LI. CHAP. the ruins of a triumphal arch, a portico, and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet admire the magnificence of the Romans143. 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 profes sions of faith but his losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease, prevented a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a campaign of fif teen months, retreated to the confines of Egypt, with the captives and the wealth of their African expedition. The caliph's fifth was granted to a favourite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the state was doubly injured by this fallacious transaction, if each foot-soldier had shared one thousand, and each horseman three thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder. The author of the death of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most precious reward of the victory: from his silence it might be presumed that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and exclamations of the præfect's daughter at the sight of Zobeir revealed the valour and modesty of that gallant soldier. The unfortunate virgin was of fered, and almost rejected as a slave, by her father's murderer, who coolly declared that his sword was consecrated to the service of religion; and that he laboured for a recompense far above the charms of mortal. beauty, or the riches of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper, was the honourable commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the success of his arms. The companions, the chiefs, and the people, were assembled in the mosch of Medina to hear the interesting narrative of Zobeir; and, as the orator forgot nothing except the merit of his own counsels and actions, the name of Abdallah was joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of Caled and Amrou45. 143 Shaw's Travels, p. 118, 119. 144 Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat hæc, et mira donatio; quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex ærario prius ablatos ærario præstabat (Annal. Moslem. p. 78). Elmacin (in his cloudy version, p. 39), seems to report the same job. When the Arabs besieged the palace of Othman, it stood high in their catalogue of grievances. 145 Επεσράτευσαν Σαρακηνοί την Αφρικήν, και συμβάλοντες τα τυράννω Γρηγο ρίω τό τον τρέπεσι και τις συν αυτώ κτείνεσι και σοίχησαντες φοράς μετά των Apply Unrespetar. Theophan, Chronograph. p. 285. edit. Paris. His chronology is loose and inaccurate. LI. The western conquests of the Saracens were suspend- CHAP. ed near twenty years, till their dissensions were composed by the establishment of the house of Ommiyah: Progress and the caliph Moawiyah was invited by the cries of of the Sathe Africans themselves. The successors of Heraclius racens in Africa, had been informed of the tribute which they had been A. D. compelled to stipulate with the Arabs; but instead of 665-689. being moved to pity and relieve their distress, they imposed, as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount. The ears of the Byzantine ministers were shut against the complaints of their poverty and ruin their despair was reduced to prefer the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and military power, provoked the sectaries, and even the Catholics, of the Roman province to abjure the religion as well as the authority of their tyrants. The first lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just renown, subdued an important city, defeated an army of thirty thousand Greeks, swept away fourscore thousand captives, and enriched with their spoils the bold adventurers of Syria and Egypt. But the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due to his successor Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many thousand Barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is it necessary to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The interior regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious armies and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might assemble in arms; but the number of three hundred and sixty towns is incompatible with the ignorance or decay of husbandry147; and a circumference of three leagues will be justified by the ruins of Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland country. As we approach the sea-coast, the 146 Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293.) inserts the vague rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western conquests of the Arabs; and I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon of Aquileia (de Gestis Langobard. 1. v. c. 13), that at this time they sent a fleet from Alexandria into the Sicilian and African seas. 147 See Novairi (apud Otter, p. 118), Leo Africanus (fol. 81. verso), who reckons only cinque citta è infinite casal, Marmol (Description de l'Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33), and Shaw (Travels, p. 57. 65—68). CHAP. well-known cities of Bugia", and Tangier LI. define the more certain limits of the Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous age, is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might have supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence. The remote position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier, have been decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the figurative expressions of the latter, that the walls were constructed of brass, and that the roofs were covered with gold and silver, may be interpreted as the emblems of strength and opulence. The province of Mauritania Tingitana 50, which assumed the name of the capital, had been imperfectly discovered and settled by the Romans; the five colonies were confined to a narrow pale, and the more southern parts were seldom explored except by the agents of luxury, who searched the forests for ivory and the citron wood, and the shores of the ocean for the purple shell-fish. The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country, traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco12, and at length penetrated to the verge of the At 148 Leo African. fol. 58. verso, 59. recto. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 415. Shaw, p. 43. 149 Leo African, fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228. 150 Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre sortita, parvis oppidis habi, tatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris melior et segnitie gentis ob scura. Pomponius Mela, i. 5. in. 10. Mela deserves the more credit, since his own Phoenician ancestors had migrated from Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6. a passage of that geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius, and the most virulent of critics, James Gronovius) He lived at the time of the final reduction of that country by the emperor Claudius: yet al most thirty years afterwards, Pliny (Hist. Nat v. i.) complains of his authors, too lazy to inquire, too proud to confess their ignorance of that wild and re. mote province. 151 The foolish fashion of this citron wood prevailed at Rome among the men, as much as the taste for pearls among the women. A round board or table, four or five feet in diameter, sold for the price of an estate (latefondii taxatione), eight, ten, or twelve thousand pounds sterling (Plin. Hist Natur. xiii. 29.) I conceive that I must not confound the tree citrus, with that of the fruit citrum. But I am not botanist enough to define the former (it is like the wild cypress) by the vulgar or Linnæan name; nor will I decide whether the citrum be the orange or the lemon Salmasius appears to exhaust the subject, but he too often involves himself in the web of his disorderly erudi, tion (Plinian. Exercitat. tom. ii. p. 666, &c.) 152 Leo African. fol. 16. verso. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 28. This province, the first scene of the exploits and greatness of the cherifs, is often mentioned in the curious history of that dynasty at the end of the third volume of Marmol, Description de l'Afrique. The third vol. of the Recherches Histo LI. lantic and the great desert. The river Sus descends CHAP. from the western sides of mount Atlas, fertilises, like the Nile, the adjacent soil, and falls into the sea at a moderate distance from the Canary, or Fortunate, islands. Its banks were inhabited by the last of the Moors, a race of savages, without laws, or discipline, or religion they were astonished by the strange and irresistible terrors of the Oriental arms; and as they possessed neither gold nor silver, the richest spoil was the beauty of the female captives, some of whom were afterwards sold for a thousand pieces of gold. The career, though not the zeal, of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He spurred his borse into the waves, and raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic: "Great God! if my course "were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to "the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the "unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword the "rebellious nations who worship any other gods than "thee1539 Yet this Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for new worlds, was unable to preserve his recent conquests. By the universal defection of the Greeks and Africans, he was recalled from the shores of the Atlantic, and the surrounding multitudes left him only the resource of an honourable death. The last scene was dignified by an example of national virtue. An ambitious chief, who had disputed the command and failed in the attempt, was led about as a prisoner in the camp of the Arabian general. The insurgents had trusted to his discontent and revenge; he disdained their offers and revealed their designs. In the hour of danger, the grateful Akbah unlocked his fetters, and advised him to retire ; he chose to die under the banner of his rival. Embracing as friends and martyrs, they unsheathed their scymetars, broke their scabbards, and maintained an obstinate combat, till they fell by each other's side on the last of their slaughtered countrymen. The third general or governor of Africa, Zuheir, avenged and encountered the fate of his predecessor. He vanquished the natives in riques sur les Maures (lately published at Paris) illustrates the history and geography of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco. 153 Otter (p. 119.) has given the strong tone of fanaticism to this exclamation, which Cardonne (p. 37) has softened to a pious wish of preaching the Koran. Yet they had both the same text of Novairi before their eyes. LI. Founda CHAP. many battles; he was overthrown by a powerful army, which Constantinople had sent to the relief of Carthage. It had been the frequent practice of the Moorish tribes tion of to join the invaders, to share the plunder, to profess the Cairoan, faith, and to revolt to their savage state of independence 670-675. and idolatry, on the first retreat or misfortune of the A. D. Moslems. The prudence of Akbah had proposed to found an Arabian colony in the heart of Africa; a citadel that might curb the levity of the Barbarians, a place of refuge to secure, against the accidents of war, the wealth and the families of the Saracens. With this view, and under the modest title of the station of a caravan, he planted this colony in the fiftieth year of the Hegira. In its present decay, Cairoan's still holds the second rank in the kingdom of Tunis, from which it is distant about fifty miles to the southis; its inland situation, twelve miles westward of the sea, has protected the city from the Greek and Sicilian fleets. When the wild beasts and serpents were extirpated, when the forest, or rather wilderness, was cleared, the vestiges of a Roman town were discovered in a sandy plain the vegetable food of Cairoan is brought from afar; and the scarcity of springs constrains the inhabitants to collect in cisterns and reservoirs a precarious supply of rain-water. These obstacles were subdued by the industry of Akbah; he traced a circumference of three thousand and six hundred paces, which he encompassed with a brick wall; in the space of five years, the governor's palace was surrounded with a sufficient number of private habitations; a spa cious mosch was supported by five hundred columns of granite, porphyry, and Numidian marble; and Cairoan became the seat of learning as well as of empire. But these were the glories of a later age; the new colony was shaken by the successive defeats of Akbah and Zubeir, and the western expeditions were again interrupted by the civil discord of the Arabian monarchy. 154 The foundation of Cairoan is mentioned by Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129, 130); and the situation, mosch, &c of the city are described by Leo Africanus (fol. 75), Marmol (tom. ii. p. 532), and Shaw (p 115.) 155 A portentous, though frequent mistake, has been the confounding, from a slight similitude of name, the Cyrene of the Greeks, and the Cairoan of the Arabs, two cities which are separated by an interval of a thousand miles along the sea-coast. The great Thanus has not escaped this fault, the less excusable as it is connected with a formal and elaborate description of Africa (Historiar. 1. vii. c. 2. in tom. i. p. 240. edit. Buckley.) |