the church and state in a metaphysical controversy for the unity of his will;

"The date of the conquest of Antioch by the Arabs is of some im portance. By comparing the years of the world in the chronography of Theophanes with the years of the Hegira in the history of Elmacin, wo shall determine, that it was taken between January 23d and Sep tember 1st of the year of Christ 638, (Pagi, Critica, in Baron. Annal. tom. ii. p. 812, 813.) Al Wakidi (Ockley, vol. i. p. 314) assigns that event to Tuesday, August 21st, an inconsistent date; since Easter fell that year on April 5th, the 21st of August must have been a Friday, (see the Tables of the Art de Vérifier les Dates.)

87 His bounteous edict, which tempted the grateful city to assure the victory of Pharsalia for a perpetual æra, is given v 'AvTwxεig μητροπόλει, ἱερᾷ καὶ ἀσύλῳ καὶ αὐτονόμῳ, καὶ ἀσχούσῃ καὶ προκαθεμένη τῆς dvarons. John Malala, in Chron. p. 91, edit. Venet. We may distin guish his authentic information of domestic facts from his gros igno rance of general history

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and while Heraclius crowned the offspring of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped of the most valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of Antioch, in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix, he bewailed the sins of the prince and people; but his confession instructed the world, that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to resist the udgment of God. The Saracens were invincible in fact, since they were invincible in opinion; and the desertion of Youkinna, his false repentance and repeated perfidy, might justify the suspicion of the emperor, that he was encompassed by traitors and apostates, who conspired to betray his person and their country to the enemies of Christ. In the hour of adversity, his superstition was agitated by the omens and dreams of a falling crown; and after bidding an eternal farewell to Syria, he secretly embarked with a few attendants, and absolved the faith of his subjects.' Constantine, his eldest son, had been stationed with forty thousand men at Cæsarea, the civil metropolis of the three provinces of Palestine. But his private interest recalled him to the Byzantine court; and, after the flight of his father, he felt himself an unequal champion to the united force of the caliph. His vanguard was boldly attacked by three hundred Arabs and a thousand black slaves, who, in the depth of winter, had climbed the snowy mountains of Libanus, and who were speedily followed by the victorious squadrons of Caled himself. From the north and south the troops of Antioch and Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their banners were joined under the walls of the Phoenician cities: Tripoli and Tyre were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered without distrust the captive harbors, brought a seasonable supply of arms and provisions to the camp of the Saracens. Their labors were terminated by the unexpected surrender of Cæsarea: the Roman prince had embarked in the night; and the defenceless citizens solicited their par

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"See Ockley, (vol. i. p. 308, 312,) who laughs at the credulity of his author. When Heraclius bade farewell to Syria, Vale Syria e ultimum vale, he prophesied that the Romans should never reënter the province till the birth of an inauspicious child, the future scourge of the empire. Abulfeda, p. 68. I am perfectly ignc rant of the mystic gense, or nonsense, of this prediction.

In the loose and obscure chronology of the times, I am guided by an authentic record, (in the book of ceremonies of Constantine Po phyrogenitus,) which certifies that, June 4, A. D. 638, e emperos

don with an offering of two hundred thousand pieces of geld The remainder of the province, Ramlah, Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no longer presumed to dispute the will of the conqueror; and Syria bowed under the sceptre of the caliphs seven hundred years after Pompey had despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings."

The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many thousands of the Moslems. They died with the repu tation and the cheerfulness of martyrs; and the simplicity of their faith may be expressed in the words of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for the last time, his sister and mother: "It is not," said he, "the delicacies of Syria, or the fading delights of this world, that have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion. But I seek the favor of God and his apostle; and I have heard, from one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers, of paradise. Farewell, we shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has provided for his elect." The faithful captives might exercise a passive and more arduous resolution; and a cousin of Mahomet is celebrated for refusing, after an abstinence of three days, the wine and pork, the only nourishment that was allowed by the malice of the infidels. The frailty of some weaker brethren exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism; and the father of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostasy and damnation of a son, who had renounced the promises of God, and the intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with the priests and deacons, the lowest mansions of hell. The more fortunate Arabs, who survived the war and persevered in the faith, were restrained by their abstemious leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a refreshment of

crowned his younger son Heraclius, in the presence of his eldest, Con stantine, and in the palace of Constantinople; that January 1, A. D 639, the royal procession visited the great church, and on the 4th of the same month, the hippodrome.

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Sixty-five years before Christ, Syria Pontusque monumenta sunt Cn. Pompeii virtutis, (Vell. Patercul. ii. 38,) rather of his fortune and power: he adjudged Syria to be a Roman province, and the last the Seleucides were incapable of drawing a sword in the defenc their patrimony (see the original texts collected by Usher, And

three days, Abu Obeidah withdrew his troops from the per nicious contagion of the luxury of Antioch, and assured the caliph that their religion and virtue could only be preserved by the hard discipline of poverty and labor. But the virtue of Oman, however rigorous to himself, was kind and liberal to his brethren. After a just tribute of praise and thanksgiv ing, he dropped a tear of compassion; and sitting down on the ground, wrote an answer, in which he mildly censured the severity of his lieutenant: "God," said the successor of the prophet, "has not forbidden the use of the good things of this worl to faithful men, and such as have performed good works. Therefore you ought to have given them leave to rest themselves, and partake freely of those good things which the country affordeth. If any of the Saracens have no family in Arabia, they may marry in Syria; and whosoever of them wants any female slaves, he may purchase as many as he hath occasion for." The conquerors prepared to use, or to abuse, this gracious permission; but the year of their triumph was marked by a mortality of men and cattle; and twentyfive thousand Saracens were snatched away from the posses sion of Syria. The death of Abu Obeidah might be lamented by the Christians; but his brethren recollected that he was one of the ten elect whom the prophet had named as the heirs of paradise."1 Caled survived his brethren about three years: and the tomb of the Sword of God is shown in the neighborhood of Emesa. His valor, which founded in Arabia and Syria the empire of the caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special providence; and as long as he wore a cap, which had been blessed by Mahomet, he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the infidels.*

The place of the first conquerors was supplied by a new generation of their children and countrymen: Syria became

"Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 73. Mahomet could artfully vary the praises of his disciples. Of Omar he was accustomed to say, that if a prophet could arise after himself, it would be Omar; and that in a general calamity, Omar would be accepted by the divine justice, 'Ockley, vol. i. p. 221.)

*Khaled, according to the Rouzont Uzzuffa, (Price, p. 90.) after having been deprived of his ample share of the plunder of Syria by the jealousy Omar, died, possessed only of his horse, his arms, and a single slave. Yet Omar was obliged to acknowledge to his lamenting parent. that never mother had produced a son like Khaled.-M

the seat and support of the house of Ommiyah; and the revenue, the soldiers, the ships of that powerful kingdom were consecrated to enlarge on every side the empire of the caliphs. But the Saracens despise a superfluity of fame; and their historians scarcely condescend to mention the subcrdi nate conquests which are lost in the splendor and rapidity of their victorious career. To the north of Syria, they passed Mount Taurus, and reduced to their obedience the province of Cilicia, with its capital Tarsus, the ancient monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge of the same mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than the light of religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine, and the neighborhood of Constantinople. To the east they advanced to the banks and sources of the Euphrates and Tigris: the long disputed barrier of Rome and Persia was forever confounded the walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and Nisibis, which had resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirven, were levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly produce the epistle or the image of Christ to an unbelieving conqueror. To the west the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea and the ruin of Aradus, a small island or penin sula on the coast, was postponed during ten years. But the hills of Libanus abounded in timber; the trade of Phoenicia was populous in mariners; and a fleet of seventeen hundred barks was equipped and manned by the natives of the desert The Imperial navy of the Romans fled before them from the Pamphylian rocks to the Hellespont; but the spirit of the emperor, a grandson of Heraclius, had been subdued before the combat by a dream and a pun.' The Saracens rode

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92 Al Wakidi had likewise written a history of the conquest of Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, (Ockley, at the end of the iid vol.,) which our interpreters do not appear to have seen.* The Chronicle of Diony sius of Telmar, the Jacobite patriarch, records the taking of Edessa A. D. 637, and of Dara A. D. 641, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 103;) and the attentive may glean some doubtful information from the Chronography of Theophanes, (p. 285-287.) Most of the towns of Mesopotamia yielded by surrender, (Abulpharag. p. 112.)

93 He dreamt that he was at Thessalonica, a harmless and unmean ing vision; but his soothsayer, or his cowardice, understood the sure omen of a defeat concealed in that inauspicious word is aλ víx,

as been published in Arabic by M. Ewald. St Martin, vol. xí. p 58; but its authenticity is doubted- M.