136 MASSACRE OF THE OMMIADES. [CH. LII. dallah, the uncle of his competitor. After an irretrievable defeat, the caliph escaped to Mosul; but the colours 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.* 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 Hosein 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 the Bedouins, p. 125.-ED.] * 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 provínce of Fium, or Arsinoe; the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic nome; the third, near the pyramids; the fourth, which was destroyed by Diocletian, in the Thebais. (See vol. i. p. 346.) I shall here transcribe a note of the learned and orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Ægypti 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. Egypt. p. 9, vers. Michaelis, Gottinge, 1776, in quarto), Michaelis, Not. 122-127, p. 58-63), and D'Anville (Mémoire sur l'Egypte, p. 85. (147. 205.) [According to Conde's authorities, Abdallah sustained a check at Alardania in Palestine, for which the command was taken from him and given to his brother Saleh. It was by this new general that Mervan was overcome in his last battle "at a country palace near Saida, called Busir-Coridas." (Condé, p. 148.) The province of El Faiûm had its name from the Coptic Phiom, the Lake (Moeris); and the ancient Arsinoe is now Medinet-el-Faiûm. All traces of Busiris have disappeared. Lepsius, Letters from Egypt, p. 92-94.-ED.] A.D. 755.] REVOLT OF SPAIN. 137 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.* 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 neighbourhood 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. He slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbas * 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. 18, p. 33), Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 356, 357, who speaks of the Abbassides under the names of Xwpaσáviraι and Mavpopópoi), and the Bibliothèque of D'Herbelot, in the articles of Ommiades, Abbassides, Marvan, Ibrahim, Saffah, Abou Moslem. [The first of the Abbassides is generally known as Abul-Abbas, and Saffah is said to have been a surname given him after his relentless shedding of the blood of the rival family. Condé (vol. i. p. 147) calls him Abdallah Abulabas Asefah.-ED.] For the revolution of Spain, consult Roderic of Toledo (c. 18, p. 34, &c.), the Bibliotheca ArabicoHispana (tom. ii. p. 30. 198), and Cardonne (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, tom. i. p. 180-197. 205. 272. 323, &c.). [The most 138 DIVISION OF THE CALIPHATE. [CH. LII. sides, who had invaded his dominions with a fleet and army; the head of Ala, in salt and camphor, 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, excommunicated each other, and agreed only in a principle of discord, that a sectary is more odious and criminal than an unbeliever.* Mecca was the patrimony of the line of Hashem, yet the Abbassides were never tempted to reside either in the birth-place or the city of the prophet. Damascus was disgraced by the choice, and polluted with the blood, of the Ommiades; and after some hesitation, Almansor, the brother and successor of Saffah, laid the foundations of complete narrative of this event and of the reign of Abderahman is contained in the first twenty-four chapters of the second book of Condé's History, vol. i. p. 163–226, edit. Bohn.-ED.] * I shall not stop to refute the strange errors and fancies of Sir William Temple (his works, vol. iii. p. 371-374, octavo edition) and Voltaire (Histoire Générale, c. 28, tom. ii. p. 124, 125, édition de Lausanne), concerning the division of the Saracen empire. The mistakes of Voltaire proceeded from the want of knowledge or reflection; but Sir William was deceived by a Spanish impostor, who has framed an apocryphal history of the conquest of Spain by the Arabs. [Sir W. Temple names no authority. But it is evident that he followed, and that Gibbon here alludes to, the Morisco Miguel de Luna's pretended version of a History by Tarif Aben Taric. Barbin published a translation of De Luna at Paris in 1680. That of Lobineau appeared in 1708, ten years after the death of Sir W. Temple. It is remarkable that two French translations should have been made, in such rapid succession, of a work now generally regarded as fictitious, and of which Condé says (Preface, p. 10), that its "absurd fables and impudent assumption do not merit the most cursory mention."- ED.] A.D. 750-960.] BUILDING OF BAGDAD. 139 Bagdad, the imperial seat of his posterity during a reign of five hundred years. The chosen spot is on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about fifteen miles above the ruins of Modain; the double wall was of a circular form; and such was the rapid increase of a capital, now dwindled to a provincial town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and the adjacent villages. In this city of peace, amidst the riches of the east, the Abbassides soon disdained the abstinence and frugality of the first caliphs, and aspired to emulate the magnificence of the Persian kings. After his wars and buildings Almansor left behind him in gold and silver about thirty millions sterling;§ and this treasure was exhausted in a few years by the vices or virtues of his children. His son Mahadi, in a single pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold. A pious and charitable motive may sanctify * The geographer D'Anville (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 121-123), and the Orientalist D'Herbelot (Bibliothèque, p. 167, 168), may suffice for the knowledge of Bagdad. Our travellers, Pietro della Valle (tom. i. p. 688-698), Tavernier (tom. i. p. 230-238), Thevenot (part 2, p. 209-212), Otter (tom. i. p. 162-168), and Niebuhr (Voyage en Arabie, tom. ii. p. 239-271), have seen only its decay; and the Nubian geographer (p. 204), and the travelling Jew, Benjamin of Tudela (Itinerarium, p. 112-123, à Const. l'Empereur, apud Elzevir, 1633), are the only writers of my acquaintance who have known Bagdad under the reign of the Abbassides. The foundations of Bagdad were laid A.h. 145, a.d. 762. Mostasem, the last of the Abbassides, was taken and put to death by the Tartars, A.H. 656, A.D. 1258, the 20th of February. Medinat al Salem, Dar al Salam. Urbs pacis, or, as is more neatly compounded by the Byzantine writers, Eipηvóroλis (Irenopolis). There is some dispute concerning the etymology of Bagdad, but the first syllable is allowed to signify a garden in the Persian tongue; the garden of Dad, a Christian hermit, whose cell had been the only habitation on the spot. ["The Persian historians pretend that the original city was built by the first kings of Persia, and named the 'Garden of Dad' from an idol previously worshipped there." Almansor was the founder only of the second city. Layard's N. and B. p. 476. Consult the same work for the present state of Bagdad. See also Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, p. 275.-ED.] § Reliquit in ærario sexcenties millies mille stateres, et quater et vicies millies mille aureos aureos. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen, p. 126. I have reckoned the gold pieces at eight shillings, and the proportion to the silver as twelve to one. But I will never answer for the numbers of Erpenius; and the Latins are scarcely above the savages in the 140 THE MAGNIFICENCE [CH. LII. the foundation of cisterns and caravanseras, which he distributed along a measured road of seven hundred miles; but his train of camels, laden with snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal banquet. The courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson Almamon, who gave away four-fifths of the income of a province, a sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold dinars, before he drew his foot from the stirrup. At the nuptials of the same prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on the head of the bride,† and a lottery of lands and houses displayed the capricious bounty of fortune. The glories of the court were brightened rather than impaired in the decline of the empire; and a Greek ambassador might admire or pity the magnificence of the feeble Moctader. "The caliph's whole army," says the historian Abulfeda, "both horse and foot, was under arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty thousand men. His state-officers, the favourite slaves, stood near him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of them white, the remainder black. The porters or doorkeepers were in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the most superb decorations, were seen swimming upon the Tigris. Nor was the palace itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight thousand pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of which were of silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the floor were twenty-two thousand. A hundred lions were brought out, with a keeper to each lion. Among the language of arithmetic. * D'Herbelot, p. 530. Abulfeda, p. 154. Nivem Meccam apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut rarissime visam. + Abulfeda, p. 184. 189, describes the splendour and liberality of Almamon. Milton has alluded to this Oriental custom : Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Showers on her kings Barbaric pearls and gold. I have used the modern word lottery, to express the missilia of the Roman emperors, which entitled to some prize the person who caught them as they were thrown among the crowd. When Bell of Antermony (Travels, vol. i. p. 99) accompanied the Russian ambassador to the audience of the unfortunate Shah Hussein of Persia, two lions were introduced, to denote the power of the king |