A.D. 338.] OF EGYPT. 71 startled by these extravagant assertions; and they will become more palpable, if we assume the compass and measure the extent of habitable ground; a valley' from the tropic to Memphis, seldom broader than twelve miles, and the triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one hundred square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of France.* A more accurate research will justify a more reasonable estimate. The three hundred millions, created by the error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent revenue of four millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which nine hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers.t Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century, are eircumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand seven hundred villages and towns. After a long residence at Cairo, a French consul has ventured to assign about four millions of Mahometans, Christians, and Jews, for the ample, though not incredible, scope of the population of Egypt.§ IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic * See the measurement of D'Anville (Mém. sur l'Egypte, p. 23, &c.). After some peevish cavils, M. Pauw (Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. i. p. 118-121) can only enlarge his reckoning to two thousand two hundred and fifty square leagues. † Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p. 334, who calls the common reading, or version of Elmacin, error librarii. His own emendation of four million three hundred thousand pieces, in the ninth century, maintains a probable medium between the three millions which the Arabs acquired by the conquest of Egypt (idem, p. 168), and the two million four hundred thousand which the sultan of Constantinople levied in the last century. (Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 352. Thevenot, part 1, p. 824.) Pauw (Recherches, tom. ii. p. 365-373) gradually raises the revenue of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Cæsars, from six to fifteen millions of German crowns. The list of Schultens (Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p. 5) contains two thousand three hundred and ninety-six places; that of D'Anville (Mém. sur l'Egypte, p. 29), from the divan of Cairo, enumerates two thousand six hundred and ninety-six. § See Maillet (Description de l'Egypte, p. 28), who seems to argue with candour and judgment. I am much better satisfied with the observations than with the reading of the French consul. He was ignorant of Greek and Latin literature, and his fancy is too much delighted with the fictions of the Arabs. Their best knowledge is collected by Abulfeda (Descript. Egypt. Arab. et Lat. à Joh. David Michaelis, Gottinga, in quarto, 1776); and in two recent voyages into Egypt, we are amused by Savary and instructed by Volney. I wish 72 : FIRST INVASION OF AFRICA. [CH. LI. ocean,* was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman. The pious design was approved by the companions of Mahomet and the chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand Arabs marched from Medina, with the gifts and the blessing of the commander of the faithful. They were joined in the camp of Memphis by twenty thousand of their countrymen and the conduct of the war was intrusted to Abdallah,† the son of Said, and the foster-brother of the caliph, who had lately supplanted the conqueror and lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favour of the prince, and the merit of his favourité, could not obliterate the guilt of his apostacy. The early conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had recommended him to the important office of transcribing the sheets of the Koran; he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text, derided the errors which he had made, and fled to Mecca, to escape the justice, and expose the ignorance, of the apostle. After the conquest of Mecca, he fell prostrate at the feet of Mahomet: his tears, and the entreaties of Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon; but the prophet declared that he had so long hesitated, to allow time for some zealous disciple to avenge his injury in the blood the latter could travel over the globe. *My conquest of Africa is drawn from two French interpreters of Arabic literature, Cardonne (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. i. p. 8-55) and Otter (Hist. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 111-125 and 136). They derive their principal information from Novairi, who composed, A.D. 1331, an Encyclopedia in more than twenty volumes. The five general parts successively treat of, 1. Physics; 2. Man; 3. Animals; 4. Plants; and, 5. History; and the African affairs are discussed in the sixth chapter of the fifth section of this last part. (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifæ Tabulas, p. 232—234.) Among the older historians who are quoted by Novairi, we may distinguish the original narrative of a soldier who led the van of the Moslems. [The learned Spaniard, Dr. Condé, published in 1820-21, his History of the Dominion of the Arabs in Spain. See note to p. 409, vol. v. The contradictory accounts of Christian and Mahometan writers must be compared and connected in order to ascertain the truth. In this work Dr. Condé is the most important assistant that modern students have yet found. In his preface he points out many of Cardonne's errors. These have sometimes misled Gibbon, as will be seen, when the events in which they occur come before us. Four of his introductory chapters relate the preliminary conquest of Africa. These are now accessible to English readers in Bohn's edition, p. 39-51.-ED.] + See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit. Mohammed, p. 109) and Gagnier (Vie A.D. 647.] GREGORY AND HIS DAUGHTER. 73 of the apostate. With apparent fidelity, and effective merit, he served the religion which it was no longer his interest to desert; his birth and talents gave him an honourable rank among the Koreish; and in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was renowned as the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia. At the head of forty thousand Moslems, he advanced from Egypt into the unknown countries of the West. The sands of Barca might be impervious to a Roman legion; but the Arabs were attended by their faithful camels; and the natives of the desert beheld without terror the familiar aspect of the soil and climate. After a painful march, they pitched their tents before the walls of Tripoli,* a maritime city in which the name, the wealth, and the inhabitants, of the province had gradually centred, and which now maintains the third rank among the states of Barbary. A reinforcement of Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the sea-shore; but the fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first assaults; and the Saracens were tempted, by the approach of the prefect Gregory,† to relinquish the labours of the de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 45-48.) * The province and city of Tripoli are described by Leo Africanus (in Navigazione e Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. Venezia, 1550, fol. 76, verso) and Marmol (Description de l'Afrique, tom. ii. p. 562). The first of these writers was a Moor, a scholar, and a traveller, who composed or translated his African geography in a state of captivity at Rome, where he had assumed the name and religion of pope Leo X. In a similar captivity among the Moors, the Spaniard Marmol, a soldier of Charles V. compiled his description of Africa, translated by D'Ablancourt into French (Paris, 1667, three vols. in quarto). Marmol had read and seen, but he is destitute of the curious and extensive observation which abounds in the original work of Leo the African. [Abdallah's first invasion of Africa did not take place, according to Condé, till the year of the Hegira 29 (A.D. 649-650), or three years after the generally received date. A desultory warfare was carried on till the year 40 (A.D. 660—1), when Moavia Ben Horeig and Abdelmelic Ben Meruan, made a more effectual attack with an army of 80,000 men (vol. i. p. 39).-ED.] + Theophanes, who mentions the defeat, rather than the death, of Gregory. He brands the prefect with the name of Túpavvos; he had probably assumed the purple. (Chonograph. p. 285.) [In a subsequent note will be found the passage where Theophanes uses the word Túpavvos, which it must be again observed, implies simply a ruler or governor. ἵνα Δίκη τύραννος ἦ Γένους βροτέιου are words that clearly denote its meaning. See the speech of Sisyphus in the fragment of Euripides (or Critias), quoted by Warburton (in his 74 COURAGE OF ZOBEIR. [CH. LI. siege for the perils and the hopes of a decisive action. If his standard was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand men, the regular bands of the empire must have been lost in the naked and disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who formed the strength, or rather the numbers, of his host. He rejected with indignation the option of the Koran or the tribute; and during several days, the two armies were fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to the hour of noon, when their fatigue and the excessive heat compelled them to seek shelter and refreshment in their respective camps. The daughter of Gregory, a maid of incomparable beauty and spirit, is said to have fought by his side; from her earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to draw the bow, and to wield the scymetar: and the richness of her arms and apparel was conspicuous in the foremost ranks of the battle. Her hand, with a hundred thousand pieces of gold, was offered for the head of the Arabian general, and the youths of Africa were excited by the prospect of the glorious prize. At the pressing solicitation of his brethren, Abdallah withdrew his person from the field; but the Saracens were discouraged by the retreat of their leader, and the repetition of these equal or unsuccessful conflicts. A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali and the father of a caliph, had signalized his valour in Egypt; and Zobeir was the first who planted a scalingladder against the walls of Babylon. In the African war he was detached from the standard of Abdallah. On the news of the battle, Zobeir, with twelve companions, cut his way through the camp of the Greeks, and pressed forwards, without tasting either food or repose, to partake of the dangers of his brethren. He cast his eyes round the field. "Where," said he, "is our general ?" "In his tent." "Is the tent a station for the general of the Moslems ?" Abdallah Div. Leg. iii. p. 219.-ED.] * See in Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 45), the death of Zobeir, which was honoured with the tears of Ali, against whom he had rebelled. His valour at the siege of Babylon, if indeed it be the same person, is mentioned by Eutychius. (Annal. tom. ii. p. 308.) [Ockley scarcely mentions the conquest of Africa, so important as the prelude to the Saracenic invasion of Europe, and is quite silent on the exploits of Zobeir in that province; nor is this hero even named by Condé.-ED.] A.D. 647.] 66 VICTORY OF THE ARABS. 66 75 represented with a blush the importance of his own life, and the temptation that was held forth by the Roman prefect. Retort," said Zobeir, on the infidels their ungenerous attempt. Proclaim through the ranks, that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand pieces of gold." To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the caliph intrusted the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favour of the Saracens. Supplying by activity and artifice the deficiency of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents, while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the enemy, till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled, their armour was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the encounter of the ensuing day. On a sudden the charge was sounded; the Arabian camp poured forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors; and the long line of the Greeks and Africans was surprised, assaulted, overturned, by new squadrons of the faithtul, who, to the eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels descending from the sky. The prefect himself was slain by the hand of Zobeir; his daughter, who sought revenge and death, was surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives involved in their disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the sabres and lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred and fifty miles to the south of Carthage; a gentle declivity is watered by a running stream, and shaded by a grove of junipertrees; and in the ruins of a triumphal arch, a portico, and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet admire the magnificence of the Romans.* After the fall of this opulent city, the provincials and Barbarians implored on all sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be flattered by offers of tribute or professions * Shaw's Travels, p. 118, 119. [Spaitla is the name by which Bruce found these "extensive and elegant remains" known to the natives of the country. The city was originally called Suffetula, from the Suffetes (Schofetim) the Carthaginian magistrates, by whom it was governed. Introduction to Bruce's Travels, p. xxx. Heeren's Manual of Ancient History, p. 63. Niebuhr's Lect. vol. ii. p. 6.—ED.] |