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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60

[Footnote 25: For the invasion of France and the defeat of the
Arabs by Charles Martel, see the Historia Arabum (c. 11, 12, 13,
14) of Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, who had before him
the Christian chronicle of Isidore Pacensis, and the Mahometan
history of Novairi. The Moslems are silent or concise in the
account of their losses; but M Cardonne (tom. i. p. 129, 130,
131) has given a pure and simple account of all that he could
collect from Ibn Halikan, Hidjazi, and an anonymous writer. The
texts of the chronicles of France, and lives of saints, are
inserted in the Collection of Bouquet, (tom. iii.,) and the
Annals of Pagi, who (tom. iii. under the proper years) has
restored the chronology, which is anticipated six years in the
Annals of Baronius. The Dictionary of Bayle (Abderame and
Munuza) has more merit for lively reflection than original
research.]

[Footnote 26: Eginhart, de Vita Caroli Magni, c. ii. p. 13 - 78,
edit. Schmink, Utrecht, 1711. Some modern critics accuse the
minister of Charlemagne of exaggerating the weakness of the
Merovingians; but the general outline is just, and the French
reader will forever repeat the beautiful lines of Boileau's
Lutrin.]

[Footnote 27: Mamaccae, on the Oyse, between Compiegne and Noyon,
which Eginhart calls perparvi reditus villam, (see the notes, and
the map of ancient France for Dom. Bouquet's Collection.)
Compendium, or Compiegne, was a palace of more dignity, (Hadrian.
Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 152,) and that laughing
philosopher, the Abbe Galliani, (Dialogues sur le Commerce des
Bleds,) may truly affirm, that it was the residence of the rois
tres Chretiens en tres chevelus.]

[Footnote 28: Even before that colony, A. U. C. 630, (Velleius
Patercul. i. 15,) In the time of Polybius, (Hist. l. iii. p. 265,
edit. Gronov.) Narbonne was a Celtic town of the first eminence,
and one of the most northern places of the known world,
(D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 473.)]

But these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of
Abdalraman, or Abderame, who had been restored by the caliph
Hashem to the wishes of the soldiers and people of Spain. That
veteran and daring commander adjudged to the obedience of the
prophet whatever yet remained of France or of Europe; and
prepared to execute the sentence, at the head of a formidable
host, in the full confidence of surmounting all opposition either
of nature or of man. His first care was to suppress a domestic
rebel, who commanded the most important passes of the Pyrenees:
Manuza, a Moorish chief, had accepted the alliance of the duke of
Aquitain; and Eudes, from a motive of private or public interest,
devoted his beauteous daughter to the embraces of the African
misbeliever. But the strongest fortresses of Cerdagne were
invested by a superior force; the rebel was overtaken and slain
in the mountains; and his widow was sent a captive to Damascus,
to gratify the desires, or more probably the vanity, of the
commander of the faithful. From the Pyrenees, Abderame proceeded
without delay to the passage of the Rhone and the siege of Arles.

An army of Christians attempted the relief of the city: the tombs
of their leaders were yet visible in the thirteenth century; and
many thousands of their dead bodies were carried down the rapid
stream into the Mediterranean Sea. The arms of Abderame were not
less successful on the side of the ocean. He passed without
opposition the Garonne and Dordogne, which unite their waters in
the Gulf of Bourdeaux; but he found, beyond those rivers, the
camp of the intrepid Eudes, who had formed a second army and
sustained a second defeat, so fatal to the Christians, that,
according to their sad confession, God alone could reckon the
number of the slain. The victorious Saracen overran the
provinces of Aquitain, whose Gallic names are disguised, rather
than lost, in the modern appellations of Perigord, Saintonge, and
Poitou: his standards were planted on the walls, or at least
before the gates, of Tours and of Sens; and his detachments
overspread the kingdom of Burgundy as far as the well-known
cities of Lyons and Besancon. The memory of these devastations
(for Abderame did not spare the country or the people) was long
preserved by tradition; and the invasion of France by the Moors
or Mahometans affords the groundwork of those fables, which have
been so wildly disfigured in the romances of chivalry, and so
elegantly adorned by the Italian muse. In the decline of society
and art, the deserted cities could supply a slender booty to the
Saracens; their richest spoil was found in the churches and
monasteries, which they stripped of their ornaments and delivered
to the flames: and the tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers
and Martin of Tours, forgot their miraculous powers in the
defence of their own sepulchres. ^29 A victorious line of march
had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of
Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal
space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland
and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable
than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have
sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames.
Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in
the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a
circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of
Mahomet. ^30

[Footnote 29: With regard to the sanctuary of St. Martin of
Tours, Roderic Ximenes accuses the Saracens of the deed. Turonis
civitatem, ecclesiam et palatia vastatione et incendio simili
diruit et consumpsit. The continuator of Fredegarius imputes to
them no more than the intention. Ad domum beatissimi Martini
evertendam destinant. At Carolus, &c. The French annalist was
more jealous of the honor of the saint.]

[Footnote 30: Yet I sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosch
would have produced a volume of controversy so elegant and
ingenious as the sermons lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic
professor, at Mr. Bampton's lecture. His observations on the
character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his
argument, and generally founded in truth and reason. He sustains
the part of a lively and eloquent advocate; and sometimes rises
to the merit of an historian and philosopher.]

From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius
and fortune of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the
elder Pepin, was content with the titles of mayor or duke of the
Franks; but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings.
In a laborious administration of twenty-four years, he restored
and supported the dignity of the throne, and the rebels of
Germany and Gaul were successively crushed by the activity of a
warrior, who, in the same campaign, could display his banner on
the Elbe, the Rhone, and the shores of the ocean. In the public
danger he was summoned by the voice of his country; and his
rival, the duke of Aquitain, was reduced to appear among the
fugitives and suppliants. "Alas!" exclaimed the Franks, "what a
misfortune! what an indignity! We have long heard of the name
and conquests of the Arabs: we were apprehensive of their attack
from the East; they have now conquered Spain, and invade our
country on the side of the West. Yet their numbers, and (since
they have no buckler) their arms, are inferior to our own." "If
you follow my advice," replied the prudent mayor of the palace,
"you will not interrupt their march, nor precipitate your attack.

They are like a torrent, which it is dangerous to stem in its
career. The thirst of riches, and the consciousness of success,
redouble their valor, and valor is of more avail than arms or
numbers. Be patient till they have loaded themselves with the
encumbrance of wealth. The possession of wealth will divide
their councils and assure your victory." This subtile policy is
perhaps a refinement of the Arabian writers; and the situation of
Charles will suggest a more narrow and selfish motive of
procrastination - the secret desire of humbling the pride and
wasting the provinces of the rebel duke of Aquitain. It is yet
more probable, that the delays of Charles were inevitable and
reluctant. A standing army was unknown under the first and
second race; more than half the kingdom was now in the hands of
the Saracens: according to their respective situation, the Franks
of Neustria and Austrasia were to conscious or too careless of
the impending danger; and the voluntary aids of the Gepidae and
Germans were separated by a long interval from the standard of
the Christian general. No sooner had he collected his forces,
than he sought and found the enemy in the centre of France,
between Tours and Poitiers. His well-conducted march was covered
with a range of hills, and Abderame appears to have been
surprised by his unexpected presence. The nations of Asia,
Africa, and Europe, advanced with equal ardor to an encounter
which would change the history of the world. In the six first
days of desultory combat, the horsemen and archers of the East
maintained their advantage: but in the closer onset of the
seventh day, the Orientals were oppressed by the strength and
stature of the Germans, who, with stout hearts and iron hands,
^31 asserted the civil and religious freedom of their posterity.
The epithet of Martel. the Hammer, which has been added to the
name of Charles, is expressive of his weighty and irresistible
strokes: the valor of Eudes was excited by resentment and
emulation; and their companions, in the eye of history, are the
true Peers and Paladins of French chivalry. After a bloody
field, in which Abderame was slain, the Saracens, in the close of
the evening, retired to their camp. In the disorder and despair
of the night, the various tribes of Yemen and Damascus, of Africa
and Spain, were provoked to turn their arms against each other:
the remains of their host were suddenly dissolved, and each emir
consulted his safety by a hasty and separate retreat. At the
dawn of the day, the stillness of a hostile camp was suspected by
the victorious Christians: on the report of their spies, they
ventured to explore the riches of the vacant tents; but if we
except some celebrated relics, a small portion of the spoil was
restored to the innocent and lawful owners. The joyful tidings
were soon diffused over the Catholic world, and the monks of
Italy could affirm and believe that three hundred and fifty, or
three hundred and seventy-five, thousand of the Mahometans had
been crushed by the hammer of Charles, ^32 while no more than
fifteen hundred Christians were slain in the field of Tours. But
this incredible tale is sufficiently disproved by the caution of
the French general, who apprehended the snares and accidents of a
pursuit, and dismissed his German allies to their native forests.

The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and
blood, and the most cruel execution is inflicted, not in the
ranks of battle, but on the backs of a flying enemy. Yet the
victory of the Franks was complete and final; Aquitain was
recovered by the arms of Eudes; the Arabs never resumed the
conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven beyond the Pyrenees
by Charles Martel and his valiant race. ^33 It might have been
expected that the savior of Christendom would have been
canonized, or at least applauded, by the gratitude of the clergy,
who are indebted to his sword for their present existence. But
in the public distress, the mayor of the palace had been
compelled to apply the riches, or at least the revenues, of the
bishops and abbots, to the relief of the state and the reward of
the soldiers. His merits were forgotten, his sacrilege alone was
remembered, and, in an epistle to a Carlovingian prince, a Gallic
synod presumes to declare that his ancestor was damned; that on
the opening of his tomb, the spectators were affrighted by a
smell of fire and the aspect of a horrid dragon; and that a saint
of the times was indulged with a pleasant vision of the soul and
body of Charles Martel, burning, to all eternity, in the abyss of
hell. ^34

[Footnote 31: Gens Austriae membrorum pre-eminentia valida, et
gens Germana corde et corpore praestantissima, quasi in ictu
oculi, manu ferrea, et pectore arduo, Arabes extinxerunt,
(Roderic. Toletan. c. xiv.)]

[Footnote 32: These numbers are stated by Paul Warnefrid, the
deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis Langobard. l. vi. p. 921, edit.
Grot.,) and Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman church, (in
Vit. Gregorii II.,) who tells a miraculous story of three
consecrated sponges, which rendered invulnerable the French
soldiers, among whom they had been shared It should seem, that in
his letters to the pope, Eudes usurped the honor of the victory,
from which he is chastised by the French annalists, who, with
equal falsehood, accuse him of inviting the Saracens.]

[Footnote 33: Narbonne, and the rest of Septimania, was recovered
by Pepin the son of Charles Martel, A.D. 755, (Pagi, Critica,
tom. iii. p. 300.) Thirty-seven years afterwards, it was pillaged
by a sudden inroad of the Arabs, who employed the captives in the
construction of the mosch of Cordova, (De Guignes, Hist. des
Huns, tom. i. p. 354.)]

[Footnote 34: This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the
Germanic, the grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed
by the pen of the artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and
signed by the bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen,
(Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 741. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom.
x. p. 514 - 516.) Yet Baronius himself, and the French critics,
reject with contempt this episcopal fiction.]

The loss of an army, or a province, in the Western world,
was less painful to the court of Damascus, than the rise and
progress of a domestic competitor. Except among the Syrians, the
caliphs of the house of Ommiyah had never been the objects of the
public favor. The life of Mahomet recorded their perseverance in
idolatry and rebellion: their conversion had been reluctant,
their elevation irregular and factious, and their throne was
cemented with the most holy and noble blood of Arabia. The best
of their race, the pious Omar, was dissatisfied with his own
title: their personal virtues were insufficient to justify a
departure from the order of succession; and the eyes and wishes
of the faithful were turned towards the line of Hashem, and the
kindred of the apostle of God. Of these the Fatimites were
either rash or pusillanimous; but the descendants of Abbas
cherished, with courage and discretion, the hopes of their rising
fortunes. From an obscure residence in Syria, they secretly
despatched their agents and missionaries, who preached in the
Eastern provinces their hereditary indefeasible right; and
Mohammed, the son of Ali, the son of Abdallah, the son of Abbas,
the uncle of the prophet, gave audience to the deputies of
Chorasan, and accepted their free gift of four hundred thousand
pieces of gold. After the death of Mohammed, the oath of
allegiance was administered in the name of his son Ibrahim to a
numerous band of votaries, who expected only a signal and a
leader; and the governor of Chorasan continued to deplore his
fruitless admonitions and the deadly slumber of the caliphs of
Damascus, till he himself, with all his adherents, was driven
from the city and palace of Meru, by the rebellious arms of Abu
Moslem. ^35 That maker of kings, the author, as he is named, of
the call of the Abbassides, was at length rewarded for his
presumption of merit with the usual gratitude of courts. A mean,
perhaps a foreign, extraction could not repress the aspiring
energy of Abu Moslem. Jealous of his wives, liberal of his
wealth, prodigal of his own blood and of that of others, he could
boast with pleasure, and possibly with truth, that he had
destroyed six hundred thousand of his enemies; and such was the
intrepid gravity of his mind and countenance, that he was never
seen to smile except on a day of battle. In the visible
separation of parties, the green was consecrated to the
Fatimites; the Ommiades were distinguished by the white; and the
black, as the most adverse, was naturally adopted by the
Abbassides. Their turbans and garments were stained with that
gloomy color: two black standards, on pike staves nine cubits
long, were borne aloft in the van of Abu Moslem; and their
allegorical names of the night and the shadow obscurely
represented the indissoluble union and perpetual succession of
the line of Hashem. From the Indus to the Euphrates, the East
was convulsed by the quarrel of the white and the black factions:
the Abbassides were most frequently victorious; but their public
success was clouded by the personal misfortune of their chief.
The court of Damascus, awakening from a long slumber, resolved to
prevent the pilgrimage of Mecca, which Ibrahim had undertaken
with a splendid retinue, to recommend himself at once to the
favor of the prophet and of the people. A detachment of cavalry
intercepted his march and arrested his person; and the unhappy
Ibrahim, snatched away from the promise of untasted royalty,
expired in iron fetters in the dungeons of Haran. His two younger
brothers, Saffah ^* and Almansor, eluded the search of the
tyrant, and lay concealed at Cufa, till the zeal of the people
and the approach of his Eastern friends allowed them to expose
their persons to the impatient public. On Friday, in the dress
of a caliph, in the colors of the sect, Saffah proceeded with
religious and military pomp to the mosch: ascending the pulpit,
he prayed and preached as the lawful successor of Mahomet; and
after his departure, his kinsmen bound a willing people by an
oath of fidelity. But it was on the banks of the Zab, and not in
the mosch of Cufa, that this important controversy was
determined. Every advantage appeared to be on the side of the
white faction: the authority of established government; an army
of a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers, against a sixth part
of that number; and the presence and merit of the caliph Mervan,
the fourteenth and last of the house of Ommiyah. Before his
accession to the throne, he had deserved, by his Georgian
warfare, the honorable epithet of the ass of Mesopotamia; ^36 and
he might have been ranked amongst the greatest princes, had not,
says Abulfeda, the eternal order decreed that moment for the ruin
of his family; a decree against which all human fortitude and
prudence must struggle in vain. The orders of Mervan were
mistaken, or disobeyed: the return of his horse, from which he
had dismounted on a necessary occasion, impressed the belief of
his death; and the enthusiasm of the black squadrons was ably
conducted by Abdallah, the uncle of his competitor. After an
irretrievab defeat, the caliph escaped to Mosul; but the colors
of the Abbassides were displayed from the rampart; he suddenly
repassed the Tigris, cast a melancholy look on his palace of
Haran, crossed the Euphrates, abandoned the fortifications of
Damascus, and, without halting in Palestine, pitched his last and
fatal camp at Busir, on the banks of the Nile. ^37 His speed was
urged by the incessant diligence of Abdallah, who in every step
of the pursuit acquired strength and reputation: the remains of
the white faction were finally vanquished in Egypt; and the
lance, which terminated the life and anxiety of Mervan, was not
less welcome perhaps to the unfortunate than to the victorious
chief. The merciless inquisition of the conqueror eradicated the
most distant branches of the hostile race: their bones were
scattered, their memory was accursed, and the martyrdom of
Hossein was abundantly revenged on the posterity of his tyrants.
Fourscore of the Ommiades, who had yielded to the faith or
clemency of their foes, were invited to a banquet at Damascus.
The laws of hospitality were violated by a promiscuous massacre:
the board was spread over their fallen bodies; and the festivity
of the guests was enlivened by the music of their dying groans.
By the event of the civil war, the dynasty of the Abbassides was
firmly established; but the Christians only could triumph in the
mutual hatred and common loss of the disciples of Mahomet. ^38

[Footnote 35: The steed and the saddle which had carried any of
his wives were instantly killed or burnt, lest they should
afterwards be mounted by a male. Twelve hundred mules or camels
were required for his kitchen furniture; and the daily
consumption amounted to three thousand cakes, a hundred sheep,
besides oxen, poultry, &c., (Abul pharagius, Hist. Dynast. p.
140.)]

[Footnote *: He is called Abdullah or Abul Abbas in the Tarikh
Tebry. Price vol. i. p. 600. Saffah or Saffauh (the Sanguinary)
was a name which be required after his bloody reign, (vol. ii. p.
1.) - M.]

[Footnote 36: Al Hemar. He had been governor of Mesopotamia, and
the Arabic proverb praises the courage of that warlike breed of
asses who never fly from an enemy. The surname of Mervan may
justify the comparison of Homer, (Iliad, A. 557, &c.,) and both
will silence the moderns, who consider the ass as a stupid and
ignoble emblem, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 558.)]

[Footnote 37: Four several places, all in Egypt, bore the name of
Busir, or Busiris, so famous in Greek fable. The first, where
Mervan was slain was to the west of the Nile, in the province of
Fium, or Arsinoe; the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic
nome; the third near the pyramids; the fourth, which was
destroyed by Dioclesian, (see above, vol. ii. p. 130,) in the
Thebais. I shall here transcribe a note of the learned and
orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Aegypti superioris
urbibus Busiri Coptoque arma sumpsisse Christiani, libertatemque
de religione sentiendi defendisse, sed succubuisse quo in bello
Coptus et Busiris diruta, et circa Esnam magna strages edita.
Bellum narrant sed causam belli ignorant scriptores Byzantini,
alioqui Coptum et Busirim non rebellasse dicturi, sed causam
Christianorum suscepturi, (Not. 211, p. 100.) For the geography
of the four Busirs, see Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. p. 9, vers.
Michaelis, Gottingae, 1776, in 4to.,) Michaelis, (Not. 122 - 127,
p. 58 - 63,) and D'Anville, (Memoire sua l'Egypte, p. 85, 147,
205.)]

[Footnote 38: See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 136 - 145,)
Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 392, vers. Pocock,) Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 109 - 121,) Abulpharagius, (Hist. Dynast. p.
134 - 140,) Roderic of Toledo, (Hist. Arabum, c. xviii. p. 33,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 356, 357, who speaks of the
Abbassides) and the Bibliotheque of D'Herbelot, in the articles
Ommiades, Abbassides, Moervan, Ibrahim, Saffah, Abou Moslem.]

Yet the thousands who were swept away by the sword of war
might have been speedily retrieved in the succeeding generation,
if the consequences of the revolution had not tended to dissolve
the power and unity of the empire of the Saracens. In the
proscription of the Ommiades, a royal youth of the name of
Abdalrahman alone escaped the rage of his enemies, who hunted the
wandering exile from the banks of the Euphrates to the valleys of
Mount Atlas. His presence in the neighborhood of Spain revived
the zeal of the white faction. The name and cause of the
Abbassides had been first vindicated by the Persians: the West
had been pure from civil arms; and the servants of the abdicated
family still held, by a precarious tenure, the inheritance of
their lands and the offices of government. Strongly prompted by
gratitude, indignation, and fear, they invited the grandson of
the caliph Hashem to ascend the throne of his ancestors; and, in
his desperate condition, the extremes of rashness and prudence
were almost the same. The acclamations of the people saluted his
landing on the coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful
struggle, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, and was
the father of the Ommiades of Spain, who reigned above two
hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees. ^39 He
slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbassides, who had invaded
his dominions with a fleet and army: the head of Ala, in salt and
camphire, was suspended by a daring messenger before the palace
of Mecca; and the caliph Almansor rejoiced in his safety, that he
was removed by seas and lands from such a formidable adversary.
Their mutual designs or declarations of offensive war evaporated
without effect; but instead of opening a door to the conquest of
Europe, Spain was dissevered from the trunk of the monarchy,
engaged in perpetual hostility with the East, and inclined to
peace and friendship with the Christian sovereigns of
Constantinople and France. The example of the Ommiades was
imitated by the real or fictitious progeny of Ali, the Edrissites
of Mauritania, and the more powerful fatimites of Africa and
Egypt. In the tenth century, the chair of Mahomet was disputed
by three caliphs or commanders of the faithful, who reigned at
Bagdad, Cairoan, and Cordova, excommunicating each other, and
agreed only in a principle of discord, that a sectary is more
odious and criminal than an unbeliever. ^40