Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs, and four hundred Africans passed over in four vessels from Tangier, or Ceuta; the place of their descent on the opposite shore of the strait is marked by the name of Tarik their chief; and the date of this memorable event is fixed to the month of Ramadhan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira. Their hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded province, the richness of their spoil and the safety of their return, announced to their brethren the most favourable omens of victory. In the ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the necessary transports were provided by the industry of their too faithful ally.
The Saracens landed at the pillar or point of Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Jebel at-Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the entrenchments of his camp were the first outline of those fortifications, which, in the hands of the British, have resisted the art and power of the house of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed the court of Toledo of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and the defeat of his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to seize and bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of the magnitude of the danger. At the royal summons, the dukes, and counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy, assembled at the head of their followers; and the title of king of the Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may be excused by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners, between the nations of Spain.
His army consisted of ninety or a hundred thousand men; a formidable power, if their fidelity and discipline had been adequate to their numbers. The troops of Tarik had been augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the Christian malcontents were attracted by the influence of Julian, and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal blessings of the Koran. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres has been illustrated by the encounter which determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and bloody days. On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and decisive issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls, encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and reclining on a litter, or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules. Notwithstanding the valour of the Saracens, they fainted under the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was overspread with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. “My brethren,” said Tarik to his surviving companions, “the enemy is before you, the sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your general; I am resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate king of the Romans.” Besides the resource of despair, he confided in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of Count Julian with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post; their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians; each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were scattered or destroyed in the flight and pursuit of the three following days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderick started from his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his horses; but he escaped from a soldier’s death to perish more ignobly in the waters of the Bætis or Guadalquivir. His diadem, his robes, and his courser, were found on the bank; but as the body of the Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the pride and ignorance of the caliph must have been gratified with some meaner head, which was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus.[38] “And such,” continues a valiant historian[b] of the Arabs, “is the fate of those kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle.”
Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and infamy, that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After the battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to the victorious Saracen. Tarik listened to his advice. A Roman captive and proselyte, who had been enfranchised by the caliph himself, assaulted Cordova with seven hundred horse; he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove the Christians into the great church, where they defended themselves above three months. Another detachment reduced the seacoast of Bætica. The march of Tarik was directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and Castile, till he appeared in arms under the walls of Toledo. The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the relics of their saints; and if the gates were shut it was only till the victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or open aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions. Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast nation embraced the moment of revenge; the comparison of their past and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the alliance between the disciples of Moses and of Mohammed was maintained till the final era of their common expulsion.
[711-713 A.D.]
From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castile and Leon; but it is needless to enumerate the cities that yielded on his approach, or again to describe the table of emerald, transported from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime town of Gijon was the term of the lieutenant of Musa, who had performed, with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march of seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Bay of Biscay. The failure of land compelled him to retreat; and he was recalled to Toledo to excuse his presumption of subduing a kingdom in the absence of his general.
Spain, which, in a more savage and disorderly state, had resisted two hundred years the arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of the Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and treaty, that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The cause of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres; and, in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united strength of the whole. Yet a spark of the vital flame was still alive; some invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom in the Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineer repulsed the slaves of the caliph; and the sword of Pelagius (Pelayo) has been transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic kings.
A Saracen Chief
On the intelligence of his rapid success, the applause of Musa degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain but to fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue. At the head of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand Africans, he passed over in person from Mauretania to Spain; the first of his companions were the noblest of the Koreish; his eldest son was left in the command of Africa; the three younger brethren were of an age and spirit to second the boldest enterprises of their father. Some enemies yet remained for the sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths had compared their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities from which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications of Seville and Merida. They were successively besieged and reduced by the labour of Musa, who transported his camp from the Bætis to the Anas, from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When he beheld the works of Roman magnificence, the bridge, the aqueducts, the triumphal arches, and the theatre, of the ancient metropolis of Lusitania, “I should imagine,” said he to his four companions, “that the human race must have united their art and power in the foundation of this city; happy is the man who shall become its master!” The defence of Merida was obstinate and long; and the castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of the losses of the Moslems. The constancy of the besieged was at length subdued by famine and despair; and the prudent victor disguised his impatience under the names of clemency and esteem. The alternative of exile or tribute was allowed; the churches were divided between the two religions; and the wealth of those who had fallen in the siege, or retired to Galicia, was confiscated as the reward of the faithful.