of the caliphs Rahdi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth Fallen state of the successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the of Bagdad. A.D. 936, &c. title of commander of the faithful: 181 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 132 invaded the pleasures of domestic life, burst into the houses of plebeians and princes, spilt the wine, broke the instruments, beat the musicians, and dishonoured, 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 Rayy, Hamadhãn, and Ispahān. The third division of the Buwayhids lasted till 1023, when they were ousted by the Kākwayhids. The dominions of the second passed under the lords of Fars in 977 and again permanently in 1012; and the dynasty of Fars survived until the conquest of the Seljuks. See the table of the geographical distribution of the Buwayhids in S. Lane-Poole, op. cit., p. 142.] 131 Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque sæpius pro concione perorarit. Fuit etiam ultimus qui otium cum eruditis et facetis hominibus fallere hilariterque agere soleret. Ultimus tandem chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et thesauri, culinæ, cæteraque omnis aulica pompa priorum chalifarum ad instar comparata fuerint. Videbimus enim paullo post quam indignis et servilibus ludibriis exagitati, quam ad humilem fortunam ultimumque 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. [Rādi, A.D. 934-940.] 132 Their master, on a similar occasion, shewed 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. [Muizz aldawla] [Fatimids. A.D. 909-1171] Enterprises of the Greeks. A.D. 960 the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra,133 imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary of the mosque and harem. 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 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 Dilemites. 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 armour 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 embittered 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. 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 133 The office of vizir was superseded by the emir al Omra [amir al-umarā] Imperator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Rahdi [Weil quotes an instance of its use under al-Muktadir, Rādī's father, op. cit., ii. p. 559] and which merged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides; vectigalibus, et tributis et curiis per omnes regiones præfecit, jussitque in omnibus suggestis nominis ejus in concionibus mentionem fieri (Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 199). It is likewise mentioned by Elmacin (p. 254, 255). Crete. [A.D. 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,134 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 Reduction of of great domestic, or general of the East, he reduced the island 960] of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire.135 His military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and dishonour. 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, an 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.136 Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp 134 Liutprand, whose choleric temper was embittered 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 obtutû solis radios, pallida Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus uédor. [Legatio, c. 10.] 135 Notwithstanding the insinuations of Zonaras, kai ei μn, &c. (tom. ii. 1. xvi. p. 197 [c. 23]) it is an undoubted fact that Crete was completely and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 873-875. Meursius, Creta, 1. iii. c. 7, tom. iii. p. 464, 465). [The best account of the recovery of Crete will be found in Schlumberger's Nicéphore Phocas, chap. 2. There had been two ineffectual expeditions against Crete in the same century; in 902 (general Himerius), and in 949 (general Gongylus). We are fortunate enough to possess full details of the organisation of these expeditions in official accounts which are included in the socalled Second Book of the de Caerimoniis (chap. 44 and 45; p. 651 sqq. ed. Bonn); and these have been utilised by M. Schlumberger for his constructive description of the expedition of 960. The conquest of Crete was celebrated in an iambic poem of 5 cantos by the Deacon Theodosius, a contemporary (publ., by F. Cornelius in Creta Sacra (Venice, 1755); printed in the Bonn ed. of Leo Diaconus, p. 263 sqq.); but it gives us little historical information. Cp. Schlumberger, p. 84.] 136 A Greek life of St. Nicon [Metanoites], 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 cast a ray of light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the tenth century. He found the newly recovered island, fœdis detestandæ Agarenorum superstitionis vestigiis adhuc plenam ac refertam . but the victorious missionary, perhaps with some carnal aid, ad baptismum onines veræque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per totam insulam ædificatis, &c. (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 961). [The Latin version in Migne, P. G. vol. 113, p. 975 sqq. Also in the Vet. Scr. ampl. Coll. of Martène and Durand, 6, 837 sqq.] The Eastern conquests of Nicephorus John Zimis ces. A.D. 963-975 of a triumph; but the imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus. After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania 136a successively Phocas, and married 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.137 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.138 The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus in Cilicia first expressed the skill and perseverance of their troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow [Mopsuestia 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,139 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. A.D, Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine; and no sooner had the Saracens yielded on honourable terms than they were mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval succours of Egypt. They were dismissed with a safe-conduct to the confines of Syria; a part of the Christians had quietly lived under their dominion; and the vacant habitations were replenished by a new colony. But the mosque was converted into Conquest of taken. A.D. 964] 965] 136a [Leg. Theophano.] 137 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. 138 [For the Asiatic campaign of Nicephorus and Tzimisces, see Schlumberger, op. cit., and L'épopée byzantine; and K. Leonhardt, Kaiser Nicephorus II. Phokas und die Hamdaniden, 960-969.] 139 Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs (Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 231) of Mopsuestia, or Mafifa, 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, οὐ γὰρ πολυπληθία στρατοῦ τοῖς Κίλιξι βαρβάροις ἐστίν (Tactica, c. xviii, in Meursii Oper. tom. vi. p. 817 [p. 980, ap. Migne, Patr, Gr. vol. 107]), Syria Antioch. 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 wall of Constantinople, an eternal monument of his victory. After they had forced and secured the Invasion of 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 [A.D. 968] 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 Recovery of rapine subsided; the reign of Cæsar and of Christ was restored; [A.D. 969] and the efforts of an hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria and the fleets of Afric, 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 [Sayf adhis past glory by the precipitate retreat which abandoned his 944-67] 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 batteringrams; and the besiegers pitched their tents on the neighbouring 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 burthen; 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: dawla. A.D. |