Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

inquire into the cause of his treachery, the Spaniards wil repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava; 166* 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 his tory of Spain will suggest some motive of interest and policy more congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.1" After the decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza, educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private station. Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were excited by the remembrance of favors and the promise of a revolution; and their

historian has infused into his noble work (Historia de Rebus Hispaniæ, libri xxx. Hage Comitum, 1733, in four volumes in folio, with the Continuation of Miniana) the style and spirit of a Roman classic and after the xiith 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 aud 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 Bada joz, (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III., king of Leon, which I have seen only in the annals of Pagi.

168 Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile à faire qu'à prouver. Des Evêques se roient ils ligués pour une fille? (Hist. Générale, & xxvi.) His argument is not logically conclusive.

169 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 xiiith century. only says, Cava, quam pro concubinâ utebatur.

But, says M. Condé. the name of La Cava, that of Alifa assigned to her attendant, and all the circumstances with which the tale is embellished distinctly prove that this anecdote is nothing more than an Arabian fiction founded on some of the popular poetic romances of the country. De Marles, (the abbreviator of Condé,) Hist. des Arabes en Espagne, vol. i. 83.-M.

uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the disgrace of the unsuccessful faction; that he had little to hope and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his family had sustained. The merit and influence of the count rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were ample, his followers bold and numerous; and it was too fatally shown, that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held in his hand the keys of the Spanish mon archy. 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 presump tion of their ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the caliphs. In his resi dence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa from Europe.'

170

10 The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagius, Abulfeda, pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single word. The text of Novairi and the other Arabian writers is represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de 'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. in 2 tom. i. p. 55-114,) and more concisely by M. de Guignes

171

Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs, and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from Tangier or Ceuta: the place of their descent on the opposite shore of the strait is marked by the name of Tarif their chief; and the date of this memorable event is fixed to the month of Ramadan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of July, seven hundred and forty-eight 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

172

173

(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. ArabicoHispana, tom. ii. p. 32, 105, 106, 182, 252, 319-332. On this occa sion, the industry of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the Abbé de Longuerue, and to their joint labors I am dceply indebted.

171 A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has determined Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish historians, to place the first invasion in the year 713, and the battle of Xeres in November, 714. This anachronism of three years has been detected by the more correct industry of modern chronologists, above all, of Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. 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.

1:2 The Era of Cæsar, which in Spain was in legal and popular use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years before the birth of Christ. I would refer the origin to the general peace by sea and iand, which confirmed the power and partition of the Triumvirs, (Dion Cassius, 1. xlviii. p. 547, 553. Appian, de Bell. Civil. 1. 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.

178 The road, the country, the old castle of Count Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden treasures, &c., are described by Père Labat (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tons p. 207-217) with his usual pleasantry

province, the richness of their spoil, and the safety of their return, announced to their brethren the most favorable omens of victory. In the ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the necessary transports were provided y the industry of their too faithful ally. The Saracens anded " 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 malecontents were attracted by the influence of Julian, and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal blessings of the Koran. In the neighborhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres 17 has been illustrated by the encounter which determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three suc cessive and bloody days. On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and decisive issue; but Alaric would

The Nubian Geographer (p. 154) explains the topography of the war; but it is highly incredible that the lieutenant of Musa should execute the desperate and useless measure of burning his ships.

175 Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two leagues from Cadiz. In the xvith century it was a granary of corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe. (Lud. Nonii Hi pania, c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and concise knowledg D'Anville, Etats de l'Europe, &c., p. 154.)

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 valor of the Saracens, they fainted under the weight of miltitudes, 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 gen era I am resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate king of the Romans." Besides the resource of despair, he confided in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of Count Julian with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post: their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians; each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were scattered or destroyed 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. "Aná such," continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, "is the fate of those kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle." 176

Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and infamy, that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After the battle of Xeres, he recommended the most effectual measures to the victorious Saracen. "The king of the Goths is slain; their princes have fled before you, the army is routed, the nation is astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the

173 Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie referentibus sæpe con ingit, (Ben Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p 27.) Some credulous Spaniards believe that King Roderic, or Rodri go, escaped to a hermit's cell; and others, that he was cast alive into a tub full of serpents, from whence he exclaimed, with a lamentable voice "They devour the part with which I have so grievously sinned. ' (Don Quixote, part ii. 1. iii. c. i.)

« ForrigeFortsett »