Instead of the legal tithes, he claimed the fifth of their substance and spoil; the most flagitious sins were no more than the type of disobedience; and the brethren were united and concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict, they prevailed along the Persian Gulf; far and wide the tribes of the desert were subject to the sceptre, or rather to the sword of Abu Said, and his son Abu Taher; and these rebellious imams could muster in the field an hundred and seven thousand fanatics. The mercenaries of the caliphs were dismayed at the approach of an enemy, who neither asked nor accepted quarter. They were discomfited in every action. The cities of Racca and Balbec, of Cufa and Bassora, were taken and pillaged; Bagdad was filled with consternation; and the caliph trembled behind the veils of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu Taher advanced to the gates of the capital with no more than five hundred horse. By the special order of Moctader, the bridges had been broken down, and the person or head of the rebel was expected every hour by the commander of the faithful. His lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised Abu Taher of his danger, and recommended a speedy escape. "Your master," said the intrepid Carmathian to the messenger, "is at the head of 30,000 soldiers; three such men as these are wanting in his host:" At the same instant turning to three of his companions, he commanded the first to plunge a dagger into his breast, the second to leap into the Tigris, and the third to cast himself headlong down a precipice. They obeyed without a murmur. "Relate," continued the imam, "what you have seen; before the evening your general shall be chained among my dogs." Before the evening the camp was surprized, and the menace was executed. The rapine of the Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the worship of Mecca; they robbed a caravan of pilgrims; and twenty thousand devout Moslems were abandoned, on the burning sands, to a death of hunger and thirst. Another year, they suffered the pilgrims to proceed without interruption; but in the festival of devotion, Abu Taher stormed the holy city, and trampled on the most venerable relics of the Mahometan faith. Thirty thou

sand citizens and strangers were put to the sword; the sacred precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead bodies; the well of Zemzem overflowed with blood; and the veil of the Caaba was divided among these impious sectaries. After this deed of sacrilege and cruelty, they continued to infest the confines of Irak, Syria, and Egypt: but the vital principle of enthusiasm had withered at the root. It is needless to enquire into what factions they were broken, or by whose swords they were finally extirpated. The the sect of the Carmathians may be considered as one of the causes of the decline and fall of the empire of the caliphs. Another was the weight and magnitude of the empire itself. The viceroys of distant provinces aspired to independence. 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, bequeathed to the dynasty of the Aglabites the inheritance of his name and power. The Edrissites erected the kingdom and city of Fez, on the shores of the western ocean. In the East, the first dynasty was that of the Taherites, the posterity of the valiant Taher. They were supplanted by Jacob, one of those adventurers, 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. After a long career in this capacity, he collected large armies; 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 scymetar, 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." His timely death secured the caliph. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend, too proud to forgive. They invited the powerful dynasty of the Samanides, who passed the Oxus with 10,000 horse, so poor that their stirrups were of wood; so brave that they van

quished the Soffarian army eight times more numerous than their own. The provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their Turkish slaves of the race of Toulun and Ihshid. 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. 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 tribes 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, 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.

Rahdi, 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. 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. A turbulent people could only be repressed by a military force; but who could satisfy the avarice, or assert the discipline of the mercenaries themVOL. II.

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selves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their swords against each other, and the chief commanders, the emirs at Omra, imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary of the mosque and haram. If the caliphs escaped to the camp or court of any neighbouring 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 irresisti ble arms.

In the declining age of the caliphs, in the centuries which followed next after the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the Greeks were roused from their lethargy by the hopes of conquest and revenge. Nicephorus Phocas, in the station of general of the East, reduced the island of Crete and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so long defied with impunity the majesty of the empire.

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, 200,000 strong. Their skill and perseverance was first exercised in the sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus in Cilicia. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is divided by the river Sarus, 200,000 Moslems met with death or slavery. They were surrounded and taken by assault; but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine. The mosque was converted into a stable, the pulpit was delivered to the flames, many rich crosses of gold and gems, the spoil of Asiatic churches, were made a grateful offering to the emperor, and he transported to Constantinople the gates of Mopsuestia and, Tarsus, which were there fixed as a 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, Nicephorus drew 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 300 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 support of his reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter and rapine having subsided, the city was taken, and the reign of Cæsar and of the church was restored, and the efforts of an hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria and the fleets of Africa, were consumed without effect in the effort to retake Antioch.

The male sex was exterminated by the sword; 10,000 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, Nicephorus marched away from the desolated city: more than 100 cities were reduced to obedience; and eighteen pulpits of the principal mosques were burnt, to expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. 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 historians may imitate the speed with which he overran the once famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, and Nisibis, the ancient limit of the empire in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. The consternation of the fugitives had already diffused the terror of his name, and greatly alarmed the inhabitants of Bagdad; but their apprehensions 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 300 myriads of gold and silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by this transient hurricane. After