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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Note: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 44, &c.
- M.]

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.

Part V.

The third and most obvious cause was the weight and
magnitude of the empire itself. The caliph Almamon might proudly
assert, that it was easier for him to rule the East and the West,
than to manage a chess-board of two feet square: ^102 yet I
suspect that in both those games he was guilty of many fatal
mistakes; and I perceive, that in the distant provinces the
authority of the first and most powerful of the Abbassides was
already impaired. The analogy of despotism invests the
representative with the full majesty of the prince; the division
and balance of powers might relax the habits of obedience, might
encourage the passive subject to inquire into the origin and
administration of civil government. He who is born in the purple
is seldom worthy to reign; but the elevation of a private man, of
a peasant, perhaps, or a slave, affords a strong presumption of
his courage and capacity. The viceroy of a remote kingdom
aspires to secure the property and inheritance of his precarious
trust; the nations must rejoice in the presence of their
sovereign; and the command of armies and treasures are at once
the object and the instrument of his ambition. A change was
scarcely visible as long as the lieutenants of the caliph were
content with their vicarious title; while they solicited for
themselves or their sons a renewal of the Imperial grant, and
still maintained on the coin and in the public prayers the name
and prerogative of the commander of the faithful. But in the
long and hereditary exercise of power, they assumed the pride and
attributes of royalty; the alternative of peace or war, of reward
or punishment, depended solely on their will; and the revenues of
their government were reserved for local services or private
magnificence. Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the
successors of the prophet were flattered with the ostentatious
gift of an elephant, or a cast of hawks, a suit of silk hangings,
or some pounds of musk and amber. ^103

[Footnote 102: Hyde, Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 57, in Hist.
Shahiludii.]

[Footnote 103: The dynasties of the Arabian empire may be studied
in the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, under the
proper years, in the dictionary of D'Herbelot, under the proper
names. The tables of M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i.)
exhibit a general chronology of the East, interspersed with some
historical anecdotes; but his attachment to national blood has
sometimes confounded the order of time and place.]

After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual
supremacy of the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience
broke forth in the province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of
Aglab, the lieutenant of the vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed
to the dynasty of the Aglabites the inheritance of his name and
power. The indolence or policy of the caliphs dissembled the
injury and loss, and pursued only with poison the founder of the
Edrisites, ^104 who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on the
shores of the Western ocean. ^105 In the East, the first dynasty
was that of the Taherites; ^106 the posterity of the valiant
Taher, who, in the civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served
with too much zeal and success the cause of Almamon, the younger
brother. He was sent into honorable exile, to command on the
banks of the Oxus; and the independence of his successors, who
reigned in Chorasan till the fourth generation, was palliated by
their modest and respectful demeanor, the happiness of their
subjects and the security of their frontier. They were
supplanted by one of those adventures so frequent in the annals
of the East, who left his trade of a brazier (from whence the
name of Soffarides) for the profession of a robber. In a
nocturnal visit to the treasure of the prince of Sistan, Jacob,
the son of Leith, stumbled over a lump of salt, which he unwarily
tasted with his tongue. Salt, among the Orientals, is the symbol
of hospitality, and the pious robber immediately retired without
spoil or damage. The discovery of this honorable behavior
recommended Jacob to pardon and trust; he led an army at first
for his benefactor, at last for himself, subdued Persia, and
threatened the residence of the Abbassides. On his march towards
Bagdad, the conqueror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience
in bed to the ambassador of the caliph; and beside him on a table
were exposed a naked cimeter, a crust of brown bread, and a bunch
of onions. "If I die," said he, "your master is delivered from
his fears. If I live, this must determine between us. If I am
vanquished, I can return without reluctance to the homely fare of
my youth." From the height where he stood, the descent would not
have been so soft or harmless: a timely death secured his own
repose and that of the caliph, who paid with the most lavish
concessions the retreat of his brother Amrou to the palaces of
Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend,
too proud to forgive: they invited the powerful dynasty of the
Samanides, who passed the Oxus with ten thousand horse so poor,
that their stirrups were of wood: so brave, that they vanquished
the Soffarian army, eight times more numerous than their own.
The captive Amrou was sent in chains, a grateful offering to the
court of Bagdad; and as the victor was content with the
inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the realms of Persia
returned for a while to the allegiance of the caliphs. The
provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their
Turkish slaves of the race of Toulon and Ilkshid. ^107 These
Barbarians, in religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet,
emerged from the bloody factions of the palace to a provincial
command and an independent throne: their names became famous and
formidable in their time; but the founders of these two potent
dynasties confessed, either in words or actions, the vanity of
ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the mercy of God
to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power: the second,
in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight thousand
slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he
attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of
kings; and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by
the Abbassides during an interval of thirty years. In the
decline of their empire, Mesopotamia, with the important cities
of Mosul and Aleppo, was occupied by the Arabian princes of the
tribe of Hamadan. The poets of their court could repeat without
a blush, that nature had formed their countenances for beauty,
their tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality and
valor: but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the
Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and parricide.

At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again usurped
by the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword of three brothers,
who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of
the state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would
suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the
language and genius of Persia revived, and the Arabs, three
hundred and four years after the death of Mahomet, were deprived
of the sceptre of the East.

[Footnote 104: The Aglabites and Edrisites are the professed
subject of M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne
sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 1 - 63.)]

[Footnote 105: To escape the reproach of error, I must criticize
the inaccuracies of M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 359) concerning the
Edrisites. 1. The dynasty and city of Fez could not be founded in
the year of the Hegira 173, since the founder was a posthumous
child of a descendant of Ali, who fled from Mecca in the year
168. 2. This founder, Edris, the son of Edris, instead of living
to the improbable age of 120 years, A. H. 313, died A. H. 214, in
the prime of manhood. 3. The dynasty ended A. H. 307,
twenty-three years sooner than it is fixed by the historian of
the Huns. See the accurate Annals of Abulfeda p. 158, 159, 185,
238.]

[Footnote 106: The dynasties of the Taherites and Soffarides,
with the rise of that of the Samanines, are described in the
original history and Latin version of Mirchond: yet the most
interesting facts had already been drained by the diligence of M.
D'Herbelot.]

[Footnote 107: M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 124 -
154) has exhausted the Toulunides and Ikshidites of Egypt, and
thrown some light on the Carmathians and Hamadanites.]

Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the
thirty-ninth of the successors of Mahomet, was the last who
deserved the title of commander of the faithful; ^108 the last
(says Abulfeda) who spoke to the people, or conversed with the
learned; the last who, in the expense of his household,
represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient caliphs.
After him, the lords of the Eastern world were reduced to the
most abject misery, and exposed to the blows and insults of a
servile condition. The revolt of the provinces circumscribed
their dominions within the walls of Bagdad: but that capital
still contained an innumerable multitude, vain of their past
fortune, discontented with their present state, and oppressed by
the demands of a treasury which had formerly been replenished by
the spoil and tribute of nations. Their idleness was exercised
by faction and controversy. Under the mask of piety, the rigid
followers of Hanbal ^109 invaded the pleasures of domestic life,
burst into the houses of plebeians and princes, the wine, broke
the instruments, beat the musicians, and dishonored, with
infamous suspicions, the associates of every handsome youth. In
each profession, which allowed room for two persons, the one was
a votary, the other an antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides
were awakened by the clamorous grief of the sectaries, who denied
their title, and cursed their progenitors. A turbulent people
could only be repressed by a military force; but who could
satisfy the avarice or assert the discipline of the mercenaries
themselves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their swords
against each other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra,
^110 imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the
sanctuary of the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the
camp or court of any neighboring prince, their deliverance was a
change of servitude, till they were prompted by despair to invite
the Bowides, the sultans of Persia, who silenced the factions of
Bagdad by their irresistible arms. The civil and military powers
were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second of the three brothers,
and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling was assigned by
his generosity for the private expense of the commander of the
faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the
ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling
multitude, the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon,
by the command of the stranger, and the rude hands of his
Dilamites. His palace was pillaged, his eyes were put out, and
the mean ambition of the Abbassides aspired to the vacant station
of danger and disgrace. In the school of adversity, the
luxurious caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the
primitive times. Despoiled of their armor and silken robes, they
fasted, they prayed, they studied the Koran and the tradition of
the Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowledge, the
functions of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of
nations still waited on the successors of the apostle, the
oracles of the law and conscience of the faithful; and the
weakness or division of their tyrants sometimes restored the
Abbassides to the sovereignty of Bagdad. But their misfortunes
had been imbittered by the triumph of the Fatimites, the real or
spurious progeny of Ali. Arising from the extremity of Africa,
these successful rivals extinguished, in Egypt and Syria, both
the spiritual and temporal authority of the Abbassides; and the
monarch of the Nile insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of
the Tigris.

[Footnote 108: Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque saepius
pro concione peroraret .... Fuit etiam ultimus qui otium cum
eruditis et facetis hominibus fallere hilariterque agere soleret.

Ultimus tandem chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et
thesauri, culinae, caeteraque omnis aulica pompa priorum
chalifarum ad instar comparata fuerint. Videbimus enim paullo
post quam indignis et servilibius ludibriis exagitati, quam ad
humilem fortunam altimumque contemptum abjecti fuerint hi quondam
potentissimi totius terrarum Orientalium orbis domini. Abulfed.
Annal. Moslem. p. 261. I have given this passage as the manner
and tone of Abulfeda, but the cast of Latin eloquence belongs
more properly to Reiske. The Arabian historian (p. 255, 257, 261
- 269, 283, &c.) has supplied me with the most interesting facts
of this paragraph.]

[Footnote 109: Their master, on a similar occasion, showed
himself of a more indulgent and tolerating spirit. Ahmed Ebn
Hanbal, the head of one of the four orthodox sects, was born at
Bagdad A. H. 164, and died there A. H. 241. He fought and
suffered in the dispute concerning the creation of the Koran.]

[Footnote 110: The office of vizier was superseded by the emir al
Omra, Imperator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Radhi,
and which merged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides:
vectigalibus, et tributis, et curiis per omnes regiones
praefecit, jussitque in omnibus suggestis nominis ejus in
concionibus mentionem fieri, (Abulpharagius, Dynart. p 199.) It
is likewise mentioned by Elmacin, (p. 254, 255.)]

In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which
elapsed after the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hostile
transactions of the two nations were confined to some inroads by
sea and land, the fruits of their close vicinity and indelible
hatred. But when the Eastern world was convulsed and broken, the
Greeks were roused from their lethargy by the hopes of conquest
and revenge. The Byzantine empire, since the accession of the
Basilian race, had reposed in peace and dignity; and they might
encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty
emir, whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national
foes of the Mahometan faith. The lofty titles of the morning
star, and the death of the Saracens, ^111 were applied in the
public acclamations to Nicephorus Phocas, a prince as renowned in
the camp, as he was unpopular in the city. In the subordinate
station of great domestic, or general of the East, he reduced the
Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so
long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire. ^112 His
military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the
enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and dishonor.
The Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on safe
and level bridges, which he cast from the vessels to the shore.
Seven months were consumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of
the native Cretans was stimulated by the frequent aid of their
brethren of Africa and Spain; and after the massy wall and double
ditch had been stormed by the Greeks a hopeless conflict was
still maintained in the streets and houses of the city. ^* The
whole island was subdued in the capital, and a submissive people
accepted, without resistance, the baptism of the conqueror. ^113
Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp of a triumph;
but the Imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the
services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus.

[Footnote 111: Liutprand, whose choleric temper was imbittered by
his uneasy situation, suggests the names of reproach and contempt
more applicable to Nicephorus than the vain titles of the Greeks,
Ecce venit stella matutina, surgit Eous, reverberat obtutu solis
radios, pallida Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus.]

[Footnote 112: Notwithstanding the insinuation of Zonaras, &c.,
(tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 197,) it is an undoubted fact, that Crete
was completely and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas, (Pagi,
Critica, tom. iii. p. 873 - 875. Meursius, Creta, l. iii. c. 7,
tom. iii. p. 464, 465.)]

[Footnote *: The Acroases of Theodorus, de expugnatione Cretae,
miserable iambics, relate the whole campaign. Whoever would
fairly estimate the merit of the poetic deacon, may read the
description of the slinging a jackass into the famishing city.
The poet is in a transport at the wit of the general, and revels
in the luxury of antithesis. Theodori Acroases, lib. iii. 172,
in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist. - M.]

[Footnote 113: A Greek Life of St. Nicon the Armenian was found
in the Sforza library, and translated into Latin by the Jesuit
Sirmond, for the use of Cardinal Baronius. This contemporary
legend casts a ray of light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the 10th
century. He found the newly-recovered island, foedis detestandae
Agarenorum superstitionis vestigiis adhuc plenam ac refertam ....
but the victorious missionary, perhaps with some carnal aid, ad
baptismum omnes veraeque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis
per totam insulam aedificatis, &c., (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 961.)]

After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal
descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively
married Nicephorus Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two
heroes of the age. They reigned as the guardians and colleagues
of her infant sons; and the twelve years of their military
command form the most splendid period of the Byzantine annals.
The subjects and confederates, whom they led to war, appeared, at
least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand strong; and
of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses: ^114 a
train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their
evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron
spikes. A series of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing
more than an anticipation of what would have been effected in a
few years by the course of nature; but I shall briefly prosecute
the conquests of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to
the desert of Bagdad. The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, in
Cilicia, first exercised the skill and perseverance of their
troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow
the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is
divided by the River Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were
predestined to death or slavery, ^115 a surprising degree of
population, which must at least include the inhabitants of the
dependent districts. They were surrounded and taken by assault;
but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine; and no
sooner had the Saracens yielded on honorable terms than they were
mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval
succors of Egypt. They were dismissed with a safe-conduct to the
confines of Syria: a part of the old Christians had quietly lived
under their dominion; and the vacant habitations were replenished
by a new colony. But the mosch was converted into a stable; the
pulpit was delivered to the flames; many rich crosses of gold and
gems, the spoils of Asiatic churches, were made a grateful
offering to the piety or avarice of the emperor; and he
transported the gates of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, which were fixed
in the walls of Constantinople, an eternal monument of his
victory. After they had forced and secured the narrow passes of
Mount Amanus, the two Roman princes repeatedly carried their arms
into the heart of Syria. Yet, instead of assaulting the walls of
Antioch, the humanity or superstition of Nicephorus appeared to
respect the ancient metropolis of the East: he contented himself
with drawing round the city a line of circumvallation; left a
stationary army; and instructed his lieutenant to expect, without
impatience, the return of spring. But in the depth of winter, in
a dark and rainy night, an adventurous subaltern, with three
hundred soldiers, approached the rampart, applied his
scaling-ladders, occupied two adjacent towers, stood firm against
the pressure of multitudes, and bravely maintained his post till
he was relieved by the tardy, though effectual, support of his
reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter and rapine
subsided; the reign of Caesar and of Christ was restored; and the
efforts of a hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria
and the fleets of Africa, were consumed without effect before the
walls of Antioch. The royal city of Aleppo was subject to
Seifeddowlat, of the dynasty of Hamadan, who clouded his past
glory by the precipitate retreat which abandoned his kingdom and
capital to the Roman invaders. In his stately palace, that stood
without the walls of Aleppo, they joyfully seized a
well-furnished magazine of arms, a stable of fourteen hundred
mules, and three hundred bags of silver and gold. But the walls
of the city withstood the strokes of their battering-rams: and
the besiegers pitched their tents on the neighboring mountain of
Jaushan. Their retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen
and mercenaries; the guard of the gates and ramparts was
deserted; and while they furiously charged each other in the
market-place, they were surprised and destroyed by the sword of a
common enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword; ten
thousand youths were led into captivity; the weight of the
precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of
burden; the superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after a
licentious possession of ten days, the Romans marched away from
the naked and bleeding city. In their Syrian inroads they
commanded the husbandmen to cultivate their lands, that they
themselves, in the ensuing season, might reap the benefit; more
than a hundred cities were reduced to obedience; and eighteen
pulpits of the principal moschs were committed to the flames to
expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. The classic
names of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for a moment in
the list of conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the
paradise of Damascus, and accepted the ransom of a submissive
people; and the torrent was only stopped by the impregnable
fortress of Tripoli, on the sea-coast of Phoenicia. Since the
days of Heraclius, the Euphrates, below the passage of Mount
Taurus, had been impervious, and almost invisible, to the Greeks.

The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces; and
the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the
once famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, ^116
and Nisibis, the ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood
of the Tigris. His ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping
the virgin treasures of Ecbatana, ^117 a well-known name, under
which the Byzantine writer has concealed the capital of the
Abbassides. The consternation of the fugitives had already
diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied riches of Bagdad
had already been dissipated by the avarice and prodigality of
domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the stern
demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to
provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied,
that his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn
from his hands, and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which
he was unable to support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture
of the palace was sold; and the paltry price of forty thousand
pieces of gold was instantly consumed in private luxury. But the
apprehensions of Bagdad were relieved by the retreat of the
Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the desert of Mesopotamia; and
the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden with Oriental spoils,
returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his triumph, the
silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and
silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by
this transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the
fugitive princes returned to their capitals; the subjects
disclaimed their involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems
again purified their temples, and overturned the idols of the
saints and martyrs; the Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a
Saracen to an orthodox master; and the numbers and spirit of the
Melchites were inadequate to the support of the church and state.

Of these extensive conquests, Antioch, with the cities of Cilicia
and the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a permanent and
useful accession to the Roman empire. ^118

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

[Footnote 115: Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs
(Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 231) of Mopsuestia, or Masifa,
Mampsysta, Mansista, Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more
correctly, styled in the middle ages, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
580.) Yet I cannot credit this extreme populousness a few years
after the testimony of the emperor Leo, (Tactica, c. xviii. in
Meursii Oper. tom. vi. p. 817.)]