Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II

Constantinople and the Greek fire might exclude the Arabs from
the eastern entrance of Europe; but in the West, on the side of
the Pyrenees, the provinces of Gaul were threatened and invaded
by the conquerors of Spain. 25 The decline of the French monarchy
invited the attack of these insatiate fanatics. The descendants
of Clovis had lost the inheritance of his martial and ferocious
spirit; and their misfortune or demerit has affixed the epithet
of lazy to the last kings of the Merovingian race. 26 They
ascended the throne without power, and sunk into the grave
without a name. A country palace, in the neighborhood of
Compiegne 27 was allotted for their residence or prison: but each
year, in the month of March or May, they were conducted in a
wagon drawn by oxen to the assembly of the Franks, to give
audience to foreign ambassadors, and to ratify the acts of the
mayor of the palace. That domestic officer was become the
minister of the nation and the master of the prince. A public
employment was converted into the patrimony of a private family:
the elder Pepin left a king of mature years under the
guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these feeble
regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his
bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost
dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and
the territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of
the monarch, and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among
these independent chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful
was Eudes, duke of Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of
Gaul usurped the authority, and even the title of king. The
Goths, the Gascons, and the Franks, assembled under the standard
of this Christian hero: he repelled the first invasion of the
Saracens; and Zama, lieutenant of the caliph, lost his army and
his life under the walls of Thoulouse. The ambition of his
successors was stimulated by revenge; they repassed the Pyrenees
with the means and the resolution of conquest. The advantageous
situation which had recommended Narbonne 28 as the first Roman
colony, was again chosen by the Moslems: they claimed the
province of Septimania or Languedoc as a just dependence of the
Spanish monarchy: the vineyards of Gascony and the city of
Bourdeaux were possessed by the sovereign of Damascus and
Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne
to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of Arabia.

25 (return) [ For the invasion of France and the defeat of the
Arabs by Charles Martel, see the Historia Arabum (c. 11, 12, 13,
14) of Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, who had before him
the Christian chronicle of Isidore Pacensis, and the Mahometan
history of Novairi. The Moslems are silent or concise in the
account of their losses; but M Cardonne (tom. i. p. 129, 130,
131) has given a pure and simple account of all that he could
collect from Ibn Halikan, Hidjazi, and an anonymous writer. The
texts of the chronicles of France, and lives of saints, are
inserted in the Collection of Bouquet, (tom. iii.,) and the
Annals of Pagi, who (tom. iii. under the proper years) has
restored the chronology, which is anticipated six years in the
Annals of Baronius. The Dictionary of Bayle (Abderame and Munuza)
has more merit for lively reflection than original research.]

26 (return) [ Eginhart, de Vita Caroli Magni, c. ii. p. 13-78,
edit. Schmink, Utrecht, 1711. Some modern critics accuse the
minister of Charlemagne of exaggerating the weakness of the
Merovingians; but the general outline is just, and the French
reader will forever repeat the beautiful lines of Boileau’s
Lutrin.]

27 (return) [ Mamaccae, on the Oyse, between Compiegne and Noyon,
which Eginhart calls perparvi reditus villam, (see the notes, and
the map of ancient France for Dom. Bouquet’s Collection.)
Compendium, or Compiegne, was a palace of more dignity, (Hadrian.
Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 152,) and that laughing
philosopher, the Abbe Galliani, (Dialogues sur le Commerce des
Bleds,) may truly affirm, that it was the residence of the rois
tres Chretiens en tres chevelus.]

28 (return) [ Even before that colony, A. U. C. 630, (Velleius
Patercul. i. 15,) In the time of Polybius, (Hist. l. iii. p. 265,
edit. Gronov.) Narbonne was a Celtic town of the first eminence,
and one of the most northern places of the known world,
(D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 473.)]

But these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of Abdalraman,
or Abderame, who had been restored by the caliph Hashem to the
wishes of the soldiers and people of Spain. That veteran and
daring commander adjudged to the obedience of the prophet
whatever yet remained of France or of Europe; and prepared to
execute the sentence, at the head of a formidable host, in the
full confidence of surmounting all opposition either of nature or
of man. His first care was to suppress a domestic rebel, who
commanded the most important passes of the Pyrenees: Manuza, a
Moorish chief, had accepted the alliance of the duke of Aquitain;
and Eudes, from a motive of private or public interest, devoted
his beauteous daughter to the embraces of the African
misbeliever. But the strongest fortresses of Cerdagne were
invested by a superior force; the rebel was overtaken and slain
in the mountains; and his widow was sent a captive to Damascus,
to gratify the desires, or more probably the vanity, of the
commander of the faithful. From the Pyrenees, Abderame proceeded
without delay to the passage of the Rhone and the siege of Arles.

An army of Christians attempted the relief of the city: the tombs
of their leaders were yet visible in the thirteenth century; and
many thousands of their dead bodies were carried down the rapid
stream into the Mediterranean Sea. The arms of Abderame were not
less successful on the side of the ocean. He passed without
opposition the Garonne and Dordogne, which unite their waters in
the Gulf of Bourdeaux; but he found, beyond those rivers, the
camp of the intrepid Eudes, who had formed a second army and
sustained a second defeat, so fatal to the Christians, that,
according to their sad confession, God alone could reckon the
number of the slain. The victorious Saracen overran the provinces
of Aquitain, whose Gallic names are disguised, rather than lost,
in the modern appellations of Perigord, Saintonge, and Poitou:
his standards were planted on the walls, or at least before the
gates, of Tours and of Sens; and his detachments overspread the
kingdom of Burgundy as far as the well-known cities of Lyons and
Besançon. The memory of these devastations (for Abderame did not
spare the country or the people) was long preserved by tradition;
and the invasion of France by the Moors or Mahometans affords the
groundwork of those fables, which have been so wildly disfigured
in the romances of chivalry, and so elegantly adorned by the
Italian muse. In the decline of society and art, the deserted
cities could supply a slender booty to the Saracens; their
richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which
they stripped of their ornaments and delivered to the flames: and
the tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours,
forgot their miraculous powers in the defence of their own
sepulchres. 29 A victorious line of march had been prolonged
above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of
the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried
the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of
Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or
Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a
naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the
interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of
Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people
the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. 30

29 (return) [ With regard to the sanctuary of St. Martin of
Tours, Roderic Ximenes accuses the Saracens of the deed. Turonis
civitatem, ecclesiam et palatia vastatione et incendio simili
diruit et consumpsit. The continuator of Fredegarius imputes to
them no more than the intention. Ad domum beatissimi Martini
evertendam destinant. At Carolus, &c. The French annalist was
more jealous of the honor of the saint.]

30 (return) [ Yet I sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosch
would have produced a volume of controversy so elegant and
ingenious as the sermons lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic
professor, at Mr. Bampton’s lecture. His observations on the
character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his
argument, and generally founded in truth and reason. He sustains
the part of a lively and eloquent advocate; and sometimes rises
to the merit of an historian and philosopher.]

From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius and
fortune of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder
Pepin, was content with the titles of mayor or duke of the
Franks; but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings.
In a laborious administration of twenty-four years, he restored
and supported the dignity of the throne, and the rebels of
Germany and Gaul were successively crushed by the activity of a
warrior, who, in the same campaign, could display his banner on
the Elbe, the Rhone, and the shores of the ocean. In the public
danger he was summoned by the voice of his country; and his
rival, the duke of Aquitain, was reduced to appear among the
fugitives and suppliants. “Alas!” exclaimed the Franks, “what a
misfortune! what an indignity! We have long heard of the name and
conquests of the Arabs: we were apprehensive of their attack from
the East; they have now conquered Spain, and invade our country
on the side of the West. Yet their numbers, and (since they have
no buckler) their arms, are inferior to our own.” “If you follow
my advice,” replied the prudent mayor of the palace, “you will
not interrupt their march, nor precipitate your attack. They are
like a torrent, which it is dangerous to stem in its career. The
thirst of riches, and the consciousness of success, redouble
their valor, and valor is of more avail than arms or numbers. Be
patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrance of
wealth. The possession of wealth will divide their councils and
assure your victory.” This subtile policy is perhaps a refinement
of the Arabian writers; and the situation of Charles will suggest
a more narrow and selfish motive of procrastination—the secret
desire of humbling the pride and wasting the provinces of the
rebel duke of Aquitain. It is yet more probable, that the delays
of Charles were inevitable and reluctant. A standing army was
unknown under the first and second race; more than half the
kingdom was now in the hands of the Saracens: according to their
respective situation, the Franks of Neustria and Austrasia were
to conscious or too careless of the impending danger; and the
voluntary aids of the Gepidae and Germans were separated by a
long interval from the standard of the Christian general. No
sooner had he collected his forces, than he sought and found the
enemy in the centre of France, between Tours and Poitiers. His
well-conducted march was covered with a range of hills, and
Abderame appears to have been surprised by his unexpected
presence. The nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, advanced with
equal ardor to an encounter which would change the history of the
world. In the six first days of desultory combat, the horsemen
and archers of the East maintained their advantage: but in the
closer onset of the seventh day, the Orientals were oppressed by
the strength and stature of the Germans, who, with stout hearts
and iron hands, 31 asserted the civil and religious freedom of
their posterity. The epithet of Martel, the Hammer, which has
been added to the name of Charles, is expressive of his weighty
and irresistible strokes: the valor of Eudes was excited by
resentment and emulation; and their companions, in the eye of
history, are the true Peers and Paladins of French chivalry.
After a bloody field, in which Abderame was slain, the Saracens,
in the close of the evening, retired to their camp. In the
disorder and despair of the night, the various tribes of Yemen
and Damascus, of Africa and Spain, were provoked to turn their
arms against each other: the remains of their host were suddenly
dissolved, and each emir consulted his safety by a hasty and
separate retreat. At the dawn of the day, the stillness of a
hostile camp was suspected by the victorious Christians: on the
report of their spies, they ventured to explore the riches of the
vacant tents; but if we except some celebrated relics, a small
portion of the spoil was restored to the innocent and lawful
owners. The joyful tidings were soon diffused over the Catholic
world, and the monks of Italy could affirm and believe that three
hundred and fifty, or three hundred and seventy-five, thousand of
the Mahometans had been crushed by the hammer of Charles, 32
while no more than fifteen hundred Christians were slain in the
field of Tours. But this incredible tale is sufficiently
disproved by the caution of the French general, who apprehended
the snares and accidents of a pursuit, and dismissed his German
allies to their native forests.

The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and
blood, and the most cruel execution is inflicted, not in the
ranks of battle, but on the backs of a flying enemy. Yet the
victory of the Franks was complete and final; Aquitain was
recovered by the arms of Eudes; the Arabs never resumed the
conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven beyond the Pyrenees
by Charles Martel and his valiant race. 33 It might have been
expected that the savior of Christendom would have been
canonized, or at least applauded, by the gratitude of the clergy,
who are indebted to his sword for their present existence. But in
the public distress, the mayor of the palace had been compelled
to apply the riches, or at least the revenues, of the bishops and
abbots, to the relief of the state and the reward of the
soldiers. His merits were forgotten, his sacrilege alone was
remembered, and, in an epistle to a Carlovingian prince, a Gallic
synod presumes to declare that his ancestor was damned; that on
the opening of his tomb, the spectators were affrighted by a
smell of fire and the aspect of a horrid dragon; and that a saint
of the times was indulged with a pleasant vision of the soul and
body of Charles Martel, burning, to all eternity, in the abyss of
hell. 34

31 (return) [ Gens Austriae membrorum pre-eminentia valida, et
gens Germana corde et corpore praestantissima, quasi in ictu
oculi, manu ferrea, et pectore arduo, Arabes extinxerunt,
(Roderic. Toletan. c. xiv.)]

32 (return) [ These numbers are stated by Paul Warnefrid, the
deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis Langobard. l. vi. p. 921, edit.
Grot.,) and Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman church, (in
Vit. Gregorii II.,) who tells a miraculous story of three
consecrated sponges, which rendered invulnerable the French
soldiers, among whom they had been shared It should seem, that in
his letters to the pope, Eudes usurped the honor of the victory,
from which he is chastised by the French annalists, who, with
equal falsehood, accuse him of inviting the Saracens.]

33 (return) [ Narbonne, and the rest of Septimania, was recovered
by Pepin the son of Charles Martel, A.D. 755, (Pagi, Critica,
tom. iii. p. 300.) Thirty-seven years afterwards, it was pillaged
by a sudden inroad of the Arabs, who employed the captives in the
construction of the mosch of Cordova, (De Guignes, Hist. des
Huns, tom. i. p. 354.)]

34 (return) [ This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the
Germanic, the grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed
by the pen of the artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and
signed by the bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen,
(Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 741. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. x.
p. 514-516.) Yet Baronius himself, and the French critics, reject
with contempt this episcopal fiction.]

The loss of an army, or a province, in the Western world, was
less painful to the court of Damascus, than the rise and progress
of a domestic competitor. Except among the Syrians, the caliphs
of the house of Ommiyah had never been the objects of the public
favor. The life of Mahomet recorded their perseverance in
idolatry and rebellion: their conversion had been reluctant,
their elevation irregular and factious, and their throne was
cemented with the most holy and noble blood of Arabia. The best
of their race, the pious Omar, was dissatisfied with his own
title: their personal virtues were insufficient to justify a
departure from the order of succession; and the eyes and wishes
of the faithful were turned towards the line of Hashem, and the
kindred of the apostle of God. Of these the Fatimites were either
rash or pusillanimous; but the descendants of Abbas cherished,
with courage and discretion, the hopes of their rising fortunes.
From an obscure residence in Syria, they secretly despatched
their agents and missionaries, who preached in the Eastern
provinces their hereditary indefeasible right; and Mohammed, the
son of Ali, the son of Abdallah, the son of Abbas, the uncle of
the prophet, gave audience to the deputies of Chorasan, and
accepted their free gift of four hundred thousand pieces of gold.
After the death of Mohammed, the oath of allegiance was
administered in the name of his son Ibrahim to a numerous band of
votaries, who expected only a signal and a leader; and the
governor of Chorasan continued to deplore his fruitless
admonitions and the deadly slumber of the caliphs of Damascus,
till he himself, with all his adherents, was driven from the city
and palace of Meru, by the rebellious arms of Abu Moslem. 35 That
maker of kings, the author, as he is named, of the call of the
Abbassides, was at length rewarded for his presumption of merit
with the usual gratitude of courts. A mean, perhaps a foreign,
extraction could not repress the aspiring energy of Abu Moslem.
Jealous of his wives, liberal of his wealth, prodigal of his own
blood and of that of others, he could boast with pleasure, and
possibly with truth, that he had destroyed six hundred thousand
of his enemies; and such was the intrepid gravity of his mind and
countenance, that he was never seen to smile except on a day of
battle. In the visible separation of parties, the green was
consecrated to the Fatimites; the Ommiades were distinguished by
the white; and the black, as the most adverse, was naturally
adopted by the Abbassides. Their turbans and garments were
stained with that gloomy color: two black standards, on pike
staves nine cubits long, were borne aloft in the van of Abu
Moslem; and their allegorical names of the night and the shadow
obscurely represented the indissoluble union and perpetual
succession of the line of Hashem. From the Indus to the
Euphrates, the East was convulsed by the quarrel of the white and
the black factions: the Abbassides were most frequently
victorious; but their public success was clouded by the personal
misfortune of their chief. The court of Damascus, awakening from
a long slumber, resolved to prevent the pilgrimage of Mecca,
which Ibrahim had undertaken with a splendid retinue, to
recommend himself at once to the favor of the prophet and of the
people. A detachment of cavalry intercepted his march and
arrested his person; and the unhappy Ibrahim, snatched away from
the promise of untasted royalty, expired in iron fetters in the
dungeons of Haran. His two younger brothers, Saffah 3511 and
Almansor, eluded the search of the tyrant, and lay concealed at
Cufa, till the zeal of the people and the approach of his Eastern
friends allowed them to expose their persons to the impatient
public. On Friday, in the dress of a caliph, in the colors of the
sect, Saffah proceeded with religious and military pomp to the
mosch: ascending the pulpit, he prayed and preached as the lawful
successor of Mahomet; and after his departure, his kinsmen bound
a willing people by an oath of fidelity. But it was on the banks
of the Zab, and not in the mosch of Cufa, that this important
controversy was determined. Every advantage appeared to be on the
side of the white faction: the authority of established
government; an army of a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers,
against a sixth part of that number; and the presence and merit
of the caliph Mervan, the fourteenth and last of the house of
Ommiyah. Before his accession to the throne, he had deserved, by
his Georgian warfare, the honorable epithet of the ass of
Mesopotamia; 36 and he might have been ranked amongst the
greatest princes, had not, says Abulfeda, the eternal order
decreed that moment for the ruin of his family; a decree against
which all human fortitude and prudence must struggle in vain. The
orders of Mervan were mistaken, or disobeyed: the return of his
horse, from which he had dismounted on a necessary occasion,
impressed the belief of his death; and the enthusiasm of the
black squadrons was ably conducted by Abdallah, the uncle of his
competitor. After an irretrievab defeat, the caliph escaped to
Mosul; but the colors of the Abbassides were displayed from the
rampart; he suddenly repassed the Tigris, cast a melancholy look
on his palace of Haran, crossed the Euphrates, abandoned the
fortifications of Damascus, and, without halting in Palestine,
pitched his last and fatal camp at Busir, on the banks of the
Nile. 37 His speed was urged by the incessant diligence of
Abdallah, who in every step of the pursuit acquired strength and
reputation: the remains of the white faction were finally
vanquished in Egypt; and the lance, which terminated the life and
anxiety of Mervan, was not less welcome perhaps to the
unfortunate than to the victorious chief. The merciless
inquisition of the conqueror eradicated the most distant branches
of the hostile race: their bones were scattered, their memory was
accursed, and the martyrdom of Hossein was abundantly revenged on
the posterity of his tyrants. Fourscore of the Ommiades, who had
yielded to the faith or clemency of their foes, were invited to a
banquet at Damascus. The laws of hospitality were violated by a
promiscuous massacre: the board was spread over their fallen
bodies; and the festivity of the guests was enlivened by the
music of their dying groans. By the event of the civil war, the
dynasty of the Abbassides was firmly established; but the
Christians only could triumph in the mutual hatred and common
loss of the disciples of Mahomet. 38

35 (return) [ The steed and the saddle which had carried any of
his wives were instantly killed or burnt, lest they should
afterwards be mounted by a male. Twelve hundred mules or camels
were required for his kitchen furniture; and the daily
consumption amounted to three thousand cakes, a hundred sheep,
besides oxen, poultry, &c., (Abul pharagius, Hist. Dynast. p.
140.)]

3511 (return) [ He is called Abdullah or Abul Abbas in the Tarikh
Tebry. Price vol. i. p. 600. Saffah or Saffauh (the Sanguinary)
was a name which be required after his bloody reign, (vol. ii. p.
1.)—M.]

36 (return) [ Al Hemar. He had been governor of Mesopotamia, and
the Arabic proverb praises the courage of that warlike breed of
asses who never fly from an enemy. The surname of Mervan may
justify the comparison of Homer, (Iliad, A. 557, &c.,) and both
will silence the moderns, who consider the ass as a stupid and
ignoble emblem, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 558.)]

37 (return) [ Four several places, all in Egypt, bore the name of
Busir, or Busiris, so famous in Greek fable. The first, where
Mervan was slain was to the west of the Nile, in the province of
Fium, or Arsinoe; the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic
nome; the third near the pyramids; the fourth, which was
destroyed by Dioclesian, (see above, vol. ii. p. 130,) in the
Thebais. I shall here transcribe a note of the learned and
orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Aegypti superioris
urbibus Busiri Coptoque arma sumpsisse Christiani, libertatemque
de religione sentiendi defendisse, sed succubuisse quo in bello
Coptus et Busiris diruta, et circa Esnam magna strages edita.
Bellum narrant sed causam belli ignorant scriptores Byzantini,
alioqui Coptum et Busirim non rebellasse dicturi, sed causam
Christianorum suscepturi, (Not. 211, p. 100.) For the geography
of the four Busirs, see Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. p. 9, vers.
Michaelis, Gottingae, 1776, in 4to.,) Michaelis, (Not. 122-127,
p. 58-63,) and D’Anville, (Memoire sua l’Egypte, p. 85, 147,
205.)]

38 (return) [ See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 136-145,)
Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 392, vers. Pocock,) Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 109-121,) Abulpharagius, (Hist. Dynast. p.
134-140,) Roderic of Toledo, (Hist. Arabum, c. xviii. p. 33,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 356, 357, who speaks of the
Abbassides) and the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, in the articles
Ommiades, Abbassides, Moervan, Ibrahim, Saffah, Abou Moslem.]

Yet the thousands who were swept away by the sword of war might
have been speedily retrieved in the succeeding generation, if the
consequences of the revolution had not tended to dissolve the
power and unity of the empire of the Saracens. In the
proscription of the Ommiades, a royal youth of the name of
Abdalrahman alone escaped the rage of his enemies, who hunted the
wandering exile from the banks of the Euphrates to the valleys of
Mount Atlas. His presence in the neighborhood of Spain revived
the zeal of the white faction. The name and cause of the
Abbassides had been first vindicated by the Persians: the West
had been pure from civil arms; and the servants of the abdicated
family still held, by a precarious tenure, the inheritance of
their lands and the offices of government. Strongly prompted by
gratitude, indignation, and fear, they invited the grandson of
the caliph Hashem to ascend the throne of his ancestors; and, in
his desperate condition, the extremes of rashness and prudence
were almost the same. The acclamations of the people saluted his
landing on the coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful
struggle, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, and was
the father of the Ommiades of Spain, who reigned above two
hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees. 39 He
slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbassides, who had invaded
his dominions with a fleet and army: the head of Ala, in salt and
camphire, was suspended by a daring messenger before the palace
of Mecca; and the caliph Almansor rejoiced in his safety, that he
was removed by seas and lands from such a formidable adversary.
Their mutual designs or declarations of offensive war evaporated
without effect; but instead of opening a door to the conquest of
Europe, Spain was dissevered from the trunk of the monarchy,
engaged in perpetual hostility with the East, and inclined to
peace and friendship with the Christian sovereigns of
Constantinople and France. The example of the Ommiades was
imitated by the real or fictitious progeny of Ali, the Edrissites
of Mauritania, and the more powerful fatimites of Africa and
Egypt. In the tenth century, the chair of Mahomet was disputed by
three caliphs or commanders of the faithful, who reigned at
Bagdad, Cairoan, and Cordova, excommunicating each other, and
agreed only in a principle of discord, that a sectary is more
odious and criminal than an unbeliever. 40

39 (return) [ For the revolution of Spain, consult Roderic of
Toledo, (c. xviii. p. 34, &c.,) the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana,
(tom. ii. p. 30, 198,) and Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de
l’Espagne, tom. i. p. 180-197, 205, 272, 323, &c.)]

40 (return) [ I shall not stop to refute the strange errors and
fancies of Sir William Temple (his Works, vol. iii. p. 371-374,
octavo edition) and Voltaire (Histoire Generale, c. xxviii. tom.
ii. p. 124, 125, edition de Lausanne) concerning the division of
the Saracen empire. The mistakes of Voltaire proceeded from the
want of knowledge or reflection; but Sir William was deceived by
a Spanish impostor, who has framed an apocryphal history of the
conquest of Spain by the Arabs.]

Mecca was the patrimony of the line of Hashem, yet the Abbassides
were never tempted to reside either in the birthplace or the city
of the prophet. Damascus was disgraced by the choice, and
polluted with the blood, of the Ommiades; and, after some
hesitation, Almansor, the brother and successor of Saffah, laid
the foundations of Bagdad, 41 the Imperial seat of his posterity
during a reign of five hundred years. 42 The chosen spot is on
the eastern bank of the Tigris, about fifteen miles above the
ruins of Modain: the double wall was of a circular form; and such
was the rapid increase of a capital, now dwindled to a provincial
town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by
eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and
the adjacent villages. In this city of peace, 43 amidst the
riches of the East, the Abbassides soon disdained the abstinence
and frugality of the first caliphs, and aspired to emulate the
magnificence of the Persian kings. After his wars and buildings,
Almansor left behind him in gold and silver about thirty millions
sterling: 44 and this treasure was exhausted in a few years by
the vices or virtues of his children. His son Mahadi, in a single
pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold. A
pious and charitable motive may sanctify the foundation of
cisterns and caravanseras, which he distributed along a measured
road of seven hundred miles; but his train of camels, laden with
snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to
refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal banquet. 45 The
courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson
Almamon, who gave away four fifths of the income of a province, a
sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold dinars, before he
drew his foot from the stirrup. At the nuptials of the same
prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on
the head of the bride, 46 and a lottery of lands and houses
displayed the capricious bounty of fortune. The glories of the
court were brightened, rather than impaired, in the decline of
the empire, and a Greek ambassador might admire, or pity, the
magnificence of the feeble Moctader. “The caliph’s whole army,”
says the historian Abulfeda, “both horse and foot, was under
arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty
thousand men. His state officers, the favorite slaves, stood near
him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and
gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of
them white, the remainder black. The porters or door-keepers were
in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the most superb
decorations, were seen swimming upon the Tigris. Nor was the
palace itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight
thousand pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of
which were of silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the
floor were twenty-two thousand. A hundred lions were brought out,
with a keeper to each lion. 47 Among the other spectacles of rare
and stupendous luxury was a tree of gold and silver spreading
into eighteen large branches, on which, and on the lesser boughs,
sat a variety of birds made of the same precious metals, as well
as the leaves of the tree. While the machinery affected
spontaneous motions, the several birds warbled their natural
harmony. Through this scene of magnificence, the Greek ambassador
was led by the vizier to the foot of the caliph’s throne.” 48 In
the West, the Ommiades of Spain supported, with equal pomp, the
title of commander of the faithful. Three miles from Cordova, in
honor of his favorite sultana, the third and greatest of the
Abdalrahmans constructed the city, palace, and gardens of Zehra.
Twenty-five years, and above three millions sterling, were
employed by the founder: his liberal taste invited the artists of
Constantinople, the most skilful sculptors and architects of the
age; and the buildings were sustained or adorned by twelve
hundred columns of Spanish and African, of Greek and Italian
marble. The hall of audience was incrusted with gold and pearls,
and a great basin in the centre was surrounded with the curious
and costly figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion
of the gardens, one of these basins and fountains, so delightful
in a sultry climate, was replenished not with water, but with the
purest quicksilver. The seraglio of Abdalrahman, his wives,
concubines, and black eunuchs, amounted to six thousand three
hundred persons: and he was attended to the field by a guard of
twelve thousand horse, whose belts and cimeters were studded with
gold. 49

41 (return) [ The geographer D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre,
p. 121-123,) and the Orientalist D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque, p.
167, 168,) may suffice for the knowledge of Bagdad. Our
travellers, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. p. 688-698,) Tavernier,
(tom. i. p. 230-238,) Thevenot, (part ii. p. 209-212,) Otter,
(tom. i. p. 162-168,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. ii. p.
239-271,) have seen only its decay; and the Nubian geographer,
(p. 204,) and the travelling Jew, Benjamin of Tuleda
(Itinerarium, p. 112-123, a Const. l’Empereur, apud Elzevir,
1633,) are the only writers of my acquaintance, who have known
Bagdad under the reign of the Abbassides.]

42 (return) [ The foundations of Bagdad were laid A. H. 145, A.D.
762. Mostasem, the last of the Abbassides, was taken and put to
death by the Tartars, A. H. 656, A.D. 1258, the 20th of
February.]

43 (return) [ Medinat al Salem, Dar al Salem. Urbs pacis, or, as
it is more neatly compounded by the Byzantine writers,
(Irenopolis.) There is some dispute concerning the etymology of
Bagdad, but the first syllable is allowed to signify a garden in
the Persian tongue; the garden of Dad, a Christian hermit, whose
cell had been the only habitation on the spot.]

44 (return) [ Reliquit in aerario sexcenties millies mille
stateres. et quater et vicies millies mille aureos aureos.
Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 126. I have reckoned the gold pieces
at eight shillings, and the proportion to the silver as twelve to
one. But I will never answer for the numbers of Erpenius; and the
Latins are scarcely above the savages in the language of
arithmetic.]

45 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 530. Abulfeda, p. 154. Nivem Meccam
apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut rarissime visam.]

46 (return) [ Abulfeda (p. 184, 189) describes the splendor and
liberality of Almamon. Milton has alluded to this Oriental
custom:—

Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings Barbaric pearls and gold.

I have used the modern word lottery to express the word of the
Roman emperors, which entitled to some prize the person who
caught them, as they were thrown among the crowd.]

47 (return) [ When Bell of Antermony (Travels, vol. i. p. 99)
accompanied the Russian ambassador to the audience of the
unfortunate Shah Hussein of Persia, two lions were introduced, to
denote the power of the king over the fiercest animals.]

48 (return) [ Abulfeda, p. 237. D’Herbelot, p. 590. This embassy
was received at Bagdad, A. H. 305, A.D. 917. In the passage of
Abulfeda, I have used, with some variations, the English
translation of the learned and amiable Mr. Harris of Salisbury,
(Philological Enquiries p. 363, 364.)]

49 (return) [ Cardonne, Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne,
tom. i. p. 330-336. A just idea of the taste and architecture of
the Arabians of Spain may be conceived from the description and
plates of the Alhambra of Grenada, (Swinburne’s Travels, p.
171-188.)]