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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5






Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.

Part VII.

I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed
in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is
described by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou 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. ^115 Emboldened 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 ^116 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
annalist 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. ^117 The 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, historians or poets,
physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of
the faithful. ^118 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 should not recapitulate the disasters
of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame that was
kindled by Caesar in his own defence, ^119 or the mischievous
bigotry of the Christians, who studied to destroy the monuments
of idolatry. ^120 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. ^121 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, ^122 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 objects 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 poetry 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 ^123 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; ^124 nor can it fairly be presumed that any
important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature, has been
snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

[Footnote 115: Many treatises of this lover of labor 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. Graec. 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.]

[Footnote 116: 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 honor the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex.
Patriarch, p. 170: ) historia ... habet aliquid ut Arabibus
familiare est.]

[Footnote *: Since this period several new Mahometan authorities
have been adduced to support the authority of Abulpharagius.
That of, I. Abdollatiph by Professor White: II. Of Makrizi; I
have seen a Ms. extract from this writer: III. Of Ibn Chaledun:
and after them Hadschi Chalfa. See Von Hammer, Geschichte der
Assassinen, p. 17. Reinhard, in a German Dissertation, printed
at Gottingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin Encyclop. tom. iv. p.
433,) have examined the question. Among Oriental scholars,
Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer. and Silv. de Sacy,
consider the fact of the burning the library, by the command of
Omar, beyond question. Compare St. Martin's note. vol. xi. p.
296. A Mahometan writer brings a similar charge against the
Crusaders. The library of Tripoli is said to have contained the
incredible number of three millions of volumes. On the capture
of the city, Count Bertram of St. Giles, entering the first room,
which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the whole to be
burnt, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia. See Wilken.
Gesch der Kreux zuge, vol. ii. p. 211. - M.]

[Footnote 117: This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the
annals of Eutychius, 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.]

[Footnote 118: See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in
his iiid 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.]

[Footnote 119: Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement.
Livian, c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had
styled the Alexandrian library, elegantiae regum curaeque
egregium opus; a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly
criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate
Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into
nonsense.]

[Footnote 120: See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.]

[Footnote 121: Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticae, vi. 17,) Ammianus
Marcellinua, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (l. vi. c. 15.) They all
speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably
strong: fuerunt Bibliothecae innumerabiles; et loquitum
monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.]

[Footnote 122: Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible,
Hexapla, Catenoe 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.]

[Footnote 123: 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.]

[Footnote 124: Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this
subject Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern 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 Aethiopic books into
the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that philosophy has
sustained any real loss from their exclusion.]

In the administration of Egypt, ^125 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 labored to injure
and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion
and honor 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 dikes 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. ^126 But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the
maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by
the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Caesars; 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. ^127

[Footnote 125: This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi
(p. 284 - 289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or
by the self- sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal
History.]

[Footnote 126: Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist.
Saracen. p. 35.]

[Footnote *: Many learned men have doubted the existence of a
communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean
by the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the
ancients. Diodorus Siculus (l. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the
most distinct manner as existing in his time. So, also, Strabo,
(l. xvii. p. 805.) Pliny (vol. vi. p. 29) says that the canal
which united the two seas was navigable, (alveus navigabilis.)
The indications furnished by Ptolemy and by the Arabic historian,
Makrisi, show that works were executed under the reign of Hadrian
to repair the canal and extend the navigation; it then received
the name of the River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis, p.
44,) says that he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the
Red Sea. Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that
the communication was not interrupted at that time. See the
French translation of Strabo, vol. v. p. 382. St. Martin vol.
xi. p. 299. - M.]

[Footnote 127: 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
molimina, p. 39 - 47, 68 - 70.) Even the supine Turks have
agitated the old project of joining the two seas. (Memoires du
Baron de Tott, tom. iv.)]

Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect
knowledge from the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran.
He requested that his lieutenant would place before his eyes the
realm of Pharaoh and the Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou
exhibits a lively and not unfaithful picture of that singular
country. ^128 "O commander of the faithful, Egypt is a compound
of black earth and green plants, between a pulverized mountain
and a red sand. The distance from Syene to the sea is a month's
journey for a horseman. Along the valley descends a river, on
which the blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening
and morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of
the sun and moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence
unlocks the springs and fountains that nourish the earth, the
Nile rolls his swelling and sounding waters through the realm of
Egypt: the fields are overspread by the salutary flood; and the
villages communicate with each other in their painted barks. The
retreat of the inundation deposits a fertilizing mud for the
reception of the various seeds: the crowds of husbandmen who
blacken the land may be compared to a swarm of industrious ants;
and their native indolence is quickened by the lash of the
task-master, and the promise of the flowers and fruits of a
plentiful increase. Their hope is seldom deceived; but the
riches which they extract from the wheat, the barley, and the
rice, the legumes, the fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally
shared between those who labor and those who possess. According
to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the face of the country is
adorned with a silver wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep
yellow of a golden harvest." ^129 Yet this beneficial order is
sometimes interrupted; and the long delay and sudden swell of the
river in the first year of the conquest might afford some color
to an edifying fable. It is said, that the annual sacrifice of a
virgin ^130 had been interdicted by the piety of Omar; and that
the Nile lay sullen and inactive in his shallow bed, till the
mandate of the caliph was cast into the obedient stream, which
rose in a single night to the height of sixteen cubits. The
admiration of the Arabs for their new conquest encouraged the
license of their romantic spirit. We may read, in the gravest
authors, that Egypt was crowded with twenty thousand cities or
villages: ^131 that, exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts
alone were found, on the assessment, six millions of tributary
subjects, ^132 or twenty millions of either sex, and of every
age: that three hundred millions of gold or silver were annually
paid to the treasury of the caliphs. ^133 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. ^134 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. ^135 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. ^136 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. ^137

[Footnote 128: A small volume, des Merveilles, &c., de l'Egypte,
composed in the xiiith 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.)]

[Footnote 129: 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: -

What wonder in the sultry climes that spread,

Where Nile, redundant o'er his summer bed,

From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,

And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings:

If with adventurous oar, and ready sail,

The dusky people drive before the gale:

Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride.

That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.

(Mason's Works and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200.)]

[Footnote 130: Murtadi, p. 164 - 167. The reader will not easily
credit a human sacrifice under the Christian emperors, or a
miracle of the successors of Mahomet.]

[Footnote 131: 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
persons, and that many of them are more populous than our large
cities.]

[Footnote 132: Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308, 311. The twenty
millions are computed from the following data: one twelfth of
mankind above sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of
men to women as seventeen or sixteen, (Recherches sur la
Population de la France, p. 71, 72.) The president Goguet
(Origine des Arts, &c., tom. iii. p. 26, &c.) Bestows
twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seventeen
hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day.]

[Footnote 133: Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 218; and this gross
lump is swallowed without scruple by D'Herbelot, (Bibliot.
Orient. p. 1031,) Ar. buthnot, (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 favor of
the Ptolemies (in praefat.) 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.)]

[Footnote 134: 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.]

[Footnote 135: 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 ixth 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 Caesars, from
six to fifteen millions of German crowns.]

[Footnote 136: 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.]

[Footnote 137: See Maillet, (Description de l'Egypte, p. 28,) who
seems to argue with candor and judgment. I am much better
satisfied with the observations 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.
Aegypt. Arab. et Lat. a Joh. David Michaelis, Gottingae, 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.]

IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic
Ocean, ^138 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, ^139 the son of Said and the
foster-brother of the caliph, who had lately supplanted the
conqueror and lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favor of the prince,
and the merit of his favorite, 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 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; out 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
honorable 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, ^140 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 reenforcement 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 praefect Gregory ^141 to relinquish the labors of
the siege for the perils and the hopes 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
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 cimeter; and the
richness of her arms and apparel were 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.

[Footnote 138: 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 Encyclopaedia 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 vith chapter of the vth
section of this last part, (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji
Chalifae Tabulas, p. 232 - 234.) Among the older historians who
are quoted by Navairi we may distinguish the original narrative
of a soldier who led the van of the Moslems.]

[Footnote 139: See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit.
Mohammed. p. 108) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. 45 -
48.)]

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