Leo, third of the name, who figures in history usually as the Isaurian, or the Iconoclast, was fully aware of the intention of the Arabs to attempt the reduction of Constantinople; he, therefore, made every preparation which military experience could suggest, or engineering skill devise, to give them a fitting reception. In July, 717, after the reduction of Pergamus, Moslemah transported his army from Asia to Europe, across the Hellespont or Dardanelles, at the most narrow part of the passage (from Abydos to Sestos); and thence, wheeling his troops round Gallipoli, Heraclea, and the other Thracian cities of the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara, he invested Constantinople on the land side. An offer made by the Greeks, to purchase the withdrawal of the besieging forces by the payment of a piece of gold for each inhabitant of the city, was contemptuously rejected; and Moslemah pushed on the operations of the siege with the greatest vigor, but without any corresponding success, the Isaurian repelling every attack with a bravery and determination, such as the Saracens had but little expected to see displayed by the apparently effete Greeks. Moslemah’s hopes were swelled high, however, by the arrival of the navies of Syria and Egypt, to the number of 1800 vessels,[68] with 50,000 men on board. The Saracen commander fixed a night for a general assault by land and sea, and proudly boasted that by the morning the city should be his. When that morning came, the Greek fire had done its work; and scarce a vestige remained of the proud fleet, or of those who had manned it; and ten thousand Arabs and Persians slain, bore witness how fiercely Moslemah had assaulted the defences of Byzantium, and how bravely and vigorously the Isaurian and his gallant troops had repulsed the hostile multitudes. From this check, Moslemah essayed in vain to recover: he became soon painfully conscious that the conviction of invincibility, which had hitherto so materially contributed to the great successes of the Saracen arms, was, if not altogether destroyed, at least considerably shaken. His assaults were now repulsed with apparent ease almost, and all his attempts at surprises were defeated by the ever watchful Isaurian. One hope still remained to restore the ancient supremacy of the Moslem arms: Khalif Soliman had gathered a formidable host of Arabians, Persians, and Turks, and was preparing to lead them to his brother’s assistance. The eyes of both the besiegers and the besieged were anxiously turned towards the Khalif’s camp near Chalcis (or Kinnisrin) in Syria; and Leo was endeavoring, by gifts and promises, to attract an army of Bulgarians from the Danube to pit them against the Saracens; and thus, perchance, to free the Byzantine empire from all danger, by the mutual destruction of its Barbarian foes. But it so happened that the Commander of the Faithful could not command his appetite; a meal of two scores or so of eggs, and a matter of six or seven pounds of figs, followed up by a dessert of marrow and sugar, proved too much for even his well-seasoned stomach; he paid with his life the penalty of his gluttony (717). He had appointed his cousin, Omar Ben Abdelaziz, to succeed him in the khalifate. Omar, second of the name, was a most estimable man, but a very indifferent prince; much fitter, indeed, to be the head of a monastery of ascetics, than of a powerful empire. The first act of his reign was to order the cessation of the Syrian armaments, which might have been a wise measure, had it been accompanied by the recall of Moslemah and his forces from the siege of Constantinople. His neglect of the latter measure entailed upon the unfortunate natives of the sultry climes of Egypt and Arabia, the unspeakable hardships of a most severe winter, passed in a frozen camp. In spring (718), he made an effort to relieve their wants, and to fill up the gaps which cold, famine, and disease had made in the ranks of the besieging army. Two numerous fleets were sent on this errand, one from Alexandria, the other from the ports of Africa. They succeeded, indeed, in landing the stores and reinforcements, but they found it as vain to contend against the Greek fire, as the armada which, the year before, had so proudly threatened to erase the Roman name from among the nations. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians had been bribed into an alliance with the Greek emperor, and these savage auxiliaries proved formidable antagonists to the exhausted and half-starved Asiatics. Still the intrepid Moslemah was not dismayed, and although he was compelled to relinquish all further attempts upon the defences of the city, he defeated, on his part, all attacks made on his camp: until, at length, Khalif Omar sent him the welcome order to raise the siege, (August, 718). The retreat of the Arabian forces was effected without delay or molestation; but of the fleet, tempests destroyed what the fire of Callinicus had spared, and of 700 vessels that had proudly sailed forth, five only returned to the port of Alexandria, to tell the sad tale of the disastrous loss of their companions. Byzantium was saved, and the victorious Isaurian found himself at liberty to prepare for his meditated warfare against canvas, wood, brass, and marble.
The good and pious Omar distinguished his reign chiefly by the abolition or “repeal” of the curse against Ali and his adherents which had for nearly sixty years been daily pronounced from the pulpits (719). By this act of simple justice, and by his somewhat hasty and incautious attempts to reform the fearful abuses which had crept into the administration of the empire under his predecessors, he excited the determined hostility of his own family, and of the Vizirs and high officers of state. A dose of poison removed him (720). His successor, Yezid II., had none of his virtues, but most of the vices of his other predecessors of the line of Ommiyah. It was in the reign of this prince, and in that of his successor, that the family Hashem, in two of its branches, viz. the Alides, or Fatimites, i.e. the descendants of Ali and Fatima, and the Abassides, that is the descendants of Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, began to urge their claims to the throne of the Khalifa. Indeed, Mohammed, the great grandson of Abbas, was secretly acknowledged as the true commander of the Faithful, by a considerable body of the inhabitants of Chorasan, and his son Ibrahim was even enabled to hoist the black flag of the Abassides[69] in that province; the gloomy banner was triumphantly borne onward by Abu Moslem, the intrepid and invincible champion of the Abassides, the King-maker of the East, but, who was fated at last, like the English King-maker, to experience the usual gratitude of princes. From the Indus to the Euphrates, the East was convulsed by the fearful struggle between the white and the black factions, and the fairest provinces of Asia were deluged with blood to void the ancient quarrel between Ommiyah and Hashem, and to decide which of two equally vile races of despots had the better right to trample on God’s fair creation. The struggle terminated for a time in 750, with the overthrow and almost total extirpation of the Ommiades—but of this hereafter.
Yezid died in 722 or 723, of grief for the death of a favorite concubine. He was succeeded by his brother Hesham, a prince not altogether destitute of good qualities. Hesham had to contend against the Fatimite Zeid, the grandson of Hassan, who was, however, speedily overcome, and had to pay with his life the penalty of his ambition. The struggle against the more successful Abassides has been mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
After Musa’s departure from Spain, and the murder of his son Abdelaziz, Ajub was proclaimed by the Arabian and Moorish troops, governor of the Spanish peninsula; he fixed his residence at Cordova. Under him and his more immediate successors numerous colonies came over to Spain from various parts of the Saracen dominions in Asia and Africa; of these the royal legion of Damascus was planted at Cordova; that of Emesa at Seville; that of Chalcis at Jaen; that of Palestine at Algezire and Medina Sidonia. The Egyptian bands were permitted to share with the original conquerors their establishments of Murcia and Lisbon. The immigrants from Yemen and Persia were located round Toledo, and in the inland country; and ten thousand horsemen of Syria and Irak, the children of the purest and most noble Arabian tribes, settled in the fertile seats of Grenada.[70]
Ajub’s successor in the government of Spain, El Horr Ben Abderrahman resolved to annex to the dominions under his sway the Gallic province of Septimania or Languedoc, of which the eastern part, with Narbonne and Carcassone, was still remaining in the hands of the Visigoths; the western part, Aquitaine and Thoulouse having been severed from the Gothic kingdom in 508, by Clovis. But he was defeated and driven back by the Christians; in consequence of the ill-success of his operations, the Khalif removed him from the command, and named El Zama governor in his stead. That bold and skilful general speedily succeeded in reducing the whole of the Narbonnese province (720); whence he marched into Aquitaine, and laid siege to Thoulouse. Here he found a more formidable foe to encounter—the Franks, who were ultimately to check the further advance of Islam and its followers into the fairest provinces of Europe. The history of that nation, and of its successful leader against the Saracen invaders, forms the subject of the second part of this volume.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Khalifet Resul Allah, i.e. lieutenant, or representative of the prophet of God.
[44] Omar was the first to assume the additional title of Emir al Mumenin, i.e. prince, or commander, of the faithful.
[45] Jabalah had embraced the religion of Islam. On the occasion of the pilgrimage to Mecca, the irascible prince had dealt an Arabian, who had accidentally trod on the skirt of his long robe, a severe blow with his fist, which broke the bridge of the nose of the assaulted man. The Khalif Omar having demanded satisfaction for the aggrieved Moslem, and threatened the proud Gassanide chief with the application of the lex talionis, Jabalah, feeling highly indignant at the notion, fled, and returned to the profession of the Christian faith.
[46] Yezdegerd fled finally to the territory of Tergana, on the Jaxartes. In an attempt which he made in 651, to invade his lost empire at the head of some Turkish tribes, he met his death, it would appear, at the hands of his barbarian allies. One of the daughters of Yezdegerd married Hassan, the son of Ali, and the other, Mohammed, the son of Abu Bekr.