Classic Souvenirs of Sicily—Its Great Natural Advantages—It becomes the Stronghold of the Papacy—Invasion of the Arabs—They besiege Syracuse—Strength of that City—Failure of the Enterprise—Capture of Palermo—Rapid Progress of the Moslems—Condition of Italy—Arab Alliance with Naples—Messina taken—Betrayal of Castrogiovanni—Rout of the Greeks near Syracuse—Feuds of the Conquerors—Their Successes in Italy—Second Siege of Syracuse—The City is stormed and destroyed by Ibn-Mohammed—Peril of Rome—Appearance of the Normans in the South of Europe—They invade Sicily—Siege of Palermo—Subjection of the Island—Influence of the Moslems over their Conquerors—General Condition of Sicily—Its Civilization—Palermo and its Environs—Science, Art, and Literature—The Great Work of Edrisi—Arab Occupation of Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta.
The island of Sicily, by reason of its geographical position, its extraordinary fertility, and its commercial advantages, was one of the most renowned and coveted domains of the ancient world. Its situation, near the centre of the Mediterranean, afforded rare facilities for participation in the trade and enjoyment of the culture of those polished nations whose shores were washed by that famous sea. Its soil yielded, with insignificant labor, the choicest products of both the temperate and the torrid zones. Its coast was provided with numerous and commodious harbors. That of Messina permitted vessels of the heaviest tonnage to discharge their cargoes in security at her quays. Those of Syracuse and Palermo were double, for the use of men-of-war and merchantmen, as were the port of Tyre and the Kothon of Carthage. The Phœnicians, at a period far anterior to any mentioned in history, had established and maintained important trading stations at points subsequently marked by the erection of vast and flourishing cities. Doric and Ionic colonists, in their turn, carried thither the elegant luxury and fastidious tastes which distinguished the finished civilization of antiquity. This mysterious island, where were manifested some of the most appalling and inexplicable phenomena of nature, was the home of frightful monsters, the scene of dire enchantments, the inspiration of Homeric fable and mythological legend. Here was the haunt of the dreaded Cyclops. A short distance from its shores were practised the infernal arts of the beauteous but vindictive Circe. Here passed the Argonauts on their triumphant return from Colchis. To the Greek succeeded the Carthaginian, who might assert, with no little show of justice, a claim to the inheritance of his Phœnician ancestors. Next came the mighty and resistless supremacy of Rome. Sicily was one of the first, as it was among the richest, of the provinces early acquired by her arms. It long shared with Egypt the honorable distinction of being one of the granaries of Italy. The great resources of the island in the days of the Republic are indicated by the value of the spoils appropriated by the avarice of a rapacious governor. The corrupt accumulations of Verres, during the course of his magistracy, amounted to forty million sesterces. Besides the money of which he plundered the unfortunate dependents of the Republic are enumerated statues, paintings, bronzes, utensils sacred to the service of the gods, the ornaments of the altars, the costly offerings with which the affectionate gratitude of the pious and the opulent had enriched her magnificent temples. In intellectual advancement Sicily kept well abreast of her enlightened neighbors. The choicest works of the Attic and of the Roman muse were read with delight by the polished society of her cities. The masterpieces of Aristophanes and Terence were enacted with applause in her spacious theatres, resplendent with many colored marbles and decorations of beaten gold. The intimate social and commercial relations maintained with the cities of Magna Græcia aided, in no inconsiderable degree, the development of Sicilian civilization. The citizens of Messina and Palermo could perhaps claim a common origin with the refined inhabitants of Crotona and Tarentum.
Thus had Sicily, by her amalgamation of widely different races and through her political affiliations, inherited all the noblest traditions of antiquity, all the maxims of Oriental philosophy, of Grecian culture, of Phœnician enterprise, and of Roman power. With her history are associated the names of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, of Pyrrhus and Marcellus, of Dionysius and Archimedes. But long before the period of Byzantine degeneracy so fatal to the Empire, her prosperity had greatly declined. Even in the time of the Cæsars the evils of a venal and rapacious administration had been felt in the imposition of onerous taxes, and the consequent and inevitable decay of agriculture. Insurrections were common, and characterized by all the atrocities of anarchy. The harvests were wantonly destroyed. The villas of the Roman nobles, whose extensive domains embraced the larger portion of the arable land, were given to the flames. Bands of robbers roamed at will through the deserted settlements. The cities were not infrequently stormed and plundered. The tillage of the soil was no longer safe or profitable. Extensive tracts of territory, whose extraordinary and varied productiveness had formerly astonished the stranger, were abandoned to pasturage, an unfailing sign of national decadence. The care of the flocks was committed to slaves, whose savage aspect and brutal habits proclaimed their barbarian lineage. Clothed in skins and armed with rude weapons, they were a menace alike to the industrious citizen and the belated wayfarer. No wages or sustenance was bestowed upon these outlaws, who were expected and encouraged to supply by acts of violence the necessaries denied by the neglect and parsimony of their masters. Others, whose ferocious temper and habitual insubordination demanded restraint, labored from early dawn in fetters, and were confined in filthy dungeons during the night. The most shocking crimes were perpetrated with impunity. The spoils which had escaped the robber could not be rescued from the vigilant perquisitions of the farmer of the revenue. The tax upon grain amounted to twenty-five per cent., and the impositions upon articles of commerce and the scanty manufactures which had survived the general destruction of trade and the mechanical arts were apportioned in a corresponding ratio, and were collected with uncompromising severity. With the prevalent insecurity of person and property, maritime enterprise was checked, and the fleets of foreign merchantmen which had once crowded the seaports of the island disappeared. The weak and corrupt government of Constantinople, dominated by eunuchs and disgraced by the political intrigues of ecclesiastics and women, was powerless to correct the disorders of a distant and almost unknown province. Theological disputes and the pleasures of the circus engrossed the attention of the successors of the martial Constantine, whose authority, disputed at home, was often scarcely acknowledged in their insular possessions. The exaggerated perils of the strait, aided perhaps by a knowledge of the impoverished condition of the country, may have deterred the victorious barbarians from any prolonged occupation of Sicily. While they overran the country at different times, they left no traces of their sojourn,—neither colonies, institutions, racial impressions, nor physical peculiarities. But this comparative exemption from the common ruin seems to have been productive of no substantial benefit. The spirit of the people was not adapted either to the requirements of self-government or to the imperious demands of vassalage. They were at once turbulent, rebellious, servile. In the character of the Sicilian of the ninth century, as in that of the Calabrian of modern times, every evil instinct was predominant. The seditious spirit of the peasantry, aided by their proverbial inconstancy, was one of the principal causes which prevented the consolidation of the Mohammedan power.
From being the seat of Grecian civilization, the granary of Rome, the theatre of barbarian license, Sicily had become the nursery of the Papacy. It furnished bold and zealous defenders of the chair of St. Peter. Its opportune contributions replenished the exhausted treasury of the Vatican. There the genius of St. Gregory first laid the foundations of the temporal power of the Holy See. There was situated the richest portion of the possessions of the Roman hierarchy. There were matured political measures which were destined to exercise for generations the talents of the ablest statesmen of Europe. At an early period the popes acquired an important following among the peasantry of the island. The ignorance of the populace, and the eagerness with which it received impressions of the supernatural; the associations derived from the legends of antiquity, many of which, with political foresight, had been bodily appropriated by the Fathers of the Church; the absolution promised, without reserve, for the most heinous offences, had allured thousands upon thousands of proselytes to the gorgeous altars of Rome. The institution of the monastic orders and the vast number of idlers increased tenfold the burdens of an oppressed and impoverished country. It was said that the Benedictines alone possessed nearly half of the island. Convents surrounded with beautiful gardens and supplied with all the requirements of luxury arose on every side. The mountain-caves swarmed with hermits. The miracles performed by holy men and women surpassed in wonder and mystery the achievements of mythological heroes,—the conquerors of Cyclops, the captors of dragons. Martyrs underwent the most exquisite tortures with unshaken constancy. In no other province which recognized the predominance of the Papacy was there greater reverence for ecclesiastical tradition; and, as a legitimate consequence, in no other was prevalent a more marked degree of ignorance in the masses, or a more habitual defiance of the laws of morality and justice by those indebted for their superiority to the influence of the Church. The number of slaves owned by the Holy See and employed upon its estates was enormous. The greater part of its wealth was computed to be derived from their labor and from the traffic in their children. The arts of the confessor secured from the wealthy penitent immense estates and valuable legacies, the reluctant tribute of terror and remorse. These possessions, once in the iron grasp of the sacerdotal order, a master endowed with legal immortality, were never relinquished. The oblations of grateful convalescents enriched the treasuries of chapel and cathedral. Pilgrims flocked in great numbers to those shrines which enjoyed an extensive reputation for sanctity, and whose relics were believed to possess unfailing virtues for the cure of the sick and the relief of the afflicted. A profitable trade was supported at the expense of the superstitious credulity of these devout strangers. Well aware of its importance as an adjunct to their temporal power, and taking advantage of the relations of its parishioners with the Byzantine court, the early bishops of Rome extended every aid to the Sicilian branch of the Catholic hierarchy. It enjoyed peculiar privileges. It was exempted from vexatious impositions. Its legates were received with distinguished courtesy by the papal court. Gregory founded from his private purse seven monasteries in the island. Adrian frequently referred to it as the citadel of the Italian clergy. No portion of the patrimony of St. Peter could boast a priesthood more opulent, more arrogant, more powerful, more corrupt.
At the time of the Moorish invasion Sicily had become thoroughly Byzantine. The glorious traditions of the Greek occupation were forgotten. In Messina alone the style of architecture, the physical characteristics of the people, the comparative purity of language, revealed significant traces of the influence of the most polished nation of antiquity. In no other province subject to Rome had the brutal doctrine of force, the basis of both republican and imperial power, been so sedulously inculcated and applied. The harvests of Sicily aided largely to sustain the idle population of the metropolis of the world. Its commerce and its revenues furnished inexhaustible resources to the venality and peculations of the proconsul. The Roman aristocracy had there its most sumptuous villas, its largest and most productive estates, its most numerous bodies of retainers. It was not unusual for a patrician in the days of the Empire to own twenty thousand slaves.
Byzantine degeneracy had not failed to cast its blight over this, one of the fairest possessions of the emperors of the East. After the reign of Justinian, no attempt was made by the exhausted state, scarcely able to defend its capital, to send colonists to the island. The debased populace, the refuse of a score of nations, ignorant of the very name of patriotism, destitute of every principle of honor or virtue, sank each day still lower in the scale of humanity.
The condition of Italy was even worse. The Lombards had conquered all of that peninsula except the Exarchate of Ravenna. To their dominion had succeeded the contentions of a multitude of insignificant principalities, inflamed with mutual and irreconcilable hostility, united in nothing except jealousy of the papal power. The incredible perfidy and fraud which afterwards became the peculiar attributes of the Italian political system—whose maxims, elaborated by Machiavelli, have excited the wonder and contempt of succeeding ages—had then their origin. The entire country was the scene of perpetual discord, treachery, and intrigue. In the latter the Pope, urged by necessity and inclination alike, bore no insignificant share. The prevalence of such conditions came within a hair’s-breadth of changing, perhaps forever, the political complexion of Europe and the sphere of Christian influence. The feuds of petty rulers were aggravated rather than reconciled in the presence of the common danger. The general anarchy was eminently favorable to foreign conquest. The Lombard princes solicited the aid of the Saracens. The latter profited by every occasion of dissension and enmity. They enlisted with equal facility and disloyalty under the banners of every faction. Twice they ravaged the environs of Rome. At different times they were in the pay of the Holy See. A series of fortunate accidents alone prevented the enthronement of an Arab emir in the Vatican and the transformation of St. Peter’s into a Mohammedan mosque.
The vicinity of Sicily to the main-land of Africa had early suggested to the Saracens the conquest of that island. In the seventh century it had been visited by marauding expeditions from Egypt. Syracuse was stormed in 669, and the treasures of the Roman churches, placed there for security from barbarian attack, were borne away to Alexandria. Before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, and even while the Berber tribes still threatened the security of his outposts, the enterprising Musa—as has already been recounted in these pages—had despatched his son Abdallah upon a predatory expedition among the islands of the Mediterranean. In Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, and Sicily a large quantity of plunder was obtained and carried off by these adventurous freebooters. Other expeditions from time to time, and with varying success for the space of more than a century, followed the example of that organized by Musa. Despite these inroads, amicable relations subsisted, for the most part, between the Byzantine governors of Sicily and the Aghlabite princes of Africa. They despatched embassies, made protestations of mutual attachment, negotiated treaties, exchanged presents. But under all these plausible appearances of peace and friendship there lurked, on the one side, the deadly hatred and ambitious hopes of the fanatic whose creed was sustained by arms, and, on the other, an indefinable dread of inevitable calamity which could not long be averted.
A strong resemblance exists between the historical legends from which are derived our information concerning the Saracen occupations of Spain and Sicily. In both cases a real or pretended injury to female innocence is said to have been the indirect cause of the invasion of the Moslems. In the army of the Byzantine emperor stationed in Sicily was one Euphemius, an officer of high rank, eminent talents, and unquestioned courage, who, having become enamored of a nun, invaded the sanctity of the cloister, carried off the recluse, and, despite her remonstrances, made her his wife. This act of sacrilege, while far from being without precedent in the lawless condition of society under the lax and cruel administration of the Greek emperors, was not in this instance committed by a personage of sufficient authority to enable him to escape the consequences of his rashness. The relatives of the damsel appealed for redress to the Byzantine court, the demand was heeded, and a mandate was despatched by the Emperor to the governor of Sicily to deprive the daring ravisher of his nose, the penalty prescribed by the sanguinary code of Greek jurisprudence for the offence. Euphemius, having learned of the punishment with which he was threatened and relying on his popularity, endeavored to frustrate the execution of the sentence by exciting an insurrection. The enterprise failed through the cowardice and treachery of some of the leading conspirators, and the baffled rebel was compelled to seek refuge among the Saracens of Africa. The reigning sovereign of the Aghlabite dynasty, whose seat of government was at Kairoan, was Ziadet-Allah, a prince of warlike tastes, implacable ferocity, and licentious manners. No sooner had he landed than Euphemius sent messages to the African Sultan, imploring his assistance, and promising that in case it was afforded Sicily should be erected into an Aghlabite principality, evidenced by the payment of tribute and the acknowledgment of supremacy. The offer was tempting to the cupidity and ambition of the Moslem ruler, and the powerful following of the fugitive made its accomplishment apparently a matter of little difficulty. In the mean time, however, envoys had arrived from the Sicilian government charged to remonstrate, in the name of the Emperor, against this encouragement of rebellion and violation of neutrality by a friendly power. Thus harassed by the arguments of the rival emissaries, and weighing the political advantages which might result from the observation of the faith of treaties on the one hand, and from the acquisition of valuable territory and the extension of the spiritual domain of Islam on the other, Ziadet-Allah remained for a long time undecided. In the time of the early khalifs the material benefits accruing from warfare with the infidel—a duty enjoined upon every Moslem—would hardly have been subordinated to a mere question of casuistry. But the condition of the provinces subject to the Aghlabite dynasty, whose throne had recently been shaken by a religious revolution, rendered the cordial acquiescence and co-operation of the discordant elements of African society indispensably requisite in a measure of national moment. The chieftains and nobles were convoked in solemn assembly. The avarice of the soldier, the fanaticism of the dervish, the aspirations of the commander were stimulated by every device of intrigue and by every resource of oratory. The scruples of the conscientious were overcome by quotations from the Koran inculcating the obligation of unremitting hostility to the infidel. A plausible pretext for breaking the treaty was found in the fact that one of its main provisions had already been evaded by the Greeks themselves, who had neglected to liberate certain Moslems who had fallen into their hands. The arguments of those who favored hostilities finally prevailed. The opposition—which had been organized from purely interested motives—disappeared; the assembly, controlled by the skilful arts of the representatives of the government animated by enthusiastic zeal for conquest, declared for immediate action, and the sounds of preparation were soon heard in the city of Susa, whose harbor had been made the rendezvous of the expedition. The supreme command was intrusted to Asad-Ibn-Forat, Kadi of Tunis, a personage more renowned as a jurist and a theologian than as a master of the art of war, and who, like Musa, had already passed the ordinary limit of manly vigor and military ambition. A great force was mustered for the enterprise from every part of Northern Africa. The wild Berbers, whose faith was weak and vacillating except when revived by the prospect of booty, assembled in vast numbers. A fleet of a hundred vessels, exclusive of the squadron of the rebels, was equipped, and sailed from Susa on the thirteenth of June, 827. Three days afterwards the army disembarked at Mazara, which city was at once surrendered by the partisans of Euphemius, who outnumbered the garrison. The imperial army soon appeared, and a bloody engagement took place, in which the great numerical superiority of the Sicilians availed nothing against the desperate valor of the invaders, well aware that there was no refuge for them in case of defeat. The shouts of the Christians mingled with the chants of the soldiers of Islam as they repeated, according to custom, the verses of the Koran; the shock of the Arab cavalry was irresistible, and, their lines once broken, the Sicilians were routed on every side and dispersed in headlong flight. The Moslem victory was complete. The booty was enormous, not the least of it being the slaves who were sent in ship-loads to Africa. Such was the distrust of their allies, that Euphemius and his followers, although constituting a body respectable in numbers, were not permitted to take part in the battle. Neither the remembrance of personal indignity and disappointed ambition, nor the thirst for vengeance cherished by the exiles, was sufficient to remove from the mind of the Moslem general the feeling of suspicion which he entertained for their professions, and the contempt with which he regarded the proverbial duplicity of the Byzantine character.
A garrison having been stationed at Mazara, the Moslems marched on Syracuse. This city, although it had lost much of its former wealth and splendor, was still one of the most important seaports of the Mediterranean. Its ancient circumference of one hundred and eighty stadii—eleven and a half miles—was practically the same as when described by Strabo. A triple line of defences still encompassed it. Almost surrounded by the sea, it possessed two harbors—or rather basins—which afforded not only a safe anchorage for merchant vessels, but excellent means of protection in time of war. As at Carthage, these artificial harbors were supplied with well-appointed dock-yards and arsenals, and constituted the stronghold of the naval power of Sicily. The reverses of fortune it had experienced had not entirely deprived Syracuse of its superb monuments of antiquity. Many of the palaces which antedated the Roman occupation had been preserved. The fortifications which had repelled so many invaders were standing. At every turn the eye was delighted with the view of elegant porticoes and arches, towering columns, vast amphitheatres. In the suburbs were scattered the villas of the nobility, built upon the sites once occupied by the winter homes of those Roman patricians whose extortions had impoverished the island, and whose wealth had enabled them to command the services of the ministers of dissipation and luxury from every quarter of the globe. Strong in its natural situation, the city had been rendered doubly formidable by the skill of the military engineer. Its walls were lofty and of great thickness. Upon the side of the sea the aid of a powerful navy was indispensable to an attacking enemy. Aware of the great strategic value of the place, the imperial government had exercised unusual care in the preservation and repair of its defences. The only obstacle to a successful resistance was the extent of the fortifications, which required a garrison of many thousand soldiers to man them properly. The habitual carelessness and imaginary security of her pleasure-loving citizens had left Syracuse totally unprepared for a siege. At the approach of the Moslems, every expedient was adopted to remedy this culpable neglect. Supplies were hastily collected from the villages and fertile lands in the neighborhood. The precious vessels and furniture of the churches and religious houses were carried into the citadel. From the trembling artisans and laborers, who, with their families, had fled in haste to the city to escape the lances of the Berber cavalry, already scouting in the neighborhood, a numerous but inefficient militia was organized. In order to gain time, the progress of the Moslems was stayed by unprofitable negotiations, and a large sum of money was offered as a condition of their leaving the city unmolested. Euphemius, true to the base instincts of his race, and apparently eager to secure an ignominious distinction among his unprincipled countrymen by the commission of a double treason, secretly exhorted the garrison to a vigorous defence by promises of assistance and by the inculcation of patriotic maxims. The pretexts prompted by Byzantine perfidy could not long impose upon the wily and penetrating Ibn-Forat. His spies revealed the plans of the enemy; the Moslem army broke camp; and a few days afterwards the invaders appeared before the walls.