The event of the siege revived, both in the East and Wes the reputation of the Roman arms, and cast a momentary shade over the glories of the Saracens. The Greek ambas. sador was favorably received at Damascus, in a general council of the emirs or Koreish: a peace, or truce, of thirty years was ratified between the two empires; and the stipula tion of an annual tribute, fifty horses of a noble breed, fifty slaves, and three thousand pieces of gold, degraded the majesty of the commander of the faithful.5 The aged caliph was desirous of possessing his dominions, and ending his days in tranquillity and repose: while the Moors and Indians trembled at his name, his palace and city of Damascus was insulted by the Mardaites, or Maronites, of Mount Libanus, the firmest barrier of the empire, till they were disarmed and transplanted by the suspicious policy of the Greeks.6 After the revolt of Arabia and Persia, the house of Ommiyah 7 was reduced to the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt: their distress and fear enforced their compliance with the pressing demands of the Christians; and the tribute was increased to a slave, a horse, and a thousand pieces of gold, for each of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the solar year. But as soon as the empire was again united by the arms and policy of Abdalmalek, he disclaimed a badge of servitude not less injurious to his conscience than to his pride; he discontinued the payment of the tribute; and the resentment of the Greeks was disabled from action by the mad tyranny of the second Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 10, 11. Voyages de Thevenot, part i. p. 189. The Christians, who suppose that the martyr Abu Ayub is vulgarly confounded with the patriarch Job, betray their own ignorance rather than that of the Turks. Theophanes, though a Greek, deserves credit for these tributes, (Chronograph. p. 295, 296, 300, 301,) which are confirmed, with some variation, by the Arabic History of Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 128, vers. Pocock.) .... The censure of Theophanes is just and pointed, Ti 'Pouxi δυναστείαν ἀκρωτηριάσας . . . . πάνδεινα κακὰ πέπονθεν ἡ ̔Ρωμανία ὑπὸ Tor Aqußor pezoi Toù vùr, (Chronograph. p. 302, 303.) The series of these events may be traced in the Annals of Theophanes, and in the Abridgment of the Patriarch Nicephorus, p. 22, 24. 7 These domestic revolutions are related in a clear and natural style, in the second volume of Ockley's History of the Saracena, p. 253-370. Besides our printed authors, he draws his materials from the Arabic MSS. of Oxford, which he would have more deply searched had he been confined to the Bodleian library instead of Line eity jail; a fate how unworthy of the man and of his country! Justinian, the just rebellion of his subjects, and the frequent change of his antagonists and successors. Till the reign of Abdalmalek, the Saracens had been content with the free possession of the Persian and Roman treasures, in the coins of Chosroes and Cæsar. By the command of that caliph, a national mint was established, both for silver and gold, and the inscription of the Dinar, though it might be censured by some timorous casuists, proclaimed the unity of the God of Mahomet. Under the reign of the caliph Walid, the Greek language and characters were excluded from the accounts of the public revenue. If this change was productive of the • Elmacin, who dates the first coinage A. H. 76, A. D. 695, five or six years later than the Greek historians, has compared the weight of the best or common gold dinar to the drachm or dirhem of Egypt. (p. 77,) which may be equal to two pennies (48 grains) of our Troy weight, (Hooper's Inquiry into Ancient Measures, p. 24-36,) and equivalent to eight shillings of our sterling money. From the same Elmacin and the Arabian physicians, some dinars as high as two dirhems, as low as half a dirhem, may be deduced. The piece of silver was the dirhem, both in value and weight; but an old, though fair coin, struck at Waset, A. H. 88, and preserved in the Bodleian library, wante four grains of the Cairo standard, (see the Modern Universal History, tom. i. p. 548 of the French translation.)* • Καὶ ἐκώλυσε γράφεσθαι ἑλληνιστί τους δημοσίους τῶν λογοθεσίων κώδι κας ἀλλ ̓ Αραβίοις αὐτὰ παρασημαίνεσθαι χωρίς τῶν ψήφων, ἐπειδὴ ἀδύ νατον, τῇ ἐκείνων γλώσση μονάδα, ἢ δυάδα, ἢ τριάδα, ἢ ὀκτὼ ἥμισυ ἢ Toia youpetai. Theophan. Chronograph. p. 314. This defect, if it really existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the Arabs to invent or borrow. Up to this time the Arabs had used the Roman or the Persian coins, or had minted others which resembled them. Nevertheless, it has been admitted of late years, that the Arabians, before this epoch, had caused coin to be minted, on which, preserving the Roman or the Persian dies, they added Arabian names or inscriptions. Some of these exist in differ ent collections. We learn from Makrizi, an Arabian author of great learn. ing and judgment, that in the year 18 of the Hegira, under the caliphate of Omar, the Arabs had coined money of this description. The same author informs us that the caliph Abdalmalek caused coins to be struck representing himself with a sword by his side. These types, so contrary to the notions of the Arabs, were disapproved by the most influential persons of the time, and the caliph substituted for them, after the year 76 of the Hegira, the Mahometan coins with which we are acquainted. Con suit, on the question of Arabic numismatics, the works of Adler, of Fraehr., of Castiglione, and of Marsden, who have treated at leng... this interesting point of historic antiquities. See, also, in the Journal Asiatique, tom. 1. p. 257, et seq., a paper of M. Silvestre de Sacy, entitled Des Monnaies des Khalifes avant l'An 75 de l'Hegire. See, also, the translation of a terman paper on the Arabic medals of the Chosroes, by M. Fraehn, in the same Journal Asiatique, tom. iv. p 331-347. St. Martin, vol. xii. p 19 -M. invention or familiar use of our present numerals, the Arabia or Indian ciphers, as they are commonly styled, a regulation of office has promoted the most important discoveries of arith. metic, algebra, and the mathematical sciences.10 Whilst the caliph Walid sat idle on the throne of Damascus, while his lieutenants achieved the conquest of Transoxiana and Spain, a third army of Saracens overspread the provinces of Asia Minor, and approached the borders of the Byzantine capital. But the attempt and disgrace of the second siege was reserved for his brother Soliman, whose ambition appears to have been quickened by a more active and martial spirit. In the revolutions of the Greek empire, after the tyrant Justinian had been punished and avenged, an humble secretary, Anastasius or Artemius, was promoted by chance or merit to the vacant purple. He was alarmed by the sound of war; and his ambassador returned from Damas. cus with the tremendous news, that the Saracens were preparing an armament by sea and land, such as would transcerd the experience of the past, or the belief of the present, age. The precautions of Anastasius were not unworthy of his station, or of the impending danger. He issued a peremptory mandate, that all persons who were not provided with he means of subsistence for a three years' siege should evacuate the city: the public granaries and arsenals were abundantly replenished; the walls were restored and strengthened: and the engines for casting stones, or darts, or fire, were stationed along the ramparts, or in the brigantines of war, of which an additional number was hastily constructed. To prevent is safer, as well as more honorable, than to repel, an attack; and a design was meditated, above the usual spirit of the Greeks, of burning the naval stores of the enemy, the cypress timber that had been hewn in Mount Libanus, and was piled along the sea-shore of Phoenicia, for the service of 10 According to a new, though probable, notion, maintained by M. de Villoison, (Anecdcta Græca, tom. ii. p. 152-157,) our ciphers are not of Indian or Arabic invention. They were used by the Greek and Latin arithmeticians long before the age of Boethius. After the extinction of science in the West, they were adopted by the Arabic versions from the original MSS., and restored to the Latins bout the xith century.* Compare, on the Introduction of the Arabic numerals, Hallam'ı Introduction to the Literature of Europe, p. 150, note, and the author quoted therein — M. the Egyptian fleet. This generous enterprise was defeated by the cowardice or treachery of the troops, who, in the new language of the empire, were styled of the Obsequian Theme. They murdered their chief, deserted their standard in the Isle of Rhodes, dispersed themselves over the adjacent continent, and deserved pardon or reward by investing with the purple a simple officer of the revenue. The name of Theodosius might recommend him to the senate and people; but, after some months, he sunk into a cloister, and resigned, to the firmer hand of Leo the Isaurian, the urgent defence of the capital and einpire. The most formidable of the Saracens, Moslemah, the brother of the caliph, was advancing at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand Arabs and Persians, the greater part mounted on horses or camels; and the successful sieges of Tyana, Amorium, and Pergamus, were of sufficient duration to exercise their skill and to elevate their hopes. At the well-known passage of Abydus, on the Hellespont, the Mahometan arms were transported, for the first time,* from Asia to Europe. From thence, wheeling round the Thracian cities of the Propontis, Moslemah invested Constantinople on the land side, surrounded his camp with a ditch and rampart, prepared and planted his engines of assault, and declared, by words and actions, a patient resolution of expecting the return of seed-time and harvest, should the obstinacy of the besieged prove equal to his own. The Greeks would gladly have ransomed their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment of a piece of gold on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the liberal offer was rejected with disdain, and the presumption of Mos lemah was exalted by the speedy approach and invincible " In the division of the Themes, or provinces described by Constartine Porphyrogenitus, (de Thematibus, l. i. p. 9, 10,) the Obsequium, a Latin appellation of the army and palace, was the fourth in the public order. Nice was the metropolis, and its jurisdiction extended from the Hellespont over the adjacent parts of Bythynia and Phrygia, (see the two maps prefixed by Delisle to the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.) Compare page 274. It is singilar that Gibbon should thus contradict himself in a few pages. By his own account this was the second time. -M. The account of this siege in the Tarikh Tebry is a very unfavorable specimen of Asiatic history, full of absurd fables, and written with total ignorance of the circumstances of time and place. Price, vol. i. p. 498. -M. force of the natives of Egypt and Syria. They are said to have amounted to eighteen hundred ships: the number be rays their inconsiderable size; and of the twenty stout and capacious vessels, whose magnitude impeded their progress, each was manned with no more than one hundred heavyarmed soldiers. This huge armada proceeded on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards the mouth of the Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was overshadowed, in the language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for a general assault by sea and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the emperor had thrown aside the chain that usually guarded the entrance of the harbor; but while they hesitated whether they should seize the opportunity, or apprehend the snare, the ministers of destruction were at hand. The fireships of the Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs, their arms, and vessels, were involved in the same flames; the disorderly fugitives were dashed against each other or overwhelmed in the waves; and I no longer find a vestige of the fleet, that had threatened to extirpate the Roman namc. A still more fatal and irreparable loss was that of the caliph Soliman, who died of an indigestion,12 in his camp near Kinnisrin or Chalcis in Syria, as he was preparing to lead against Constantinople the remaining forces of the East. The brother of Moslemah was succeeded by a kinsman and an enemy; and the throne of an active and able prince was degraded by the useless and pernicious virtues of a bigot. While he started and satisfied the scruples of a blind conscience, the siege was continued through the winter by the neglect, rather " The caliph had emptied two baskets of eggs and of figs, which be swallowed alternately, and the repast was concluded with marrow and sugar. In one of his pilgrimages to Mecca, Soliman ate, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of the grapes of Tayef. If the bill of fare be correct, we must admire the appeti e, rather than the luxury, of the sovereign of Asia, (Abulseda, Annal. Moslem. p. 126.)* The Tarikh Tebry ascribes the death of Soliman to a pleurisy. The same gross gluttony in which Soliman indulged, though not fatal to the life, interfered with the military duties, of his brother Moslemah. Price, vol. i. p. 511.-M. Major Price's estimate of Omar's character is much more favorable. Among a ice of sanguinary tyrants, Omar was just and hum ane. His virtues as well as his bigotry were active. - M. |