to remove the dishonor of the Roman name. After the death of their father, the heirs of the caliph were involved in civil discord, and the conqueror, the liberal Almamon, was suffi ciently engaged in the restoration of domestic peace and the introduction of foreign science.

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 overlooke、 y the Byzantine historians, who now begin to cast a clearer light on the affairs of their own times.80 A band of Andalu sian volunteers, discontented with the climate or governmen 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. A 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 presence of Almamon himself. From the mouth of the Nile to the Hellespont, the islands and sea-coasts

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. 343-544.) Although Crete is styled by Homer isou, by Dionysius, irάon tɛ xai svẞotos, 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, a 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, (l. ii. p. 21, Venet. 1733,) George Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 506-508,) and John Scylitzes Curopalata, (apud Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 827, No. 24, &c.) But the modern Greeks are such notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a plu rality of names.

Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251-256, 268-270) has described the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in Egypt, but has for got to connect them with the conquest of Crete.

"Your

both of the Greeks and Moslems were exposed to their depre dations; 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 sea-shore, their vessels were in flames, and their chief Abu Caab, confessed himself the author of the mischief. Their clamors accused his madness or treachery. "Of what do you complain?" 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 children?" beauteous captives will supply the place of your wives, and ir their embraces 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 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 a 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 82 was occasioned by an act of superstitious rigor. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister, was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue. Euphemius 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

ven hundred horse and ten thousand foot. They landed at Mazara near the ruins of the ancient Selinus; but after some partial victories, Syracuse 83 was delivered by the Greeks he

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Ao (says the continuator of Theophanes, 1. ii. p. 51) di tavra Σαφέστατα και πλατικώτερον ἡ τότε γραφεῖσα Θεογνώστῳ καὶ εἰς χεῖρα, Ševou pār. This history of the loss of Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. vii. p. 719, 721, &c.) has added some circumstances from the Italian chronicles.

The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede would adapt

apostate was slain before he: 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 reenforcement of their brethren of Andalusia; the largest and western part of the island was gradually reduced, and the com modious harbor of Palermo was chosen for the seat of the nava. and military power of the Saracens. Syracuse preserved about fifty years the faith which she had sworn to Christ and te 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 subterraneous 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.8 84 From the Ro. man conquest to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the primitive Isle of Ortygea, had insensibly declined. Yet the relics were still precious; the plate of the cathedral weighed five thousand pounds of silver; the entire spoil was computed at one million of pieces of gold, (about four hundred thousand pounds sterling,) and the captives must outnumber the seventeen thousand Christians, who were transported from the sack of Tauromenium into African servitude. In Sicily, the religion and language of the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility of the rising generation, that fifteen thousand boys were circumcised and clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimite caliph. The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbors of Palermo, Biserta, and Tunis; a hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and Cainpania were attacked and pillaged; nor could the suburbs of

itself much better to this epoch, than to the date (A. D. 1005) which Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently reproach the poet for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit of modern knights and ancient republicans.

84 The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is transcribed and llustrated by Pagi, (Critica, tom. 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.

Rome be defended by the name of the Cæsars and apostles. Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet. But the caliphs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads.85

In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens from the African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and of the Ostian way. Their invisible sanctity had protected them against the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards; but the Arabs disdained both the Gospel and the legend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly offerings; a silver altar was torn away from the shrine of St. Peter; and if the bodies or the buildings were left entire, their deliverance must be imputed to the haste, rather than the scruples, of the Saracens. In their course along the Appian way, they pillaged Fundi and besieged Gayeta; but they had turned aside from the walls of Rome, and, by their divisions, the Capitol was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca. The same danger still impended on the heads of the Roman people; and their domestic force was unequal to the assault of an African emir. They claimed the protection of their Latin sovereign; but the Carlovingian standard was overthrown by a detachment of the Barbarians: they medi tated the restoration of the Greek emperors; but the attempt was treasonable, and the succor remote and precarious.86

85 The extracts from the Arabic histories of Sicily are given in Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 271-273,) and in the first volume of Maratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364) has added some important facts.

One of the most eminent Romans (Gratianus, magister militum et Romani palatii superista) was accused of declaring, Quia Franci nihil nobis boni faciunt, neque adjutorium præbent, sed magis qua vostra sunt violenter tollunt. Quare non advocamus Græcos, et cum

The

Their distress appeared to receive some aggravation from the death of their spiritual and temporal chief; but the pressing emergency superseded the forms and intrigues of an election; and the unanimous choice of Poe Leo the Fourth 87 was the safety of the church and city. This pontiff was born a Roman; the courage of the first ages of the republic glowed in his breast; and, amidst the ruins of his country, he stood erect, like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads above the fragments of the Roman forum. The first days of his reign were consecrated to the purification and removal of relics, to prayers and processions, and to all the solemn offices of religion, which served at least to heal the nagination, and restore the hopes, of the multitude. public defence had been long neglected, not from the presumption of peace, but from the distress and poverty of the times. As far as the scantiness of his means and the shortness of his leisure would allow, the ancient walls were repaired by the command of Leo; fifteen towers, in the most accessible stations, were built or renewed; two of these commanded on either side of the Tyber; and an iron chain was drawn across the stream to impede the ascent of a hostile navy. The Romans were assured of a short respite by the welcome news, that the siege of Gayeta had been raised, and that a part of the enemy, with their sacrilegious plunder, had perished in the waves.

But the storm, which had been delayed, soon burst upon them with redoubled violence. The Aglabite,88 who reigned in Africa, had inherited from his father a treasure and an army a fleet of Arabs and Moors, after a short refreshment in the harbors of Sardinia, cast anchor before the mouth of the Tyber, sixteen miles from the city and their discipline and numbers appeared to threaten, not a transient inroad, but u serious design of conquest and dominion. But the vigilance

:

eis fœdus pacis componentes, Francorum regem et gentem de nostro regno et dominatione expellimus? Anastasius in Leone IV. p. 199.

87 Voltaire (Hist. Générale, tom. ii. c. 38, p. 124) appears to be remarkably struck with the character of Pope Leo IV. I have borrowed his general expression, but the sight of the forum has furnished me with a more distinct and lively image.

88 De Guignes, Hist. Générale des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364. Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, sous la Domination dev Arabs, tom. ii. p. 24, 25. I observe, and cannot reconcile, the differ ance of these writers in the succession of the Aglabites.