[312] Antioch, ‘Queen of the East, was the third metropolis of the world.... Its wide circuit of many miles was surrounded by walls of astonishing height and thickness, which had been carried across ravines and over mountain summits with such daring magnificence of conception as to give the city the aspect of being defended by its own encircling mountains.’ (Farrar’s St. Paul, vol. i. p. 288.) The ravages, not many years before, of the Persian invasion must have still left their mark upon this noble city, and possibly affected its means of defence. Still, we might reasonably have expected something more from tradition than the simple mention of a battle outside the famous citadel of Northern Syria, followed by its capitulation. But the history of the fall of Syria is little more than a calendar of dates and places.
[313] Samsât, or Shamsât, the same as Samosata. Besides Marásh (Germanica) and Menbij (Hierapolis), Tell Azâz, Doluk, and many other places in this direction were overrun by Khâlid upon this occasion.
[314] The meaning is somewhat obscure. The words are, ‘until there be born the Accursed one. And I would not that he should be born; for his deeds shall not be good; and he will devise evil against Rome.’
[315] Life of Mahomet, p. 384.
[316] The Jewish law of retaliation—‘eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth,’ &c.—is maintained in the Corân. See Sura ii. v. 179, and v. v. 53.
[317] The story is variously told, but the main facts, as given in the text, appear beyond doubt. Tradition gives us first a romantic tale of what happened at ‘the Iron Bridge’ on the Orontes, where Jabala was posted to cover Antioch. There a Mussulman chief was brought in a prisoner to Jabala’s camp. He happened to be descended from the same ancestry, and on his reciting the poem of Hassân on the glories of the Ghassanide dynasty, he was dismissed with rich presents; and, in the end, Jabala himself went over to the Moslem camp.
After he had retired to the Byzantine Court, an envoy arrived at Constantinople, with diplomatic communications from Medîna, and to him Jabala made known his sorrows and pining after the desert. Pressed to return to Arabia, he agreed to do so, if Omar would give him one of his daughters in marriage and designate him his successor. He at the same time sent a rich gift to Hassân, who composed a poem, still extant, in token of his gratitude. The following is a couplet from the same:—
‘Jabala, the son of Jafna, forgot me not, when he reigned in Syria,
Nor yet after he had returned at Constantinople to the Christian faith.’
We are to believe that Omar accepted the offer! but the officer who carried the answer to Constantinople found that Jabala had died (A.H. XX.). Others hold that Jabala survived to the reign of Muâvia, who tempted him in vain to return to Syria by the promise of a property at Damascus.