the Abbassides. On his march towards Bagdad, the con- CHAP.

LII. queror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience in bed to the ambassador of the caliph; and beside him on a table were exposed a naked scymetar, a crust of brown bread, and a bunch of onions. “If I die,” said he, “your master is de“livered from his fears. If I live, this must determine between us.

If I am vanquished, I can return without reluc"tance to the homely fare of my youth.” From the height where he stood, the descent would not have been so soft or harmless: a timely death secured his own repose and that of the caliph, who paid with the most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother Amrou to the palaces of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend, too proud to forgive: they invited the powerful dynasty of the Samanides, who passed the Oxus with ten thousand horse, The Sa

manides, so poor, that their stirrups were of wood; so brave, that they

A. D. vanquished the Soffarian army, eight times more numerous 874...999. than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in chains, a grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor was content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Charasan, the realms of Persia returned for a while to the alle. giance of the caliphs. The provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their Turkish slaves, of the race of Toulun and Ikshid.107 These Barbarians, in religion and The Toumanners the countrymen of Mahomet, emerged from the

A. D. bloody factions of the palace to a provincial command and 868...905,

The Ikshi. an independent throne: their names became famous and for- dites, midable in their time: but the founders of these two potent

934...968, dynasties confessed, either in words or actions, the vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the mercy of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power: the second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of kings; and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by the Abbassides during an interval of thirty years. In the decline of their empire, Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul and Aleppo,

A. D.

CHAP. was occupied by the Arabian princes of the tribe of HamaLII.

da. The poets of their court could repeat without a blush, The Ha

that nature had formed their countenances for beauty, their madanites, tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality and vaA, 00, 512 lour: but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the 1001.

Hamadanites, exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and par

ricide. At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was The Bo- again usurped by the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword wides, A. D. 933

of three brothers, who, under various names, were styled ...1005.

the support and columns of the state, and who, from the Caspian sea to the ocean, would suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language and genius of Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and four years af. ter the death of Mahomet, were deprived of the sceptre of

the East. Fallen Rahdi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirtystate of the caliphs of ninth of the successors of Mahomet, was the last who deBagdad, served the title of commander of the faithful:108 the last (says

A. D 936, &c. Abulfeda) who spoke to the people, or conversed with the

learned: the last who, in the expense of his household, represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient caliphs. After him, the lords of the Eastern world were reduced to the most abject misery, and exposed to the blows and insults of a servile condition. The revolt of the provinces circumscribed their dominions within the walls of Bagdad; but that capital still contained an innumerable multitude, vain of their past fortune, discontented with their present state, and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of nations. Their idleness was exercised by faction and controversy. Under the mask of piety, the rigid followers of Hanbal 109 invaded

108 Hic est ultim's chalifah qui multum atque sæpius pro concione perora. rit.... Fuit eiiam ultimu. qui otiu cum eruditis et faceris hominibus iallere hilariterque agere soleret. Ulrimus tandem chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et thesauri, culina,cæ eraque omnis aulica pompa priorum chalifarum ad instar comparata fuerint. Videbimus enim pavilo post quam indigniset ser. vilibus ludibriis exagiati, quain ar humilem fortunam ultimumque contemp. tum abjecti fuerint hi quondam potentissini totius terrarum Orientalium orbis domini. Abulfed. Amal. Moslem. p. 261. I have given this passage as the inanner and tone of Abulfeda, but the cast of Latin eloquence belongs more properly to Reishe. The Arabian historian (p. 255. 257. 261...209. 283, &c.) has supplied me with the most interesting facts of this paragraph,

109 I heir waster, on a similar occasion, shewed himself of a more indul. gent and telerating spirit. Alimed Eun Hanbal, the head of one of the fi ur orthodox sects, was born at Bagdad A. H. 164, and died there A. H. 141. Fietcught and suffered in the dispute concerning the creation of the Koran.

LII.

the pleasures of domestic life, burst into the houses of ple- CHAP. beians and princes, spilt the wine, broke the instruments, beat the musicians, and dishonoured, with infamous suspicions, the associates of every handsome youth. In each profession, which allowed room for two persons, the one was a votary, the other an antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides were awakened by the clamorous grief of the sectaries, who de. nied their title and cursed their progenitors. A turbulent people could only be repressed by a military force; but who could satisfy the avarice or assert the discipline of the mercenaries themselves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their swords against each other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra,'imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary of the mosch and haran. If the caliphs escaped to the camp or court of any neighbouring prince, their deliverance was a change of servitude, till they were prompted by despair to invite the Bowides, the sultans of Persia, who silenced the factions of Bagdad by their irresistible arms. The civil and military powers were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second of the three brothers, and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling was assigned by his generosity for the private expense of the commander of the faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling multitude, the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon, by the command of the stranger, and the rude hands of his Dilemites. His palace was pillaged, his eyes were put out, and the mean ambition of the Abbassides aspired to the vacant station of danger and disgrace. In the school of advers.ty, the luxurious caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the primitive times. Despoiled of their armour and silken robes, they fasted, they prayed, they studied the Koran and the tradition of the Sonnites; they performed with zeal and knowledge, the functions of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of nations still waited on the successors of the apostle, the ora

110 The office of vizir was superseded by the emir al Omra, Imperator Im. peratorum, a title first instituted by Rahdi, and which emerged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides: vectigalibus, et tributis et curiis per omnes regiones præfecit, jussitque in omnibus suggestis nominis ejus in concionibus mentionein fieri ( Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 199). It is likewise mentioned by Elmacia (p. 254, 255).

CHAP. cles of the law and conscience of the faithful; and the weak-
LII.

ness or division of their tyrants sometimes restored the Ab-
bassides to the sovereignty of Bagdad. But their misfortunes
had been embittered by the triumph of the Fatimites, the
real or spurious progeny of Ali. Arising from the extremi-
ty of Africa, these successful rivals extinguished, in Egypt
and Syria, both the spiritual and temporal authority of the
Abbassides; and the monarch of the Nile insulted the hum-

ble pontiff on the banks of the Tigris. Enterprises

In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which
of the
Greeks, elapsed after the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hos-
A. D. 960. tile transactions of the two nations were confined to some

inroads by sea and land, the fruits of their close vicinity and
indelible hatred. But when the Eastern world was convul.
sed and broken, the Greeks were roused from their lethar-
gy by the hopes of conquest and revenge. The Byzantine
empire, since the accession of the Basilian race, had reposed
in peace and dignity; and they might encounter with their
entire strength the front of some petty emir, whose rear was
assaulted and threatened by his national foes of the Maho-
metan faith. The lofty titles of the morning star, and the
death of the Saracens,'" were applied in the public accla-

mations to Nicephorus Phocas, a prince as renowned in the Reduction camp as he was unpopular in the city. In the subordinate of Crete.

station of great domestic, or general of the East, he reduced
the island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who
had so long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the em-
pire.113 His military genius was displayed in the conduct
and success of the enterprise, which had so often failed with
loss and dishonour. The Saracens were confounded by the
landing of his troops on safe and level bridges, which he
cast from the vessels to the shore. Seven months were con-
sumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of the native
Cretans was stimulated by the frequent aid of their brethren

m

111 Liutprand, whose choleric temper was embittered by his uneasy situation, suggests the names of reproach and contempt more applicable to Nice. phorus than the vain titles of the Greeks, Ecce venit stella matutina, surgit Eous, reverberat obtutû solis radios, palladi Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus pe Edwro

LII.

ern con

quests of

A. D.

of Africa and Spain ; and, after the massy wall and double CHAP. ditch had been stormed by the Greeks, an hopeless conflict was still maintained in the streets and houses of the city. The whole island was subdued in the capital, and a submissive people accepted, without resistance, the baptism of the conqueror.'

113 Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp of a triumph; but the Imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus.

After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in The Eastlineal descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively married Nicephorus Phocas and his assassin Nicephorus

Phocas, John Zimisces, the two heroes of the age. They reigned as and John the guardians and colleagues of her infant sons; and the Zimisces, twelve years of their military command form the most splen- 963...975. did period of the Byzantine annals. The subjects and confederates, whom they led to war, appeared, at least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand strong; and of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses: 114 a train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron spikes. A series of bloody and undecisive combats is. nothing more than an anticipation of what would have been effected in a few years by the course of nature; but I shall briefly prosecute the conquests of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the desart of Bagdad. The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus in Cilicia first exercised the skill Conquese

of Cilicia. and perseverance of their troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is divided by the river Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were predestined to death or slavery,"5 a surprising degree of population, which

113 A Greek life of St. Nicon the Armenian was found in the Sforza library, and translated into Latin by the Jesuit Sirmond for the use of Cardinal Baronius. This contemporary legend casts a ray of light on Crete and Pelo. ponnesus in the tenth century. He found the newly recovered island, fædis detestanda Agarenorum superstitionis vestigiis adhuc plenain ac refertam but the victorious missionary, perhaps with soine carnal a'd, ad baptismum omnes veræque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per totam insulani ædificatis, &c. (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 961).

114 Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutprand was disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men.

115 Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs (Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 231.) of Mopsuestia, or Malifa, Mampsysta, Mansista, Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more correctly, styled in the middle ages (WesVOL. VI.

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