But, before we give any account of the revolutions which took place among the already existing powers of Western Europe, it will be well to describe the geographical changes which were caused by the appearance of absolutely new actors on two sides of the Empire. ♦Roman province in Spain recovered by the Goths. 534-572.♦ One point however may be noticed here, as standing apart from the general course of events, namely, that the Roman province in Spain was won gradually back by the West-Goths. ♦616-624.♦ The inland cities, as Cordova, were hardly kept forty years, and the whole of the Imperial possessions in Spain were lost during the reign of Heraclius. Thus the great dominion which Justinian had won back in the West, important as were its historical results, was itself of very short duration; a large part of Italy was lost almost as soon as it was won, and the recovered dominion in Spain did not abide more than ninety years.
But meanwhile, in the course of the seventh century, nations which had hitherto been unknown or unimportant began to play a great part in history and greatly to change the face of the map. These new powers fall under two heads; those who appeared on the northern and those who appeared on the eastern frontier of the Empire. The nations who appeared on the North were, like the early Teutonic invaders of the Empire, ready to act, if partly as conquerors, partly also as disciples; those who appeared on the East were the champions of an utterly different system in religion and everything else. In short, the old rivalry of the East and West now takes a distinctly aggressive form on the part of the East. ♦Wars between Rome and Persia.♦ As long as the Sassanid dynasty lasted, Rome and Persia still continued their old rivalry on nearly equal terms. The long wars between the two Empires made little difference in their boundaries. ♦Wars of Chosroes and Heraclius, 603-628.♦ In the last stage of their warfare Chosroes took Jerusalem and Antioch, and encamped at Chalkêdôn. Heraclius pressed his eastern victories beyond the boundaries of the Empire under Trajan. But even these great campaigns made no lasting difference in the map, except so far as, by weakening Rome and Persia alike, they paved the way for the greatest change of all. ♦Extension of the Roman power on the Euxine.♦ More important to geography was a change which took place at somewhat earlier time when, during the reign of Justinian, the Roman power was extended on the Eastern side of the Euxine in Colchis or Lazica. ♦The Arabian vassals of Rome and Persia.♦ The southern borders of each Empire were to some extent protected by the dominion of dependent Arabian kings, the Ghassanides being vassals of Rome, and the Lachmites to the east of them being vassals of Persia. But a change came presently which altogether overthrew the Persian kingdom, which deprived the Roman Empire of its Eastern, Egyptian, and African provinces, and which gave both the Empire and the Teutonic kingdoms of the West an enemy of a kind altogether different from any against whom they hitherto had to strive.
♦Rise of the Saracens.♦
The cause which wrought such abiding changes was the rise of the Saracens under Mahomet and his first followers. A new nation, that of the Arabs, now became dominant in a large part of the lands which had been part of the Roman Empire, as well as in lands far beyond its boundaries. ♦Arabia united under Mahomet, 622-632.♦ The scattered tribes of Arabia were first gathered together into a single power by Mahomet himself, and under his successors they undertook to spread the Mahometan religion wherever their swords could carry it. And, with the Mahometan religion, they carried also the Arabic language, and what we may call Eastern civilization as opposed to Western. A strife, in short, now begins between Aryan and Semitic man. Rome and Persia, with all their differences, were both of them Aryan powers. ♦Conquests of the Saracens.♦ The most amazing thing is the extraordinary speed with which the Saracens pressed their conquests at the expense of both Rome and Persia, forming a marked contrast to the slow advance both of Roman conquest and of Teutonic settlement. In the course of less than eighty years, the Mahometan conquerors formed a dominion greater than that of Rome, and, for a short time, the will of the Caliph of the Prophet was obeyed from the Ocean to lands beyond the Indus. ♦Loss of the Eastern provinces of Rome. 632-639.♦ In a few campaigns the Empire lost all its possessions beyond Mount Tauros; that is, it lost one of the three great divisions of the Empire, that namely in which neither Greek nor Roman civilization had ever thoroughly taken root.
While the Roman Empire was thus dismembered, the rival power of Persia was not merely dismembered, but utterly overwhelmed. ♦Saracen conquest of Persia. 632-651.♦ The Persian nationality was again, as in the days of the Parthians, held down under a foreign power, to revive yet again ages later. But the Saracen power was very far from merely taking the place of its Parthian and Persian predecessors. The mission of the followers of Mahomet was a mission of universal conquest, and that mission they so far carried out as altogether to overthrow the exclusive dominion of Rome in her own Mediterranean. Under Justinian, if the Imperial possession of the Mediterranean coast was not absolutely continuous, the small exceptions in Africa, Spain, and Gaul in no way interfered with the maritime supremacy of the Empire, and Gaul and Spain, even where they were not Roman, were at least Christian. ♦Saracen conquest of Africa. 647-711.♦ But now a gradual advance of sixty-four years annexed the Roman dominions in Africa to the Mahometan dominion. ♦Of Spain. 711-714.♦ Thence the Saracens passed into Spain, and found the West-Gothic kingdom an easier prey than the Roman provinces. Within three years after the final conquest of Africa, the whole peninsula was conquered, save where the Christian still held out in the inaccessible mountain fastnesses. ♦Saracen provinces in Gaul, 713-755.♦ The Saracen power was even carried beyond the Pyrenees into the province of Septimania, the remnant of the Gaulish dominion of the West-Gothic kings. Narbonne, Arles, Nîmes, all became for a while Saracen cities.
♦Effects of Saracen conquest.♦
In this way, of the three continents round the Mediterranean, Rome lost all her possessions in Africa, while both in Europe and Asia she had now a neighbour and an enemy of quite another kind from any which she had had before. The Teutonic conquerors, if conquerors, had been also disciples; they became part of the Latin world. The Persian, though his rivalry was religious as well as political, was still merely a rival, fighting along a single line of frontier. But every province that was conquered by the Saracens was utterly lopped away; it became the possession of men altogether alien and hostile in race, language, manners, and religion. A large part of the Roman world passed from Aryan and Christian to Semitic and Mahometan dominion. ♦Different fates of the Eastern, Latin, and Greek provinces.♦ But the essential differences among the three main parts of the Empire now showed themselves very clearly. The Eastern provinces, where either Roman or Greek life was always an exotic, fell away at the first touch. ♦647-709.♦ Africa, as being so greatly Romanized, held out for sixty years. The provinces of Asia Minor, now thoroughly Greek, were often ravaged, but never conquered. Spain and Septimania were far more easily conquered than Africa—a sign perhaps that the West-Gothic rule was still felt as foreign by the Roman inhabitants.
♦Greatest extent of Saracen provinces.♦
With the conquest of Spain the undivided Saracenic Empire, the dominion of the single Caliph, reached its greatest extent in the three continents. Detached conquests in Europe were made long after, but on the whole the Saracen power went back. ♦750.♦ Forty years later they lost Sind, their furthest possession to the East. ♦Separation of Spain. 755.♦ Five years later Spain became the seat of a rival dynasty, which after a while grew into a rival Caliphate. In the same year the Saracen dominion for the first time went back in Europe. ♦Battle of Tours. 732.
Frankish conquest of Septimania. 755.♦ The battle of Tours answers to the repulse of Attila at Châlons; it did not make changes, but hindered them; but before long the one province which the Saracens held beyond the Pyrenees, that of Septimania or Gothia, was won from them by the Franks.