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

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Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect that
their ignorance of antiquity, the love of the 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
thee 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 adopt the language, name, and origin 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 Lybian 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.^163

[A. D. 709.] V. In the progress of conquest from the north and
south, the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the
confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the
difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and
warfare.^164 As early as the time of Othman^165 their piratical
squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia;^166 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.^167

[Footnote 163: 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 Roman, learning. Many of his gross mistakes
might be detected in the first period of the Mahometan history.]

[Footnote 164: 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.]

[Footnote 165: Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p 78, vers. Reiske.]

[Footnote 166: 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.)]

[Footnote 167: The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy are
related by Mariana (tom. l. p. 238-260, l. vi. c. 19--26, l. vii. c.
1, 2). That historian has infused into his noble work (Historic de Rebus
Hispaniae, libri xxx. Hagae Comitum 1733, in four volumes, folio,
with the continuation 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 Badajoz (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III.
king of Leon, which I have seen only in the Annals of Pagi.]

If we inquire into the cause of this treachery, the Spaniards will
repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava;^168 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.^169 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 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 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 hands 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 Pyrenean mountains, the
successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long peace: the walls of the
city 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
permission of Walid to annex the unknown kingdoms of the West to the
religion and throne of the caliphs. In his residence 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

[Footnote 168: Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a faire qu'a
prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une fille? (Hist.
Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically conclusive.]

[Footnote 169: In the story of Cava, Mariana (I. 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 Lucus Tudensis, a Gallician deacon of the
thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam pro concubina utebatur.]

[Footnote 170: The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagins, Abolfeda, 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
l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. 12mo.
tom. i. p. 55-114), and more concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist. des
Hune. 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. 315--332. On this
occasion, the industry of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning
of his friend the Abbe de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am
deeply indebted.]

[A. D. 710.] 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^171 is fixed to the month of Ramandan, of the
ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of July, seven hundred
and forty-eight years from the Spanish era of Cesar,^172 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;^173 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 transports were provided by the industry of their too
faithful ally. The Saracens landed^174 at the pillar or point of
Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel el
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 neighbourhood of Cadiz, the
town of Xeres^175 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 successive and bloody
days.

[Footnote 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 (Critics,
tom. iii. p. 164. 171-174), who have restored the genuine state
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.]

[Footnote 172: The Era of Cesar, 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
land, which confirmed the power and partition of the triumvirs.
(Dion. Cassius, l. xlviii. p. 547. 553. Appian de Bell. Civil. l.
v. p. 1034, edit. fol.) Spain was a province of Cesar Octavian; and
Tarragona, which raised the first temple to Augustus (Tacit Annal.
i. 78), might borrow from the orientals this mode of flattery.]

[Footnote 173: The road, the country, the old castle of count Julian,
and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden treasures, &c.
are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom i.
p. 207-217), with his usual pleasantry.]

[Footnote 174: 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.]

[Footnote 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 Hispania,
c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and concise knowledge; d'Anville,
Etats de l'Europe &c p 154).]

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 or suspicion to consult his personal safety; and the
remains of the Gothic army were scattered or destroyed to 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 Guadalquiver. 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."^176.

[A. D. 711.] 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 Saracens. "The king of the Goths is slain; their princes
are 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 distracted Christians either time or tranquillity for
the election of a new monarch." Tarik listened to his advice. A
Roman captive and proselyte, who had been enfranchised by the caliph
himself, assaulted Cordova with seven hundred horse: he swam the
river, surprised the town, and drove the Christians into the great
church, where they defended themselves above three months. Another
detachment reduced the seacoast of Boetica, which in the last period
of the Moorish power has comprised in a narrow space the populous
kingdom of Grenada. The march of Tarik from the Boetis to the
Tagus,^177 was directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates
Andalusia and Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of
Toledo.^178 The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the
relics of their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only till
the victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. The
voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven
churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the archbishop
and his clergy were at liberty to exercise their functions, the monks
to practise or neglect their penance; and the Goths and Romans were
left in all civil or criminal cases to the subordinate jurisdiction
of their own laws and magistrates. But if the justice of Tarik
protected the Christians, his gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews,
to whose secret or open aid he was indebted for his most important
acquisitions. Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had
often pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast
nation embraced the moment of revenge: the comparison of their past
and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the alliance
between the disciples of Moses and those of Mahomet, was maintained
till the final era of their common expulsion.

[Footnote 176: Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie referentibus
saepe contingit. Den Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana.
tom. ii. p. 337. Some credulous Spaniards believe that king Roderic,
or Rodrigo, 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. l. iii. c. 1.)]

[Footnote 177: The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was measured by
Mr. Swinburne's mules in 72 1/2 hours: but a larger computation must
be adopted for the slow and devious marches of an army. The Arabs
traversed the province of La Mancha, which the pen of Cervantes has
transformed into classic ground to the reader of every nation.]

[Footnote 178: The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parva in the Punic
wars, Urbs Regia in the sixth century, are briefly described by Nonius
(Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-136). He borrows from Roderic the fatale
palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates, that it was
no more than a Roman amphitheatre.]

From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his
conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and Leon;
but it is heedless to enumerate the cities that yielded on his
approach, or again to describe the table of emerald,^179 transported
from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths among the spoils
of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the throne of Damascus.
Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime town of Gijon was the
term^180 of the lieutenant of Musa, who had performed with the speed
of a traveller, his victorious march of seven hundred miles, from the
rock of Gibraltar to the bay of Biscay. The failure of land
compelled him to retreat: and he was recalled to Toledo, to excuse
his presumption of subduing a kingdom in the absence of his general.
Spain, which in a more savage and disorderly state, had resisted, two
hundred years, the arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by
those of the Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and
treaty, that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only
chief who fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The
cause of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres;
and in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a
contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united strength of
the whole.^181 That strength had been wasted by two successive
seasons of famine and pestilence; and the governors, who were
impatient to surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty of
collecting the provisions of a siege. To disarm the Christians,
superstition likewise contributed her terrors: and the subtle Arab
encouraged the report of dreams, omens, and prophecies, and of the
portraits of the destined conquerors of Spain, that were discovered
on the breaking open an apartment of the royal palace. Yet a spark
of the vital flame was still alive; some invincible fugitives
preferred a life of poverty and freedom in the Asturian valleys; the
hardy mountaineers repulsed the slaves of the caliph; and the sword
of Pelagius has been transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic
kings.^182

[Footnote 179: In the Historia Arabum (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem Elmacin),
Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and inserts the name
of Medinat Ahneyda in Arabic words and letters. He appears to
be conversant with the Mahometan writers; but I cannot agree with M.
de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 350) that he had read and
transcribed Novairi; because he was dead a hundred years before
Novairi composed his history. This mistake is founded on a still
grosser error. M. de Guignes confounds the governed historian
Roderic Ximines, archbishop of Toledo, in the xiiith century, with
cardinal Ximines, who governed Spain in the beginning of the xvith,
and was the subject, not the author, of historical compositions.]

[Footnote 180: Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the boast
of Regnard and his companions in their Lapland journey, "Hic tandem
stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis."]

[Footnote 181: Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and every
chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the spirit of
Pelagius; Omnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine Gothorum, omnis
exercitus Hispaniae in uno congregatus Ismaelitarum non valuit
sustinere impetum. Chron. Alphonsi Regis, apud Pagi, tom. iii.
p. 177.]

[Footnote 182: The revival of tire Gothic kingdom in the Asturias is
distinctly though concisely noticed by d'Anville (Etats de l'Europe,
p. 159)]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.

Part IX.

On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of
Musa degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain, but to
fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue. At the head
of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand Africans, he passed over
in person from Mauritania to Spain: the first of his companions
were the noblest of the Koreish; his eldest son was left in the
command of Africa; the three younger brethren were of an age and
spirit to second the boldest enterprises of their father. At his
landing in Algezire, he was respectfully entertained by Count
Julian, who stifled his inward remorse, and testified, both in
words and actions, that the victory of the Arabs had not impaired
his attachment to their cause. Some enemies yet remained for the
sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths had compared
their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities from
which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as
impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications
of Seville and Merida. They were successively besieged and
reduced by the labor of Musa, who transported his camp from the
Boetis to the Anas, from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When
he beheld the works of Roman magnificence, the bridge, the
aqueducts, the triumphal arches, and the theatre, of the ancient
metropolis of Lusitania, "I should imagine," said he to his four
companions, "that the human race must have united their art and
power in the foundation of this city: happy is the man who shall
become its master!" He aspired to that happiness, but the
Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honor of their descent
from the veteran legionaries of Augustus ^183 Disdaining the
confinement of their walls, they gave battle to the Arabs on the
plain; but an ambuscade rising from the shelter of a quarry, or a
ruin, chastised their indiscretion, and intercepted their return.