LJI: Rome: the heroes of Plutarch and Livy were buried CHAP. in oblivion: and the history of the world before Mahomet, was reduced to a short legend of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the Persian kings. Our education in the Greek and Latin schools may have fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive taste; and I am not forward to condemn the literature and judgment of nations, of whose language I am ignorant. Yet I know that the classics have much to teach, and I believe that the Orientals have much to learn: the temperate dignity of style, the graceful proportions of art, the forms of visible and intellectual beauty, the just delineation of character and passion, the rhetoric of narrative and argument, the regular fabric of epic and dramatic poetry". The influence of truth and reason is of a less ambiguous complexion. The philosophers of Athens and Rome enjoyed the blessings, and asserted the rights, of civil and religious freedom. Their moral and political writings might have gradually unlocked the fetters of Eastern despotism, diffused a liberal spirit of enquiry and toleration, and encouraged the Arabian sages to suspect that their caliph was a tyrant and their prophet an imposter. The instinct of superstition was alarmed by the introduction even of the abstract sciences; and the more rigid doctors of the law condemned the rash and pernicious curiosity of Almamon". To the thirst of martyrdom, the vision of paradise, and the belief of predestination, we must ascribe the invincible enthusiasm of the prince and people. And the sword of the Saracens became less formidable, when their youth was drawn away from the camp to the college, when the armies of the faithful presumed to read and to reflect. Yet the foolish vanity of the Greeks was jealous of their studies, and reluctantly imparted the sacred fire to the Barbarians of the East74. 71. I have perused with much pleasure, Sir William Jones's Latin Commentary on Asiatic poetry (London, 1774, in octavo), which was composed in the youth of that wonderful linguist. At present, in the maturity of his taste and judgment, he would perhaps abate of the fervent, and even partial praise which he has bestowed on the Orientals. 72 Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been accused of despising the religion of the Jews, the Christians, and the Mahometans (see his article in Bayle's Dictionary.) Each of these sects would agree, that in two instances out of three, his contempt was reasonable. 73 D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 546. 74 Θεοφίλος αποπον κρίνας ει την των οντων γνωσιν, δε ην το Ρωμαίων γένος CHAP. LII. Wars of Rashid against the Ro mans, A. D. In the bloody conflict of the Ommiades and Abbassides, the Greeks had stolen the opportunity of avenging their wrongs and enlarging their limits. But a severe Harun al retribution was exacted by Mohadi, the third caliph of the new dynasty, who seized in his turn the favourable opportunity, while a woman and a child, Irene and Constantine, were seated on the Byzantine throne. An 781-805. army of ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs was sent from the Tigris to the Thracian Bosphorus, under the command of Harun", or Aaron, the second son of. the commander of the faithful. His encampment on the opposite heights of Chrysopolis or Scutari, informed Irene, in her palace of Constantinople, of the loss of her troops and provinces. With the consent or connivance of their sovereign her ministers subscribed an ignominious peace and the exchange of some royal gifts could not disguise the annual tribute of seventy thousand dinars of gold, which was imposed on the Roman empire. The Saracens had too rashly advanced into the midst of a distant and hostile land: their retreat was solicited by the promise of faithful guides and plentiful markets; and not a Greek had courage to whisper, that their weary forces might be surrounded and destroyed in their necessary passage between a slippery mountain and the river Sangarius. Five years after this expedition, Harun ascended the throne of his father and his elder brother; the most powerful and vigorous monarch of his race, illustrious in the West, as the ally of Charlemagne, and familiar to the most childish readers, as the perpetual bero of the Arabian tales. His title to the name of Al Rashid (the Just) is sullied by the extirpation of the generous, perhaps the innocent, Barmecides; yet he could listen to the complaint of a poor widow who had been pillaged by his troops, and who dared, in a passage of the Koran, to threaten the inattentive despot with the judgment of God and posterity. His court was adorned with luxury and science; θαυμάζεται έκδοτον ποιήσει τοις εθνεσι, &c. Cedrenus, p. 548. who relates how manfully the emperor refused a mathematician to the instances and offers of the caliph Almamon. This absurd scruple is expressed almost in the same words by the continuator of Theophanes (Scriptores post Theophanem, p. 118.) 75 See the reign and character of Harun al Rashid, in Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 431-433, under his proper title: and in the relative articles to which M. d'Herbelot refers. The learned collector has shewn much taste in stripping the Oriental chronicles of their instructive and amusing anecdotes. LII. but, in a reign of three-and-twenty years, Harun repeat- CHAP. edly visited his provinces from Chorasan to Egypt; nine times he performed the pilgrimage of Mecca; eight times he invaded the territories of the Romans; and as often as they declined the payment of the tribute, they were taught to feel that a month of depredation was more costly than a year of submission. But when the unnatural mother of Constantine was deposed and banished, her successor Nicephorus resolved to obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle of the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the game of chess, which had already spread_from Persia to Greece. The queen (he spoke of Irene) "considered you as a rook and herself as a pawn. That "pusillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, the "double of which she ought to have exacted from the "Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits of your in"justice, or abide the determination of the sword." At these words the ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the throne. The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his scymetar, samsamah, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he cut asunder the feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or endangering the temper, of his blade. He then dictated an epistle of tremendous brevity: "In the name of the "most merciful God, Harun al Rashid, commander of "the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog. I have "read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving mother. "Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply." It was written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia; and the warlike celerity of the Arabs could only be checked by the arts of deceit and the shew of repentance. The triumphant caliph retired, after the fatigues of the campaign, to his favourite palace of Racca on the Euphrates"; but the distance of five hundred miles, and the inclemency of the season, encou raged his adversary to violate the peace. Nicephorus was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander of the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of mount Taurus: his stratagems of 76 For the situation of Racca, the old Nicephorium, consult d'Anville (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 24-27.) The Arabian Nights represent Harun al Rashid as almost stationary in Bagdad. He respected the royal seat of the Abbassides, but the vices of the inhabitants had driven him from the city (Abulfed. Annal. p. 167.). LII. CHAP. policy and war were exhausted; and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects. Yet the emperor was ashamed of submission, and the caliph was resolved on victory. One hundred and thirty-five thousand regular soldiers received pay, and were inscribed in the military roll; and above three hundred thousand persons of every denomination marched under the back standard of the Abbassides. They swept the surface of Asia Minor far beyond Tyana and Ancyra, and invested the Pontic Heraclea", once a flourishing state, now a paltry town; at that time capable of sustaining in her antique walls a month's siege against the forces of the East. The ruin was complete, the spoil was ample; but if Harun had been conversant with Grecian story, he would have regretted the statue of Hercules, whose attributes, the club, the bow, the quiver, and the lion's hide, were sculptured in massy gold. The progress of desolation by sea and land, from the Euxine to the isle of Cyprus, compelled the emperor Nicephorus to retract his haughty defiance. In the new treaty, the ruins of Heraclea were left for ever as a lesson and a trophy; and the coin of the tribute was marked with the image and superscription of Harun and his three sons78. Yet this plurality of lords might contribute to remove the dishonour of the Roman name. After the death of their father, the heirs of the caliph were involved in civil discord, and the conqueror, the liberal Almamon, was sufficiently engaged in the restoration of domestic peace and the introduction of foreign science. The Arabs subdue Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the isle of the Stammerer at Constantinople, the islands of Crete Crete, 77 M. D. Tournefort, in his coasting voyage from Constantinople to Trebizond, passed a night at Heraclea or Eregri. His eye surveyed the present state, his reading collected the antiquities, of the city (Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvi. p. 25-35.) We have a separate history of Heraclea in the fragments of Memnon, which are preserved by Photius. 78 The wars of Harun al Rashid against the Roman empire, are related by Theophanes (p. 384, 385. 391. 396. 407, 408), Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 115. 124), Cedrenus (p. 477, 478), Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 407), Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 136. 151, 152), Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 147. 151), and Abulfeda (p. 156. 166—168.) 79 The authors from whom I have learned the most of the ancient and modern state of Crete, are Belon (Observations, &c. c. 3-20. Paris, 1555), Tournefort (Voyage du Levant, tom. i. lettre ii. et iii), and Meursius (CRETA, in his works, tom. iii. p. 343-544.) Although Crete is styled by Homer Πειρα, by Dionysius λιπαρή τε και εύβοτος, I cannot conceive that mountainous island to surpass, or even to equal, in fertility the greater part of Spain. LII. A. D. 823. and Sicily were subdued by the Arabs. The former of CHAP. these conquests is disdained by their own writers, who were ignorant of the fame of Jupiter and Minos, but it has not been overlooked by the Byzantine historians, who now begin to cast a clearer light on the affairs of their own times8°. A band of Andalusian.volunteers, discontented with the climate or government of Spain, explored the adventures of the sea; but as they sailed in no more than ten or twenty gallies, their warfare must be branded with the name of piracy. As the subjects and sectaries of the white party, they might lawfully invade the dominions of the black caliphs. A rebellious faction introduced them into Alexandria1; they cut in pieces both friends and foes, pillaged the churches and the moschs, sold above six thousand Christian captives, and maintained their station in the capital of Egypt, till they were oppressed by the forces and the presence of Almamon himself. From the mouth of the Nile to the Hellespont, the islands and sea-coasts both of the Greeks and Moslems were exposed to their depredations; they saw, they envied, they tasted, the fertility of Crete, and soon returned with forty gallies to a more serious attack. The Andalusians wandered over the land fearless and unmolested; but when they descended with their plunder to the sea-shore, their vessels were in flames, and their chief, Abu Caab, confessed himself the author of the mischief. Their clamours accused his madness or treachery. "Of what do you "complain ?" replied the crafty emir. "I have brought "you to a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is your true country; repose from your toils, and forget "the barren place of your nativity." "And our wives "and children ?" "Your beauteous captives will supply the place of your wives, and in their embraces 80 The most authentic and circumstantial intelligence is obtained from the four books of the Continuation of Theophanes, compiled by the pen or the command of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, with the Life of his father Basil the Macedonian (Scriptores post Theophanem, p. 1-162. à Francis Combesis, Paris, 1685). The loss of Crete and Sicily is related, 1. ii. p. 46 -52. To these we may add the secondary evidence of Joseph Genesius (1. ii. p. 21. Venet. 1733), George Cedrenus (Compend. p. 506–508), and John Scylitzes Curopalota (apud Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D 827. No. 24, &c.) But the modern Greeks are such notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a plurality of names. 81 Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251-256. 268-270.) has describ ed the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in Egypt, but has forgot to connect them with the conquest of Crete. |