Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI (2)

[A. D. 709.] V. In the progress of conquest from the north and
south, the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the
confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the
difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and
warfare.164 As early as the time of Othman165 their piratical
squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia;166 nor had they
forgotten the relief of Carthage by the Gothic succours. In that
age, as well as in the present, the kings of Spain were possessed
of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of Hercules, which
is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point
of Europe. A small portion of Mauritania was still wanting to the
African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed
from the walls of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of count
Julian, the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and
perplexity, Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the
Christian chief, who offered his place, his person, and his
sword, to the successors of Mahomet, and solicited the
disgraceful honour of introducing their arms into the heart of
Spain.167

163 (return) [ The first book of Leo Africanus, and the
observations of Dr. Shaw (p. 220. 223. 227. 247, &c.) will throw
some light on the roving tribes of Barbary, of Arabian or Moorish
descent. But Shaw had seen these savages with distant terror; and
Leo, a captive in the Vatican, appears to have lost more of his
Arabic, than he could acquire of Greek or Roman, learning. Many
of his gross mistakes might be detected in the first period of
the Mahometan history.]

164 (return) [ In a conference with a prince of the Greeks, Amrou
observed that their religion was different; upon which score it
was lawful for brothers to quarrel. Ockley’s History of the
Saracens, vol. i. p. 328.]

165 (return) [ Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p 78, vers. Reiske.]

166 (return) [ The name of Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not
only to the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain
(Geograph. Nub. p. 151, d’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114,
115). The etymology has been most improbably deduced from
Vandalusia, country of the Vandals. (d’Anville Etats de l’Europe,
p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of Casiri, which signifies,
in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the West, in a word, the
Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly apposite. (Bibliot.
Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327, &c.)]

167 (return) [ The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy
are related by Mariana (tom. l. p. 238-260, l. vi. c. 19-26, l.
vii. c. 1, 2). That historian has infused into his noble work
(Historic de Rebus Hispaniae, libri xxx. Hagae Comitum 1733, in
four volumes, folio, with the continuation of Miniana), the style
and spirit of a Roman classic; and after the twelfth century, his
knowledge and judgment may be safely trusted. But the Jesuit is
not exempt from the prejudices of his order; he adopts and
adorns, like his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the national
legends; he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and
supplies, from a lively fancy, the chasms of historical evidence.
These chasms are large and frequent; Roderic archbishop of
Toledo, the father of the Spanish history, lived five hundred
years after the conquest of the Arabs; and the more early
accounts are comprised in some meagre lines of the blind
chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III.
king of Leon, which I have seen only in the Annals of Pagi.]

If we inquire into the cause of this treachery, the Spaniards
will repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava;168 of a
virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a
father who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of
revenge. The passions of princes have often been licentious and
destructive; but this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is
indifferently supported by external evidence; and the history of
Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy more
congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.169 After the
decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by
the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or
governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding
tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza,
educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private
station. Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was
varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were
excited by the remembrance of favours and the promise of a
revolution: and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and
Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in
the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the
disgrace of the unsuccessful faction, that he had little to hope
and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king
could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his
family had sustained. The merit and influence of the count
rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were
ample, his followers bold and numerous, and it was too fatally
shown that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held
in his hands the keys of the Spanish monarchy. Too feeble,
however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a
foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs
produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles,
or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness
of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the
degeneracy of an effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the
victorious Barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome,
despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to
the Atlantic ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenean
mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long
peace: the walls of the city were mouldered into dust: the youth
had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the presumption of their
ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the
first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by
the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was
delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and
his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the
unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the
caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and
caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his
preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by
the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the
glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond
the sea that separates Africa from Europe.170

168 (return) [ Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a
faire qu’a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une
fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically
conclusive.]

169 (return) [ In the story of Cava, Mariana (I. vi. c. 21, p.
241, 242,) seems to vie with the Lucretia of Livy. Like the
ancients, he seldom quotes; and the oldest testimony of Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 713, No. 19), that of Lucus Tudensis, a
Gallician deacon of the thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam
pro concubina utebatur.]

170 (return) [ The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagins, Abolfeda,
pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single
word. The text of Novairi, and the other Arabian writers, is
represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne
(Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des
Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. 12mo. tom. i. p. 55-114), and more
concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist. des Hune. tom. i. p. 347-350).
The librarian of the Escurial has not satisfied my hopes: yet he
appears to have searched with diligence his broken materials; and
the history of the conquest is illustrated by some valuable
fragments of the genuine Razis (who wrote at. Corduba, A. H.
300), of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p.
32. 105, 106. 182. 252. 315-332. On this occasion, the industry
of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the
Abbe de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am deeply
indebted.]

[A. D. 710.] Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to
the traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less
dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs
and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from
Tangier or Ceuta; the place of their descent on the opposite
shore of the strait, is marked by the name of Tarif their chief;
and the date of this memorable event171 is fixed to the month of
Ramandan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of
July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the Spanish era of
Cesar,172 seven hundred and ten after the birth of Christ. From
their first station, they marched eighteen miles through a hilly
country to the castle and town of Julian;173 on which (it is
still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green
Island, from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their
hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their
standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded province, the
richness of their spoil and the safety of their return, announced
to their brethren the most favourable omens of victory. In the
ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were
embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful
soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the
necessary transports were provided by the industry of their too
faithful ally. The Saracens landed174 at the pillar or point of
Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel
el Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments
of his camp were the first outline of those fortifications,
which, in the hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and
power of the house of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed
the court of Toledo of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and
the defeat of his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to
seize and bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of
the magnitude of the danger. At the royal summons, the dukes and
counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy assembled
at the head of their followers; and the title of king of the
Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may be excused
by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners, between
the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred
thousand men: a formidable power, if their fidelity and
discipline had been adequate to their numbers. The troops of
Tarik had been augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the
Christian malcontents were attracted by the influence of Julian,
and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal
blessings of the Koran. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town
of Xeres175 has been illustrated by the encounter which
determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete,
which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the
advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and
bloody days.

171 (return) [ A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the
lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has
determined Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish
historians, to place the first invasion in the year 713, and the
battle of Xeres in November, 714. This anachronism of three years
has been detected by the more correct industry of modern
chronologists, above all, of Pagi (Critics, tom. iii. p. 164.
171-174), who have restored the genuine state of the revolution.
At the present time, an Arabian scholar, like Cardonne, who
adopts the ancient error (tom. i. p. 75), is inexcusably ignorant
or careless.]

172 (return) [ The Era of Cesar, which in Spain was in legal and
popular use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years
before the birth of Christ. I would refer the origin to the
general peace by sea and land, which confirmed the power and
partition of the triumvirs. (Dion. Cassius, l. xlviii. p. 547.
553. Appian de Bell. Civil. l. v. p. 1034, edit. fol.) Spain was
a province of Cesar Octavian; and Tarragona, which raised the
first temple to Augustus (Tacit Annal. i. 78), might borrow from
the orientals this mode of flattery.]

173 (return) [ The road, the country, the old castle of count
Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden
treasures, &c. are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et
en Italie, tom i. p. 207-217), with his usual pleasantry.]

174 (return) [ The Nubian geographer (p. 154,) explains the
topography of the war; but it is highly incredible that the
lieutenant of Musa should execute the desperate and useless
measure of burning his ships.]

175 (return) [ Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two
leagues from Cadiz. In the xvith century It was a granary of
corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe
(Lud. Nonii Hispania, c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and
concise knowledge; d’Anville, Etats de l’Europe &c p 154).]

On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and
decisive issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his
unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls,
encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and
reclining on a litter, or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules.
Notwithstanding the valour of the Saracens, they fainted under
the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was overspread
with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. “My brethren,” said
Tarik to his surviving companions, “the enemy is before you, the
sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your general I am
resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate
king of the Romans.” Besides the resource of despair, he confided
in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of count
Julian, with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes
and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post;
their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians;
each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his
personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were
scattered or destroyed to the flight and pursuit of the three
following days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderic started from
his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his Horses; but he
escaped from a soldier’s death to perish more ignobly in the
waters of the Boetis or Guadalquiver. His diadem, his robes, and
his courser, were found on the bank; but as the body of the
Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the pride and ignorance of
the caliph must have been gratified with some meaner head, which
was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus. “And such,”
continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, “is the fate of those
kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle.” 176

[A. D. 711.] Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and
infamy, that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After
the battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to
the victorious Saracens. “The king of the Goths is slain; their
princes are fled before you, the army is routed, the nation is
astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the cities of
Boetica; but in person and without delay, march to the royal city
of Toledo, and allow not the distracted Christians either time or
tranquillity for the election of a new monarch.” Tarik listened
to his advice. A Roman captive and proselyte, who had been
enfranchised by the caliph himself, assaulted Cordova with seven
hundred horse: he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove
the Christians into the great church, where they defended
themselves above three months. Another detachment reduced the
seacoast of Boetica, which in the last period of the Moorish
power has comprised in a narrow space the populous kingdom of
Grenada. The march of Tarik from the Boetis to the Tagus,177 was
directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and
Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of Toledo.178
The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the relics of
their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only till the
victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. The
voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven
churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the
archbishop and his clergy were at liberty to exercise their
functions, the monks to practise or neglect their penance; and
the Goths and Romans were left in all civil or criminal cases to
the subordinate jurisdiction of their own laws and magistrates.
But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his
gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or open
aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions.
Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often
pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast
nation embraced the moment of revenge: the comparison of their
past and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the
alliance between the disciples of Moses and those of Mahomet, was
maintained till the final era of their common expulsion.

176 (return) [ Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie
referentibus saepe contingit. Den Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot.
Arabico-Hispana. tom. ii. p. 337. Some credulous Spaniards
believe that king Roderic, or Rodrigo, escaped to a hermit’s
cell; and others, that he was cast alive into a tub full of
serpents, from whence he exclaimed with a lamentable voice, “they
devour the part with which I have so grievously sinned.” (Don
Quixote, part ii. l. iii. c. 1.)]

177 (return) [ The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was
measured by Mr. Swinburne’s mules in 72 1/2 hours: but a larger
computation must be adopted for the slow and devious marches of
an army. The Arabs traversed the province of La Mancha, which the
pen of Cervantes has transformed into classic ground to the
reader of every nation.]

178 (return) [ The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parva in the Punic
wars, Urbs Regia in the sixth century, are briefly described by
Nonius (Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-136). He borrows from Roderic the
fatale palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates,
that it was no more than a Roman amphitheatre.]

From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his
conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and
Leon; but it is heedless to enumerate the cities that yielded on
his approach, or again to describe the table of emerald,179
transported from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths
among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the
throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime
town of Gijon was the term180 of the lieutenant of Musa, who had
performed with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march of
seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the bay of
Biscay. The failure of land compelled him to retreat: and he was
recalled to Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a
kingdom in the absence of his general. Spain, which in a more
savage and disorderly state, had resisted, two hundred years, the
arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of the
Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and treaty,
that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who
fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The cause
of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres;
and in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a
contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united
strength of the whole.181 That strength had been wasted by two
successive seasons of famine and pestilence; and the governors,
who were impatient to surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty
of collecting the provisions of a siege. To disarm the
Christians, superstition likewise contributed her terrors: and
the subtle Arab encouraged the report of dreams, omens, and
prophecies, and of the portraits of the destined conquerors of
Spain, that were discovered on the breaking open an apartment of
the royal palace. Yet a spark of the vital flame was still alive;
some invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom
in the Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineers repulsed the
slaves of the caliph; and the sword of Pelagius has been
transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic kings.182

179 (return) [ In the Historia Arabum (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem
Elmacin), Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and
inserts the name of Medinat Ahneyda in Arabic words and letters.
He appears to be conversant with the Mahometan writers; but I
cannot agree with M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 350)
that he had read and transcribed Novairi; because he was dead a
hundred years before Novairi composed his history. This mistake
is founded on a still grosser error. M. de Guignes confounds the
governed historian Roderic Ximines, archbishop of Toledo, in the
xiiith century, with cardinal Ximines, who governed Spain in the
beginning of the xvith, and was the subject, not the author, of
historical compositions.]

180 (return) [ Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the
boast of Regnard and his companions in their Lapland journey,
“Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis.”]

181 (return) [ Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and
every chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the
spirit of Pelagius; Omnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine
Gothorum, omnis exercitus Hispaniae in uno congregatus
Ismaelitarum non valuit sustinere impetum. Chron. Alphonsi Regis,
apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 177.]

182 (return) [ The revival of tire Gothic kingdom in the Asturias
is distinctly though concisely noticed by d’Anville (Etats de
l’Europe, p. 159)]