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66

66

CHAP. eyes round the field. Where," said he, "is "our general? "In his tent." "Is the tent "a station for the general of the Moslems ?" Abdallah represented with a blush the importance of his own life, and the temptation that was held forth by the Roman prefect. Retort," said Zobeir, "on the infidels their ungenerous attempt. Proclaim through the ranks, that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand pieces "of gold." To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the caliph intrusted the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favour of the Saracens. Supplying by activity and arti fice the deficiency of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents, while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the enemy, till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled, their armour was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the encounter of the ensuing day. On a sudden, the charge was sounded; the Arabian camp poured forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors; and the long line of tne Greeks and Africans was surprised, assaulted, overturned, by new squadrons of the faithful, who, to the eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels descending from the sky. The prefect himself was slain by the hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and

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death, was surrounded and made prisoner; CHAP. and the fugitives involved in their disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the sabres and lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred and fifty miles to the south of Carthage; a gentle declivity is watered by a running stream, and shaded by a grove of juniper trees; and in the ruins of a triumphal arch, a portico, and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet admire the magnificence of the Romans. After the fall of this opulent city, the provincials and barbarians implored on all sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be flattered by offers of tribute or professions of faith but his losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease, prevented a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a campaign of fifteen months, retreated to the confines of Egypt, with the captives and the wealth of their African expedition. The caliph's fifth was granted to a favourite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the state was doubly injured by this fallacious transaction, if each foot soldier had shared one thousand, and each horseman three thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder. The author of the death of Gregory was expected to have claim.

Saw's Travels, p. 118-119.

f Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat hæc, et mira donatio; quaudoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex ærario prius ablatos ærariopræestabat, (Anual Moslem. p. 78). Elmacin (in his cloudy version, p. 39) seems to report the same job. When the Arabs besieged the paace of Othman, it stood high in their catalogue of grievances

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CHAP. ed the most precious reward of the victory: from his silence it might be presumed that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and exclamations of the prefect's daughter at the sight of Zobeir revealed the valour and modesty of that gallant soldier. The unfortunate virgin was offered, and almost rejected, as a slave, by her father's murderer, who coolly declared that his sword was consecrated to the service of religion; and that he laboured for a recompence far above the charms of mortal beauty, or the riches of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper, was the honourable commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the success of his arms. The companions, the chiefs, and the people, were assembled in the mosch of Medina, to hear the interesting narrative of Zobeir; and, as the orator forgot nothing except the merit of his own counsels and actions, the name of Abdallah was joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of Caled and Amrou.

Progress

of the Sa

Africa,

A. D. 655689.

The western conquests of the Saracens were racens in suspended near twenty years, till the dissentions were composed by the establishment of the house of Ommiyah: and the caliph Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the Africans themselves. The successors of Heraclius had been informed of the tribute which they had been compelled to stipulate with the Arabs;

เ Επεσράτευσαν Σαρακηνοί την Αφρικην, και συμβαλοντες τῷ τυραννῳ Γρηγορίῳ τε τον τρέπεσι και τις συν αυτω κτείνεσι και ςοιχησαντες φορες μετα των Αφίων gav. Theophan. Chronograph. p. 285, edit. Paris. His chronology is loose and inaccurate.

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but instead of being moved to pity and relieve CHAP. their distress, they imposed, as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount. The ears of the Byzantine ministers were shut against the complaints of their poverty and ruin their despair was reduced to prefer the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and military power, provoked the sectaries, and even the catholics, of the Roman province to abjure the religion as well as the authority of their tyrants. The first lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just renown, subdued an important city, defeated an army of thirty thousand Greeks, swept away fourscore thousand captives, and enriched with their spoils the bold adventurers of Syria and Egypt." But the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due to his successor Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many thousand barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is it necessary, to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The interior regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious armies and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or Numidia, fourscore thousand of the

Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293) inserts the vague rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western conquests of the Arabs. And I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis Langobard. I. v. c. 13), that at this time they sent a fleet from Alex · andria into the Sicilian and African seas.

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CHAP. natives might assemble in arms; but the number of three hundred and sixty towns is incompatible with the ignorance or decay of husbandry; and a circumference of three leagues will be justified by the ruins of Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland country. As we approach the sea-coast, the well known cities of Bugia* and Tangier' define the more certain limits of the Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous age, is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might have supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence. The remote position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier, have been decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the figurative expressions of the latter, that the walls were constructed of brass, and that the roofs were covered with gold and silver, may be interpreted as the emblems of strength and opulence. The province of Mauritania Tingitana," which assumed the

iSee Novairi, (apud Otter, p. 118); Leo Africanus, (fol. 81, verso), who reckons only cinque citta è infinite casal; Marmol, (Description de l'Afrique, tom. iii, p. 33), and Shaw, (Travels, p. 57, 65-68).

* Leo African. fol. 58, verso, 59, recto. Marmol, tom. ii, p. 415. Shaw, p. 43.

m

Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol. tom. ii, p. 228.

Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre fortita, parvis oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris melior et segnitie gentis obscura. Pomponius Mela, i, 5; iii, 10. Mela deserves the more credit, since his own Phoenician ancestors had migrated from Tingitana to Spain, (see, in ii, 6, a passage of that geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius, and the most virulent of critics, James Grovinius),