If

left his trade of a brazier (from whence the name of Soffar ides) for the profession of a robber. In a nocturnal visit te the treasure of the prince of Sistan, Jacob, the son of Leith stumbled over a lump of salt, which he unwarily tasted with his tongue. Salt, among the Orientals, is the symbol of hos pita.ity, and the pious robber immediately retired without spoil or damage. The discovery of this honorable behavior recommended Jacob to pardon and trust; he led an army at first for his benefactor, at last for himself, subdued Persia and threatened the residence of the Abbassides. On his march towards Bagdad, the conqueror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience in bed to the ambassador of the caliph; and beside him on a table were exposed a naked cimeter, a crust of brown bread, and a bunch of onions. 66 Tf I die," said he, "your master is delivered from his fears. I live, this must determine between us. If I am vanquished, I can return without reluctance to the homely fare of my youth." From the height where he stood, the descent would not have been so soft or harmless: a timely death secured his own repose and that of the caliph, who paid with the most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother Amrou to the palaces of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend, too proud to forgive: they invited the pow erful dynasty of the Samanides, who passed the Oxus with ten thousand horse so poor, that their stirrups were of wood; so brave, that they vanquished the Soffarian army, eight times more numerous than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in chains, a grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor was content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the realms of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the caliphs. The provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their Turkish slaves of the race of Toulon and Ilkshid.107 These Barbarians, in religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet, emerged from the oloody factions of the palace to a provincial command and an independent throne: their names became famous and formidable in their time; but the founders of these two potent dynasties confessed, either in words or actions, the vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the mercy

07 M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 124-154) has exaausted the Toulunides and Ikshidites of Egypt, and thrown soms light on the Carmathians and Hamadanites.

of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power. the second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of kings; and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by the Abbassides during ar interval of thirty years. In the decline of their empire, Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul and Aleppo, was occupied by the Arabian princes of the tribe of Hama dan. The poets of their court could repeat without a blush, that nature had formed their countenances for beauty, their tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality and valor but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and parricide. At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again usurped by the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword of three brothers, who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of the state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language and genius of Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and four years after the death of Mahomet, were deprived of the sceptre of the East.

Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirtyninth of the successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of commander of the faithful; 108 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

108 Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque sæpius pro concione peroraret. 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 inter esting facts of this paragraph.

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 109 invaded the pleasures of domestic life, burst into the houses of plebeians and princes, spilt the wine, broke the instruments, beat the musi cians, and dishonored, 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 awak. ened 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 the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra,11 imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary of the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the camp or court of any neighboring 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 :o a dungeon, by the command of the stranger, and the rude hands of his Dilemites. His

110

109 Their master, on a similar occasion, showed himself of a more indulgent and tolerating spirit. Ahmed Ebn Hanbal, the nead 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.

110 The office of vizier was superseded by the emir al Omra, Impe rator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Rahdi, 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 Flmacin, p. 254, 255.

palace was pillaged, his eyes were put out, and the mean ambition of the Abbassides aspired to the vacant station ofs danger and disgrace. In the school of adversity, the luxurr ous caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the primitive times. Despoiled of their armor and silken robes, they fasted, they prayed, they studied the Koran and the tra dition of the Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowl edge 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 misfor tunes had been imbittered by the triumph of the Fatimites, the real or spurious progeny of Ali. Arising from the extrem ity 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 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,111 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 of great domes tic, or general of the East, he reduced the Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire.112 His military genius

11 Liutprand, whose choleric temper was imbittered 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 Sarace norum mors, Nicephorus μedwv.

118 Notwithstanding the insinuation of Zonaras, xœi si μn, &c., (team li. 1. xvi. p. 197,) it is an undoubted fact, that Crete was complete y

was displayed in the conduct and success of the enterprise which had so often failed with loss and dishonor The Sar Lacens 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 fre quent aid of their brethren of Africa and Spain; and after the massy wall and double ditch had been stormed by the Greeks a 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.113 Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp 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 successively married Nicephorus 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 confeder ates, 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 : 114

a train

and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 873-875. Meursius, Creta, 1. iii. c. 7, tom. iii. p. 464, 465.)

113 A Greek Life of St. Nicon 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 casts a ray of light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the xth 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 omnes veræque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per totam insulam ædificatis, &c., (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 961.)

114 Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutpraud was disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men.

The Acroases of Theodorus, de expugnatione Creta, miserable iam abies, relate the whole campaign. Whoever would fairly estimate the merit of the poetic deacon, may read the description of the slinging a jackass into the famishing city. The poet is in a transport at the wit of the gen eral, and revels in all the luxury of antithesis. Theodori Acroases, lib Hi. 172, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist. — M.