and the cares of royalty. It may therefore be of some use to borrow the experience of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. " I "have now reigned above fifty years in victory "or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. "Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have "waited on my call, nor does any earthly bless"ing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. "In this situation, I have diligently numbered "the days of pure and genuine happiness which -"have fallen to my lot: they amount to Four66 TEEN O man! place not thy confidence in "this present world!" 50 The luxury of the caliphs, so useless to their private happiness, relaxed the nerves, and terminated the progress, of the Arabian empire. Temporal and spiritual conquest had been the sole occupation of the first successors of Mahomet; and after supplying themselves with the necessaries of life, the whole revenue was scrupulously devoted to that salutary work.

The Abbassides were impoverished by the multitude of their wants, and their contempt of economy. Instead of pursuing the great object of ambition, their leisure, their affections, the powers of their mind, were diverted by pomp and pleasure; the rewards of valour were embezzled by women and eunuchs, and the royal camp was encumbered by the luxury of the palace. A similar temper was diffused among the subjects of the caliph. Their stern enthusiasm was softened by time and prosperity; they sought riches in the occupations of industry, fame in the pursuits of literature, and happiness in the tranquillity of domestic life. War was no longer the passion of the Saracens; and the increase of pay, the repetition of donatives, were insufficient to allure the posterity of those voluntary champions who had crowded to the standard of Abubeker and Omar for the hopes of spoil and of paradise.

Introduction of learning among the Arabians. A. D. 754, &c. 813, &c.

Under the reign of the Ommiades, the studies of the Moslems were confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the eloquence and poetry of their native tongue. A people continually exposed to the dangers of the field must esteem the healing powers of medicine, or rather of surgery but the starving physicians of Arabia murmured a complaint that exercise and temperance deprived them of the greatest part of their practice. 51 After their civil and domestic wars, the subjects of the Abbassides, awakening from this mental lethargy, found leisure and felt curiosity for the acquisition of profane science. This spirit was first encouraged by the caliph

50 Cardonne, tom. I. p. 320, 530. This confession, the complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world (read Pricr's verbose but eloquent poem), and the happy ten days of the emperor Seghed (Rambler, No. 204, 205.), will be triumphantly quoted by the detractors of human life. Their expectations are commonly immoderate, their estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak of myself (the only person of whom I can speak with certainty), my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add, that many of them are due to the pleasing labour of the present composition.

51 The Gulistan (p. 239.) relates the conversation of Mahomet and a physician (Epistol. Renaudot. in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. i. P. 814.). The prophet himself was skilled in the art of medicine; and Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 394-406.) has given an extract of the aphorisms which are extant under his name.

Almansor, who, besides his knowledge of the Mahometan law, had applied himself with success to the study of astronomy. But when the sceptre devolved to Almamon, the seventh of the Abbassides, he completed the designs of his grandfather, and invited the muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors at Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, collected the volumes of Grecian science: at his command they were translated by the most skil ful interpreters into the Arabic language: his subjects were exhorted assiduously to peruse these instructive writings; and the successor of Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the learned. "He was not ignorant," says Abulpharagius "that they are the elect of God, his best and "most useful servants, whose lives are devoted "to the improvement of their rational faculties. "The mean ambition of the Chinese or the "Turks may glory in the industry of their "hands or the indulgence of their brutal appe "tites.

Yet these dexterous artists must view, "with hopeless emulation, the hexagons and "pyramids of the cells of a bee-hive: these "fortitudinous heroes are awed by the superior "fierceness of the lions and tigers; and in their "amorous enjoyments, they are much inferior "to the vigour of the grossest and most sordid "quadrupeds. The teachers of wisdom are the "true luminaries and legislators of a world, "which, without their aid, would again sink in "ignorance and barbarism."53 The zeal and curiosity of Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of the line of Abbas: their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the Ommiades of Spain, were the patrons of the learned, as well as the commanders of the faithful: the same royal prerogative was claimed by their inde pendent emirs of the provinces; and their emulation diffused the taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara to Fez and Cordova. The vizir of a sultan consecrated a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a college at Bagdad, whic he endowed with an annual revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction were communicated, perhaps at different times, to six thousand disciples of every degree, from the sen of the noble to that of the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was provided for the indigent scholars; and the merit or industry of the professors was repaid with adequate stipends. In every city the productions of Arabic literature were copied and collected by the curiosity of the studious and the vanity of the rich. A private doctor refused the invitation of the sultan of Bochara, because the carriage of his books would have required four hundred camels. The royal li

52 See their curious architecture in Reaumur (Hist. des Insect tom. v. Mémoire viii.). These hexagons are closed by a prem the angles of the three sides of a similar pyramid, such as sod accomplish the given end with the smallest quantity posite of niste rials, were determined by a mathematician, at 109 degrees mans for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for the smailer. The actual measure is 100 degrees 28 minutes, 70 degrees 52 minutes. Yet this perfect harmony raises the work at the expense of the artist: the bees are not masters of transcendent geometry.

53 Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H. 462, A. P 1069, has furnished Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 160.) with this curieus passage, as well as with the text of Pocock's Specimen Historis Are bum. A number of literary anecdotes of philosophers, physicians, &c. who have flourished under each caliph, form the principal merit of

the Dynasties of Abulpharagus.

brary of the Fatimites consisted of one hundred thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound, which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the students of Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of six hundred thousand volumes, forty-four of which were employed in the mere catalogue. Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, had given birth to more than three hundred writers, and above seventy public libraries were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom. The age of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years, till the great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental studies have languished and declined. 54

Their real progress in the sciences.

In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the far greater part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only of local value or imaginary merit. 55 The shelves were crowded with orators and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and manners of their countrymen; with general and partial histories, which each revolving generation supplied with a new harvest of persons and events; with codes and commentaries of jurisprudence, which derived their authority from the law of the prophet; with the interpreters of the Koran, and orthodox tradition; and with the whole theological tribe, polemics, mystics, scholastics, and moralists, the first or the last of writers, according to the different estimates of sceptics or believers. The works of speculation or science may be reduced to the four classes of philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and physic. The sages of Greece were translated and illustrated in the Arabic language, and some treatises, now lost in the original, have been recovered in the versions of the East,56 which possessed and studied the writings of Aristotle and Plato, of Euclid and Apollonius, of Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. 57 Among the ideal systems, which have varied with the fashion of the times, the Arabians adopted the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike intelligible or alike obscure for the readers of every age. Plato wrote for the Athenians, and his allegorical genius is too closely blended with the language and religion of Greece.

54 These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana (tom. ii. p. 38. 71. 201, 202.), Leo Africanus (de Arab. Medicis et l'hilosophis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xiii. p. 259–299. particularly p. 274.), and Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 274, 275. 536, 537.), besides the chronological remarks of Abulphar gius.

55 The Arabic catalogue of the Escurial wil! give a just idea of the proportion of the classes. In the library of Cairo, the MSS. of astronomy and medicine amounted to 6500, with two fair globes, the one of brass, the other of silver (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 417.).

56 As for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh books (the eighth is still wanting) of the Conic Sections of Apollonius Pergaus, which were printed from the Florence MSS. 1661 (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. i. p. 559.). Yet the fifth book had been previously restored by the mathematical divination of Viviani (see his Eloge in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 59, &c.).

57 The merit of these Arabic versions is freely discussed by Renaudot (Fabric, Bibliot. Græc. tom. i. p. 812-816.), and piously defended by Casiri (Bibliot. Arab.-Hispana, tom. i. p 238-240.). Most of the versions of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, &c. are ascribed to Honain, a physician of the Nestorian sect, who flourished at Bagdad in the court of the caliphs, and died A. D. 876. He was at the head of a school or manufacture of translations, and the works of his sons and disciples were published under his name. See Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 88. 115. 171-174. and apud Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.

After the fall of that religion, the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity, prevailed in the controversies of the Oriental sects, and their founder was long afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain to the Latin schools, 58 The physics, both of the Academy and the Lycæum, as they are built, not on observation, but on argument, have retarded the progress of real knowledge. The metaphysics of infinite, or finite, spirit, have too often been enlisted in the service of superstition. But the human faculties are fortified by the art and practice of dialectics; the ten predicaments of Aristotle collect and methodise our ideas,59 and his syllogism is the keenest weapon of dispute. It was dexterously wielded in the schools of the Saracens, but as it is more effectual for the detection of error than for the investigation of truth, it is not surprising that new generations of masters and disciples should still revolve in the same circle of logical argument. The mathematics are distinguished by a peculiar privilege, that, in the course of ages, they may always advance, and can never recede. But the ancient geometry, if I am not misinformed, was resumed in the same state by the Italians of the fifteenth century; and whatever may be the origin of the name, the science of algebra is ascribed to the Grecian Diophantus by the modest testimony of the Arabs themselves.60 They cultivated with more success the sublime science of astronomy, which elevates the mind of man to disdain his diminutive planet and momentary existence. The costly instruments of observation were supplied by the caliph Almamon, and the land of the Chaldæans still afforded the same spacious level, the same unclouded horizon. In the plains of Sinaar, and a second time in those of Cufa, his mathematicians accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth, and determined at twentyfour thousand miles the entire circumference of our globe. 61 From the reign of the Abbassides to that of the grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the aid of glasses, were diligently observed; and the astronomical tables of Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand,62 correct some minute errors, without daring to renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy, without advancing a step towards the discovery of the solar system. In the Eastern courts, the truths of science could be recommended only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would have been disregarded, had

tom. ii. p. 438.), D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 456.), Asseman (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 164.), and Casiri (Bibliot. Arab.-Hispana, tom. i. p. 238, &c. 251. 286–290. 302. 304, &c.).

58 See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 181. 214. 236. 257. 315. 338. 396. 438, &c.

39 The most elegant commentary on the Categories or Predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the Philosophical Arrangements of Mr. James Harris (London, 1775, in octavo), who laboured to revive the studies of Grecian literature and philosophy.

60 Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 81. 222. Bibliot. Arab.-Hisp. tom. I. p. 370, 371. In quem (says the primate of the Jacobites) si immiserit se lector, oceanum hoc in genere (algebra) inveniet. The time of Diophantus of Alexandria is unknown, but his six books are still extant, and have been illustrated by the Greek Planudes and the Frenchman Meziriac (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. iv. p. 12-15.). 61 Abulfeda (Annal. Moslem. p. 210, 211. vers. Reiske) describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan, and the best historians. This degree most accurately contains 200,000 royal or Hashemite cubits, which Arabia had derived from the sacred and legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is repeated 400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems to indicate the primitive and universal measures of the East. See the Métrologie of the laborious M. Paucton, p. 101-195.

62 See the Astronomical Tables of Ulegh Begh, with the preface of Dr. Hyde, in the first volume of his Syntagma Dissertationum, Oxon. 1767.

he not debased his wisdom or honesty by the vain predictions of astrology, 63 But in the science of medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession:64 in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to the skill of the Saracens,65 and the school of Salerno, their legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing art. 66 The success of each professor must have been influenced by personal and accidental causes; but we may form a less fanciful estimate of their general knowledge of anatomy,67 botany,68 and chemistry,69 the threefold basis of their theory and practice. A superstitious reverence for the dead confined both the Greeks and the Arabians to the dissection of apes and quadrupeds; the more solid and visible parts were known in the time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny of the human frame was reserved for the microscope and the injections of modern artists. Botany is an active science, and the discoveries of the torrid zone might enrich the herbal of Dioscorides with two thousand plants. Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the temples and monasteries of Egypt; much useful experience had been acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures; but the science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement to the industry of the Saracens. They first invented and named the alembic for the purposes of distillation, analysed the substances of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and affinities of alcalis and acids, and converted the poisonous minerals into soft and salutary medicines. But the most eager search of Arabian chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and the elixir of immortal health: the reason and the fortunes of thousands were evaporated in the crucibles of alchymy, and the consummation of the great work was promoted by the worthy aid of mystery, fable, and superstition.

Want of eru.

But the Moslems deprived themdition, taste, selves of the principal benefits of a and freedom. familiar intercourse with Greece and Rome, the knowledge of antiquity, the purity of taste, and the freedom of thought. Confident in the riches of their native tongue,

63 The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar, and the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most certain predictions, not from Venus and Mercury, but from Jupiter and the sun (Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 161-163.). For the state and science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. iii. p. 162— 203.).

64 Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438. The original relates a pleasant tale of an ignorant, but harmless, practitioner. 65 In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was cured by the physicians of Cordova (Mariana, 1. viii. c. 7. tom. i. p. 318.).

66 The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and judgment by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italia Medii Æví, tom. iii. p. 932-940.) and Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 119-127.).

67 See a good view of the progress of anatomy in Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 208-256.). His reputa tion has been unworthily depreciated by the wits in the controversy of Boyle and Bentley.

68 Bibliot. Arab.-Hispana, tom. i. p. 275. Al Beithar, of Malaga, their greatest botanist, had travelled into Africa, Persia, and India. 69 Dr. Watson (Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17, &c.) allows the original merit of the Arabians. Yet he quotes the modest confes. sion of the famous Geber of the ixth century (D'Herbelot, p. 387.), that he had drawn most of his science, perhaps of the transmutation

the Arabians disdained the study of any foreign idiom. The Greek interpreters were chosen among their Christian subjects; they formed their translations, sometimes on the original text, more frequently perhaps on a Syriac version; and in the crowd of astronomers and physicians, there is no example of a poet, an orator, or even an historian, being taught to speak the language of the Saracens, 70 The mythology of Homer would have provoked the abhorrence of those stern fanatics; they pos sessed in lazy ignorance the colonies of the Ma cedonians, and the provinces of Carthage and Rome: the heroes of Plutarch and Livy were buried 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 be lieve that the Orientals have much to learn: the temperate dignity of style, the graceful propor tions 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,71 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 free dom. 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 impostor.72 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.73 To the thirst of martyrdom, the vision of paradise, and the belief of predestination, 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

we must ascribe

of metals, from the ancient sages. Whatever might be the origin of extent of their knowledge, the arts of chemistry and alchemy a to have been known in Egypt at least three hundred years before Ma homet (Wotton's Reflections, p. 121-133. Pauw, Recherches les Egyptiens et les Chinois, tom. i. p. 376-429.).

of Homer's two poems, by Theophilus, 70 Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 26. 148.) mentions a Syriac version

a

Christian Maronite d

Mount Libanus, who professed astronomy at Roha or Edessa towards the end of the viiith century. His work would be a literary curiosity. I have read somewhere, but I do not believe, that Plutarch's Lives were translated into Turkish for the use of Mahomet the Second. 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.

of despising the religion of the Jews, the Christians, and the Mabo72 Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been accused metans (see his article in Bayle's Dictionary). Each of these sects would agree, that in two instances out of three, his contempt wa

reasonable.

73 D'Herbelot, Pibliothèque Orientale, p. 546.

imparted the sacred fire to the barbarians of the East.74

Wars of Harun

the Romans.

In the bloody conflict of the al Rashid against Ommiades and Abbassides, the A. D. 781-805. Greeks had stolen the opportunity of avenging their wrongs and enlarging their limits. But a severe 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 army of ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs was sent from the Tigris to the Thracian Bosphorus, under the command of Harun,75 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 hero 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; but, in a reign of three and twenty years, Harun repeatedly 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. 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

74 Θεόφιλος ατοπον κρίνας ει την των οντων γνωσιν, δι' ήν το Ρω μαίων γενος θαυμάζεται, εκδότου ποιήσει τοις έθνεσι, &c. Cedrenus, p. 548., who relates how manfully the emperor refused a mathemati cian 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 the Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 431-433. under his proper title: and in the relative articles to which M. d'Herbelot refers. That learned collector has shown much taste in stripping the Oriental chronicles of their instructive and amusing anecdotes.

66

"The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered "you as a rook, and herself as a pawn. That pu"sillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, "the double of which she ought to have exacted "from the barbarians. Restore therefore the "fruits of your injustice, or abide the deter"mination 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 cimeter, 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 show of repentance. The triumphant caliph retired, after the fatigues of the campaign, to his favourite palace of Racca on the Euphrates: 76 but the distance of five hundred miles, and the inclemency of the season, encouraged 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 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 black standard of the Abbassides. They swept the surface of Asia Minor far beyond Tyana and Ancyra, and invested the Pontic Heraclea,77 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

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.).

77 M. de 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. 23-35.). We have a separate history of Heraclea in the fragments of Memnon, which are preserved by Photius.

The Arabs subdue the isle of Crete, A. D. 823;

A

pre

Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the Stammerer at Constantinople, the islands of Crete 79 and Sicily were subdued by the Arabs. The former of 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 times. 80 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 galleys, 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. rebellious faction introduced them into Alexandria; 81 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 sence 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 galleys to a more serious attack. The Andalusians wandered over the land fearless and unmolested; but when they descended with their plunder to the seashore, 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 com"plain?" 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 chil"dren?" "Your beauteous captives will sup"ply the place of your wives, and in their em"braces you will soon become the fathers of a "new progeny." The first habitation was their camp, with a ditch and rampart, in the bay of Suda; but an apostate monk led them to a

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. 343-514.). Although Crete is styled by Homer Πειρα, by Dionysius λιπαρή τε και ενδοτος, I cannot conceive that mountainous island to surpass, or even to equal, in fertility the greater part of Spain.

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 Francisc. Combefis, 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 Curopalata (apud

more desirable position in the eastern parts; and the name of Candax, their fortress and colony, has been extended to the whole island, under the corrupt and modern appellation of Candia. The hundred cities of the age of Minos were diminished to thirty; and of these, only one, most probably Cydonia, had courage to retain the substance of freedom and the profession of Christianity. The Saracens of Crete soon repaired the loss of their navy; and the timbers of Mount Ida were launched into the main During an hostile period, of one hundred and thirty-eight years, the princes of Constantinople attacked these licentious corsairs with fruitless curses and ineffectual arms.

The loss of Sicily was occa- and of Sicily. sioned by an act of superstitious A.D. 827-78 rigour. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister, was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue. Eu phemius appealed to the reason and policy of the Saracens of Africa; and soon returned with the Imperial purple, a fleet of one hundred ships, and an army of seven hundred horse and ten thousand foot. They landed at Mazara near the ruins of the ancient Selinus; but after some partial victories, Syracuse 89 was delivered by the Greeks, the apostate was slain before her walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity of feeding on the flesh of their own horses. In their turn they were relieved by a powerful reinforcement of their brethren of Andalusia; the largest and western part of the island was gradually reduced, and the commodious harbour of Palermo was chosen for the seat of the naval and military power of the Saracens. Syracuse preserved about fifty years the faith which she had sworn to Christ and to Cæsar. In the last and fatal siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which had formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They stood above twenty days against the battering-rams and catapulta, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers; and the place might have been relieved, if the mariners of the Imperial fleet had not been detained at Constantinople in building a church to the Virgin Mary. The deacon Theodosius, with the bishop and clergy, was dragged in chains from the altar to Palermo, cast into a subter raneous dungeon, and exposed to the hourly peril of death or apostasy. His pathetic, and not inelegant complaint, may be read as the epitaph of his country. 84 From the Roman conquest to this final calamity, Syracuse, now

Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 827, No. 21, &c.). But the modern Greeks are such notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a pla rality of names.

81 Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251-256, 968-270) has described the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in Egypt, but has forgot to connect them with the conquest of Crete

SA (says the continuator of Theophanes, 1. ii. p. 51.) & rasta σαφεστατα καὶ πλατικώτερον ή τότε γράφείσα θεόγνωστος και τις γνώσεις lovea tuar. This history of the loss of Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. vii. p. 7. 19. 21, &c.) has added ste circumstances from the Italian chronicles.

itself much better to this epoch, than to the date (A. D. 1005) which 83 The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede would adapt Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently reproach the pat for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit of modern knights and ancient republicans.

84 The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is transcribed and illustrated by Pagi (Critica, ton). iii. p. 719, &c.). Constantine Por phyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 69, 70. p. 190-192.) mentions the loss of Syracuse and the triumph of the demons.