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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[Footnote 5: Theophanes, though a Greek, deserves credit for
these tributes, (Chronograph. p. 295, 296, 300, 301,) which are
confirmed, with some variation, by the Arabic History of
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 128, vers. Pocock.)]

[Footnote 6: The censure of Theophanes is just and pointed,
(Chronograph. p. 302, 303.) The series of these events may be
traced in the Annals of Theophanes, and in the Abridgment of the
patriarch Nicephorus, p. 22, 24.]

[Footnote 7: These domestic revolutions are related in a clear
and natural style, in the second volume of Ockley's History of
the Saracens, p. 253 - 370. Besides our printed authors, he draws
his materials from the Arabic Mss. of Oxford, which he would have
more deeply searched had he been confined to the Bodleian library
instead of the city jail a fate how unworthy of the man and of
his country!]

[Footnote 8: Elmacin, who dates the first coinage A. H. 76, A.D.
695, five or six years later than the Greek historians, has
compared the weight of the best or common gold dinar to the
drachm or dirhem of Egypt, (p. 77,) which may be equal to two
pennies (48 grains) of our Troy weight, (Hooper's Inquiry into
Ancient Measures, p. 24 - 36,) and equivalent to eight shillings
of our sterling money. From the same Elmacin and the Arabian
physicians, some dinars as high as two dirhems, as low as half a
dirhem, may be deduced. The piece of silver was the dirhem, both
in value and weight; but an old, though fair coin, struck at
Waset, A. H. 88, and preserved in the Bodleian library, wants
four grains of the Cairo standard, (see the Modern Universal
History, tom. i. p. 548 of the French translation.)

Note: Up to this time the Arabs had used the Roman or the
Persian coins or had minted others which resembled them.
Nevertheless, it has been admitted of late years, that the
Arabians, before this epoch, had caused coin to be minted, on
which, preserving the Roman or the Persian dies, they added
Arabian names or inscriptions. Some of these exist in different
collections. We learn from Makrizi, an Arabian author of great
learning and judgment, that in the year 18 of the Hegira, under
the caliphate of Omar, the Arabs had coined money of this
description. The same author informs us that the caliph
Abdalmalek caused coins to be struck representing himself with a
sword by his side. These types, so contrary to the notions of
the Arabs, were disapproved by the most influential persons of
the time, and the caliph substituted for them, after the year 76
of the Hegira, the Mahometan coins with which we are acquainted.
Consult, on the question of Arabic numismatics, the works of
Adler, of Fraehn, of Castiglione, and of Marsden, who have
treated at length this interesting point of historic antiquities.

See, also, in the Journal Asiatique, tom. ii. p. 257, et seq., a
paper of M. Silvestre de Sacy, entitled Des Monnaies des Khalifes
avant l'An 75 de l'Hegire. See, also the translation of a German
paper on the Arabic medals of the Chosroes, by M. Fraehn. in the
same Journal Asiatique tom. iv. p. 331 - 347. St. Martin, vol.
xii. p. 19 - M.]

[Footnote 9: Theophan. Chronograph. p. 314. This defect, if it
really existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the Arabs
to invent or borrow.]

[Footnote 10: According to a new, though probable, notion,
maintained by M de Villoison, (Anecdota Graeca, tom. ii. p. 152 -
157,) our ciphers are not of Indian or Arabic invention. They
were used by the Greek and Latin arithmeticians long before the
age of Boethius. After the extinction of science in the West,
they were adopted by the Arabic versions from the original Mss.,
and restored to the Latins about the xith century.

Note: Compare, on the Introduction of the Arabic numerals,
Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, p. 150, note,
and the authors quoted therein. - M.]

Whilst the caliph Walid sat idle on the throne of Damascus,
whilst his lieutenants achieved the conquest of Transoxiana and
Spain, a third army of Saracens overspread the provinces of Asia
Minor, and approached the borders of the Byzantine capital. But
the attempt and disgrace of the second siege was reserved for his
brother Soliman, whose ambition appears to have been quickened by
a more active and martial spirit. In the revolutions of the
Greek empire, after the tyrant Justinian had been punished and
avenged, an humble secretary, Anastasius or Artemius, was
promoted by chance or merit to the vacant purple. He was alarmed
by the sound of war; and his ambassador returned from Damascus
with the tremendous news, that the Saracens were preparing an
armament by sea and land, such as would transcend the experience
of the past, or the belief of the present age. The precautions of
Anastasius were not unworthy of his station, or of the impending
danger. He issued a peremptory mandate, that all persons who
were not provided with the means of subsistence for a three
years' siege should evacuate the city: the public granaries and
arsenals were abundantly replenished; the walls were restored and
strengthened; and the engines for casting stones, or darts, or
fire, were stationed along the ramparts, or in the brigantines of
war, of which an additional number was hastily constructed. To
prevent is safer, as well as more honorable, than to repel, an
attack; and a design was meditated, above the usual spirit of the
Greeks, of burning the naval stores of the enemy, the cypress
timber that had been hewn in Mount Libanus, and was piled along
the sea-shore of Phoenicia, for the service of the Egyptian
fleet. This generous enterprise was defeated by the cowardice or
treachery of the troops, who, in the new language of the empire,
were styled of the Obsequian Theme. ^11 They murdered their
chief, deserted their standard in the Isle of Rhodes, dispersed
themselves over the adjacent continent, and deserved pardon or
reward by investing with the purple a simple officer of the
revenue. The name of Theodosius might recommend him to the
senate and people; but, after some months, he sunk into a
cloister, and resigned, to the firmer hand of Leo the Isaurian,
the urgent defence of the capital and empire. The most
formidable of the Saracens, Moslemah, the brother of the caliph,
was advancing at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand
Arabs and Persians, the greater part mounted on horses or camels;
and the successful sieges of Tyana, Amorium, and Pergamus, were
of sufficient duration to exercise their skill and to elevate
their hopes. At the well-known passage of Abydus, on the
Hellespont, the Mahometan arms were transported, for the first
time, ^* from Asia to Europe. From thence, wheeling round the
Thracian cities of the Propontis, Moslemah invested
Constantinople on the land side, surrounded his camp with a ditch
and rampart, prepared and planted his engines of assault, and
declared, by words and actions, a patient resolution of expecting
the return of seed-time and harvest, should the obstinacy of the
besieged prove equal to his own. ^! The Greeks would gladly have
ransomed their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment of a
piece of gold on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the
liberal offer was rejected with disdain, and the presumption of
Moslemah was exalted by the speedy approach and invincible force
of the natives of Egypt and Syria. They are said to have
amounted to eighteen hundred ships: the number betrays their
inconsiderable size; and of the twenty stout and capacious
vessels, whose magnitude impeded their progress, each was manned
with no more than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers. This huge
armada proceeded on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards
the mouth of the Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was
overshadowed, in the language of the Greeks, with a moving
forest, and the same fatal night had been fixed by the Saracen
chief for a general assault by sea and land. To allure the
confidence of the enemy, the emperor had thrown aside the chain
that usually guarded the entrance of the harbor; but while they
hesitated whether they should seize the opportunity, or apprehend
the snare, the ministers of destruction were at hand. The
fire-ships of the Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs,
their arms, and vessels, were involved in the same flames; the
disorderly fugitives were dashed against each other or
overwhelmed in the waves; and I no longer find a vestige of the
fleet, that had threatened to extirpate the Roman name. A still
more fatal and irreparable loss was that of the caliph Soliman,
who died of an indigestion, ^12 in his camp near Kinnisrin or
Chalcis in Syria, as he was preparing to lead against
Constantinople the remaining forces of the East. The brother of
Moslemah was succeeded by a kinsman and an enemy; and the throne
of an active and able prince was degraded by the useless and
pernicious virtues of a bigot. ^!! While he started and satisfied
the scruples of a blind conscience, the siege was continued
through the winter by the neglect, rather than by the resolution
of the caliph Omar. ^13 The winter proved uncommonly rigorous:
above a hundred days the ground was covered with deep snow, and
the natives of the sultry climes of Egypt and Arabia lay torpid
and almost lifeless in their frozen camp. They revived on the
return of spring; a second effort had been made in their favor;
and their distress was relieved by the arrival of two numerous
fleets, laden with corn, and arms, and soldiers; the first from
Alexandria, of four hundred transports and galleys; the second of
three hundred and sixty vessels from the ports of Africa. But
the Greek fires were again kindled; and if the destruction was
less complete, it was owing to the experience which had taught
the Moslems to remain at a safe distance, or to the perfidy of
the Egyptian mariners, who deserted with their ships to the
emperor of the Christians. The trade and navigation of the
capital were restored; and the produce of the fisheries supplied
the wants, and even the luxury, of the inhabitants. But the
calamities of famine and disease were soon felt by the troops of
Moslemah, and as the former was miserably assuaged, so the latter
was dreadfully propagated, by the pernicious nutriment which
hunger compelled them to extract from the most unclean or
unnatural food. The spirit of conquest, and even of enthusiasm,
was extinct: the Saracens could no longer struggle, beyond their
lines, either single or in small parties, without exposing
themselves to the merciless retaliation of the Thracian peasants.

An army of Bulgarians was attracted from the Danube by the gifts
and promises of Leo; and these savage auxiliaries made some
atonement for the evils which they had inflicted on the empire,
by the defeat and slaughter of twenty-two thousand Asiatics. A
report was dexterously scattered, that the Franks, the unknown
nations of the Latin world, were arming by sea and land in the
defence of the Christian cause, and their formidable aid was
expected with far different sensations in the camp and city. At
length, after a siege of thirteen months, ^14 the hopeless
Moslemah received from the caliph the welcome permission of
retreat. ^* The march of the Arabian cavalry over the Hellespont
and through the provinces of Asia, was executed without delay or
molestation; but an army of their brethren had been cut in pieces
on the side of Bithynia, and the remains of the fleet were so
repeatedly damaged by tempest and fire, that only five galleys
entered the port of Alexandria to relate the tale of their
various and almost incredible disasters. ^15

[Footnote 11: In the division of the Themes, or provinces
described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Thematibus, l. i.
p. 9, 10,) the Obsequium, a Latin appellation of the army and
palace, was the fourth in the public order. Nice was the
metropolis, and its jurisdiction extended from the Hellespont
over the adjacent parts of Bithynia and Phrygia, (see the two
maps prefixed by Delisle to the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]

[Footnote *: Compare page 274. It is singular that Gibbon should
thus contradict himself in a few pages. By his own account this
was the second time. - M.]

[Footnote !: The account of this siege in the Tarikh Tebry is a
very unfavorable specimen of Asiatic history, full of absurd
fables, and written with total ignorance of the circumstances of
time and place. Price, vol. i. p. 498 - M.]

[Footnote 12: The caliph had emptied two baskets of eggs and of
figs, which he swallowed alternately, and the repast was
concluded with marrow and sugar. In one of his pilgrimages to
Mecca, Soliman ate, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a
kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of the grapes of Tayef. If
the bill of fare be correct, we must admire the appetite, rather
than the luxury, of the sovereign of Asia, (Abulfeda, Annal.
Moslem. p. 126.)

Note: The Tarikh Tebry ascribes the death of Soliman to a
pleurisy. The same gross gluttony in which Soliman indulged,
though not fatal to the life, interfered with the military
duties, of his brother Moslemah. Price, vol. i. p. 511. - M.]

[Footnote !!: Major Price's estimate of Omar's character is much
more favorable. Among a race of sanguinary tyrants, Omar was
just and humane. His virtues as well as his bigotry were active.
- M.]

[Footnote 13: See the article of Omar Ben Abdalaziz, in the
Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 689, 690,) praeferens, says Elmacin,
(p. 91,) religionem suam rebus suis mundanis. He was so desirous
of being with God, that he would not have anointed his ear (his
own saying) to obtain a perfect cure of his last malady. The
caliph had only one shirt, and in an age of luxury, his annual
expense was no more than two drachms, (Abulpharagius, p. 131.)
Haud diu gavisus eo principe fuit urbis Muslemus, (Abulfeda, p.
127.)]

[Footnote 14: Both Nicephorus and Theophanes agree that the siege
of Constantinople was raised the 15th of August, (A.D. 718;) but
as the former, our best witness, affirms that it continued
thirteen months, the latter must be mistaken in supposing that it
began on the same day of the preceding year. I do not find that
Pagi has remarked this inconsistency.]

[Footnote *: The Tarikh Tebry embellishes the retreat of Moslemah
with some extraordinary and incredible circumstances. Price, p.
514. - M.]

[Footnote 15: In the second siege of Constantinople, I have
followed Nicephorus, (Brev. p. 33 - 36,) Theophanes,
(Chronograph, p. 324 - 334,) Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 449 - 452,)
Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 98 - 102,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 88,)
Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 126,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p.
130,) the most satisfactory of the Arabs.]

In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be
chiefly ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real
efficacy of the Greek fire. ^16 The important secret of
compounding and directing this artificial flame was imparted by
Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis in Syria, who deserted from
the service of the caliph to that of the emperor. ^17 The skill
of a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the succor of fleets
and armies; and this discovery or improvement of the military art
was fortunately reserved for the distressful period, when the
degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with
the warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigor of the Saracens. The
historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition
should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine
guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this
instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and
perhaps fallacious, hints it should seem that the principal
ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, ^18 or liquid
bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, ^19 which
springs from the earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in
contact with the air. The naphtha was mingled, I know not by
what methods or in what proportions, with sulphur and with the
pitch that is extracted from evergreen firs. ^20 From this
mixture, which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion,
proceeded a fierce and obstinate flame, which not only rose in
perpendicular ascent, but likewise burnt with equal vehemence in
descent or lateral progress; instead of being extinguished, it
was nourished and quickened by the element of water; and sand,
urine, or vinegar, were the only remedies that could damp the
fury of this powerful agent, which was justly denominated by the
Greeks the liquid, or the maritime, fire. For the annoyance of
the enemy, it was employed with equal effect, by sea and land, in
battles or in sieges. It was either poured from the rampart in
large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or
darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow,
which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was
deposited in fire-ships, the victims and instruments of a more
ample revenge, and was most commonly blown through long tubes of
copper which were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully
shaped into the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a
stream of liquid and consuming fire. This important art was
preserved at Constantinople, as the palladium of the state: the
galleys and artillery might occasionally be lent to the allies of
Rome; but the composition of the Greek fire was concealed with
the most jealous scruple, and the terror of the enemies was
increased and prolonged by their ignorance and surprise. In the
treaties of the administration of the empire, the royal author
^21 suggests the answers and excuses that might best elude the
indiscreet curiosity and importunate demands of the Barbarians.
They should be told that the mystery of the Greek fire had been
revealed by an angel to the first and greatest of the
Constantines, with a sacred injunction, that this gift of Heaven,
this peculiar blessing of the Romans, should never be
communicated to any foreign nation; that the prince and the
subject were alike bound to religious silence under the temporal
and spiritual penalties of treason and sacrilege; and that the
impious attempt would provoke the sudden and supernatural
vengeance of the God of the Christians. By these precautions,
the secret was confined, above four hundred years, to the Romans
of the East; and at the end of the eleventh century, the Pisans,
to whom every sea and every art were familiar, suffered the
effects, without understanding the composition, of the Greek
fire. It was at length either discovered or stolen by the
Mahometans; and, in the holy wars of Syria and Egypt, they
retorted an invention, contrived against themselves, on the heads
of the Christians. A knight, who despised the swords and lances
of the Saracens, relates, with heartfelt sincerity, his own
fears, and those of his companions, at the sight and sound of the
mischievous engine that discharged a torrent of the Greek fire,
the feu Gregeois, as it is styled by the more early of the French
writers. It came flying through the air, says Joinville, ^22
like a winged long-tailed dragon, about the thickness of a
hogshead, with the report of thunder and the velocity of
lightning; and the darkness of the night was dispelled by this
deadly illumination. The use of the Greek, or, as it might now be
called, of the Saracen fire, was continued to the middle of the
fourteenth century, ^23 when the scientific or casual compound of
nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, effected a new revolution in the
art of war and the history of mankind. ^24

[Footnote 16: Our sure and indefatigable guide in the middle ages
and Byzantine history, Charles du Fresne du Cange, has treated in
several places of the Greek fire, and his collections leave few
gleanings behind. See particularly Glossar. Med. et Infim.
Graecitat. p. 1275, sub voce. Glossar. Med. et Infim. Latinitat.

Ignis Groecus. Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 305, 306.
Observations sur Joinville, p. 71, 72.]

[Footnote 17: Theophanes styles him, (p. 295.) Cedrenus (p. 437)
brings this artist from (the ruins of) Heliopolis in Egypt; and
chemistry was indeed the peculiar science of the Egyptians.]

[Footnote 18: The naphtha, the oleum incendiarium of the history
of Jerusalem, (Gest. Dei per Francos, p. 1167,) the Oriental
fountain of James de Vitry, (l. iii. c. 84,) is introduced on
slight evidence and strong probability. Cinanmus (l. vi. p. 165)
calls the Greek fire: and the naphtha is known to abound between
the Tigris and the Caspian Sea. According to Pliny, (Hist. Natur.
ii. 109,) it was subservient to the revenge of Medea, and in
either etymology, (Procop. de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 11,) may
fairly signify this liquid bitumen.

Note: It is remarkable that the Syrian historian Michel
gives the name of naphtha to the newly-invented Greek fire, which
seems to indicate that this substance formed the base of the
destructive compound. St. Martin, tom. xi. p. 420. - M.]

[Footnote 19: On the different sorts of oils and bitumens, see
Dr. Watson's (the present bishop of Llandaff's) Chemical Essays,
vol. iii. essay i., a classic book, the best adapted to infuse
the taste and knowledge of chemistry. The less perfect ideas of
the ancients may be found in Strabo (Geograph. l. xvi. p. 1078)
and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. ii. 108, 109.) Huic (Naphthae) magna
cognatio est ignium, transiliuntque protinus in eam undecunque
visam. Of our travellers I am best pleased with Otter, (tom. i.
p. 153, 158.)]

[Footnote 20: Anna Comnena has partly drawn aside the curtain.
(Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 383.) Elsewhere (l. xi. p. 336) she
mentions the property of burning. Leo, in the xixth chapter of
his Tactics, (Opera Meursii, tom. vi. p. 843, edit. Lami,
Florent. 1745,) speaks of the new invention. These are genuine
and Imperial testimonies.]

[Footnote 21: Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii,
c. xiii. p. 64, 65.]

[Footnote 22: Histoire de St. Louis, p. 39. Paris, 1668, p. 44.
Paris, de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1761. The former of these
editions is precious for the observations of Ducange; the latter
for the pure and original text of Joinville. We must have
recourse to that text to discover, that the feu Gregeois was shot
with a pile or javelin, from an engine that acted like a sling.]

[Footnote 23: The vanity, or envy, of shaking the established
property of Fame, has tempted some moderns to carry gunpowder
above the xivth, (see Sir William Temple, Dutens, &c.,) and the
Greek fire above the viith century, (see the Saluste du President
des Brosses, tom. ii. p. 381.) But their evidence, which precedes
the vulgar aera of the invention, is seldom clear or
satisfactory, and subsequent writers may be suspected of fraud or
credulity. In the earliest sieges, some combustibles of oil and
sulphur have been used, and the Greek fire has some affinities
with gunpowder both in its nature and effects: for the antiquity
of the first, a passage of Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. iv. c.
11,) for that of the second, some facts in the Arabic history of
Spain, (A.D. 1249, 1312, 1332. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. ii. p.
6, 7, 8,) are the most difficult to elude.]

[Footnote 24: That extraordinary man, Friar Bacon, reveals two of
the ingredients, saltpetre and sulphur, and conceals the third in
a sentence of mysterious gibberish, as if he dreaded the
consequences of his own discovery, (Biog. Brit. vol. i. p. 430,
new edition.)]

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.

Part II.

Constantinople and the Greek fire might exclude the Arabs
from the eastern entrance of Europe; but in the West, on the side
of the Pyrenees, the provinces of Gaul were threatened and
invaded by the conquerors of Spain. ^25 The decline of the French
monarchy invited the attack of these insatiate fanatics. The
descendants of Clovis had lost the inheritance of his martial and
ferocious spirit; and their misfortune or demerit has affixed the
epithet of lazy to the last kings of the Merovingian race. ^26
They ascended the throne without power, and sunk into the grave
without a name. A country palace, in the neighborhood of
Compiegne ^27 was allotted for their residence or prison: but
each year, in the month of March or May, they were conducted in a
wagon drawn by oxen to the assembly of the Franks, to give
audience to foreign ambassadors, and to ratify the acts of the
mayor of the palace. That domestic officer was become the
minister of the nation and the master of the prince. A public
employment was converted into the patrimony of a private family:
the elder Pepin left a king of mature years under the
guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these feeble
regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his
bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost
dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and
the territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of
the monarch, and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among
these independent chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful
was Eudes, duke of Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of
Gaul usurped the authority, and even the title of king. The
Goths, the Gascons, and the Franks, assembled under the standard
of this Christian hero: he repelled the first invasion of the
Saracens; and Zama, lieutenant of the caliph, lost his army and
his life under the walls of Thoulouse. The ambition of his
successors was stimulated by revenge; they repassed the Pyrenees
with the means and the resolution of conquest. The advantageous
situation which had recommended Narbonne ^28 as the first Roman
colony, was again chosen by the Moslems: they claimed the
province of Septimania or Languedoc as a just dependence of the
Spanish monarchy: the vineyards of Gascony and the city of
Bourdeaux were possessed by the sovereign of Damascus and
Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne
to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of Arabia.