ASSAULT ON THE MALAKOFF.

THE
GREAT SIEGES OF HISTORY.

BY

WILLIAM ROBSON,

AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF RICHELIEU,” ETC.

Illustrated by John Gilbert.

THE FOURTH THOUSAND.

LONDON:
G. ROUTLEDGE & CO. FARRINGDON STREET;
NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. 1856.

PREFACE.

Late events have proved that, notwithstanding the dreams of visionary philosophers and the hopes of philanthropists, the Millennium is not yet arrived; the lamb cannot yet lie down in peace with the lion. Science has performed miracles to procure comforts and luxuries for man; literature and art have exerted their genial influence over his life and manners; and commerce has brought nations, geographically remote from each other, into the most intimate relations. And yet the roots of all evils—interests, passions, and ambitions—are as actively alive in promoting discord, as at the darkest periods of the world’s history.

Encouraged by the evident advantages arising from the absence of war, a kindly but enthusiastic body of enlightened men came forth to preach a new description of crusade, a crusade for universal peace; and yet, years after the promulgation of this holy mission, a nation, by far the largest in geographical extent, thinks its time arrived, throws off the mask, and boldly avows that, while other peoples have been fostering plans of universal amity and brotherhood, it has been ever insidiously working out its schemes for the subjugation of all the rest to its arbitrary power.

The way in which Great Britain has met this, has been attended by a lesson which I trust she will never forget. It has proved to her, that if she is anxious to maintain the proud station which her patriots, sages, warriors, and merchants have raised her to, she must not only be a producer, a manufacturer, and a carrier; she must not only be intelligent and wealthy; she must be physically as well as morally strong, able to assert her own rights and support those of the weak and oppressed. Most lamentably has she suffered from not attending to this. Like another Quixote, she has rushed upon the enemy of humanity with the nobleness of her nature, unprovided with everything but wealth, courage, and faith in a good cause.

In his eloquent history of the Peninsular war, Sir William Napier had pronounced an emphatic opinion upon the state in which England was ever found at the commencement of a new contest; that her parsimony always left her bare of matériel, men, and leaders. To the neglect of this warning from a practical soldier, may we attribute most of our disasters in the Crimea. We have gone headlong into a game of which we seem to have known neither the moves nor the chances. Our generation had little more real knowledge of war, than schoolboys who fight with wooden swords under the standard of a pocket-handkerchief tied to a stick. It is not necessary for England to be essentially a warlike nation; it is not her part in the world’s progress; she is far more a creator than a destroyer; but she must ever preserve a consciousness of strength about her, that she knows will secure her from aggression and insult. And let no one imagine that this sense of strength will make her quarrelsome or unduly sensitive; every observer must know that the brave and powerful man is always the most peaceful: he fears nobody, and therefore he is slow to take offence.

I by no means wish to convert Britain into a Lacedæmon; I would not have war to be the main business of our lives; but all should cheerfully contribute to the keeping up of such a military force as should make our country respected, even by those who are regardless of all but physical power. Then how commanding would be her march among nations! No people in the world is so morally strong; how divine then would be her influence, if others were made completely aware that she had the power to enforce right as well as to perceive it, to protect the injured as well as to pity them! Witness the advent of a good and strong man into a company of quarrelsome brawlers! it is like the appearance of Neptune above the waves when the storm was scattering and destroying the Trojan fleet.

But if it be necessary that we should always have a powerful armed force ready for action, it is equally important that that force should be acquainted with its trade. Lapped in peace, and surrounded by visions of wealth, Englishmen have said, “We fear not war, we know we are always in possession of the sinews of it.” But they have found themselves mistaken: a soldier can no more be made in a day by the influence of money, than a lawyer can; half a century of official duties will not make a general, nor will all the experiences of the hunting-field teach a dashing nobleman to lead on a charge of cavalry, with a due regard to human life or a judgment that may insure success. In all the disasters we have encountered in the Crimea, the courage and physical strength of our soldiers have signalized themselves, even beyond our hopes; but the readers of history—particularly that part of it which relates to war—perceive at once that our leaders have been wanting in that genius or knowledge which has distinguished great captains. With all our respect for the fine and gentlemanly qualities of the lamented Lord Raglan, we cannot subdue a conviction that if a Hannibal, an Alexander, a Cæsar, a Belisarius, a Turenne, a Condé, a Marlborough, or even a Suwarrow,[1] had been at the head of such a gallant band, Sebastopol would have been subdued long ago. I do not think that either Buonaparte or his conqueror was eminently distinguished in this branch of the art of war. It is not often that a man can, like Clive, go from the desk to the battle-field, and at once become a great general; or that so young a man as Wolfe can take a Quebec. In guerilla or partisan warfare, unprepared but enthusiastic men sometimes make successful leaders; but to handle great masses of troops, or to besiege strongly-fortified cities, whatever a general’s genius may be, he must have a training in the active practice of his profession.

It is not my place to write a dissertation upon the military art; I have only to draw attention to the knowledge of sieges, which form so prominent a part of it. Neither does it come within my plan, or the limits allowed me, to treat of the science of fortification; mine is but to employ “the philosophy which teaches by example,” and exhibit the “Great Sieges of History.” And valuable is the lesson to all,—to the student of the art of war, to the soldier at the cannon’s mouth, to the minister who plans expeditions, and to the people who furnish the means for them. There is scarcely a siege in this volume barren of instruction; the principal of all being, that little can be achieved in these mortal conflicts by either besieged or besiegers, without energy constantly strained to the highest pitch, sleepless watchfulness, keen and anxious observation, consummate prudence, undaunted courage, firmness that is proof against attack or accident, great physical powers of endurance, and MILITARY GENIUS. When armies are opposed upon the wide field of a country, the game of chess may be played out by tacticians, or by great chance, success may be obtained by a dashing coup de main; but in important sieges, man is like the stag brought to bay, every faculty is forced into intense action, and the slightest error, the faintest relaxation, may produce irretrievable ruin, with such consequences as no other event presents. In great battles, armies may be annihilated; but in captured cities peoples are immolated and humanity is degraded by the wild indulgence of its most brutal passions.

It is more than curious, it is wonderful, to observe how many sieges will be found in this volume, whose fate has been decided by means with which the art of war, as taught in the schools, had nothing to do; and it is always the captain of the greatest genius who seizes upon every unforeseen discovery, any extraordinary accident, any suddenly-perceived natural advantage, to defeat the best-concerted and most scientific plans of his adversary: in one instance the fortune of an assault is changed by suspending a pig over the walls by a string fastened to his leg.

To induce students of the military art to read this work, I shall satisfy myself with relating one fact. When Prince Eugene was before Belgrade, he was surprised by the appearance of an immense Turkish host in his rear, which commenced their intrenchments, and prepared to sit down comfortably to watch, annoy, and, with good opportunity, to attack him. But Eugene had been an abbé before he was a soldier, and had read “Cæsar’s Commentaries.” He recollected that Cæsar had once been circumstanced exactly as he then was, and he determined to act as Cæsar had done. He allowed his enemies all to come up, but before they had quite established themselves in their new abode, he led his whole force to a night assault, and though superior numbers and unforeseen accidents increased the difficulties, he defeated and dispersed the Turkish army, and the city in consequence surrendered. Had Prince Eugene not read Cæsar, it is more than probable he would never have taken Belgrade.

For my humble part in this eventful story, I have much indulgence to request. To give such an account of the Great Sieges of History as the subject deserved, in one volume, was a thing impossible; and yet that was my task. The details of most of the sieges I have been obliged to curtail, and to entirely omit some which, I fear, may be looked for by those who are locally interested in them. Nevertheless, I have spared neither labour nor research; and if earnestness of purpose and honesty of intention merit approbation, I may, I trust, hope for as much as such a work deserves.

In the arrangement of the sieges, after taking the first one to which each place had been subjected in chronological order, I judged it best to carry on the account so as to give a continuous sketch of the sieges, or, in other words, of the history of the country or city in question. After the first perusal, such a book as this will be considered a work of reference, and, in that view, this plan must be the best. For the same reason I have admitted many sieges that cannot be classed as “great,” because they formed connecting links between the large ones. Without them, the unlearned reader would be surprised, when next his attention was drawn to a city which had cost one power immense sacrifices to obtain, to find it in the possession of another.

As no two historians or chronologers agree about ancient dates, I have had much trouble in settling the periods at which sieges out of the regular pale of history took place. In such cases my best plan was to adopt the opinion of the highest authority, and, wherever there was a doubt, and his name was available, I have followed Archbishop Ussher.

In accordance with my plan, I have in no instance considered myself a scientific instructor. I have said that the perusal of this book might be beneficial to military students, but I have not contemplated that all young men of that class were to become only engineers. It is the part of the engineer to carry on his operations in accordance with the rules he has been taught; but it is the higher duty of the Captain to be alive to the CHANCES of the siege, as well as observant of its scientific progress. It has been my business to relate the events, and, to a commander of genius, these are as rich in instruction as the mere school-rules of his awful art.

W. R.

LIST OF SIEGES.

THE
GREAT SIEGES OF HISTORY.

Of all the collisions between the members of the human race for the furtherance of ambition, the maintenance of liberty, or the assertion of disputed rights, we consider the prominent sieges of history to be the most interesting and instructive. We know of no situation in which the higher virtues have been put to a severer test; in which courage, firmness, endurance, patriotism, fidelity, humanity, have shone with purer and more unmitigated lustre. In the pages we are about to lay before our readers will be found accounts of actions and sufferings of which the uninitiated in history can scarcely suppose their fellow-men to be capable: not brilliant actions of short-lived devotion performed before applauding multitudes, not torments endured with hopes of celestial recompense, but protracted, continuous exertions, amidst privations, disease, famine, and death in every hideous shape, prompted by love of country, or fidelity to a cause honestly embraced.

As throughout nature Providence has pleased to establish an antagonism which carries on the great scheme in harmony, by setting creature against creature, in no instance does man show his vast superiority more strongly over the lower animals than in the defence or attack of his great gregarious abodes. There are numerous animals who, like man, draw up in battle array and dew fields with blood, but none that can bring into play such high qualities as are exhibited in our sieges, from one of a Scotch border tower to Sebastopol. In no case is the difference between reason and instinct more evident. The beaver of to-day constructs and fortifies his dwelling exactly upon the same plan as the first beaver after creation, whereas the science of fortification and siege has kept equal pace with man’s enlightenment. There is no doubt this portion of the art of war attained perfection in the seventeenth century: circumstances of time and place may modify it, but the great principles were then established; the accessories since obtained by scientific discoveries have only added power to the means of destruction, they have not advanced the art itself. We do not hesitate for a moment to say that a Turenne, Condé, Vauban, Marlborough, or Eugene, would vindicate their genius for the great art of war as proudly and successfully at the present time as they did in their own glorious day: when knowledge of any kind has reached a certain point, all the difference is in the men who employ it. The fate of nations at that period depended upon sieges; soldiers of fortune of highly cultivated intellect were engaged in the study and practice of them; and though our readers will find many of these awful contests much more set off with striking incidents and more replete with horrors, they will meet with none so scientifically carried on, both as to defence and attack, as those of the latter part of the seventeenth century.

The historian of sieges has an immense advantage over the chronicler of battles. The commander in a great battle can, after the contest is over, give his own account of his views, manœuvres, expedients, and impulsive perceptions, but no other person engaged can possibly describe anything beyond what occurred at the point to which his own individual exertions were confined. The brave soldier, with his blood warmed by energetic action, his mind excited by a love of honour and fame, and his heart, though true as his sword, throbbing with a natural love of life, through the dun smoke sees nothing but the enemy before him, and thinks of nothing but the means of destroying him. It is his duty to execute, and not to contemplate; and the careful reader of a Gazette can generally give a better description of the battle it announces than any soldier engaged in it. Physical and material causes out of number combine to produce this fact.

But the history of a siege is a very different affair. A place is attacked scientifically and cautiously, to prevent discomfiture; it is defended with watchful precaution, to avoid surprises, and loss of husbanded means. Chess is not played with the rash spirit of a Christmas round game. Both parties have leisure to note every event that advances or retards their great object; and if the contest be a protracted one, such calamitous circumstances are sure to arise as will give to it the deepest feeling of human interest. As, in the history of the world, the accounts of its periods of trouble occupy a thousand times more space than its records of peace and prosperity, so sieges, having given birth to more suffering than perhaps any other cause attributable to man alone, we have, in greatest abundance, most appalling descriptions of these frightful struggles, in which human beings seem to have been gathered together into corners to prove all they were capable of performing or enduring. That a great siege is the sublime view of men acting in masses, is proved by two of the most exalted poets of the world having each chosen one as the subject most worthy of his genius. To us humble narrators, Homer’s “Siege of Troy” and Tasso’s “Siege of Jerusalem” are of inestimable value, as, independently of their poetic beauties, pointing out clearly the different modes of carrying on a siege at periods so remote from each other. Notwithstanding all the splendour bestowed by the presence of gods, demigods, and heroes, Homer’s siege is of the most primitive kind. Abortive attacks upon the walls, unsupported by machinery or any attempt at art, not even the palpable one of escalade, together with vain efforts to get into the city, and continual skirmishes and duels with the besieged in their sorties, seem to have comprised all the art of war exercised by the cunning Greeks in this their great early invasion of a foreign territory, or rather of a city, as the expedition to Colchis preceded it by a generation: the sires of Homer’s heroes manned the Argo. All the strength of the defenders consisted of the watchful and constant use of spear and shield in repulsing the attacks of the enemy; and their courage was displayed in daily excursions, in war-chariots and on foot, upon the plains surrounding the beleaguered city. In Tasso we see the art of war as it was practised in his time in Europe, and as it has been practised in Asia for several centuries. To avoid an anachronism, there is no gunpowder; but he employs every other accessory of machinery, towers, and the Greek fire, with missiles of various kinds, unknown to the Homeric age. But we must not allow general remarks to anticipate narration.

To attempt to give even a sketch of all the sieges of history, in addition to involving a great chance of sameness, would require many volumes; we shall therefore confine ourselves to accounts, as intelligible and graphic as we can make them, of such of these great human conflicts as have changed the fate of empires, forwarded or impeded the progress of peoples, or have been illustrated by the actions of men of world-spread celebrity. But, whilst only giving the details of important sieges, we shall not pass by the innumerable interesting incidents with which the accounts of minor sieges abound: it is, indeed, not uncommon to meet, in contests unimportant to the world, with the noblest and most extraordinary acts of devotedness or courage of which individual man is capable.

BACTRA.

A.C. 2134.

In all arts the East has led the van, and has evidently been as far advanced before the Western nations in the great one of fortifying its cities as in most others. The first siege we can obtain any account of is that of Bactra, and we are told it was so fortified by nature and art, that Ninus, at the head of four hundred thousand men, would never have been able to take it, if a stratagem had not been suggested to him by Semiramis, the wife of one of his officers. This account proves that fortifying cities was not then a new invention, for it is not likely that such a degree of perfection could have been attained by a first attempt. Everything in the East seems to have been upon a gigantic scale: the cities were immense in extent, the height of the walls and towers, and the depth and width of the surrounding moats or ditches, almost incredible. And yet, modern research is stamping the astounding accounts of historians and topographers with the broad seal of truth—everything in the East was on a gigantic scale: where human life and human labour, in densely-populated countries, were without restriction at the command of vain and ambitious despots, the Pyramids, the walls of Babylon, and the palaces of Baalbec cease to be miracles.

Ninus, king of Assyria, one of the most ancient of the great disturbers of the peace of mankind called conquerors, was desirous of putting the crown to his glory by the conquest of Bactriana, now Corassan. Nothing in the open country could resist an army of four hundred thousand men; but Bactra, the capital, for a length of time withstood all his endeavours. As the defence of a city consisted in its walls, ditch, and advantages of position only, so the means of attack were correspondingly simple; and we are not surprised at the inhabitants holding out for a time which in modern warfare would be impossible. We are told that the genius of Semiramis conceived a stratagem—what we do not learn—by which the city was at length taken, and her master, in a truly eastern manner, showed his gratitude by seeking a cause for putting her husband to death, and making her his wife. Some accounts do not hesitate to say that the lady, at least as ambitious as Ninus, repaid him by removing him as he had removed her first husband, in order to reign alone.

AÏ.

A.C. 1451.

As an account falling in most with the spirit of uninspired history, we select a short description of the taking of Aï by the Israelites, under Joshua.

Whilst night concealed from the inhabitants of Aï all that was passing beneath their walls, Joshua placed a body of troops behind the city, with orders to set fire to it when he should give the signal. At daybreak, Joshua presented himself before Aï, and feigned to attempt an escalade. The inhabitants appeared upon their walls, and the Israelites, dissembling fear, withdrew from the attack. The inhabitants issued immediately from the city to pursue them, incautiously leaving their gates open. At the given signal the troops in ambush advanced, marched in at the unguarded gates, and set fire to the place. The Canaanites, on perceiving the flames, gave up all as lost, and flying away, were nearly exterminated by their conquerors.

THEBES, IN BŒOTIA.

A.C. 1252.

The history of this famous siege has been rendered immortal by the tragic muse; few of our readers can require to have its details repeated to them. The unfortunate Œdipus, on quitting his kingdom, left it to the government of his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, who agreed to mount the throne alternately. Eteocles, as the elder, reigned first; but, at the termination of his year, he was so enamoured of the power he had tasted, that he violated his oath, and endeavoured to exclude his brother from the throne. Polynices took up arms, and sought on all sides for partisans to assist him against the usurper; Adrastus, king of the Argives, roused all Greece in his favour. The contest was long and sanguinary, and the chief loss fell upon the adherents of Polynices. After many fruitless battles beneath the walls of Thebes, the brothers resolved to terminate their quarrel by a single combat. The two armies were drawn up as witnesses of the fight, and as securities for its fairness. The unnatural enemies entered the prescribed lists, and attacked each other with such deadly animosity, that both fell dead upon the spot. It is feigned that, when their bodies were burnt, the spirit of hatred remained unextinct even in their remains, and that the flames separated as they arose. Their antipathy was preserved in their posterity, breaking out into needless but bloody wars. In such a work as this, principally intended for the young, it was impossible to pass by so memorable a siege; otherwise, we conceive the whole history of Œdipus and his race to be one of the most unpleasing handed down to us by the Greeks.

SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 518.

The second siege of this celebrated city is much more satisfactory.

The Lacedæmonians, upon becoming masters of Thebes, made the inhabitants but too sensible of the weight of their yoke. Pelopidas, too noble to submit quietly to slavery, conceived the design of delivering his country; he addressed himself to the banished citizens, and he found them enter freely into his views. Many of his friends in the city were eager to share his enterprise; and one of them, named Charon, offered his house as a retreat for the conspirators. When they had secretly taken the most prudent precautions to insure success, Pelopidas drew near to the city. Before entering it, he held a council, in which it was agreed that all should not depend upon one cast of the dice, but that a small number should try their fortune first. Pelopidas and eleven of his brave companions accepted this perilous commission; they warned Charon of their approach, and proceeded towards Thebes, dressed as sportsmen, followed by hunting-dogs, and carrying in their hands nets and weapons of the chase. Before entering the city, they discarded their hunting appointments, assumed the guise of simple countrymen, and slipped in at various gates, all directing their course to the house of Charon. Philidas, one of the conspirators, that same evening gave a grand entertainment, at which Philip and Archias, the Lacedæmonian governors, were the most honoured guests. When these two were sufficiently warmed with wine to be insensible to anything but their pleasures, the conspirators proceeded to action, and, dividing themselves into two bodies, commenced by the easy immolation of Philip and Archias. Pelopidas and his party went straight to the house inhabited by Leontidas, one of the tyrants, who, on being roused from his sleep, seized his sword and struck the first conspirator that approached him dead at his feet; but he found a more successful opponent in Pelopidas: the brave Theban quickly laid the tyrant by the side of his unfortunate compatriot. After this bold attempt, the banished Thebans speedily joined the patriotic little band, and laid siege to the citadel. The Lacedæmonians were soon forced to capitulate; and this memorable enterprise, conceived by the genius of Pelopidas, and executed almost entirely by his own hand, procured the liberty of Thebes. We are sorry we cannot add, that that liberty was secured: the glory or prosperity of Thebes is an anomaly in history, it belongs principally to one generation. Pelopidas was the friend and companion of Epaminondas, with which great man—one of the greatest of all antiquity—the sun of Thebes arose and set.

THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 334.

After the celebrated battle of Chæronea, which laid the liberties of Greece at the feet of the ambitious Philip of Macedon, that king placed a garrison in Thebes; but scarcely had the inhabitants learnt the death of Philip, when they arose in mass, and slaughtered the Macedonians. Alexander, the son of Philip, afterwards styled the Great, passed through the Straits of Thermopylæ, rendered immortal by Leonidas and his Spartans, entered Greece, and marched directly towards the revolted city. On the way, he said to those who accompanied him, “Demosthenes in his harangues called me a child when I subdued Illyria; he styled me a giddy youth when I punished the Thessalians: we will now show him, under the walls of Athens, that I am a man grown.” His appearance in Bœotia, like the rest of the actions of his life, was carried into effect as soon as decided upon. When he reached the walls of Thebes, he was satisfied with requiring that Phœnix and Prothulus, the principal promoters of the insurrection, should be given up to him. The Thebans, however, insultingly replied by demanding Philotas and Antipater, Alexander’s generals and friends; and the young monarch found himself under the painful necessity of proceeding to extremities. Thebes had rendered such services to his father, that he proceeded to the infliction of punishment with great reluctance. A memorable battle ensued, in which the Thebans fought with ardour and courage; but, after a protracted struggle, the Macedonians who were left in the citadel, taking the Thebans in the rear, whilst the troops of Alexander charged them in front, they were almost all cut to pieces. Thebes was taken and pillaged. In the sack of this city, a lady of high quality exhibited an instance of courage and virtue too extraordinary to be passed by in silence. A Thracian officer, struck by her beauty, employed violence to satisfy his passion; and then characteristically proceeded to the indulgence of his avarice, by demanding of her where she had concealed her treasures. The lady, whose name was Timoclea, told him that she had cast them all into a well, which she pointed out to him. Whilst he was leaning over the brink, looking with greedy avidity for the treasure, she suddenly exerted all her strength, pushed him in, and beat him to death with stones. Timoclea was arrested, and led before Alexander; but, with all his errors, the young Macedonian had too much generosity of character not to be struck by such an action, and he pardoned her. We wish we could say he was equally lenient towards the Thebans; but the unfortunate city was razed to the ground, and thirty thousand of its inhabitants were sold into slavery.

He here, however, first displayed that love of letters, and veneration for men distinguished in them, which characterized him during his short but brilliant career; for, amidst the general destruction, he ordered the house in which the lyric poet Pindar was born to be held as sacred as a temple, and, at the same time, sought out and provided for all the descendants of the family of the bard of Thebes.

The history of this city is a remarkable one. Although not ranking so high as Sparta or Athens, it was raised to an equal importance by the courage, talents, and high moral character of one man. Epaminondas is, perhaps, the noblest specimen Greece has handed down to us of the hero, in all senses: and to his career was bounded the glory of his native city; it rose with him, and with him expired.

TROY.

A.C. 1184.

The next siege we meet with is the most celebrated in history or fiction, not so much on its own account, as from its good fortune in having the greatest poet the world has produced as its chronicler. If Homer had not placed this great siege in the regions of fable by his introduction of immortals into the action, it would still be a myth, as is all we know of Greece at the period at which it took place. Hypercritics have, indeed, endeavoured to make over the whole of it to the muses who preside over fiction; but we cannot accede to their decision. There is a vital reality in the characters of Homer, which proves that they did exist and act; a blind old bard might sing the deeds of heroes, and perhaps clothe those deeds with some of the splendour of his genius; but we have no faith in his having created the men, any more than he did the immortals, who belonged to the mythology of his country long before he was born. There is nothing in the “song of Troy divine” that is dissonant with the character of the age; so far to the contrary, we believe the poet has given a more faithful picture of the heroes, and the events connected with them, than any historian has done. Achilles is as perfect from the hands of Homer, as Alexander from the pen of Quintus Curtius or Arian. If we disperse the mist of diablerie which surrounds Macbeth, we shall find him a human character, acted upon by human passions, independently of the witches; and so with Homer’s heroes: they are all most essentially real men, notwithstanding the gorgeous mythology that attends them, and act as they would have done without immortal intervention. We have as perfect faith in the history of the siege of Troy, as in most of the pages of what has been termed the “great lie.” Independently of the work of genius for ever associated with it, the siege of Troy is a memorable epoch in human annals.

Tyndarus, the ninth king of Lacedæmon, had, by Leda, Castor and Pollux, who were twins, besides Helena, and Clytemnestra the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ. Having survived his two sons, the twins, he became anxious for a successor, and sought for a suitable husband for his daughter Helena. All the suitors bound themselves by oath to abide by the decision of the lady, who chose Menelaus, king of Sparta. She had not, however, lived above three years with her husband before she was carried off by Alexander or Paris, son of Priam, king of the Trojans. In consequence of this elopement, Menelaus called upon the rulers of the European states of Greece, and more particularly upon those who had been candidates for her hand, to avenge this Asiatic outrage. All answered to the summons, though some, like Ulysses, unwillingly. As every one knows, the siege lasted ten years; which only goes to prove the discordant parts of which the besieging army was composed: had there been union beneath a completely acknowledged head, the city could not have held out so long by many years. But Agamemnon was like Godfrey of Bouillon in the Crusades—he was only a nominal chief, without a particle of real power over the fiery and rude leaders of the troops of adventurers composing the army. This necessity for union is the principal lesson derived by posterity from the siege of Troy; but to the Asiatics of the period it must have been a premonitory warning of what they had to dread from the growing power of the Greeks. Divested of fable, and as many of the contradictions removed as possible, we believe the above to be the most trustworthy account of this celebrated affair—no one would think of going into the details after Homer. According to Bishop Ussher, the most safe chronological guide, the siege of Troy took place 1184 years before the birth of Christ, about the time that Jephtha ruled over the Jews. This last circumstance cannot fail to bring to the minds of our readers the extraordinary fact that the involuntary parental sacrifices of Iphigenia and the “daughter of Jephtha, Judge of Israel,” were contemporary. The period of the war of Troy, standing on the verge between fable and history, is a very useful one to be retained in the memory.

JERUSALEM.

No city in the world has enjoyed so much veneration as well as attention as Jerusalem, and yet no city has been subjected to more violence. Almost held in as much reverence by the Mahometans as the Christians, the possession of the Holy City was equally a devotional object as a territorial one, with the followers of both creeds. Jerusalem has been besieged more than twelve times, and, as in such contests, religion only seems to embitter enmities and enhance cruelties, the state of this otherwise favoured city can have been no object of envy.

FIRST SIEGE, A.C. 1051.

After the death of Joshua, the tribes of Juda and Simeon, having united their forces, marched upon this already important place with a formidable army. They took the lower city, and, faithful to the orders of Moses, slaughtered all who presented themselves to their fury. The upper city, called Sion, checked their victorious progress. The efforts of the Hebrews, during nearly four centuries, failed whilst directed against this citadel. The glory of carrying it was reserved for David. This hero, proclaimed king by all the tribes, wished to signalize his accession to the throne by the capture of Jerusalem; but the Jebusites, who inhabited it, feeling convinced that their city was impregnable, only opposed his army with the blind, the lame, and the crippled. Enraged by this insult, David made them pay dearly for their rude pride. He ordered a general assault; and Joab, mounting the breach at the head of a chosen troop, overthrew the infidels, pursued them to the fortress, entered with them, and opened the gates to the king. David drove out the inhabitants, repaired the walls, strengthened the fortifications, and established his abode in the city, which, from that time, became the capital of the kingdom of the Jews.

SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 976.

In the reign of Rehoboam, the grandson of David, Shishak, king of Egypt, laid siege to Jerusalem, threatening to raze it with the ground if any opposition were offered to his arms. The indignant people were eager to attack the enemy of their religion and their country, but Rehoboam, as cowardly as a warrior as he was imperious as a monarch, opened the gates of his capital to the haughty Egyptian, and quietly witnessed the pillage of it.

THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 715.

In the first year of the reign of Ahaz, king of Juda, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, presented themselves in warlike array before Jerusalem. Their design was to dethrone Ahaz and put an end to the dynasty of David. But their ambitious project was checked by the sight of the fortifications, and, after a few vain attempts, they retreated with disgrace.

Some time after, the Holy City was attacked by a much more redoubtable enemy. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, claimed of Hezekiah the tribute which his weak father, Ahaz, had consented to pay; and after having overrun Ethiopia, besieged him in his capital. The fate of Jerusalem seemed pronounced, and the kingdom was about to fall into the power of a haughty and irritated conqueror; but the hand of Providence intervened; a miraculous slaughter of the Assyrians took place in one night, and the army of Sennacherib retreated precipitately.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.C. 603.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took Jerusalem by force, and gave it up to pillage. He placed King Joachim in chains, and afterwards released him upon his promising to pay tribute; but that prince soon violated his engagement. Nebuchadnezzar reappeared, Jerusalem was again taken, and Joachim expiated his perfidy and revolt by his death.

The impious Zedekiah, one of his successors, proud of an alliance contracted with the Egyptians, against the opinion of the prophet Jeremiah, ventured, as Joachim had done, to endeavour to evade the yoke of the Chaldeans. Nebuchadnezzar, upon learning this, marched against him, ravaged Judea, made himself master of the strongest places, and besieged Jerusalem for the third time. The king of Egypt flew to the assistance of his ally; but Nebuchadnezzar met him in open fight, defeated him, and compelled him to seek shelter in the centre of his states. Jerusalem, which had given itself up to a violent, transitory joy, became a prey to new terrors. The king of Babylon renewed the siege, and Zedekiah determined to behave like a man who has everything to gain and nothing to lose. The city was blockaded, the enemy stopped all supplies, and laid waste the country round. An immense population was shut up in the capital, which the circumvallation soon reduced to a frightful state of famine. A single grain of wheat became of incredible value, and water, which an extraordinary drought had rendered scarce, was sold for its weight in gold. A pestilence likewise, no less formidable than the famine, made terrible ravages. The streets were blocked up with dead bodies left without sepulture, whose fetid odour became fatal to the living. Desolation and despair stifled all the feelings of nature; mothers were seen slaughtering their infants, to release them from such calamities, and afterwards expiring upon their bleeding bodies.

The enemy in the mean time pushed on the siege most warmly: the rams never ceased to batter the walls; and vast wooden towers were erected, from the summits of which enormous stones were launched upon the heads of those whom famine and pestilence had spared. But even in this extremity the Jews persisted in their defence; Zedekiah concealing his alarm under a firm countenance, reassuring them by his words, and animating them by his example. The more impetuous the enemy, the more furious became the citizens. They opposed force by force, and art quickly destroyed whatever art devised. Eighteen months passed in this way, without any attention being paid to the voice of Jeremiah, who continued to press the inhabitants to throw open their gates, and by concession disarm the wrath of a power that must in the end overcome them. At length the enemy effected a great breach, and it became necessary to yield. Zedekiah marched out at a secret gate at the head of the soldiery, but he was overtaken, loaded with chains, and led away into captivity, after witnessing the massacre of his children, and after being deprived of the light of day, which had too long shone upon his sacrileges. The conqueror made his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem; he bore away all the riches of the temple, immolated the greater part of the inhabitants, and led the rest into slavery, after reducing the temple and the principal quarters of the city to ashes. Such was the first destruction of Jerusalem, richly merited by the impiety and vices of its inhabitants, 1,468 years after its foundation by Melchisedech, and nearly five hundred years after David wrested it from the power of the Jebusites.

Many years after, Zerubbabel rebuilt it by permission of Cyrus, king of Persia; Nehemiah reinstated the fortifications. It submitted to Alexander the Great; and after death had carried off that conqueror, withstood several sieges for a time; but these were of trifling importance, though they generally terminated in the plunder of the Temple. This was the state of the Holy City up to the time of the great Pompey.

FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 63.

The Jews having refused a passage to the Roman army which was marching against Aristobulus, Pompey, highly irritated, set himself down before their capital. The sight of this place, which nature and art appeared to have rendered impregnable, made him, for the first time, doubtful of the good fortune which had so often crowned his exploits. He was in this state of incertitude when the Jews of the city, with that want of true policy which distinguished them in all ages, divided themselves into two factions. The one favourable to the Romans proving to be the stronger, opened the gates to Pompey, whilst the other, consisting of the partisans of Aristobulus, retired to the Temple, to which the Roman general quickly laid siege. He raised vast terraces, upon which he placed balistæ and other machines of war, the continual play of which drove away the defenders of the walls. But the Jews, whom nothing seemed to astonish, rendered the efforts of the Romans useless by their valour and perseverance. They defended themselves with so much art and intrepidity, that in the course of three months the Romans were only able to take one tower. But at length the vigorous obstinacy of the legions was crowned with its usual success; the Temple was taken by assault, Cornelius Faustus, son of the dictator Sylla, at the head of a brave troop, being the first to enter the breach. All who ventured to show themselves were massacred. Several sacrificers were immolated in the performance of their ministry. All who could escape the fury of the enemy either precipitated themselves from the nearest rocks, or, gathering together their wealth, after setting fire to it, cast themselves into the flames. Twelve thousand Jews perished in this unfortunate instance. Pompey respected the treasures of the Temple, and crowned his victory by forbearance and generosity.

SIXTH SIEGE, A.C. 37.

Herod the Great had been declared king of the Jews by the Romans; but Jerusalem refused to acknowledge him. This prince, aided by Sosius, whom Antony had sent to him with several legions, marched against that city, at the head of a numerous army. He laid siege to it, raised three platforms, which dominated over the towers, poured from their summits a continuous shower of darts, arrows, and stones upon the besieged, and unceasingly battered the ramparts with rams and other machines he had brought with him from Tyre. But the Jews, still intrepid, despised death, and only sought to inflict it upon their assailants. If a wall was destroyed, another arose as if by magic. If a ditch was dug, it was rendered useless by a countermine, and they constantly appeared in the midst of the besiegers when least expected. Thus, without being depressed, either by frequent assaults or by the famine which now made itself cruelly felt, they resisted during five months the united efforts of the Romans and the Jewish partisans of Aristobulus. At length, both the city and the Temple were carried by assault. Then death assumed one of his most awful characters. The Romans bathed themselves in the blood of an obstinate enemy; and the Jews of the king’s party, rejecting every feeling of humanity, immolated to their fury every one of their own nation whom they met in the streets and houses, or even found in the temple. Herod, however, by means of prayers, promises, and menaces, at length obtained a cessation of this horrible butchery, and to prevent the pillaging of the city and the Temple, he generously offered to purchase them of the Romans with his own wealth. This capture of Jerusalem occurred thirty-seven years before Christ, on the very day on which Pompey had carried it by assault twenty-seven years before.

SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 66.

Towards the end of the reign of Nero, in the sixty-sixth year of the Christian era, under the pontificate of Mathias, the son of Theophilus, began the famous war of the Jews against the Romans. The tyranny, the vexations, the sacrileges of the governors were the causes of it. Tired of groaning so long under a foreign yoke, the Jewish nation believed they had no resource left but in despair. Fortune at first appeared favourable to them; the Romans were beaten several times: but Vespasian, whom the Roman emperor had charged with this war, was soon able, by the exercise of skill, prudence, and valour, to attract fortune to his standards, and to keep her there. After having subdued the whole of Palestine, he was preparing to commence the blockade of Jerusalem, when his army recompensed his virtues with the empire. The new emperor assigned to his son Titus the commission of subduing the rebels and laying siege to the capital.

Jerusalem, built upon two very steep mountains, was divided into three parts,—the Upper City, the Lower City, and the Temple, each having its separate fortifications. The Temple was, so to say, the citadel of the two cities. Several thick and very lofty walls rendered access to it impracticable; by the side of it stood a fortress which defended it, called Antonia. A triple wall, which occupied the space of three hundred stadia, surrounded the entire city: the first of these walls was flanked by ninety very lofty and strong towers; that of the middle had only fourteen, and the ancient one sixty. The noblest of these towers were called Hippicos, Phazael, and Mariamne, and could only possibly be taken by famine. At the northern extremity was, still further, the palace of Herod, which might pass for a strong citadel. It thus became necessary for Titus, to make himself master of Jerusalem, to form several successive sieges; and whatever part the assailants carried, they seemed to leave the strongest untouched. Such was the place which Titus came to attack with soldiers accustomed to war and victory; and, in spite of their valour, it is more than probable he would have failed, if cruel intestine divisions had not marred all the noble efforts of the unfortunate city.

A troop of brigands, headed by Eleazar, of the sacerdotal tribe, whom impunity had allowed to gather together, threw themselves into Jerusalem. These lawless men, who assumed the well-sounding name of the Zealots, profaned the Temple with the greatest crimes, and subjected the citizens to most of the misfortunes of a city taken by assault by a cruel enemy. This faction, as might be expected, however, soon became divided, and turned its arms against itself. A wretch named John of Giscala supplanted Eleazar, and made himself sole chief of the Zealots. The latter, jealous of the authority of his rival, separated himself from him, and, having recovered an interest with a considerable number of partisans, took possession of the interior of the Temple, and thence made attacks upon the troops of John. On another side, Simon, the son of Gioras, whom the people in their despair had called in to their succour, seized upon the supreme authority, and held almost the whole city under his power. These three factions carried on a continual strife with each other, of which the people were always the victims: there was no security in their dwellings, and it was impossible to leave the city, of which the factions held all the means of egress. All who dared to complain or to speak of surrendering to the Romans, were immediately killed; fear stifled speech, and constraint kept even their groans within their own hearts. When Titus had reconnoitred the place, brought up his army, and commenced operations, these tyrants, seeing the danger which threatened them equally, suspended their divisions and united their forces, with the hope of averting the storm. They made, in rapid succession, several furious sorties, which broke through the ranks of the Romans, and astonished those warlike veterans; but such trifling advantages were not likely to affect such a man as Titus: he made another tour of the city to ascertain upon what point it could be best assailed, and, after his foresight had taken all necessary precautions to insure success, he set his machines to work, ordered the rams to maintain an incessant battery, and commanded a simultaneous attack upon three different sides. With great exertions, and after a contest of fifteen days, he carried the first wall, in spite of the spirited resistance of the besieged. Animated by this success, he ordered the second to be attacked; he directed his rams against a tower which supported it, obliged those who defended it to abandon it, and brought it down in ruins. This fall made him master of the second rampart five days after he had taken the first; but scarcely had he time to congratulate himself upon this advantage, when the besieged fell upon him, penetrated his ranks, caused the veterans to waver, and retook the wall. It became necessary to recommence the attack upon it: it was contested during four days upon many points at once, and the Jews were at length compelled to yield. Titus by no means wished for the destruction of Jerusalem, and with a view of leading the inhabitants back to their duty by intimidation, he made a review of his troops. There has seldom been a spectacle more capable of inspiring terror—the mind cannot contemplate these conquerors of the world passing in review before such a man as Titus, without something like awe. But the seditious Jews, for they seldom deserve a better name, would not listen to any proposals for peace. Being convinced of this, the Roman general divided his army, for the purpose of making two assaults upon the fortress Antonia; he nevertheless, before proceeding to this extremity, made one more effort to bring the rebels to reason. He sent to them the historian Josephus, as more likely than any other person to persuade them, he being a Jew, and having held a considerable rank in his nation. This worthy envoy made them a long and pathetic discourse to induce them to have pity on themselves, the sacred temple, the people, and their country; he pointed out to them all the evils that would fall upon them if they did not listen to his prudent advice; he recalled to their minds the misfortunes which had overwhelmed their fathers when they had ceased to be faithful to their God, and the miracles which had been worked in their favour when they had observed his commands: he bore witness to the truthfulness of his own feeling by ending his harangue with a flood of tears. The factions, however, only laughed at him and his eloquence; and yet many of his hearers were convinced, and, endeavouring to save themselves, sold all they had for small pieces of gold, which they swallowed for fear the tyrants should rob them of them, and made their way to the Roman ranks. Titus received them with kindness, and permitted them to go whither they wished. As these continued to escape daily, some of the Roman soldiers learned the secret of the concealed gold, and a report prevailed in the camp that the bodies of these fugitives were filled with treasures. They seized some of them, ripped them open, and searched among their entrails for the means of satisfying their abominable cupidity. Two thousand of these miserable wretches perished in this manner. Titus conceived such a horror at this, that he would have punished the perpetrators with death, if their numbers had not exceeded those of their victims. He continued to press the siege closely: after having caused fresh terraces to be erected, to replace those the enemy had destroyed, he held a council with his principal officers: most of them proposed to give a general assault; but Titus, who was not less sparing of the blood of his soldiers than he was prodigal of his own, was of a contrary opinion. The besieged, he said, were destroying one another; what occasion could there be to expose so many brave warriors to the fury of these desperate ruffians? He formed the project of surrounding the place with a wall, which would not allow the Jews to make any more sorties. The work was distributed among all the legions, and was completed in three days. It was then that the miserable factions began for the first time to despair of their safety.

If the troubles without the walls were great, those which consumed the unhappy city were still more terrible. Who can paint, exclaims Josephus, the fearful effects of the famine which devoured these unfortunates? It increased every day; and the fury of the seditious, more redoubtable than this scourge itself, increased with it. They held no property sacred; everything was torn from the unhappy citizens. A closed door denoted provisions within: they forced it open, and snatched the morsels from the mouths about to swallow them, with brutal violence. They struck down old men; they dragged women by the hair, without regard to either age, sex, or beauty; they spared not lisping innocence. Such as still had any portion of food, shut themselves up in the most secret places of their dwellings, swallowed the grain without crushing it, or glutted themselves with raw flesh, for fear the odour of cooking it should attract the inhuman inquisitors. Fleshless men, or rather phantoms, with dried-up visages and hollow eyes, dragged themselves along to corners, where famine speedily relieved them by death. So great was the number of the dead, that the living had neither strength nor courage to bury them! There were no more tears—the general calamities had dried up the source of them! No more sighs were heard; hunger had stifled all the feelings of the soul! A famished multitude ran hither and thither, and seized eagerly upon that which would have been rejected by the most unclean animals. At length, a woman, noble and rich, after being despoiled of everything by her own want and the greedy fury of the mob, weary of preparing food for these insatiable brigands, and left herself without a morsel of nourishment, consumed by a devouring hunger, proceeded, in her fury, to the most unheard-of crimes. Stifling in her heart the cry of nature, she tore from her bosom the infant she was supporting with her milk, and, casting upon the innocent babe fierce and terrible glances, “Unhappy little wretch!” exclaimed she, “why wast thou born amidst war, famine, and seditious tumult? Why dost thou still live? What fate awaits thee—servitude? No; famine prevents it; and the implacable tyrants who oppress us are still more to be dreaded than either the one or the other. Die, then! and be food for thy famished mother!” At these words, the maddened parent slaughtered her child, cooked it, ate part of it, and carefully concealed the rest. The mob, attracted by the odour of this abhorrent feast, rushed in from all parts, and threatened to kill the woman if she did not instantly show them the food she had prepared. “I have saved you a good portion of it,” said she, pointing to the mangled remains of her child. At this spectacle, even they recoiled; human for the first time, they remained silent and motionless; they could not believe their eyes. “It is my boy!” cried she; “I killed him: surely you can eat after me. Are you more delicate than a woman, or more tender than a mother? If ferocity has not stifled every scruple within you—if you do hold such food in horror, I will devour the rest myself.” Base and degraded as they were, terrified at such a crime, they slunk away from the house, cursing so detestable an action. The report soon spread throughout the city; and every one was as horror-struck as if he himself had perpetrated the frightful deed. All wished for death, and envied those whom famine had carried off without witnessing such a catastrophe. The news reached the Roman camp; and Titus determined to put an end to such crimes by a general assault.

An escalade of the Temple was undertaken, but the besieged repulsed the Romans. The latter set fire to the porticos, and the flames gained the galleries without the Jews making the least attempt to extinguish them. At length the besieged determined to make one last effort, and deliver themselves, if possible, from an enemy who pressed them so closely, or perish with swords in their hand, selling the little life they had left dearly. They made an impetuous sortie from a gate of the Temple, fell upon the Romans, broke through their ranks, and would have driven them to their camp, if Titus, who beheld the combat from the summit of the fortress Antonia, had not flown promptly to the succour of the vanquished. Fresh troops changed the fortune of the day; the Jews were overwhelmed by numbers, and constrained to shut themselves up in the Temple: the prince commanded an assault for the next day. But, at that moment, a soldier, without having received orders for the attempt, and as if moved by a supernatural impulse, prevailed upon a companion in arms to lift him up, and threw a blazing brand into one of the windows of that vast and superb edifice. The fire immediately caught some combustible matter; the Jews perceived it, and uttering loud cries, made strong but useless efforts to stop the conflagration. Titus himself, with his army, hastened to assist in extinguishing it. The excited soldier only thought of completing his work, and, with another brand, defeated the wishes and endeavours of his general: the flames consumed everything, and this famous temple was reduced to ashes in the second year of the reign of Vespasian. The Romans made a great carnage; but the revolters, by a fresh attack, retarded their destruction for a short time, and took up cantonments in the city, and in the three towers, Hippicos, Phazael, and Mariamne. The conquerors prepared to besiege them, but, at the sight of the machines, the revolters became intimidated, and sought for safety in precipitate flight, leaving the Romans masters of everything: they plundered the city, killed tens of thousands of the inhabitants, and spread flame and destruction in all quarters. Titus was declared imperator, an august title, which he richly merited by his valour and generalship: he entered Jerusalem in triumph, and admired the beauty and solidity of the fortifications, but, with the exception of the three towers, he caused them all to be destroyed. The accounts given by some historians of the numbers of the slain and the prisoners appear to us incredible; one statement avers that there were eleven hundred thousand of the former, and ninety-seven thousand of the latter. John was found concealed in one of the city sewers, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment by the Romans. Simon was forced to surrender, after a valiant defence; he formed part of the triumph of the victor, and was afterwards publicly executed at Rome. Eleazar, who retired to an untenable fortress, destroyed himself. Jerusalem, which yielded in magnificence to no city of Asia—which Jeremiah styles the admirable city, and David esteems the most glorious and most illustrious city of the East, was thus, in the seventieth year of the Christian era, razed to the ground, and presented nothing but a heap of stones. The emperor Adrian afterwards destroyed even its ruins, and caused another city to be built, with the name of Ælia, from his own, so that there should be nothing left of the ancient Jerusalem. Christians and Jews were equally banished from it; paganism exalted its idols, and Jupiter and Venus had altars upon the tomb of Christ. Amidst such reverses, the city of David was nearly forgotten, when Constantine restored its name, recalled the faithful, and made it a Christian colony. The length and importance of this siege may be accounted for by the strength of the fortifications. Its founders, says Tacitus, having foreseen that the opposition of their manners to those of other nations would be a source of war, had given great attention to its defences, and, in the early days of the Roman empire, it was one of the strongest places in Asia.

The admirable account given by Josephus of the Roman armies may serve as a lesson to all peoples until the arrival of that happy millennium, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and war shall be no more; that is, when man has completely changed his nature, and has ceased to be governed by his passions.

He says: “Now here we cannot but admire the precaution of the Romans, in providing themselves with such household servants as might not only serve at other times for the common offices of life, but might also be of advantage to them in their wars. And, indeed, if any one does but attend to their military discipline, he will be forced to confess, that their obtaining so large a dominion hath been the acquisition of their valour, and not the bare gift of fortune; for they do not begin to use their weapons first in time of war, nor do they then put their hands first into motion, while they avoided so to do in time of peace; but, as if their weapons did always cling to them, they have never any truce from warlike exercises; nor do they stay till times of war admonish them to use them; for their military exercises differ not at all from the real use of their arms, but every soldier is every day exercised, and that with great diligence, as if it were in time of war, which is the reason why they bear the fatigue of battles so easily; for neither can any disorder remove them from their usual regularity, nor can fear affright them out of it, nor can labour tire them: which firmness of conduct makes them always to overcome those that have not the same firmness; nor would he be mistaken that should call those their exercises unbloody battles, and their battles bloody exercises. Nor can their enemies easily surprise them with the suddenness of their incursions; for, as soon as they have marched into an enemy’s land, they do not begin to fight till they have walled their camp about; nor is the defence they can raise rashly made, or uneven; nor do they all abide in it, nor do those that are in it take their places at random; but if it happens that the ground is uneven, it is first levelled: their camp is four-square by measure, and carpenters are ready in great numbers with their tools, to erect their buildings for them.”

Such was the system of the great “nation of the sword,” differing, perhaps, but little, except in the scale upon which it operated, from that of Sparta. The machines employed by the Romans were the artificial tower, with its drawbridges, catapultæ, balistæ, and rams; the weapons—javelins, darts, arrows, pikes, stones, swords, and daggers, with the shield or buckler.

EIGHTH SIEGE, A.D. 613.

In the reign of Heraclius, a countless host of Persians—fire-worshippers—under the leadership of Sarbar, poured like a torrent upon Palestine, and carried their ravages to the gates of Jerusalem, of which they took possession. Nearly a hundred thousand Christians perished on this occasion: the great eastern inundations of hordes of barbarous conquerors, being always effected by numbers, necessarily produce an amount of carnage in the vanquished which is sometimes staggering to our belief. But the loss most felt by the Christians, was that of the holy cross, which the conqueror carried away with him, in a case sealed with the seal of Zacchariah, then Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Holy Sepulchre and the churches were given up to the flames.

NINTH SIEGE, A.D. 635.

The Roman emperor soon regained possession of the city; but scarcely was it beginning to recover the shock sustained from the fire-worshippers, when it became the prey of a much more powerful race of fanatics. In 635, the Saracens, under the command of Khaled, the most redoubtable general of Arabia, laid siege to it. The first attack lasted ten days, and the Christians defended themselves with heroic courage. During four months, every day brought its sanguinary conflict; but at length, the unfortunate citizens, being without hope of succour, yielded to the perseverance of the Mussulmans, and by the means of the Patriarch Sophronius, capitulated with the Caliph Omar in person. The following are the conditions of this treaty, which afterwards served as a model to the Mahometans: “In the name of the All-Merciful God, Omar Ebn-Alkhetlab, to the inhabitants of Ælia (the name given to it by its restorer, Ælius Adrianus). They shall be protected; they shall preserve their lives and their property. Their churches shall not be destroyed, but they shall erect no new ones, either in the city or its territories: they alone shall enjoy the use of them. They shall not prevent Mussulmans from entering them, by day or night; the doors of them shall be open to passers-by and to travellers. If any Mussulman, who may be travelling, should pass through their city, he shall be entertained gratis during three days. They shall not teach the Koran to their children, they shall not speak publicly of their own religion, and shall make no efforts to induce others to embrace it. They shall not prevent their kindred from becoming Mussulmans, if they should be so disposed; they shall show respect to Mussulmans, and shall rise up when they wish to be seated. They shall not be clothed like Mussulmans; they shall not wear the same caps, shoes, or turbans. They shall not part their hair as the Mussulmans do; they shall not speak the same language, or be called by the same names. On horseback, they shall use no saddles; they shall carry no sort of arms, and shall not employ the Arabian language in the inscriptions upon their seals. They shall not sell wine; they shall be distinguished by the same description of clothes, wherever they go, and shall always wear girdles. They shall erect no crosses upon their churches, and they shall not exhibit their crosses or their books publicly in the streets of the Mussulmans. They shall not ring their bells, but shall content themselves with tolling them. They shall never take a domestic who has served a Mussulman.” They were obliged to ratify this act of servitude, and to open the gates to the Saracens, who took possession of their conquest.

TENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1099.

We now come to one of the most remarkable sieges of this extraordinary city. In the eleventh century, after a lapse of four hundred years, during which it had passed from the hands of the Saracens to those of the Seldjouc Turks, Jerusalem, a Mahometan city, was beleaguered by the great band of Christian adventurers who had left Europe for the express purpose of delivering it. This is not the place to dilate upon the subject of the Crusades; it is our business to describe some of the sieges to which they gave rise.

Most readers are acquainted with the calamities of various kinds which the Christians had to endure before they could set an army down beneath the walls of this great object of their enterprise. We shall take our account of this awful struggle from the pages of a highly-accredited historian, satisfied that no effort of our own could make it more interesting or instructive.

With the earliest dawn, on the 10th of June, 1099, the Crusaders ascended the heights of Emmaus. All at once the Holy City lay before them. We can compare the cry of the Crusaders, at this sight, to nothing but that of “Land! land!” uttered by the companions of Columbus when they completed their great discovery. “Jerusalem! Jerusalem!” was shouted from every lip, but was soon repeated with bated breath and bended knee, when all that belonged to that city recurred to the minds of the brave adventurers. The rear ranks rushed through those that preceded them, to behold the long-desired object, and their war-cry, “God wills it! God wills it!” re-echoed from the Hill of Sion to the Mount of Olives. The horsemen alighted humbly from their steeds, and walked barefoot. Some cast themselves upon their knees, whilst others kissed the earth rendered sacred by the presence of the Saviour. In their transports they passed from joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy. At one moment they congratulated each other at approaching the great end of their labours; in the next they wept over their sins, over the death of Christ, and over his profaned tomb; but all united in repeating the oath they had so many times made, of delivering the city from the sacrilegious yoke of the Mussulmans.

At the time of the Crusades, Jerusalem formed, as it does now, a square, rather longer than broad, of a league in circumference. It extended over four hills: on the east the Moriah, upon which the mosque of Omar had been built, in the place of the Temple of Solomon; on the south and west, the Acra, which occupied the whole width of the city; on the north, the Bezetha, or the new city; and on the north-west, the Golgotha, or Calvary, which the Greeks considered the centre of the world, and upon which the Church of the Resurrection was built. In the state in which Jerusalem then was, it had lost much of its strength and extent. Mount Sion no longer rose within its precincts, and dominated over the walls between the south and the west. The three valleys which surrounded its ramparts had been in many places filled up by Adrian, and access to the place was much more difficult, particularly from the north. Jerusalem, however, had had to sustain several sieges whilst under the domination of the Saracens, and its fortifications had not been neglected.

Whilst the Crusaders had been so slowly advancing towards the city, the caliph’s lieutenant, Istekhar-Eddaulah, ravaged the neighbouring plains, burnt the villages, filled up or poisoned the cisterns, and made a desert of the spot upon which the Christians were doomed to be given up to all sorts of miseries. He brought in provisions for a long siege, and called upon all Mussulmans to repair to the defence of Jerusalem. Numberless workmen were employed, day and night, in constructing machines of war, raising the fallen walls, and repairing the towers. The garrison of the city amounted to forty thousand men, and twenty thousand inhabitants took up arms.

On the approach of the Christians, some detachments left the city, to observe the march and plans of the enemy. They were repulsed by Baldwin du Bourg and Tancred, the latter hastening from Bethlehem, of which he had just taken possession. After pursuing the fugitives to the gates of the Holy City, he left his companions, and strayed alone to the Mount of Olives, whence he contemplated at leisure the city promised to the arms and devotion of the pilgrims. He was disturbed in his pious contemplations by five Mussulmans, who left the city for the purpose of attacking him. Tancred did not seek to avoid the combat; three Saracens fell beneath his powerful arm, and the other two fled back to Jerusalem. Without hastening or retarding his steps, Tancred rejoined the army, which, in its enthusiasm, was advancing without order, and descended the heights of Emmaus, singing the words of Isaiah—“Jerusalem, lift up thine eyes, and behold the liberator who cometh to break thy chains!”

On the day after their arrival, the Crusaders formed the siege of the place. The Duke of Normandy, the Count of Flanders, and Tancred, encamped upon the north, from the gate of Herod to the gate of Sedar, or St. Stephen. Next to these Flemings, Normans, and Italians, were placed the English, commanded by Edgar Atheling; and the Bretons, led by their duke, Alain Fergent, the Sire de Château Giron, and the Viscount de Dinan. Godfrey, Eustache, and Baldwin du Bourg, established their quarters between the west and the north, around the extent of Calvary, from the gate of Damascus to the gate of Jaffa. The Count of Toulouse planted his camp to the right of Godfrey, between the south and the west; he had next him Raimbard of Orange, William de Montpellier, and Gaston de Béaru: his troops extended at first along the declivity of Sion, but a few days after he erected his tents upon the top of the mountain, at the very spot where Christ celebrated the Passover with his disciples. By these dispositions the Crusaders left free the sides of the city which were defended, on the south by the valley of Gihon, or Siloë, and towards the east by the valley of Josaphat.

Every step around Jerusalem recalled to the pilgrims some remembrance dear to their religion. This territory, so revered by the Christians, had neither valley nor rock which had not a name in sacred history. Everything they saw awakened or warmed their imagination. But that which most inflamed the zeal of the Crusaders for the deliverance of the city, was the arrival among them of a great number of Christians, who, deprived of their property and driven from their houses, came to seek succour and an asylum amidst their brethren of the West. These Christians described the persecutions which the worshippers of Christ had undergone at the hands of the Mussulmans. The women, children, and old men were detained as hostages; all who were able to bear arms were condemned to labour exceeding their strength. The head of the principal hospital for pilgrims, together with a great number of Christians, had been thrown into prison. The treasures of the churches had been plundered to support the Mussulman soldiery. The patriarch Simeon was gone to Cyprus, to implore the charity of the faithful to save his flock from threatened destruction, if he did not pay the enormous tribute imposed by the oppressors of the Holy City. Every day the Christians of Jerusalem were loaded with fresh outrages; and several times the infidels had formed the project of giving them up to the flames, and completely destroying the Holy Sepulchre, with the Church of the Resurrection. The Christian fugitives, whilst making these doleful recitals to the warlike pilgrims, earnestly exhorted them to attack Jerusalem. In the early days of the siege, an anchorite, who had fixed his retreat upon the Mount of Olives, came to join his entreaties to those of the banished Christians, to persuade the Crusaders to proceed to an immediate assault; he urged his suit in the name of Christ, of whom he declared himself the interpreter. The Crusaders, who had neither ladders nor machines of war, gave themselves up to the counsels of the pious hermit, and believed that their courage and their good swords would suffice to overthrow the ramparts of the Saracens. The leaders, who had seen such prodigies enacted by the valour and enthusiasm of the Christian soldiers, and who had not forgotten the prolonged miseries of the siege of Antioch, yielded without difficulty to the impatience of the army; in addition to which, the sight of Jerusalem had exalted the spirits of the Crusaders, and rendered the least credulous hopeful that God would second their bravery by miracles.

At the first signal, the Christian army advanced in good order towards the ramparts. Never, say historians, was so much ardour witnessed in the soldiers of the Cross; some, serried in close battalions, covered themselves with their bucklers, which formed an impenetrable vault over their heads, and gave their utmost efforts to shake the walls with pikes and hammers; whilst others, ranged in long files, remained at some distance, employing slings and cross-bows to drive away the enemies from the ramparts. Boiling oil and pitch, immense stones and enormous timbers, fell upon the first ranks of the Christians, without stopping their labours. The outward wall had already crumbled beneath their blows, but the interior wall presented an invincible object. Escalade was the only means left. This bold method was attempted, although they could only find one ladder long enough to reach the top of the walls. The bravest mounted it, and fought hand to hand with the Saracens, who were astonished at such audacity. The Crusaders would most probably have entered Jerusalem that very day, if they had had the necessary war instruments and machines; but the small number who were able to attain the top of the walls could not maintain themselves there. Bravery was useless; Heaven did not accord the miracles promised by the hermit, and the Saracens at length forced the assailants to retreat.

The Christians returned to their camp, deploring their imprudence and their credulity. This first reverse taught them that they could not reckon upon prodigies, and that they must, before they could expect to succeed, construct some machines of war. But it was difficult to procure the necessary wood in a country which presented nothing but barren sand and arid rocks. Several detachments were sent to search for wood in the neighbouring plains. Chance led them to the discovery of some immense beams in the depths of a cavern, and Tancred had them transported to the camp. They demolished all the houses and churches that had escaped the flames; and every stick of wood that the Saracens had not destroyed, was employed in the construction of the machines. Notwithstanding the discoveries, the work did not keep pace with the impatience of the Crusaders, or prevent the evils which threatened the Christian army. The great summer heats commenced at the very time the pilgrims arrived before Jerusalem. A blazing sun, and southern winds laden with the sands of the desert, heated the atmosphere to an intolerable degree. Plants and animals perished; the torrent of Cedron was dried up; all the cisterns around were either choked or poisoned. Beneath a sky of fire, in a burning and arid country, the Christian army soon found itself a prey to all the horrors of thirst.

The fountain of Siloë, which only flowed at intervals, could not suffice for the multitude of pilgrims. A skin of fetid water, fetched three leagues, was worth two silver deniers. Overcome by thirst and heat, the soldiers were seen digging the soil with their swords, thrusting their hands into the freshly-turned earth, and eagerly carrying the humid particles to their parched lips. During the day, they anxiously looked for night; and during the night, panted for dawn, in the ever-disappointed hope that the return of the one or the other would bring some degree of freshness or some drops of rain. Every morning they were to be seen gluing their burning lips to the marbles which were covered with dew. During the heat of the day the most robust languished under their tents, without having even strength to implore Heaven for relief.

The knights and barons were in no respect exempt from the scourge under which the army suffered; and many of them daily exchanged for water the treasures obtained from the infidels. “The grief of this extreme thirst,” says the old translator of William of Tyre, “was not so great for the foot soldiers as for the horsemen; the foot soldier could content himself with a little, but the horsemen could only satisfy their horses with copious draughts. As to the beasts of burden, there was no more account taken of them than of so many dead creatures; they were allowed to wander away at will, and died of thirst.”

In this state of general misery, the women and children dragged themselves about the country in search of a spring or cooling shades which had no existence. Many of these, wandering too far from the army, fell into the ambuscades of the Saracens, and lost either their lives or their liberty. When a pilgrim discovered a spring or a cistern in a secluded spot, he concealed it from his companions, or forbade their approaching it. Violent quarrels arose in consequence, and it was not uncommon to see the soldiers of the Cross contending, sword in hand, for a little muddy water. The want of water was so insupportable, that famine was scarcely perceived or thought of: the heats of thirst and of the climate made them careless of food.

If the besieged had then made a spirited sortie, they would have easily triumphed over the Crusaders; but the latter were defended by the remembrance of their exploits, and, however great their distress, their name alone still inspired terror among the Saracens. The Mussulmans might, likewise, well believe that their enemies could not long resist the double scourge of hunger and thirst. In fact, their situation became so dreadful, that the object of their enterprise was lost to their minds; they not only forgot the Holy City, but their God. And then came thoughts of the homes they had left; and many, deserting the colours they had fought so bravely under, fled away to the ports of Palestine and Syria, to watch for an opportunity of returning to Europe.

The leaders were fully aware there was no other remedy for the ills they laboured under but the capture of Jerusalem; but the labours of the siege went on slowly; they had not yet enough wood for the construction of machines; they wanted labourers and the necessary implements. We cannot help being here struck with the difference between an army governed by one strong mind and will, and one under fifty commanders, as this of the Crusaders was. When Titus wanted a wall built round the city, his legions did it in three days; the Crusaders complained of scarcity of labourers for the erection of a few machines. From the first Crusade to the last, this was the cause of failure; every captain was a private adventurer; he acknowledged no sovereign commander, and was at all times governed by what he thought to be his own private interests: there was scarcely ever any unity of view or action.

The wisest and the bravest, in such a critical situation, were beginning to despair of the success of the holy enterprise, when they were cheered by a succour as welcome as it was unexpected. They learned that a Genoese fleet had entered the port of Joppa, laden with provisions and munitions of all kinds. This news spread joy throughout the Christian army; a body of three hundred men left the camp to go and meet the convoy, which Heaven appeared to have sent to the Crusaders in their misery. The detachment, after having beaten the Saracens they met with on their passage, entered the city of Joppa, which had been abandoned by its inhabitants, and was occupied by the Genoese. The Crusaders learnt that the Genoese fleet had been surprised and burnt by that of the Saracens, but that they had had time to secure the provisions, and a great number of implements and tools. All that was saved was safely conveyed to the camp; and it afforded the Crusaders additional joy to find that the welcome supply was attended by a great number of Genoese engineers and carpenters.

As wood was still short for the construction of the machines, a Syrian conducted the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Flanders to a mountain situated thirty miles from Jerusalem. It was here the Christians found the forest of which Tasso speaks in the “Jerusalem Delivered.” The trees of this forest were not forbidden to the axe of the Crusaders, either by the enchantment of Ismen, or the arms of the Saracens: cars drawn by oxen transported it in triumph to the walls of Jerusalem.

All the leaders except Raymond of Toulouse were in want of money to pay for the labours they had commanded. The zeal and charity of the pilgrims came to their relief; many offered all they had left of the booty conquered from the enemy; knights and barons themselves became laborious workmen; all at length were employed—everything in the army was in movement: women, children, and even the sick, shared the labours of the soldiers. Whilst the most robust were occupied in the construction of rams, catapultas, and covered galleries, others fetched in skins the water they drew from the fountain of Elperus, on the road to Damascus, or from the rivulet which flowed on the other side of Bethlehem, towards the desert of St. John; some prepared the skins which were to be stretched over the machines to make them proof against fire; whilst others traversed the neighbouring plains and mountains, to collect branches of the olive and fig trees to make hurdles and fascines.

Although the Christians had still much to suffer from thirst and the heat of the climate, the hope of soon seeing an end to their labours gave them strength to support them. The preparations for the assault were pressed on with incredible activity; every day some new formidable machine threatened the ramparts of the Saracens. Their construction was directed by Gaston of Béarn, of whose bravery and skill historians speak loudly. Among these machines were three enormous towers of a new form, each having three stages: the first destined for the workmen who directed the movements of it, and the second and third for the warriors who were to make the assault. These rolling fortresses rose to a greater height than the walls of the besieged city; on the top was a species of drawbridge, which could be lowered on to the ramparts and form a road into the place.

But these powerful means of attack were not the only ones which were to second the efforts of the Crusaders. The religious enthusiasm which had already performed such prodigies, again lent its influence to augment their ardour and confidence in victory. The clergy, spreading themselves through the quarters, exhorted the pilgrims to penitence and concord. Misery, which always gives birth to complaints and murmurs, had soured their hearts; it had sown divisions between the leaders and the soldiers, who at other times had quarrelled for cities and treasures, but for whom now things the most common had become objects of jealousy and strife. The solitary from the Mount of Olives added his exhortations to those of the clergy; and, addressing the princes and people,—“You who are come,” said he, “from the far regions of the West to worship the God of armies, love each other like brethren, and sanctify yourselves by repentance and good works. If you obey the laws of God, He will render you masters of the holy city; if you resist Him, all His anger will fall upon you.” The solitary advised the Crusaders to make the tour of Jerusalem, invoking the mercy and protection of Heaven.

The pilgrims, persuaded that the gates of the city were not less likely to open to devotion than bravery, listened with docility to the exhortations of the hermit, whose counsel they conceived to be the language of God himself. After a rigorous fast of three days, they left their quarters, in arms, and marched barefooted, with heads uncovered, around the walls of the holy city. They were preceded by their priests clothed in white, bearing the images of saints, and singing psalms and spiritual songs; the ensigns were unfurled, and the drums and trumpets called the echoes from the hills and valleys. It was thus the Hebrews had formerly made the tour of Jericho, whose walls crumbled away at the sound of their instruments.

The Crusaders set out from the valley of Rephraim, which is opposite Calvary; they advanced towards the north, and, on entering the valley of Josophat, saluted the tombs of Mary, St. Stephen, and the first elect of God. Whilst continuing their march towards the Mount of Olives, they contemplated with respect the grotto in which Christ shed the sweat of blood, and the spot where the Saviour of the world wept over Jerusalem. When they arrived at the summit of the mountain, the most imposing spectacle presented itself to their eyes: on the east they beheld the plains of Jericho, the shores of the Dead Sea, and the banks of the Jordan; on the west, the holy city lay at their feet, with its territory strewn with sacred ruins: assembled on the very spot whence Christ ascended into Heaven, and where they anxiously looked for the vestiges of his steps, they listened to the exhortations of their priests and bishops. Arnoul de Rohés, chaplain to the Duke of Normandy, addressed them in a pathetic discourse, conjuring them to redouble their zeal and perseverance. In terminating his address, he turned towards Jerusalem: “You behold,” said he, “the heritage of Christ defiled by the impious: here is at length the worthy reward of all your labours: these are the places in which God will pardon you all your sins and bless your victories.” At the voice of the orator, who pointed to the Church of the Resurrection and the rocks of Calvary ready to receive them, the defenders of the Cross humbled themselves before God, and fixed their looks intensely upon Jerusalem.

As Arnoul pressed them in the name of Christ to pardon injuries and to love one another, Tancred and Raymond, who had long had differences, embraced in the presence of the whole army; the soldiers and other leaders followed their example. The rich promised to assist with their alms the poor and the orphans who bore the cross. All forgot their fatal discords, and swore to remain faithful to the precepts of evangelic charity.

Whilst the Crusaders were thus giving themselves up to transports of devotion and piety, the Saracens assembled upon the ramparts raised high in the air crosses, which they loaded with outrages; they insulted the ceremonies of the Christians by their gestures and clamours. “You hear,” exclaimed Peter the hermit, “you hear the menaces and blasphemies of the enemies of the true God; swear to defend Christ, a prisoner and crucified a second time by the infidels. You behold him expiring a second time on Calvary for the redemption of your sins.” At these words, the cenobite was interrupted by the cries and groans of indignation which arose on all parts around him. “Yes, I swear by your piety,” continued the orator, “I swear by your arms, the reign of the impious draws near to its end. The army of the Lord has only to appear, and all that vain mass of Mussulmans will fade away like a shadow. To-day full of pride and insolence, to-morrow they will be frozen with terror, and will fall motionless before you, as did the guardians of the sepulchre, who felt their weapons escape from their hands, and sunk dead with fear when an earthquake announced the presence of a God upon Calvary, where you are about to mount to the breach. Yet a few moments, and those towers—the last bulwarks of the infidels—will be the asylum of Christians; those mosques, which rise upon Christian ruins, will serve as temples to the true God, and Jerusalem will once again listen to nothing but the praises of the Lord.”

At these last words of Peter, the most lively transports burst from the Crusaders; they embraced again and again, with tears pouring down their embrowned cheeks, exhorting each other to support the evils and fatigues of which they were about to receive the glorious reward. The Christians then came down from the Mount of Olives to return to their camp, and, taking their route towards the south, saluted on their right the tomb of David, and passed close to the Pool of Siloë, where Christ restored sight to the blind; they perceived at a distance the ruins of the palace of Juda, and marched along the declivity of Mount Sion, where other remembrances added to their enthusiasm. Towards evening, the Christian army regained their quarters, repeating the words of the prophet,—“They of the West shall fear the Lord, and they of the East shall behold His glory.” When they had re-entered the camp, most of the pilgrims passed the night in prayer; the leaders and the soldiers confessed their sins at the feet of their priests, and received their God, whose promises filled them with confidence and hope.

Whilst matters were going on thus in the camp, the most profound silence reigned around the walls of Jerusalem, only broken by the voices issuing from hour to hour from the minarets of the mosques, to call the faithful to prayer. The infidels flocked in crowds to their temples to implore the protection of their prophet, and swore by the mysterious stone of Jacob to defend a city, which they called the house of God. The besieged and the besiegers were stimulated by the same ardour to fight and shed their blood: the former to preserve Jerusalem, the latter to make the conquest of it. The hatred which animated them was so violent, that, during the whole of the siege, no deputed Mussulman came to the camp of the Christians, and the Christians never once deigned to summon the garrison to surrender. Between such enemies, the shock must be terrible and the victory implacable.

It was resolved, in a council of the leaders, to take advantage of the enthusiasm whilst it was at its height, and execute the assault. As the Saracens displayed a great number of machines on the sides of the city which appeared to be most threatened by the Christians, it was determined to change the dispositions of the siege, and that the principal attack should be directed towards the points where the enemy had made no preparations for defence.

During the night Godfrey removed his quarters to the eastward, towards the gate of Cedar, not far from the valley in which Titus encamped when his soldiers penetrated into the galleries of the temple. The rolling tower, and the other machines of war which the Duke of Lorraine had caused to be built, were transported, with incredible efforts, in front of the walls he wished to attack. Tancred and the two Roberts drew up their machines between the gate of Damascus and the angular tower, which was afterwards called Tancred’s Tower.

At break of day the Saracens, on beholding these new dispositions, were seized with astonishment and terror. The Crusaders might have taken advantage of the confusion inspired in this change; but upon a steep ground it was difficult to bring their machines close to the walls. Raymond, in particular, who was charged with the attack on the south, found himself separated from the ramparts by a ravine, which it was necessary for him to fill up. He caused it to be proclaimed by a herald that he would pay a denier to every person who would cast three stones into it. A crowd of people instantly flocked to the aid of the soldiers,—a shower of darts and arrows from the ramparts producing no effect upon the ardour and zeal of the labourers. At length, by the end of the third day, all was completed, and the leaders gave the signal for a general assault.

On Thursday, the 14th of July, 1099, as soon as day appeared, the clarions resounded in the camp of the Christians; all the Crusaders flew to arms; all the machines were put in motion at once; pedereros and mangonnels vomited a shower of stones against the enemy; whilst, protected by the tortoises and covered galleries, the rams were brought up close to the walls. The archers and cross-bowmen kept up a continuous discharge at the ramparts, whilst the bravest, covered with their bucklers, planted ladders in places where the walls appeared most assailable. On the south, the east, and the north of the city, the three rolling towers advanced towards the ramparts, amidst tumultuous noise, and the shouts of the workmen and soldiers. Godfrey appeared upon the highest platform of his wooden fortress, accompanied by his brother Eustache, and Baldwin du Bourg. He animated his men by his example; every javelin he hurled, say the historians of the times, carried death to a Saracen. Raymond, Tancred, the Duke of Normandy, and the Count of Flanders fought amongst their soldiers; the knights and men-at-arms were animated by the same ardour as the principal leaders, and eagerly sought every point where danger threatened most.

Nothing could equal the fury of the first charge of the Christians, but it everywhere met with an obstinate resistance. Arrows, javelins, boiling oil, the Greek fire, and fourteen machines, which the besieged had had time to oppose to those of their enemies, repelled on all sides the attack and the efforts of the assailants. The infidels, issuing by a breach made in their rampart, attempted to burn the machines of the besiegers, and spread disorder throughout the Christian army. Towards the end of the day the towers of Godfrey and Tancred could not be made to move; Raymond’s had sunk into ruins. The combat had lasted twelve hours without victory appearing to be at all inclined to favour the Crusaders;—night separated the combatants. The Christians returned to their camp, trembling with rage and grief; the leaders, particularly the two Roberts, could not console themselves, from the idea that God had not yet thought them worthy to enter the Holy City, and worship the tomb of his Son.

The night was passed on both sides in a state of anxious inquietude, each deploring their losses, and trembling at the prospect of fresh ones. The Saracens expected a surprise; the Christians feared that the Saracens would burn the machines they had left at the foot of the ramparts. The besieged were employed in repairing the breaches made in their walls; the besiegers in attempting to put their machines in a state for another attack. The following day brought the same combats and the same dangers as the preceding one. The leaders endeavoured to revive the courage of the Crusaders by their speeches. The priests and bishops went among the tents of the soldiers, announcing the certain succour of Heaven. The Christian army, filled with new confidence in victory, appeared under arms, and advanced in silence towards the points of attack, whilst the clergy walked in procession round the city.

The first shock was impetuous and terrible. The Christians, indignant at the resistance they had met with the day before, fought with fury. The besieged, who had learnt the arrival of an Egyptian army, were animated by the hopes of victory; formidable machines covered their ramparts. Javelins were heard hissing on all sides; stones and large timbers, launched by the Christians and the infidels, met in the air with a fearful crash, and fell upon the assailants. From the height of their towers the Mussulmans incessantly hurled blazing torches and fire-pots. The wooden fortresses of the Christians approached the walls amidst a conflagration which seemed spreading in all directions. The infidels directed most of their efforts against the tower of Godfrey, upon which glittered a cross of gold, the sight of which provoked their fury and their insults. The Duke of Lorraine had seen one of his esquires and several of his soldiers fall by his side; himself a mark for all the arrows and darts of the enemy, he fought on amidst the dead and the wounded, never ceasing to shout encouragement to his companions in arms. The Count of Toulouse, who attacked the city on the south side, opposed all his machines to those of the Mussulmans; he had to contend with the Emir of Jerusalem, who animated his troops by his words, and showed himself upon the walls, surrounded by the élite of the Egyptian soldiery. Towards the north, Tancred and the two Roberts appeared at the head of their battalions. Motionless upon their rolling fortress, they looked impatient to be wielding lance and sword. Already their rams had, upon several points, shaken the wall, behind which the Saracens closed their ranks, and presented themselves as a last rampart to the attack of the Crusaders.

In the midst of the combat, say the historians, two female magicians appeared upon the ramparts of the city, appealing to the elements and the powers of hell. They were not able to avoid the death they invoked upon the Christians, and fell beneath a shower of arrows and stones. Two Egyptian emissaries, who had come from Ascalon to exhort the besieged to defend themselves, were surprised by the Crusaders as they were seeking to obtain entrance into the city. One of them fell, covered with wounds; the other, after having revealed the secret of his mission, was launched, by means of a machine, on to the ramparts where the Saracens were fighting.

The combat had lasted half the day, without the Crusaders being able to entertain any hope of penetrating into the place. All their machines were on fire; they wanted water, but more particularly vinegar, which alone had the power to extinguish the kind of fire launched at them by the besieged. In vain the bravest exposed themselves to the greatest dangers, to prevent the destruction of all the wooden machines and the rams; they fell, buried under the ruins, and the raging flames devoured even their bucklers and their vestments. Many of the most intrepid warriors had found death at the foot of the ramparts; a great number of those mounted on the towers had been placed hors de combat; others, covered with sweat and dust, smothered with heat, and staggering under the weight of their armour, began to lose courage. The Saracens, who perceived this, uttered loud cries of joy. In their blasphemies, they reproaching the Christians with adoring a God who was not able to help them. The assailants deplored their lot, and, believing themselves abandoned by Christ, remained motionless on the field of battle.

But the combat was about to change its character. All at once the Crusaders beheld, on the Mount of Olives, a horseman, waving his buckler, and giving the Christian army the signal to enter the city. Godfrey and Raymond, who perceived him first, and at the same moment, cried out that St. George was come to the succour of the Christians. The tumult of the fight allowed of neither reflection nor examination, and the sight of the celestial horseman fired the besiegers with fresh ardour. They returned to the charge; even the women, the children, and the sick crowded into the mêlée, bringing water, food, and arms, and uniting their efforts with those of the soldiers to get the rolling towers, the dread of the enemy, nearer to the walls. That of Godfrey advanced, amidst a terrible discharge of stones, arrows, and Greek fire, and let fall its drawbridge upon the wall. Fiery darts flew at one and the same time against the machines of the besiegers, and against the sacks of straw and hay, and the bales of wool which covered the inner walls of the city. The wind kindled the fires, and drove the flames full upon the Saracens, who, enveloped in fire and smoke, recoiled at the aspect of the lances and swords of the Christians. Godfrey, preceded by the two brothers Lethalde and Engelbert of Tournay, and followed by Baldwin du Bourg, Eustache, Raimbaud, Créton, Guicher, Bernard de St. Vallier, and Amenjeu d’Albret, broke through the enemy, pursued them, and rushed with them into Jerusalem. The brave men who had fought upon the platform of the tower with their intrepid leader, followed them into the streets, and massacred all they met with on their passage.

SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.—GODFREY OF BOUILLON.

At the same time a report was spread in the Christian army, that the holy pontiff Adhemar, and several Crusaders who had died during the siege, had appeared at the head of the assailants, and unfurled the banners of the Cross upon the towers of Jerusalem. Tancred and the two Roberts, animated by this account, made fresh efforts, and threw themselves into the place, accompanied by Hugh de St. Paul, Gerard de Roussillon, Louis de Mousson, Conon and Lambert de Montargis, and Gaston de Béarn. A crowd of heroes follow them closely; some enter by a half-open breach, others scale the walls with ladders, many spring from the wooden towers. The Mussulmans fly on all sides, and Jerusalem resounds with the victory-cry of the Crusaders, God wills it! God wills it! The companions of Godfrey and Tancred hew down the gate of St. Stephen with axes, and the city lies open to the crowd of Crusaders, who press upon each other, and dispute the honour of inflicting the last blow upon the infidels.

Raymond alone met with some resistance. Made aware of the victory of the Christians by the cries of the Mussulmans, the clash of arms, and the tumult from the interior of the city, he roused the courage of his soldiers. These brave men, impatient to join their companions, abandoned their tower and their machines, which they could no longer move. They planted their ladders, and sticking their swords into the walls as steps, they mounted to the ramparts; they were preceded by the Count de Toulouse, Raymond Pelet, the Bishop of Bira, the Count de Die, and William de Sabran. Nothing could now stop them; they dispersed the Saracens, who, with their Emir, flew for refuge to the fortress of David; and soon all the Crusaders in Jerusalem met together, embraced, wept with joy, and gave all their attention to securing their victory.

In the mean time despair had for a moment rallied the bravest of the Saracens; they fell with impetuosity upon the Christians, who were advancing in disorder, bent upon pillage. The latter were beginning to give way before the enemy they had conquered, when Evrard de Preysaie, whose bravery Ralph of Caën has celebrated, revived the courage of his companions, placed himself at their head, and once more carried terror among the infidels. From that moment the Crusaders had no longer an enemy to contend with.

History has remarked that the Christians entered Jerusalem on a Friday, at three o’clock in the afternoon, which was the day and the hour at which Christ expired for the salvation of mankind. This memorable epoch ought to have recalled to their hearts a feeling of mercy; but, irritated by the menaces and long insults of the Saracens, exasperated by the various ills they had undergone during the siege, and the resistance they had met with, even in the city, they filled the Jerusalem they came to deliver, and which they considered as their future country, with blood and mourning. The carnage was soon general, such as escaped the swords of the soldiers of Godfrey and Tancred, becoming the victims of the Provençals, equally thirsty for blood. The Saracens were indiscriminately massacred in the streets and in their houses; Jerusalem had no asylum for the vanquished; some tried to escape death by precipitating themselves from the ramparts, whilst others ran in crowds to seek refuge in the palaces, the towers, and particularly in the mosques, but nowhere could they escape the murderous pursuit of the Christians.

The Crusaders, masters of the Mosque of Omar, in which the Saracens had defended themselves for a short time, repeated the scenes of carnage which had followed and sullied the conquest of Titus. Foot and horse entered the sacred structure pêle-mêle with the vanquished. Amidst the most horrible tumult the place re-echoes with cries and groans of death; the conquerors trampled upon heaps of slain in pursuit of such as endeavoured to escape. Raymond d’Agiles, an eye-witness, says that beneath the portico and in the front court of the Temple the blood ascended to the knees and the bridles of the horses. To paint this terrible spectacle, which war presented twice in the same place, it will suffice to say, in the words of Josephus, that the number of the slain exceeded by far that of the soldiers who immolated them to their vengeance, and that the echoes of the mountains neighbouring the Jordan repeated the groans and cries that issued from the Temple.

The imagination turns with disgust from these horrible pictures, and can scarcely, amid the carnage, contemplate the Christians of Jerusalem whose chains the Crusaders had broken. They crowded from all parts to meet the conquerors; they shared with them the provisions they had been able to keep from the Saracens; and all together were thankful to the God who had crowned the arms of the Christians with such a triumph. The hermit Peter, who, five years before, had promised to arm the West for the deliverance of the Christians of Jerusalem, must have experienced inexpressible delight in witnessing their gratitude and joy. They appeared to consider no one among the Crusaders but him; they recalled his words and his promises; it was to him they addressed their songs of praise; it was him they proclaimed their liberator; they related to him all they had suffered during his absence; they could scarcely believe that he stood before them; and, in their enthusiasm, they expressed astonishment that God should have employed one man alone to rouse so many nations and effect such prodigies.

The sight of the brethren they had delivered, no doubt, reminded the pilgrims that they had come for the purpose of worshipping the tomb of Jesus Christ. The pious Godfrey, who had abstained from slaughter as soon as the victory was certain, quitted his companions, and, followed by two attendants, repaired, without arms and barefoot, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The news of this purpose of devotion soon spread through the Christian army, and immediately all fury, all vengeance, were appeased; the Crusaders, stripping off their blood-stained vestments, made Jerusalem resound with their sobs and groans, and, led by the clergy, they marched in a body, barefoot and with uncovered heads, towards the Church of the Resurrection.

When the Christian army was thus assembled upon Calvary, night began to fall; silence reigned in the public places and upon the ramparts; nothing was to be heard in the Holy City but canticles of penitence, and the words of Isaiah, “You who love Jerusalem, rejoice you with her!” The Crusaders evinced so much devotion that, according to the remark of a modern historian, it might be thought that these men who had just taken a city by assault, and committed a horrible carnage, really came from a long retreat and a profound meditation upon religious mysteries. These inexplicable contrasts are often remarked in the history of the Crusades. Some writers have fancied they found in them a pretext for an accusation against the Christian religion; others, not less blind or less prejudiced, attempt to excuse the deplorable excesses of fanaticism: the impartial historian is satisfied with relating them, and sighs in silence over the weaknesses of human nature.

Besides, this pious fervour was soon burnt out, and only suspended the scenes of carnage for awhile; policy and cupidity soon led to fresh horrors, and fanaticism most ably seconded them. All whom humanity or lassitude of carnage had spared, or even some who had been saved in the hopes of a rich ransom, were slaughtered. The Saracens were forced to precipitate themselves from the tops of their houses; they perished by thousands in the flames; they were dragged into the public places, and immolated upon the heaps of slain which already encumbered them. Neither the tears of women, the cries of infants, nor the aspect of the Holy Places, where Christ had pardoned his executioners, had power to soften the irritated conquerors. The carnage was so great, that heaps of bodies were not only seen in the palaces, the temples, and the streets, but were found in the most secluded and solitary places. Such was the delirium of vengeance, cupidity, and fanaticism, that the scenes did not disgust beholders who might be supposed to be impartial: contemporary historians describe them without offering a word of excuse, and throughout their recitals of revolting events, a single expression of horror or pity does not escape them. We, however, cannot pursue the frightful details further. The carnage lasted for a full week, and the Oriental and Latin historians agree in stating that the numbers of Mussulmans slain in Jerusalem amounted to more than seventy thousand! The Jews experienced no more mercy than the Saracens: they took refuge in their synagogue; the Crusaders set fire to the building, and all perished in the flames.

Such was the ever-memorable capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. The reflections it gives rise to are too numerous, too complicated, and too interesting to be ventured upon in such a work as this; we must be satisfied with having given principally, in the words of an elegant historian, an account of the siege. We perceive the same weapons, the same machines, the same natural objects of offence and defence, that are to be found in other sieges. The terraces of Titus became the rolling towers of the Middle Ages; but the ancient instruments, the ram, catapultæ, and the cross-bow, were still in full force. Although there was a body of English in the army, we hear nothing of their national weapon, the long-bow. Jerusalem, from its situation, was wanting in a moat or ditch; if it had had a broad one, it would have very much increased the difficulties of the besiegers. Objects in themselves apparently unconnected with the art of war, seem to have been freely made use of; boiling oil, melted pitch, and huge beams were had recourse to by the besieged. We likewise hear of the Greek fire, but there are not so many miracles attached to its effects as in some sieges. The Asiatics despised no natural means of defence that offered themselves; in one of the minor sieges of the Crusades, they adopted a very ingenious and effective mode of annoyance. The country round was famous for the production of honey, and the citizens had vast apiaries. When the ladders were planted, and the Crusaders commenced the assault, the inhabitants brought all the bee-hives they could collect, and precipitated them and their swarms of little armed warriors amidst the assailing host. The effect may be more easily imagined than described.

ELEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1187.

The siege we have last described gave birth to one of the shortest-lived and most troublous monarchies that is to be found in the pages of history. One or two good monarchs are met with in its short annals of eighty-eight years, the rest were either wicked or imbecile, and only hastened the fall which naturally attended its peculiar construction and existence. The state of Jerusalem when the errors of its rulers brought upon it the vengeance of Saladin—perhaps the greatest man that ever figured in the East,—was disgraceful beyond description; the two great principles which really drew the Crusaders from their homes,—military glory and cupidity, during the few years of this kingdom upon which all the world was supposed to have its attention fixed,—were in constant operation to precipitate its downfall. The stormy passions, inseparable from a feudal government, had weakened all the resources of the nominal government. The king was a shadow, totally without power: he could neither avenge his own injuries, nor those of either the state or religion. Want of bravery was the only crime he could punish: because cowards found no patrons amongst the barons: they were useless to them, and they were heedless of their fate. The king was totally without the first prerogatives of royalty; he had not the power to support justice or make the laws of nations respected: the kingdom was covered with strong castles, whose commanders scarcely acknowledged any fealty to the king; the summits of the mountains were crowned with threatening towers, and the caverns at their feet even were converted into fortresses, in which the barons commanded as masters, and made peace or war at their will. The military orders, given up to profligacy, luxury, and thirst of wealth, were divided among themselves, and frequently shed blood in quarrels that were most fatal to the Christians. Discord prevailed between the clergy of Jerusalem and the knights of the Temple and of St. John; the military orders were not subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the clergy, accustomed to give laws to princes, could not endure the haughty independence of these warriors. The Hospitallers built houses in front of the Church of the Resurrection, for the purpose of annoying the clergy, and even went so far as to amuse themselves with shooting arrows at the holy fathers as they entered the church.

The inhabitants and the Crusaders seldom agreed long together; booty being the object of every new-comer, the people were his readiest victims, under the pretence of defending them against the infidels. The maritime cities were divided into ruinous national parties; the barons and knights were weakened by idleness and debauchery, and could only be roused to exertion by the hopes of plunder and booty: the love of glory and the cause of Christ were forgotten. They no longer asked what enemy they were to attack, what ally they were to defend, but what province was to be given up to pillage. Some of the leaders, even in the most perilous circumstances of the state, abandoned their standards, and sold their inaction or their neutrality. Others went so far as even to plunder the Christian provinces, or sell their active services to the Saracens.

Religion had lost all hold upon men’s minds, and principally by the immorality of the churchmen. It was said by a respectable historian, that there was scarcely one chaste woman in Jerusalem. The leaders of the Christian colonies and the heads of the church set the example of licentiousness; from the throne to the lowest grade of society, all were vitiated, but particularly those who, from their rank or their holy functions, ought to have set an example. A people so degenerated could not be expected to save the kingdom, when attacked by such a man as Saladin.

To repeat the causes which had exasperated this powerful prince would trench too much upon the province of general history; suffice it to say, that the conduct of the Christians was a tissue of weakness, perfidy, and occasional insane rashness; they were under no strong-handed or prudent government, they showed themselves subject to no moral restraints.

Politic, brave, cool, but severe when provoked, Saladin was the last man the Christians should have made an enemy of. Irritated by their total want of good faith, and their perpetual invasions of his territory when they thought he was distant or engaged with other objects, he at length determined to subdue them, and that effectually, by taking their capital city.

After gaining the sanguinary battle of Tiberias, and taking every city in Palestine before which he thought it worth his while to sit down, the victorious Sultan advanced towards Jerusalem. The moment appeared to be come at which this religiously important city must fall again into the power of the Mussulmans, and they implored Mahomet to grant this crowning triumph to the arms of Saladin. After having taken Gaza, and several fortresses in the neigbourhood, the Sultan collected his whole army and surrounded the holy city. A queen in tears, the children of the warriors killed at the battle of Tiberias, a few fugitive soldiers, and some pilgrims recently arrived from the West, were the only guardians of the Holy Sepulchre. A great number of Christian families who had left the devastated provinces of Palestine filled the city; but, far from bringing it any assistance, they only served to augment the trouble and consternation.

When close to the walls, Saladin summoned before him the principal inhabitants, and said to them: “I know, as well as you do, that Jerusalem is the house of God, and I do not wish to profane its sanctity by the effusion of blood: abandon its walls, and I will give up to you a part of my treasures; I will give you as much land as you can cultivate.” “We cannot,” they replied, “cede willingly a city in which our God died; still less can we yield it to you.” Saladin, irritated by their refusal, swore upon the Koran to level the towers and ramparts of Jerusalem, and to avenge the death of the Mussulmans slaughtered by the companions and the soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon.

At the moment Saladin was speaking to the deputies, an eclipse of the sun all at once left the heavens in darkness, and appeared to be a sinister presage for the Christians. Nevertheless, the inhabitants, encouraged by the clergy, prepared to defend the city. They had chosen as leader Baleau d’Ibelin, who had been present at the battle of Tiberias. This old warrior, whose experience and virtue inspired confidence and respect, immediately set about repairing the fortifications and disciplining the new defenders of Jerusalem. As he wanted officers, he created fifty knights from among the citizens; all the Christians in a condition to fight took up arms, and swore to shed their blood in the cause of Christ. There was no money to defray the expenses of the war, but all means of obtaining it appeared legitimate amidst the danger which threatened the city of God. The churches were spoiled, and the people, terrified at the approach of Saladin, beheld without scandal the precious metal which covered the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre converted into coin.

The standards of Saladin were speedily seen floating over the heights of Emäus; the Mussulman army pitched its camp on the same places as were occupied by the tents of Godfrey, Tancred, and the two Roberts, when they besieged the Holy City. The Christians at first opposed a warm resistance, and made frequent sorties, in which they held in one hand the lance or the sword, and in the other a shovel, with which they threw dust in the eyes of the Saracens. A great number of citizens received the palm of martyrdom, and ascended, say the historians, into the celestial Jerusalem. Many Mussulmans fell under the swords of their adversaries, and went to inhabit the banks of the river which waters Paradise.

Saladin, after being encamped some days on the west of the city, directed his attacks on the north, and mined the ramparts which extend from the gate of Josophat to that of St. Stephen. The bravest of the citizens made a sortie, and endeavoured to destroy the machines and works of the besiegers, encouraging each other by repeating the words of Scripture,—“A single one of us will put ten infidels to flight; and ten will scatter ten thousand.” They performed prodigies of valour, but they could not retard the progress of the siege; repulsed by the Saracens, they slowly retired to the city, whither their return brought discouragement and terror. The towers and ramparts seemed ready to fall at the first assault. Despair then seized upon the inhabitants, who saw before them no defence but tears and prayers. Instead of flying to arms, the soldiers ran to the churches; the promise of a hundred pieces of gold could not detain them one night on the threatened ramparts. The clergy made processions through the streets, to invoke the assistance of Heaven; some beat their breasts with stones, others lacerated their bodies with scourges, crying Mercy! mercy! Nothing was heard in Jerusalem but groans; “but our Sir Jesus Christ,” says an old chronicle, “would not listen to them; for the luxury and impurity which were in the city did not allow orisons or prayers to mount up before God.” The despair of the inhabitants inspired them with a thousand contrary projects at once: sometimes they formed the resolution of leaving the city, and seeking a glorious death in the ranks of the infidels: at others, they placed all their hopes in the clemency of Saladin.

Amongst the general trouble and agitation, the Greek and Syrian Christians, and the Melchite Christians, endured with much pain the authority of the Latins, and laid to their charge all the misfortunes of the war. A plot was discovered, in which they had resolved to deliver Jerusalem to the Mussulmans: this discovery increased the general alarm, and determined the principal men of the city to ask a capitulation of Saladin. Accompanied by Baleau d’Ibelin, they went to propose to the Sultan to give up the place upon the conditions he had offered before the siege. But Saladin remembered that he had sworn to take the city by assault, and to put all the inhabitants to the sword. He sent back the deputies without giving them any hope; Baleau d’Ibelin returned to him several times, renewed his supplications and prayers, but found Saladin still inflexible. One day, when the Christian deputies were conjuring him warmly to accept their capitulation, he turned towards the place, and, pointing to the standards which floated over the walls,—“How can you ask me,” said he, “to grant conditions to a captured city?” Notwithstanding this, the Saracens were repulsed; and Baleau, animated by the advantage obtained by the Christians, replied to the Sultan,—“You see, Jerusalem does not want for defences; if we cannot obtain any mercy from you, we will adopt a terrible resolution, and the excess of our despair shall fill you with fright. Those temples and palaces you are so anxious to conquer shall be destroyed, and all our wealth, which excites the ambition and cupidity of the Saracens, shall be given up to the flames. We will lay level the mosque of Omar, and the mysterious stone of Jacob, the object of your worship, shall be broken and ground into dust. Jerusalem contains five thousand Mussulman prisoners: they shall perish by the sword. We will, with our own hands, slaughter our women and our children, and thus spare them the disgrace of becoming your slaves. When the Holy City shall be nothing but a mass of ruins—one vast tomb, we will leave it, followed by the angry manes of our friends and neighbours; we will leave it, fire and sword in hand; not one of us will gain Paradise, without having sent to Hell ten Mussulmans. We shall thus obtain a glorious death, and shall yield our last breath in calling down upon you the maledictions of the God of Jerusalem.”

This speech produced a great effect upon Saladin, and he invited the deputies to return next day. He consulted the doctors of the law, and they decided that he might accept the proposed capitulation without violating his oath. The conditions were signed on the morrow, in the tent of the Sultan; thus Jerusalem again fell under the domination of the Infidels, after having been eighty-four years in the hands of the Christians. The Latin historians had remarked that the Crusaders had entered Jerusalem on a Friday, at the same hour that Christ had suffered death to expiate the crimes of the human race. The Saracens retook the city on a Friday, the anniversary of the day on which, according to their belief, Mahomet ascended from Jerusalem to Heaven. This circumstance, which might have induced Saladin to sign the capitulation proposed to him, did not fail to add new splendour to his triumph with the Mussulmans, and caused him to be looked upon as the favourite of the prophet.

All the warriors in Jerusalem obtained permission to retire to Tyre or to Tripoli. The conqueror granted their lives to the inhabitants, and permitted them to purchase their liberty. All Christians, with the exception of Greeks and Syrians, received an order to quit Jerusalem within four days. The ransom was fixed at ten pieces of gold for men, five for women, and two for children. Those who had not the means to purchase their freedom remained slaves.

These conditions had at first been received with joy by the Christians; but when the time arrived for their leaving Jerusalem, their grief at quitting the Holy Places became intense; they watered the tomb of Christ with their tears, and reproached themselves with not having died to defend it; they ran, unconsciously, from Calvary to the various churches they were never to see again, shedding torrents of tears; they embraced each other, weeping, in the streets, and deploring their fatal divisions. Such as could not pay their ransom, and could only leave Jerusalem as the slaves of the Saracens, gave themselves up to the wildest despair. But so great, in these deplorable moments, appeared their attachment to a religion whose precepts in happier times they had completely neglected, that the outrages offered to their worship afflicted them more than their own proper misery. A cross of gold having been torn from the dome of the church of the Templars, and dragged through the streets by the Saracens, all the Christians burst into cries of grief and indignation, and, although disarmed, Jerusalem was on the point of rising against its conquerors.

At last the fatal day arrived on which the Christians were to leave Jerusalem. All the gates of the city were closed, except that of David, through which the Christians were to go out. Saladin, seated upon a lofty throne, saw all the people pass before him. The patriarch, followed by the clergy, appeared the first, bearing the sacred vases, the ornaments of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and treasures of which, says an Arabian author, God alone knows the value. The Queen of Jerusalem, accompanied by the barons and knights, came next. Saladin respected her grief, and addressed some kind words to her. The Queen was followed by a great number of women, bearing their children in their arms, and uttering the most pitiable cries. Several of them drew near to the throne of Saladin: “You see at your feet,” said they, “the wives, the mothers, and the daughters of the warriors you detain prisoners; we are leaving for ever our country, which they have defended with glory; they assisted us in supporting life; losing them we have lost our last hope; if you would deign to restore them to us, they would soften the miseries of our exile, and we should be no longer without a support upon earth.” Saladin was touched by their prayers, and promised to mitigate the misfortunes of so many unhappy families. He restored the sons to mothers, and the husbands to wives, who were found among the captives. Many Christians had abandoned their valuable goods and property, in order to bear away upon their shoulders some of their parents weakened by age, and others their friends, the infirm, and the sick. Saladin was affected by this spectacle, and rewarded the virtue and piety of his enemies with gifts and alms; he took pity upon all these unfortunates, and permitted the Hospitallers to remain in the city to tend to the sick, as well as such as serious maladies prevented from moving.

When the Saracens commenced the siege, the Holy City contained more than a hundred thousand Christians. The greater part of them purchased their freedom: Baleau d’Ibelin, the depositary of the treasures destined to defray the expenses of the siege, employed all that was left in the liberation of the citizens. Malec-Adel, the brother of the Sultan, paid the ransom of two thousand captives. Saladin followed his example by setting free great numbers of poor and orphans. There only remained in slavery about fourteen thousand Christians, among whom were four or five thousand children, too young to be aware of the extent of their misfortune, but whose fate the faithful deplored the more, from the probability that these innocent victims of war would be brought up in the idolatry of Mahomet. From this period Jerusalem has remained in the hands of the Mahometans.

We have given these interesting sieges in greater detail than we shall be able to afford to most others; but we feel satisfied our readers will be pleased at being made acquainted with as many particulars as possible regarding a city which occupies so prominent a place in the religious and civil history of the world. We were fortunate, likewise, in having an historian[2] to refer to who had devoted great part of his life and his superior talents to the history of the wars of which the two latter sieges form a part. We have adopted, in the sieges of Jerusalem, the plan we shall follow in other cases; we have given the sieges in one series, thinking that the best way to impress the general history of the places in young minds, as likewise of showing, by something like a consecutive account, the causes of wars, defeats, and successes.

SAMARIA.

Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel, and the rival of Jerusalem, sustained several memorable sieges. Adad, King of Syria, entered into Palestine in the reign of Achab, and encamped before the walls of Samaria. He soon reduced the city to the last extremity. Adad, reckoning upon the certainty of conquering the states of Achab, offered that king peace upon the conditions of his giving up his treasures, his wives, and his children. Achab, being without resource, consented to his demands; but on the morrow, Adad having added propositions still more hard, the king resolved to defend himself to the last. At the moment Adad thought victory within his grasp, the footmen of the Prince of Israel advanced, attacked his vanguard, killed many of them, and pursued the rest to the camp. Achab with his troops fell upon the infidels, put them to flight, and enriched himself with their spoils.—A.C. 907.

SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 906.

The following year Adad returned into Palestine with a more formidable army. Achab marched to meet him, and gave him battle. The Syrians were routed, and lost, it is said, a hundred thousand men. Adad was made prisoner.

THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 891.

In the reign of Joram, the son of Achab, the capital of Israel once more beheld a formidable Syrian army at its gates. This siege was long and celebrated. Adad surrounded the city on all sides; no supplies could be brought in; the public magazines were exhausted, and the famine became so excessive that an ass’s head was sold for ninety pieces of silver; and twelve bushels of pigeons’ dung, which was used instead of salt, was worth five. Such distress made Joram fear that in their despair the people would open the gates to the enemy. To encourage the soldiers and watch the people, he every day visited the walls and the fortifications. Whilst thus employed, a woman cast herself at his feet. “My lord and my king,” said she, uttering fearful cries, “in the name of God, save an unfortunate!” “What would you with me?” replied the monarch; “if the Lord does not save you, think you that I, who am but a simple mortal, can? What have you to say to me?” “Lord, the woman you see with me said: ‘Give me your son, and let us eat him to-day; to-morrow we will eat mine.’ I killed my son, and we ate him, but this wicked woman, notwithstanding her promise, has concealed her child, and robbed me of the food that is my due.” On hearing this horrid recital, the King of Israel tore his vestments, and exposed to the eyes of everybody the hair shirt he wore next his skin. This prince, reduced to despair, threw the cause of so many evils upon Elijah, and wished to put him to death. But the man of God promised him that the next day the abundance should be so great that a measure of pure meal should be sold for less than one sicle, or thirty sols; but the prophet gained no believers. An officer upon whose arm the king was leaning, turned him into ridicule: “If the All-powerful,” said he, “were to open the heavens, and shower down provisions, this would not be possible.” “You will see,” replied Elijah, “but you will enjoy no part of it.” Four lepers, who dwelt near the gates of the city, urged on by despair, went to the camp of the Syrians in hopes of meeting with death, but what was their astonishment to find no one there? The enemy, struck by a sudden panic, and thinking they heard the noise of a great army advancing, had taken to flight, and left everything behind them. The lepers, after having satisfied their hunger, and put aside a great quantity of gold and silver, hastened to announce this happy news to the king. Joram feared it was a trick. At length, after being assured of the flight of the infidels, the people rushed in crowds to the camp, and the word of the prophet was fulfilled in all its circumstances. The king set the officer who had mocked the prophet, at the gate of the city, and the unfortunate man was smothered by the crowd of people, without being able to take a part in the unlooked-for abundance.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.C. 721.

Salmanazar, King of Assyria, learning that Hosea had made himself king of Israel, which country he considered tributary to his power, and wished to shake off the yoke, besieged Samaria, and carried it by assault after a blockade of three years. Hosea was made prisoner, and carried away, with the greater part of his subjects, into Assyria. Thus ended the kingdom of Israel, or of the ten tribes.

FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 120.

Samaria, however, became again peopled, and continued to dispute precedency with Jerusalem till the government of Hyrcanus, son of Simon Maccabeus. This great sacrificator took it by escalade, after a siege of a year, and completely destroyed the city and fortifications. But Herod the Great rebuilt it, increased its extent considerably, and named it Sebasta, out of compliment to Augustus.

ROME.

In our account of the early sieges of Rome, notwithstanding our conviction that many of the events related of them are apochryphal, we shall adhere to the version which was the delight of our boyhood. We do not believe the ancient history of Rome to be more fabulous than that of other countries. One of the great objects of history is to form character by placing acts of patriotic devotion or private virtue in the most attractive light; and we believe that the firmness of a Mutius Scævola, the devotedness of a Curtius, or even the apologue of Menenius Agrippa, will be more beneficial to the young mind than the bare skeletons left by the scepticism of German historians. We venerate truth, but we have seen and read nothing to convince us that the fine old tales of Livy were not founded upon something; and if in their passage to us a colouring has been added to make virtue more attractive and vice more repulsive, let us not reject them because they are too pleasing; the hard world youth have before them will prove quite chilling enough to their better sympathies: let them be allowed to enter it with hearts alive to the good, the great, and the elevating.

FIRST SIEGE, A.C. 747.

From the way in which what is called Rome, as a nation, was got together, it was naturally in a constant state of warfare. The spirit in which it was founded pervaded and ruled over it to its fall: it was at all times a nation of the sword; and when that sword was blunted by having conquered the known world, its conquests all crumbled away: when Rome ceased to be an aggressor, she instantly ceased to be great. Rome, of course, commenced this aggressive career with wars upon her neighbours, a cause for quarrel being quickly and easily found where everything was to be gained and little to be lost. Thus, the rape of the Sabine women produced the first siege of the nascent city,—a violation not only of the laws of nations, but of the laws of even the rudest state of nature, created its first enemies. The Sabines of Cures, animated by a warm desire for vengeance, presented themselves before Rome; their design was to blockade it, when chance rendered them masters of the citadel by the treachery of Tarpeia. She covenanted, as her reward for betraying the capital, for what they wore on their arms, meaning their ornamental bracelets; but they, disgusted with her action, threw their bucklers upon her and smothered her. After her, the rock from which criminals were precipitated was called the Tarpeian,—a proof that there was at least some foundation for that now disputed legend. The two peoples then came to close action, and victory remained long undecided: the Romans gave way at the first charge, but were rallied by the voice of Romulus, and recommenced the fight with obstinacy and success. The carnage was about to become horrible, when the Sabine women, for whose honour so much blood was being spilt, threw themselves between the combatants, with dishevelled hair, holding in their arms the fruits of their forced marriages, and uttering piercing cries. Their voices, their tears, their supplicating posture, relaxed the fury of the fight, and calmed the animosity of the combatants; the Sabine women became mediators between their relations and their husbands. Peace was made on the condition that the two people should from that time be one, and that the two kings should reign together.

SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 507.

Tarquin the Superb, not being able to recover by artifice the throne from which he had been expelled, sought to employ force. He had the address to interest several neighbouring nations in his cause;—when they had a chance of success, Rome had always plenty of enemies around her. Porsenna, King of Clusium, then the most powerful monarch of Italy, raised a numerous army in his defence, and laid siege to Rome. In an assault, the two consuls were wounded, and the consequently disordered Romans could not withstand their opponents. The Etruscans attacked a bridge, the capture of which must lead to that of the city; but Horatius, surnamed Cocles from having lost an eye, alone opposed himself to the troops of Porsenna, whilst his companions broke down the bridge behind him. When they had completed the work, he threw himself into the Tiber and swam ashore.

The King of Clusium, having failed in his attempt, undertook to reduce the place by famine; but the bold action of a young Roman soon made him change his design. Mutius Scævola, animated by the same spirit that had governed Cocles, was determined to relieve his country from this dreaded enemy. He went to the Clusian camp, disguised as an Etruscan, entered the king’s tent, and meeting with that prince’s secretary superbly dressed, poniarded him instead of Porsenna. He was arrested, led before the king, and strictly interrogated, whilst the instruments of torture were ostentatiously displayed in his sight. Mutius, with a haughty air, and without being the least intimidated by their menaces, exclaimed, “I am a Roman; I know how to suffer, I know how to die!” At the same time, as if he wished to punish the hand which had so ill served him, he held it in the flame of a brazier till it was consumed, looking all the while at Porsenna with a firm and stern glance. “There are thirty of us,” said he, “all sworn to rid Rome of her implacable enemy; and all will not make such a mistake as I have.” The king, astonished at the intrepid coolness of the young Roman, concluded a treaty of peace, which delivered Rome from the most formidable enemy she had had to encounter. Among the hostages given by the Romans, was Clœlia, a Roman maiden, possessed of courage beyond her sex or age. She persuaded her companions to escape by swimming across the Tiber. They succeeded, in spite of the numerous arrows discharged upon them on their passage. The boldness of the action met with high praise in Rome; but they were sent back to Porsenna, that public faith might not be violated. That prince, however, was so much pleased with such virtuous spirit, that he restored the generous maidens to freedom, and made his alliance still more close with a city that could produce heroines as well as heroes. Now all the best incidents of this siege are deemed apochryphal; and yet, who will dare to tell us that the well-authenticated accounts of the vices of the declining empire are equally instructive and ameliorating? We cannot render minds we are forming too familiar with pictures of the noble and the good, nor keep from them too carefully representations of the wicked and debasing.

THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 488.

Caius Marcius Coriolanus, exiled from Rome by the seditious Tribunes and by his own indomitable pride, so far forgot all patriotic feelings as to engage the Volscians to make war against his country. Here we beg to draw the attention of our young readers to the very different conduct of Themistocles, his contemporary, under similar circumstances. The Volscians, proud of the assistance of such a distinguished hero, made him their general: he took the field with vengeance in his heart. After a great number of victories, he marched straight to Rome, for the purpose of laying siege to it. So bold a design threw the patricians and the people equally into a state of the greatest alarm. Hatred gave way to fear: deputies were sent to Coriolanus, who received them with all the haughtiness of an enemy determined upon making his will the law. The Roman generals, instead of boldly meeting him in the field, exhorted him to grant them peace; they conjured him to have pity on his country, and forget the injuries offered to him by the populace, who were already sufficiently punished by the evils he had inflicted upon them. But they brought back nothing but the stern reply, “that they must restore to the Volscians all they had taken from them, and grant them the right of citizenship.” Other deputies were dismissed in the same manner. The courage of these Romans, so proud and so intrepid, appeared to have passed with Coriolanus over to the side of the Volscians. Obedience to the laws was at an end; military discipline was neglected: they took counsel of nothing but their fear. At length, after many tumultuous deliberations, the ministers of religion were sent to endeavour to bend the will of the angry compatriot. Priests, clothed in their sacred habiliments advanced with mournful steps to the camp of the Volscians, and the most venerable amongst them implored Coriolanus to give peace to his country, and, in the name of the gods, to have compassion on the Romans, his fellow-citizens and brothers: but they found him equally stern and inflexible. When the people saw the holy priests return without success, they indeed supposed the republic lost. They filled the temples, they embraced the altars of the gods, and gathered in clusters about the city, uttering cries and lamentations: Rome presented a picture of profound grief and debasement. Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and Volumnia, his wife, saved their unhappy country. They presented themselves before him, and conjured him by all that he held most sacred, to spare a city which had given him birth, and which still contained his mother, his wife, and his children. His mother was a woman of great spirit,—a Roman, almost a Spartan mother: she had, from his boyhood, stimulated him to the performance of noble and heroic deeds: she might be called the parent of his glory, as well as of his vigorous person. Coriolanus loved his mother tenderly, almost idolized her, and could not resist her tears. He raised the siege, and delivered Rome from the greatest alarm it had ever experienced.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.C. 387.

A colony of Gauls, confined for room in their own country, entered upper Italy, under the command of Brennus, three hundred and eighty-seven years before Christ, and laid siege to Clusium, in Tuscany. Accustomed already to command as a master in Italy, Rome sent three ambassadors to Brennus, to inform him that that city was under the protection of the Roman republic. Offended by the rude reply of the Gauls, the ambassadors retired indignantly, but violated the rights of nations by entering Clusium, and assisting in the defence of it. Brennus, highly irritated, demanded satisfaction, and Rome refused to give it. He marched directly against that already superb city. The two armies met on the banks of the river Allia, within half a league of Rome. The Romans, being the less in numbers, extended their ranks, in order not to be surrounded, and by that means weakened their centre. The Gauls, perceiving this, fell with fury on the cohorts of the centre, broke through them, and attacked the wings, whose flanks this opening left exposed. Already conquered by the terror inspired by this bold manœuvre, which bespoke a people accustomed to military tactics, the wings of the Roman army took to flight without drawing sword, and the main body, bewildered by the general rout which ensued, took refuge in Veii, instead of regaining Rome, which offered them the nearest asylum. Thousands of Romans fell under the sword of the Gauls; and if these people had marched straight to the city, instead of lingering to share the spoil, the Roman name would have been at an end. They remained three days engaged in distributing the spoil, and these three days saved Rome, whither the fugitives bore the news of the disaster the army and the consuls had sustained. They rendered the republic aware of what it had to expect from the victorious Gauls. The Senate, in the general alarm, took advantage of the time the barbarians employed in rejoicings for their victory. Not finding a sufficient force to defend the city, they threw all the men capable of bearing arms into the Capitol, and sent away all useless mouths; the old men, women, and children took refuge in the nearest cities. There only remained in Rome a few pontiffs and ancient senators, who, not being willing to survive either their country or its glory, generously devoted themselves to death, to appease, according to their belief, the anger of the infernal gods. These venerable men, in order to preserve to the last sigh the marks of a dignity which they believed would expire with them, put on their sacred vestments or their consular robes, placed themselves at the doors of their houses, in their ivory chairs, and awaited with firmness the decree which Destiny was about to pronounce on Rome. Brennus arrived three days after his victory. Surprised at finding the gates open, the walls without defence, and the houses without inhabitants, he suspected some ambush or stratagem. The continued silence and calm at length reassured him. He placed his points of guard; then, whilst spreading his troops through the quarters of the city, the first objects that met his eyes were the venerable old men who had devoted themselves to death. Their splendid habits, their white beards, their air of grandeur and firmness, their silence even, astonished Brennus, and inspired a religious fear in his army. A Gaul, less touched with this august spectacle and more daring than the rest, ventured to pluck insolently the beard of an ancient senator. The spirited old man dealt him a heavy blow with his ivory staff on the head. The irritated soldier killed the senator, and this became the signal for slaughter; all were massacred in their chairs, and the inhabitants who had not escaped were put to the sword. Brennus attacked the Capitol, but he was repulsed with loss. Despairing of taking it by force, he had recourse to blockade, to reduce it by famine. In order to avenge himself for the resistance offered by the Romans, he set fire to the city; and soon Rome presented nothing but its hills surrounded with smoking ruins.

The Gauls, inflated with their success, believed the whole country to be in a state of terror, and they preserved neither order nor discipline; some wandered about the neighbourhood for the purpose of plunder, whilst others spent both days and nights in drinking. They thought the whole people shut up in the Capitol, but Rome found an avenger in Camillus. This great man, exiled by his ungrateful fellow-citizens, had retired to Ardea. He prevailed upon the young men of that city to follow him. In concert with the magistrates, he marched out on a dark night, fell upon the Gauls stupified with wine, made a horrible slaughter, and thus raised the depressed courage of his fellow-citizens. They flocked in crowds to his standard, and, looking upon Camillus as their only resource, they chose him as their leader. But he refused to do anything without the order of the Senate and the people shut up in the Capitol. It was almost impossible to gain access to them. A young Roman, however, had the hardihood to undertake this perilous enterprise, and succeeded. Camillus, declared dictator, collected an army of more than forty thousand men, who believed themselves invincible under so able a general.

The Gauls, meanwhile, perceived the traces left by the young man, and Brennus endeavoured, during the night, to surprise the Capitol by the same path. After many efforts, a few succeeded in gaining the summit of the rock, and were already on the point of scaling the walls; the sentinel was asleep, and nothing seemed to oppose them. Some geese, consecrated to Juno, were awakened by the noise made by the enemy, and began to cry as they do when disturbed. Manlius, a person of consular rank, flew to the spot, encountered the Gauls, and hurled two of them from the rock. The Romans were roused, and the enemy were driven back; most of them either fell or were thrown from the precipice, and very few of the party engaged regained their camp. The sleepy sentinel was precipitated from the Capitol, and Manlius was highly rewarded. Much irritated at his defeat, Brennus pressed the place still more closely, to augment the famine, which had begun to be felt even in his camp, since Camillus had made himself master of the open country. An accommodation was soon proposed; it was agreed that Brennus should receive a thousand pounds weight of gold, on condition of his raising the siege and leaving the lands of the republic. The gold was brought, but when it was to be weighed, the Gauls made use of false weights. The Romans complained of this; but Brennus, laughing at their remonstrances, threw his sword and baldric into the scale, which counterpoised the gold, adding raillery to injustice. “Woe be to the conquered!” said he, in a barbarous tone. At that very moment Camillus reached the capital, and advanced with a strong escort towards the place of conference. Upon learning what had passed, “Take back this gold to the Capitol,” said he to the Roman deputies; “and you, Gauls,” added he, “retire with your weights and scales; it is with steel only that Romans should redeem their country.” The parties soon proceeded to blows; Camillus brought up his troops, and a furious charge ensued. The Romans, maddened by the sight of their ruined country, made incredible efforts. The Gauls could not withstand them; they were broken, and fled on all sides. Brennus rallied them, raised the siege, and encamped a few miles from Rome. Camillus followed him with characteristic ardour, attacked him afresh, and defeated him. Most of the Gauls were either killed on the field of battle, or massacred in detail by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages; so that, it is said, a single one did not remain to carry back to his country the news of their defeat. Thus Rome was saved by the valour and ability of an illustrious exile, who, forgetting the injustice and ingratitude of his country, richly merited the title of its second founder.

FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 211.

This siege, although so short a one as to occupy but little space in our narration, belongs to a very interesting period in the Roman history: it occurred in the course of what are called the Punic wars, which were the contests of two of the most powerful states then in existence, for supremacy. Rome and Carthage were like two suns; they had become too powerful for both to retain their splendour in one hemisphere. They were really the noblest conflicts in which Rome was engaged; there was a rivalry in generals and soldiers worthy of being sustained by the great republic; and though Rome was in the end the conqueror, and her generals were great, it is doubtful whether she can exhibit in her annals so perfect a captain as Hannibal. The Carthaginians suffer, in the opinion of posterity, in another way; the Romans were not only the victors, but the historians; Punic bad faith is proverbial in the Roman language, but we strongly suspect that a Carthaginian Polybius or Livy would have found as many sins against the laws of nations committed by the one party as the other. The man was the painter, and not the lion. Whether it is from want of sympathy with a mere nation of the sword, we know not; but, notwithstanding the great men who illustrated Rome’s armies and senate, we cannot help taking part with Hannibal and his countrymen throughout these wars. Much as we like Cato the Censor in other respects, we cannot but view him, with his figs and his “delenda est Carthago,” as a spiteful old fellow, whom we should very much have liked to see disappointed.

After various and great successes, of which it is not our business to speak, Hannibal, to terrify the Romans, presented himself before their city. The consuls, who had received orders to watch that the republic should receive no injury, felt it their duty to encounter him. When they were on the point of engaging, a violent storm compelled both parties to retire; and the same thing occurred several times; so that Hannibal, believing that he saw in this event something supernatural, said, according to Livy, that sometimes fortune and sometimes his will was always wanting to make him master of Rome. That which still more surprised him was, that whilst he was encamped at one of the gates of the city, the Romans sent an army out of one of the other gates into Spain; and that the very field in which he was encamped was sold at the same time, without that circumstance having diminished the value of it. In order to avenge himself, he put up to auction the goldsmiths’ shops which were around the most public place in Rome, and then retired.

SIXTH SIEGE, A.C. 87.

War being declared against Mithridates, king of Pontus, was the signal of discord between Marius and Sylla. These two rivals, whose animosity knew no bounds, demanded at the same time the command of the army. Sylla obtained it from the Senate, and immediately went to place himself at the head of his troops. Marius took advantage of his absence, and, with the assistance of the tribune Sulpicius, he so excited the people against the nobles, that Sylla was deprived of his command which was conferred upon him. Sylla, far from obeying the sentence of the people, marched straight to Rome with his army, consisting of forty thousand men. This was the first time, since Coriolanus, that this great city had been besieged by one of its own citizens. Destitute of everything, its only defence being a few soldiers got together in haste by Marius, it did not make a long resistance. Sylla entered as an enemy; the multitude mounted upon the roofs of the houses, armed with anything they could lay hold of, and poured such a shower of stones and tiles upon the heads of his soldiers, that they could not advance. Sylla, forgetful of what he owed to his country and to himself, cried out to his men to set fire to the houses; and, arming himself with a blazing brand, gave them the example. Marius, too weak to contend with his rival, abandoned to him the centre of the empire. The conqueror affected great moderation, prevented the pillage of his country, reformed the government, raised the authority of the Senate upon the ruins of that of the people, put to death Sulpicius, with ten other senators, partisans of his rival, and embarked for Asia.

This second absence replunged Rome into fresh misfortunes; the faction of the people, of which Marius was the soul, excited by Cinna, took courage again. This consul, having won over some tribunes, caused so much trouble, that he was driven from the city and deprived of the consulate; but he succeeded in gaining to his quarrel a large army encamped in the Campania, and almost all the peoples of Italy. Marius, who had taken refuge in Africa, recrossed the sea, and came to join Cinna; he was immediately declared pro-consul. It was proposed to give him fasces and lictors, but he rejected them: “Such honours,” said he, “would not become a banished man.” His party held a council, and it was determined to go and attack Rome: Sylla had set them the example.

Rome, always victorious against external enemies, but always weak against domestic attacks, saw herself besieged by four armies, commanded by Marius, Cinna, Sertorius, and Carbo. Masters of all the passages, they subjected the city to famine, and reduced its inhabitants to extremity. Pompeius Strabo came at last, but too late, to the succour of his country with an army. Rome, in a state of consternation, and seeing herself on the verge of ruin, sent deputies to the enemies to invite them to enter the city. A council was held. Marius and Cinna, after having marked out their victims, gave the city up to all the horrors of war. A multitude of virtuous Romans were immolated to the vengeance of the two leaders; Marius inundated his country with the purest blood of the republic. Birth and riches were unpardonable crimes; a nod of this tyrant’s head was an order for death. This ferocious and barbarous man, after having exercised the most horrible cruelties, died a short time after this victory, in the middle of Rome itself, of which he had been the preserver and the executioner.

SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 408.

When we compare the date of the last siege with that of this, and glance over the events which had taken place between them, we feel great surprise that no siege of Rome should have intervened. It would appear that the Eternal City was guarded by some supernatural power, through shocks and changes of empires, from feeling convulsions, of which it really was the centre. Through the period of the empire, Rome may be said never to have been invaded by a foreign enemy, or by its own children in revolt. The empire changed masters, at times, as a conjurer shifts his balls, and men of all countries occupied its throne; but, in all these revolutions, Rome itself was held sacred.

Alaric, king of the Goths, entered Italy, and advanced towards Rome to lay siege to it. On his route, a pious solitary came to throw himself at his feet, imploring him with tears to spare that city, which had become the centre of the Christian world. “Rather,” replied the prince, “it is not my will that leads me on; I incessantly hear a voice in my ears, which cries—‘On, Alaric, on! and sack Rome!’” He reduced it to the most frightful extremity, by closing every passage for provisions, and by making himself master of the navigation of the Tiber. Pestilence was soon added to famine. Rome was nothing but one vast cemetery: it became necessary to treat with the king of the Goths.

The deputies of Rome declared that the Roman people were willing to accept peace upon reasonable conditions; but rather than its glory should be stained, they would give battle. “Very good!” replied Alaric, with a loud laugh; “it is never so easy to cut the hay as when the grass is thickest!” They were forced to lay aside their ancient pride, and submit to circumstances. The conqueror ordered them to bring to him all the gold, silver, valuable furniture, and foreign slaves that were in the city. “And what will you leave, then, to the inhabitants?” asked the deputies. “Life!” replied Alaric. After long contestations, it was agreed that Rome should pay five thousand pounds weight of gold, thirty thousand pounds weight of silver, four thousand silken tunics, three thousand skins coloured scarlet, three thousand pounds weight of spices, and, as hostages, give up the children of the most noble citizens. When these conditions were complied with, the king of the Goths raised the siege.

EIGHTH SIEGE, A.D. 410.

Two years after, Alaric, constantly provoked to vengeance by the perfidies of the Romans, presented himself again before the Capitol, and besieged Rome very closely. The siege was long, but very few circumstances relating to it have been preserved. On the 24th of August, the Gothic prince entered the city, of which some traitors had opened the gates to him during the night. Rome was sacked by the furious soldiery; its wealth, its valuable furniture, its public edifices, its temples, its private houses, became the prey of the flames. The blood of the citizens inundated the streets and public places; the women were dishonoured, and then immolated upon the bodies of their slaughtered husbands and fathers; children were destroyed upon the bosoms of their mothers. Heaven seemed to arm itself in concert with the Goths to punish Rome: lightning reduced to dust what the flames had spared.

The Goths, however, respected the churches; these holy places were an inviolable asylum for all who sought refuge in them. An officer having entered a house which served as a depôt for the church of St. Peter, and finding nobody in it but a woman advanced in age, asked her if she had any gold or silver. “I have a great deal,” she replied; “I will place it before your eyes.” At the same time, she displayed a great number of precious vases. “They belong to St. Peter,” said she; “carry away, if you dare, these sacred riches; I cannot prevent you. I abandon them to you; but you must render an account of them to him who is the master of them.” The barbarian did not dare to lay an impious hand upon this deposit, and sent to ask the king’s orders relative to them. Alaric commanded all the vases to be taken to the basilica of the church of St. Peter; and that that woman, with all the Christians who would join her, should be conducted thither likewise. It was a spectacle as surprising as it was magnificent, to see a long train of soldiers, who, holding in one hand their naked swords, and supporting with the other the precious vases they bore on their heads, marched with a respectful countenance, and as if in triumph, amidst the greatest riot and disorder.

The Christian women signalized their courage in a most striking manner on this melancholy day. A widow, respectable from her age and birth, and who had lived in retirement with an only daughter, whom she brought up in a life of piety, was assailed by a troop of soldiers, who, in a threatening manner, demanded her gold. “I have given it to the poor,” replied she. The angry barbarians rewarded her answer with blows. Insensible to pain, she only implored them not to separate her from her companion, whose beauty she feared might expose her to insults more cruel than death itself. Her appeal was so touching, that the Gothic soldiers conducted them both safely to the basilica of St. Paul.

A young officer, struck with the beauty of a Roman lady, after having made every effort in vain to induce her to comply with his wishes, drew his sword, and pretending that he would cut off her head, inflicted a slight wound, in the hope that she would be overcome by the fear of death; but this noble woman, so far from being terrified at the sight of her own blood, presenting her neck to her enemy, exclaimed,—“Strike again, and strike better!” The sword fell from the hand of the barbarian; he conducted his captive to the church of St. Peter, and commanded the guards to give her up to nobody but her husband. Thus Rome, 1,163 years after its foundation, lost in a single day that splendour which had dazzled the world. It was not, however, destroyed, and was soon repeopled again; but from that period of humiliation, this queen of cities and of the world became the sport and the prey of the barbarians who sacked it in turn.

After the taking of Naples in 538, Belisarius shut himself up in Rome, and prepared to sustain a siege, if Vitiges would undertake to attack him. The new monarch, at the head of a hundred and fifty thousand men, marched towards the capital of Italy, asking of every one he fell in with on his route, whether Belisarius were still in Rome. “Prince, be satisfied on that point,” replied a priest; “the only part of the military art Belisarius is ignorant of, is flight.” This general had constructed a fort upon a bridge, at a mile from Rome, and had provided it with a sufficient garrison; but these base cowards, seized with fear at the approach of the Goths, took to flight, and dispersed themselves over the Campania. The next day, at dawn, Vitiges crossed the bridge with a great part of his army. As he advanced, he met Belisarius, who, at the head of a thousand horse, had come to reconnoitre; his surprise was excessive at seeing the enemy; but without being daunted by their numbers, he halted, and received them at the head of his little troop. Here the valour and exploits of Belisarius approach the marvellous: in the hottest of the mêlée, the brave leader of the Romans was recognised by some deserters, who cried out from several quarters at once: “At the bay horse, comrades!—aim at the bay horse!” Assailed on all sides, he became a mark for every arrow. Inflamed with a generous courage, he drove off some, overthrew others, and cut down all that impeded his passage. The Romans, seeing the danger of their general, flew to his aid, surrounded him, warded off every blow directed against him, and made him a rampart of their bucklers and their bodies. The terrified Goths turned bridle, and were pursued to their camp; the rest of the army, however, stopped the career of the conquerors, and forced them to fly in their turn to a neighbouring height, where they rallied. The combat was then renewed; and the Romans, too inferior in numbers, would scarcely have effected a retreat, but for the heroic valour of an officer named Valentinus. This new Cocles alone withstood the Gothic cavalry, and gave time to his comrades to regain the city; but the inhabitants shut the gates against them. In vain Belisarius shouted his name, and pressed to be admitted; the inhabitants were persuaded that he had perished in the fight, and could not otherwise recognise his countenance, from the blood and dust which disfigured it; they therefore paid no regard to his orders. In this extremity, Belisarius re-animated his little band, and turned with fury upon the enemy, who were close at his heels. The Goths, imagining that he was at the head of fresh troops from the city, stopped their pursuit, turned their horses’ heads, and regained their camp. Belisarius re-entered the city in triumph, where he was received with transports of the most lively joy. Rome believed itself from that time safe from all reverses, beneath the ægis of this intrepid general. In this combat the Goths lost the élite of their cavalry.

On the eighteenth day of the siege, at sunrise, the Goths, led on by Vitiges, marched towards the gate Salaria. At the sight of their machines, Belisarius broke into a loud laugh, whilst the inhabitants were frozen with fear. The Goths had reached the bank of the ditch, when the Roman general, seizing a bow, took aim at a Gothic commander covered with a cuirass, and pierced him quite through the neck. This act was highly applauded by his troops, whose triumph was doubled by a second aim as fortunate as the first. Belisarius then commanded his soldiers to make a general discharge at the oxen which drew the machines. In an instant they were covered and transpierced with an iron shower. The astonished and discomfited Goths were forced to terminate their attack.

Although the attempts of Vitiges seemed generally to fail, he was on the point of taking Rome, to the north of the mole or tomb of Adrian, since called the castle of St. Angelo. It was necessary for the Goths to possess themselves of this place, to cross the Tiber. In spite of the arrows of the Romans, they had applied their ladders and begun to ascend, when the defenders of the mole bethought themselves of breaking off the numerous marble statues with which this monument was ornamented, and rolled the fragments upon the heads of the besiegers, who, beaten from their ladders by these enormous masses, were constrained to abandon their enterprise.

The next day, Belisarius dismissed all useless mouths from the city; he enrolled a great number of artisans; he changed the locks and bolts of the city gates twice a month; and caused instruments to be played upon the walls during the night. A Goth, remarkable for his height and famous for his exploits, covered with his cuirass, and with his helmet on his head, advanced from the ranks opposite the gate Salaria, and setting his back against a tree, kept up a continuous discharge of arrows at the battlements. An immense javelin, launched from a ballist, pierced him through cuirass, body and all, and penetrating half its length into the tree, nailed this redoubtable warrior to it. Although we are arrived at a well-authenticated period of history, we must confess the following account trenches upon the marvellous: but, as we know truth is sometimes more wonderful than fiction, we do not hesitate to repeat it. A Massagete horseman named Chorsamantes, one of Belisarius’s guards, accompanied by a few Romans, was pursuing a body of sixty horse on the plains of Nero. His companions having turned rein, in order not to approach too near to the enemy’s camp, he continued the pursuit alone. The Goths, seeing him thus deserted, turned round upon him: he killed the boldest of them, charged the others, and put them to flight. Chorsamantes pursued them to their intrenchments, and, more fortunate than prudent, he regained Rome in safety, and was received with loud acclamations. Some time after, having been wounded in a rencontre, he swore to avenge himself, and kept his word. He went out alone, and made his way to the camp of the Goths. They took him for a deserter; but when they saw him shooting at them, twenty horsemen came out for the purpose of cutting him in pieces. He at first met them with the greatest audacity, and even checked them; but soon, environed on all parts, furious at the aspect of peril, and always the more redoubtable from the numbers of his enemies, he fell, covered with wounds, upon a heap of men and horses he had slain.

In a severe combat which was afterwards fought, the Goths were repulsed with loss. Rutilus, a Roman officer, pierced by a dart, which was half-buried in his head, as if insensible to the pain, continued the pursuit of the enemy. He died the moment the dart was extracted. Another officer, named Azzes, returned from a charge with an arrow sticking close to his right eye. A skilful leech, named Theoclistes, cured him. Tragàn, the commander of a body of troops, whilst endeavouring to break through a battalion of Goths, received an arrow in his eye; the wood broke off at the moment of striking, and fell, but the steel, being quite buried, remained in the wound, without giving Tragàn much pain. Five days afterwards, the steel began to reappear, pierced through the cicatrice, and fell out apparently of itself. Tarmut, a barbarian captain, an ally of the Romans, being left almost alone on the field of battle, was assailed by a crowd of enemies; but, armed with two javelins, he laid at his feet all who ventured to approach him. At length, covered with wounds, he was near sinking from weakness, when he saw his brother Ennes, chief of the Isaurians, approach with a troop of horse, and throw himself between him and his assailants. Reanimated by this unhoped-for succour, he recovered sufficient strength to gain the city, still armed with his two javelins. He only survived this astonishing effort of courage two days. Such were the principal exploits during the siege of Rome by Vitiges, who was obliged to raise it, after a year and nine days of useless attempts. Sixty-nine battles were fought, all very bloody, and almost all to the advantage of the Romans: they cost the king of the Goths more than the half of his numerous army. Belisarius had but a small force; Rome might have been taken easily: it had yielded to much weaker armies, but Belisarius was in Rome, and that great general, fertile in resources, was alone worth whole legions.

NINTH SIEGE, A.D. 544.

In the year 544, Totila, king of the Goths, and master of part of Italy, formed the blockade of Rome, and kept the passages so well, that no provisions could be got in, either by land or sea. He stopped the entrance by the Tiber at a place where its bed was narrowest, by means of extraordinarily long beams of timber, laid from one bank to the other, upon which he raised, at the two extremities, towers of wood, which were filled with soldiers. The famine soon became so horrible, that wheat was sold at seven pieces of gold per bushel, which is nearly ninety shillings of our money, and bran at about a quarter of the sum; an ox, taken in a sortie, was sold at an unheard-of price. Fortunate was the man who could fall in with a dead horse, and take undisputed possession of it! Dogs, rats, and the most impure animals, soon became exquisite and eagerly-purchased dainties. Most of the citizens supported themselves upon nettles and wild herbs, which they tore from the foot of the walls and ruined buildings. Rome seemed to be only inhabited by pale, fleshless, livid phantoms, who either fell dead in the streets or killed themselves.

A father of five children, who demanded bread of him with piercing cries, told them to follow him, and for a moment concealing his grief in the depths of his heart, without shedding a tear, without breathing a sigh, he led them on to one of the bridges of the city; there, after enveloping his head in his cloak, he precipitated himself into the Tiber in their presence.

That which was most frightful in this extremity of misery, was the fact that the leaders themselves were the cause of the public want: they devoured the citizens by their sordid avarice. The immense masses of wheat, which they had been a long time collecting, were only distributed at their weight in gold; and very shortly most of the wealth of Rome was concentrated amongst monsters, worthy of the severest punishment.

Belisarius, whose generous spirit mourned over the misfortunes of Rome, attempted all sorts of means to succour the unfortunate capital. He caused a large number of barks to be constructed, furnished with boarding all round, to protect the soldiers from the arrows of the enemy. These boards were pierced at certain distances, to afford facility for launching their own bolts and arrows. He caused these barks to be laden with great quantities of provisions, placed himself at the head of them, and, leading with some fire-boats, he ascended the Tiber, and set fire to one of the enemy’s towers. But his enterprise not being seconded, he could not succeed in throwing provisions into the city; grief at his failure produced a sickness which brought him to the brink of the grave. Some Isaurian soldiers, who guarded the gate Asinaria, having slipped along the ramparts in the night by means of a cord, came and offered Totila to give up the city to him. The king having assured himself of their fidelity, and of the possibility of the enterprise, sent with them four of the bravest and strongest Goths, who, having got into the city, opened a gate and admitted the besiegers. Bessus, who commanded in the place, fled away with his troops at the first alarm. In the house of this governor were found heaps of gold and silver, the fruits of his cruel monopolies.

At daybreak the king of the Goths repaired to the church of St. Peter, to return thanks to God for his success. The deacon Pelagius, who awaited him at the entrance of the holy temple, prostrated himself humbly before him, and implored him to save the lives of the inhabitants. Totila, who knew how to pardon as well as to conquer, granted the sacred minister what he asked, and forbade his soldiers, under the strongest penalties, to shed the blood of any one. When this order was given, the Goths had already slain twenty soldiers and sixty citizens. These were the only victims of the brutality of the victors; but if he spared the lives of the inhabitants, he deprived them of all means to support them. Rome was abandoned to pillage for several days, and nothing was left to the citizens but the bare walls of their houses. Senators, formerly opulent and proud, were seen covered with miserable rags, reduced to beg their bread from door to door, and live upon the alms they received from the barbarians.

Totila was preparing to demolish Rome; he had already levelled a third of the walls, and was about to set fire to the most superb edifices of the city, when he received a letter from Belisarius, which diverted him from his design. “To found cities,” said this great man, “to maintain flourishing cities, is to serve society and immortalize ourselves; to overthrow and destroy them, is to declare ourselves the enemies of mankind, and dishonour ourselves for ever. By the agreement of all peoples, the city into which you have entered, in consequence of your victory, is the greatest and most magnificent under heaven. It is not the work of a single man, or a single army. During more than thirteen centuries, a long line of kings, consuls, and emperors have disputed the glory of embellishing it, and the superb edifices it presents to your eyes are so many monuments which consecrate their memories; to destroy them is to outrage the past centuries, of which they eternize the remembrance, and to deprive future ages of a magnificent spectacle. My lord, reflect that fortune must declare itself in favour of you or my master. If you remain the conqueror, how you will regret having destroyed your most splendid conquest! If you should succumb, the treatment you have inflicted upon Rome will serve as a rule by which Justinian will treat you. The eyes of the universe are upon you; it awaits the part you are about to take, to accord you the title which will be for ever attached to the name of Totila.” Persuaded by this eloquent appeal, the king of the Goths contented himself with depopulating the city of Rome, in which he did not leave a single inhabitant.

Forty days after the retreat of Totila, Belisarius transported himself to Rome, with the design of repeopling that famous city, and repairing its ruins. He soon put it in a state to sustain a new siege. Upon learning this, the king of the Goths quickly returned, and during three days made several attacks upon the city; but Belisarius repulsed them all, and forced him to retire with great loss.

TENTH SIEGE, A.D. 549.

In 549, Totila, without being discouraged by his defeat, once more laid siege to the capital of Italy. Diogenes, who commanded there, had had wheat sown within the inclosure of the walls, which might have supported the garrison some time. But the city was again betrayed by the Isaurians. The soldiers of that nation, dissatisfied with not having received their pay for some years, and having learnt that their companions had been magnificently rewarded by Totila, resolved to follow their example. They agreed with the king of the Goths to open the gate confided to their guard, which perfidy they executed at the time appointed. Totila caused his trumpets to be sounded at the side opposite to that by which he entered the city. The garrison immediately hastened where the danger seemed most pressing, and by this artifice the Goths met with no resistance. The commander of the Roman cavalry, named Paul of Cilicia, seeing that the city was taken, shut himself up, with four hundred horse, in the mausoleum of Adrian, and took possession of the bridge which leads to the church of St. Peter. He was attacked by the Goths, whose efforts he so warmly repulsed, that Totila determined to reduce his party by famine. This intrepid little band remained a day and a night without taking food, and then determined to die with honour. After taking a last farewell, and embracing each other, they opened the gates with a determination to fall upon the enemy like desperate men, when Totila proposed moderate and honourable conditions to them. They accepted them, and all took arms under his banner. Totila, become master of Rome a second time, restored it to its pristine splendour, and re-established as many of the citizens as could be found.—Narses, the general of the empire, having conquered and killed Totila, retook Rome, which opposed but a feeble resistance.

ELEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1084.

We have seen Rome besieged in its early days, when its walls were of mud; we have seen it besieged by its own sons, by the Gauls, by the barbarians; but it was still, as a warlike city, the head of a kingdom, a republic, an empire. We have now to see it besieged in a new character,—as the seat of the head of the Christian world. As if Rome was destined always to be royal, she took the same place with regard to the Church she had occupied as a temporal power; and every reader of history will allow that there has not been much less ambition, strife, and political chicanery in the latter state than in any of the former. From its foundation, Rome has always been Rome, seldom or never at rest, either within itself or with its neighbours.

“The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and ambition of the haughty Gregory VII. Henry III., king of Germany and Italy, and afterwards emperor of the West, and the pope had degraded each other; and each had seated a rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy to assume the imperial crown, and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the Church. But the Roman people adhered to the cause of Gregory: their resolution was fortified by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany. In the fourth year he corrupted, it is said, with Byzantine gold, the nobles of Rome. The gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages were delivered into his hands; the anti-pope, Clement III., was consecrated in the Lateran; the grateful pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican, and the emperor fixed his residence in the Capitol, as the successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septigonium were still defended by the nephew of Gregory; the pope himself was invested in the castle of St. Angelo, and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries and complaints; but on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of his oath, by his interest,—more potent than oaths,—by the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles; the most numerous of his armies, thirty thousand foot and six thousand horse, was instantly assembled, and his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine favour. Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach; recollecting some indispensable affairs that required his presence in Lombardy, he exhorted the Romans to persevere in their allegiance, and hastily retired, three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three years, the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors of the East and West to fly before his victorious arms. But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or scaled, but the imperial faction was still powerful and active; on the third day the people rose in a furious tumult, and a hasty word of the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage. The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and the auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the holy city of the Christians; and many thousands of the citizens, in the sight and by the allies of their spiritual father, were exposed to violation, captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the Lateran to the Colosseum, was consumed by the flames, and devoted to perpetual solitude.”[3]

TWELFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1527.

The emperor Charles V., irritated against the pope, Clement VII., his mortal enemy, charged the duke of Bourbon, in 1527, to seek every means in his power to avenge him upon the pontiff. The duke was a renegade Frenchman, of considerable military skill, and a restless disposition. He had quarrelled with his master, Francis I., and was deemed of so much consequence as to be countenanced by Francis’s rival, Charles V., and to be intrusted with the highest military command he could confer. The duke was at the head of fourteen thousand men, who loved and adored him, and who swore, Brantôme says, “to follow him wherever he went, were it to the devil.” Followed by these troops, he marched towards Rome, and immediately laid siege to it. The soldiers, animated by the desire of pillage, mounted to the assault with incredible energy, Bourbon encouraging them by his example. But as this prince, with characteristic ambition, was endeavouring to be the first upon the ramparts, he was killed by a musket-shot. The fall of the general, so far from relaxing the valour of his soldiers, excited their vengeance; they rushed more fiercely to the assault of the walls, they mowed down their defenders like grass, quickly made themselves masters of Rome, and committed the most frightful ravages.

This superb city, taken so many times by the barbarians, was never pillaged with more fury than it was by the hands of Christians. The Pope took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo, and was besieged with such rancour, that a woman was hung for passing up to him a basket of lettuce by a cord suspended from the castle. Cardinal Pulci, who was shut up with the Pope, made an attempt to escape, which cost him his life. He had scarcely left the castle when he fell from his horse; his foot hung in the stirrup, and the animal dragged him at speed over the bridge of the castle. After being blockaded for a month, and reduced to great want of provisions, the Pope was forced to capitulate with the prince of Orange, who had succeeded the duke of Bourbon in the command of the imperial troops. He agreed to pay four hundred thousand ducats, and to place himself at the disposal of the Emperor. Charles V. affected regret at the detention of the Pontiff.

Eight days before this event, a man dressed as a hermit, of about sixty years of age, went through the streets of Rome, about midnight, sounding a handbell, and pronouncing with a loud voice the following words: “The anger of God will soon fall upon this city!” The Pope obtained nothing from the examination he made of this man; the severest tortures could draw no more from him than this terrifying oracle: “The anger of God will soon fall upon this city!” When the prince of Orange became master of the city, he liberated him from prison, and offered him a considerable sum of money. He, however, refused reward, three days after disappeared, and was never again heard of.

The imperial army left Rome, loaded with a booty of more than eighteen millions of crowns, every private soldier having an immense sum. The obsequies of the duke of Bourbon were celebrated with great pomp, and his body was conveyed to Gaeta.

THIRTEENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1796–1799.

The temporal power of the popes had long ceased to be an object of jealousy for Christian princes: the small extent of their states, the respect which was entertained for their ministry, and their abstinence from military enterprises, preserved peace in a city which had formerly, and for many centuries, made the world tremble with the terror of its arms. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had satisfied themselves with seizing the Venaissian county, to punish the popes for some affronts offered to their crowns; and the pontiffs, conscious of their weakness, had acknowledged their errors and disavowed the acts of their ministers. But it was not thus when the French revolution broke out. Pius VI., irritated at seeing at once both his annates and the Venaissian county wrested from his hands, entered into the league of the kings against France. In no city were the French more hated than in Rome. Basseville, the French envoy, was massacred in a riot, which the government of the Pope had allowed to be got up with more than suspected negligence. The troops of the Pope were preparing to unite themselves with those of the other powers of Italy, when Buonaparte was seen to enter that country, in 1796, as a conqueror. His victories seemed to foretell the destruction of the Holy See. Republican enthusiasm was awakened on the banks of the Tiber; nothing was talked of but rebuilding the Capitol and founding a new Roman republic.

The French general had conquered the duchy of Urbino, Romagna, and the march of Ancona. The terrified Pope sued for peace: Buonaparte granted him at first a truce, and then a peace. The Pope yielded to the republic the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, which the French had already conquered, and all the shores of the Adriatic Gulf, from the mouths of the Po to Ancona. A month after, the Pope weakly allowed some of his subjects to take up arms, in consequence of a supposed reverse suffered by Buonaparte. The latter contented himself with chastising some villages of Ferrara, which had excited the revolt. A third time Buonaparte pardoned him, and his pardon was ratified by the French Directory: Joseph Buonaparte was appointed ambassador to Rome. Party spirit was, however, too strong; the apparent moderation of the French could not bring the court of Rome to pacific sentiments. Its hatred against France was kept alive by the queen of Naples, who threw open the ports of the Mediterranean to the English. In addition to this, a long hesitation to acknowledge the Cisalpine republic; then the nomination of General Provera to command the army of the Pope, and a course of proceedings which announced the intention, but which did not give the means, of entering into a fresh war: the French ambassador forced the Pope to declare himself in a positive manner. Everything seemed appeased; there was a calm, but it was such a one as precedes the eruption of a volcano. On the 28th of December, 1797, a fresh seditious movement broke out in Rome; some men assembled round the house of the ambassador, uttering revolutionary cries. Scarcely had they preluded by a few acts of apparent insurrection, when the troops of the Pope came up, dispersed the rioters, and pursued them into the palace of the ambassador, whither their fear had driven them. Joseph Buonaparte insisted upon his residence being respected, and promised to give up the guilty; but he was answered by a shower of balls, by which his windows were broken to pieces. He interposed everywhere between those who struck and those who were stricken. One of his friends, the Adjutant-General Duphot, who was to have married his sister-in-law the next day, was an object of his greatest care; but he was assassinated close to his side: his inanimate body was stabbed by the ruffians in a hundred places: the French had great difficulty in rescuing it from the hands of these furious men. The court of Rome offered the French ambassador all kinds of reparation; but the latter thought it not prudent or dignified to remain longer in a palace which had been so shamefully violated, where he and his whole family had been insulted, and whose floors were still stained with the blood of his friend. Cardinal Doria in vain had recourse to the Spanish ambassador to pacify him: the whole French legation quitted Rome. The Consistory believed, in this peril, that the court of Naples would keep its word, and would hasten to send its promised succours; but it received nothing but an excuse, to amuse or appease the French government, till the Neapolitan army was on its march. The Directory, however, was inflexible: a month had scarcely passed away when a French army, led by General Alexander Berthier, was at the gates of Rome, and had taken possession of the castle of St. Angelo. On the 17th of February, 1798, the anniversary of the Pope’s election, an insurrection broke out in the capital. His palace was invested, but respect checked the insurgents at the entrance. They met with resistance nowhere; they abstained from violence or insult towards the Pope, but they declared Rome free; they claimed for themselves the honour of being of the blood of the Catos and Scipios; and the boasted descendants of Camillus threw open the gates to the Gauls. A deputation arrived at the French camp; General Berthier mounted the steps of the Capitol, and saluted a new Roman republic; but the Romans had no longer the virtues of their fathers: no thing can bear less resemblance to another, than modern Romans do to ancient Romans. Consuls, tribunes, and popular laws, were once more to be seen in Rome; and these decrees wanted nothing but to be applied to a people who entertained a love of the republic. Its reign was short and tempestuous; and the French Directory took no measures calculated to gain the affection of the Romans. The aged Pope was sent to France, but died on the road; the wealth and the master-pieces of art were carried off, the people became dissatisfied, and a fresh insurrection quickly broke out against the men they had so recently hailed as their liberators: they were obliged to be suppressed with the strong hand. Whilst Buonaparte was in Egypt, the king of Naples supposed the time most fit for an outbreak of the Italian states, to liberate themselves from the domination of the French. He marched at the head of seventy thousand Neapolitans, the real command of whom was intrusted to the Austrian general Mack, and entered the Roman territory. The French army which occupied it only consisted of sixteen thousand men, disseminated over all the points. Championnet, who commanded them, thought it best to retire to Upper Italy. The king of Sicily and General Mack entered Rome on the 25th of November, 1798; Championnet gathered together his army and stood his ground. Mack, after several days of hesitation, ventured to attack him on the other side of the Tiber. The French, though vastly inferior in numbers, repulsed the Neapolitans; in three days, they made eleven thousand prisoners. Mack beheld his columns flying in the greatest disorder; and, being unable to rally them, abandoned the capital of the Christian world, covered himself with the Teverone, and was pursued by the French, who possessed themselves successively of Capua and Naples. This occupation lasted but a short time; the French under Schérer being beaten in Upper Italy, abandoned Naples and Rome, to defend themselves against the Austrians and the Russians. Ferdinand went back to Naples, and occupied Rome till it returned to its obedience to Pius VII.

Rome has since that time been more than once humbled by the French; but as nothing like a siege has taken place, the events of its further history do not fall within our plan.

NINEVEH.

A.C. 747.

We must now take a retrograde step, and turn our eyes upon a city, the name of which will ever be famous on its own account, and from its connection with the Scriptures. And yet the siege of Nineveh furnishes but few particulars for narration: it is, however, a remarkable circumstance, that, according to the best chronologers, Rome was founded the very year that Nineveh was destroyed.

Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, surpassed all his predecessors in effeminacy, luxury, and cowardice. He never went out of his palace, but spent all his time among his women, dressed and painted in the same manner as they were, and employed, in imitation of them, in the labours of the distaff. His whole glory consisted in his treasures, and all his time was devoted to the indulgence of infamous and criminal pleasures.

Arbaces, governor of Media, having found means to get into his palace and behold Sardanapalus in the midst of his infamous seraglio, was so disgusted with the idea that so many brave men should be subject to such an effeminate being, that he immediately formed a conspiracy against him. Belesis, governor of Babylon, and several others entered into it. On the rumour of this revolt, the king hid himself in the innermost recesses of his palace. Being afterwards obliged to take the field with some forces his captains had got together, he at first gained three successive victories over the enemy, but was in the end overcome and pursued to the gates of Nineveh. He here shut himself up, convinced that the rebels would never be able to take a city so wonderfully fortified by nature and art, and so abundantly stored with provisions. The siege proved of very great length. It had been declared by an ancient oracle, that Nineveh could never be taken unless the river became an enemy to the city. This buoyed up Sardanapalus, because he looked upon the thing as impossible. But when he saw that the Tigris by a violent inundation had thrown down twenty stadia of the city wall, and by that means opened a passage to the enemy, he understood the meaning of the oracle, and looked upon himself as lost. He resolved, however, to die in such a manner as, in his opinion, would cover the infamy of his scandalous life. He ordered a vast pile of wood to be collected in his palace, and setting fire to it, burnt himself, his women, his eunuchs, and his treasures. Athenæus makes these treasures amount to a thousand myriads of talents of gold, and ten times as many talents of silver (about fourteen hundred millions sterling), which, without reckoning anything else, appears to exceed credibility.

We cannot wonder that the Assyrian empire should fall under such a man; but it was not till after it had passed through various augmentations, diminutions, and revolutions, common to most great states during a course of ages. This empire had subsisted above 1,450 years. Of the ruins of this vast empire were formed three considerable kingdoms: that of the Medes, which Arbaces, the head of the conspiracy, restored to its liberty; that of the Assyrians of Babylon, which was given to Belesis, governor of that city; and that of the Assyrians of Nineveh, whose first king took the name of Ninus the Second.

A hundred years after the death of Sardanapalus, under the reign of Saracus, named Cyndauladanus, Nebopalassar, general of his armies, revolted against him, for the purpose of obtaining his throne. He allied himself with Cyaxares, king of the Medes. Their united forces besieged Saracus in Nineveh; they took the city, killed the monarch, and entirely destroyed that celebrated place, A.C. 648.

AZOTH, or AZOTUS.

A.C. 670.

As the siege of Azoth, although the longest recorded in history, affords but little matter for relation, we will indulge our young readers with a few of the circumstances which preceded it.

After the death of Tharaca, the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were great disorders among them. At last, twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together, seized upon the kingdom, and divided it among themselves into as many parts. It was agreed by them that each should govern his own district with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this agreement, and to bind it with the most solemn oaths, to elude the prediction of an oracle, which had foretold that he among them who should offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned together fifteen years in the utmost harmony: and, to leave a lasting monument of their concord to posterity, they jointly, and at a common expense, built the famous labyrinth, which was a pile of building consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many edifices underground as appeared above it.

One day, as the twelve kings were assisting at a solemn and periodical sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priest having to present each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting. Upon this Psammetichus, without any design, supplied the place of this bowl with his brazen helmet, of which each wore one, and with it performed the ceremony of the libation. This accident struck the rest of the kings, and recalled to their memory the prediction of the oracle above-mentioned. They thought it therefore necessary to secure themselves against his attempts, and, with one consent, banished him into the fenny parts of Egypt.

After Psammetichus had passed several years there, awaiting a favourable opportunity to revenge himself for this affront, a messenger brought him advice that brazen men were landed in Egypt. These were Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon the coast of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets, cuirasses, and other arms of brass. Psammetichus immediately called to mind an oracle which had answered him, that he should be succoured by brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt that the prediction was now fulfilled. He made a league with these strangers; engaged them by great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces, and put these Greeks at their head. Giving battle to the eleven kings, he defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.

As this prince owed his success to the Ionians and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, from which all foreigners had been excluded; and by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native country. By his order Egyptian children were put under their care, to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks; and from that era the Egyptian history, which till then had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifices of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord, as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. They were eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government, thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Assyrians, his neighbours, whose power increased daily. For this purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war an incident related by Diodorus, that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself, in preference to them, quitted his service to the number of upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with a good settlement.

Be this as it may, Psammetichus entered Palestine, where his career was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty-nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in history. This was anciently one of the five capital cities of the Philistines. The Egyptians having seized it some time before, had fortified it with such care that it was their strongest bulwark on that side. Nor could Sennacherib enter Egypt till he had made himself master of this city, which was taken by Tartan, one of his generals. The Assyrians had possessed it hitherto, and it was not till after the long siege just now mentioned that the Egyptians recovered it.

The extraordinary length of this siege ceases to surprise us, when we consider that a siege was nothing but a badly-guarded blockade, where that was expected from lassitude and famine which could not be obtained by either bodily strength, which necessarily failed against stone walls, or by military art, which had not yet learnt how to overthrow them, or even to scale them.

TYRE.

We now come to the sieges undergone by one of the most interesting cities of antiquity. How many of our youthful associations are connected with this great commercial city—the birthplace of Dido, the city in the labours of whose siege we have accompanied Alexander! And yet it appears to us that there is one reflection belonging to Tyre which should strike an Englishman more forcibly than even his schoolday remembrances of it. Tyre was the greatest commercial city of antiquity, as England is the greatest commercial nation of modern times. It was, as England is, a great entrepôt between two divisions of the world, a situation, whether of Tyre, Thebes, Palmyra, Alexandria, Venice, or England, which more than compensates for barrenness of soil, inconveniences of climate, or many of the evils from which other fortunate countries are exempt. If wealth be man’s principal object, a great “carrying” country is the place where industry and enterprise are most likely to meet with a reward. But in the extract we are about to make, our readers will see, what all history tells, that no countries are so likely to become luxurious, sensual, and corrupt, as those states which commerce has gorged with wealth. The fate of Tyre is an eloquent lesson to England.

Tyre was built by the Sidonians, two hundred and forty years before the temple of Jerusalem; for this reason it is called by Isaiah “the daughter of Sidon.” It soon surpassed its mother city in extent, power, and riches. It was besieged by Shalmaneser, and alone resisted the united fleets of the Assyrians and the Phœnicians, which greatly heightened its pride. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre, at the time that Ithobalous was king of that city, but did not take it till thirteen years after. But before it was conquered the inhabitants had retired, with most of their effects, into a neighbouring island, where they built a new city. The old one was razed to the very foundation, and has since been no more than a village, known by the name of “Palæ Tyrus,” or ancient Tyre; but the new city rose to greater power than the former.

Tyre was in the most flourishing condition at the time of Alexander the Great. That city boasted of being the inventor of navigation. The inhabitants, by their skill and industry, made their port the great mart of commerce, and by their courtesy conciliated all who came to it: it was deemed the common city of all nations, and the centre of commerce.

With the exception of Tyre, Syria and Palestine were already subdued by the Macedonians. Upon Alexander’s advancing towards it, the Tyrians sent him an embassy, with presents for himself and refreshments for his army. They were willing to have him for their friend, but not for their master; so that when he expressed a wish to enter the city, in order to offer a sacrifice to Hercules, its tutelar god, they refused him admission. This ill suited the haughty spirit of the young conqueror, and he resolved to obtain by force what was refused as a courtesy. The Tyrians, on their side, confident in their wealth and strength, resolved to maintain the position they had assumed. Tyre was at that time situated on an island, about a quarter of a league from the continent; it was surrounded by a strong wall a hundred and fifty feet high, which was washed by the sea. The Carthaginians, who were a colony from Tyre, promised to assist in the contest, which greatly increased the confidence of the Tyrians. The island resounded with warlike preparations; machines were fixed on the ramparts and towers, the young men were armed, and workshops were built for the artificers, of whom there were great numbers in the city. They likewise made great store of iron grapples, to throw on the enemy’s works and tear them away; as also cramp-irons, and other instruments invented for the defence of cities.

Alexander had strong reasons for wishing to subdue Tyre. He could not invade Egypt with safety whilst the Persians were masters of the sea; and he could not think of leaving behind a large extent of country, whose inhabitants were but doubtful friends. He likewise was apprehensive of commotions and intrigues at home whilst he was pursuing Darius. The conquest of Tyre would make the whole of Phœnicia safe, would dispossess Persia of half its navy, and would lay open to him the isle of Cyprus and all Egypt.

It was impossible to approach the city near enough to storm it, without making a causeway from the mainland to the island, and this seemed to be attended with insurmountable difficulties. The little arm of the sea was exposed to the west winds, which sometimes raised such storms as must sweep away any works of art. Besides, the city being surrounded by the waves, and the wall projecting into the sea at the lower part, scaling-ladders or batteries could only be fixed in the ships; and the machines could not be expected to do much execution from unsteady galleys upon tumultuous waves.

Obstacles, however, only increased the determination of Alexander. But as his ships were few and at a distance, he at first attempted to come to an accommodation. He sent heralds to propose a peace; but these the Tyrians killed, contrary to the laws of nations, and threw them from the top of the walls into the sea. Alexander, highly exasperated, immediately set about making a dyke. He found materials in the stones and rubbish of old Tyre; and Mount Libanus, so famous for its cedars, furnished him with piles and other timbers.

No general excelled Alexander in the art of urging his soldiers to any undertaking he wished to be executed, and, under his own personal supervision, the dyke advanced rapidly; the piles were driven with ease into the slime, which served as mortar to the stones, and they were too far from the city to meet with interruption. But as they advanced into deep water, the difficulties of operation became greater, and the workmen were constantly annoyed by the darts and arrows from the walls. Being masters of the sea, the Tyrians attacked the people and injured the works in boats, jeering them with crying, “See what capital beasts of burden these conquering heroes make!” and then asking “whether their master thought himself greater than Neptune; and whether he thought he could prevail over that god?”

But these taunts only inflamed the soldiers; the work went on without delay, and the Tyrians were at length alarmed at discovering what a vast undertaking the sea had concealed from them: the bold and level surface appeared above the waves, and approached the city. The inhabitants then came in shoals of barks, to annoy the workmen with darts, javelins, and even fire; and the Greeks were forced to stay their labour to defend themselves from the missiles cast from the swiftly-moving boats. Skins and sails were then had recourse to screen them, and two wooden towers were raised at the head of the bank, to prevent the approach of the enemy.

On the other side the Tyrians made a descent upon the shore, out of view of the camp, landed some soldiers, and cut to pieces the men engaged in carrying the stones; some Arabian peasants likewise killed about thirty Macedonians on Mount Libanus, and took several prisoners. These small losses induced Alexander to divide his troops into separate bodies.

The besieged were not backward in either exertions, inventions, or stratagems. They took a transport vessel, and filling it with vine-branches and other dry materials, they made a large inclosure near the prow, which they filled with sulphur, pitch, and other combustible matters. In the middle of this inclosure they set up two masts, to each of which they fixed two sailyards, whence hung kettles full of oil and other unctuous substances. To raise the prow, they loaded the latter part of the vessel with stones and sand, and putting it out to sea, by means of their galleys towed it towards the towers. They then ignited this ancient fire-ship, the sailors who were in it leaping into the sea and swimming away. The fire quickly caught the towers and the works at the head of the causeway, and the sails, flapping about, threw oil upon the fire, and increased its violence. To prevent the Macedonians from extinguishing the flames, the Tyrians, from their galleys and boats, kept up a continual discharge of darts and burning torches. Several Macedonians were either shot or burnt to death on the causeway, whilst others, throwing down their arms or tools, leaped into the sea. But as they swam, the Tyrians, preferring to have them as prisoners, maimed their hands with clubs and stones, and, after disabling them, carried them off. At the same time the besieged, in their small boats, beat down the edges of the causeway, tore up the stakes, and burnt the rest of the engines.

But Alexander, unlike Buonaparte, was never discouraged by apparent failures. His exertions to repair the causeway and construct fresh machines quite astonished the enemy. As every general should be during great operations, Alexander was present and superintended every part of the works. The dyke was nearly completed, when an impetuous wind drove the waves with such fury against it, that the cement and all gave way, and the water, rushing between the stones, broke it in the middle. As soon as the great heap of stones which supported the earth was thrown down, the whole sunk at once as into an abyss.

Even Alexander for a moment debated whether he should abandon his enterprise or not; but his indomitable genius prevailed, and the soldiers began a new mole with as much alacrity as if they had but that moment arrived before the city.

Alexander became aware that he could neither complete the causeway nor take the city whilst the Tyrians were masters at sea. He therefore assembled all his galleys before Sidon. The fame of his victory at Issus brought him a considerable accession of naval force; several Asiatic monarchs hastening to pay their court to the conqueror, by supplying him with that of which he stood most in need.

The king, whilst his soldiers were preparing the ships and engines, took some troops of horse and his own regiment of guards, and marched towards a mountain of Arabia, called Antilibanus. His affection for his old tutor Lysimachus, who followed him in this expedition, exposed him to one of those dangers which we often find great men, as well as heroes of romance, running into. Lysimachus was evidently a courtier as well as an able tutor, for he knew his pupil’s weak point, and called him Achilles and himself Phœnix. When the king arrived at the foot of the mountain, he leaped from his horse and began to walk. His troops got a considerable distance in advance of him. It became late, but Alexander would not leave his tutor, who was corpulent and short of breath, and was soon, with the exception of a few soldiers, separated from his little army. He was compelled to spend the whole night in this unguarded state very near to a numerous body of the enemy. His good fortune, however, prevailed,—he passed the night in safety, and coming up with his troops in the morning, he advanced into the country, took all the strong places, either by force or capitulation, and, on the eleventh day returned to Sidon, where he found a welcome reinforcement of four thousand Greeks from Peloponnesus.

The fleet being ready, Alexander, with some chosen soldiers of his guard, embarked and sailed towards Tyre, in order of battle. He himself was on the extremity of the right wing, which extended towards the main ocean, accompanied by the kings of Cyprus and Phœnicia; the left was commanded by Craterus. The Tyrians were at first inclined to give battle, but on beholding the strength of the Grecian line, they thought it best to keep their fleet in port and endeavour to prevent the enemy from entering. When Alexander saw this, he advanced nearer the city, and, finding it impossible to force the port towards Sidon, on account of the narrowness of the entrance and the number of galleys there posted with their prows turned towards the main ocean, he only sunk three of them which lay without, and afterwards came to an anchor with his whole fleet pretty near the mole, where his ships rode in safety.

While all these things were going on, the construction of the mole was prosecuted with great vigour. The workmen threw in whole trees, with all their branches on them, and laid great stones over them; upon these they placed other trees, covering the latter with a kind of unctuous earth, which served instead of mortar. Heaping more trees and stones upon these in the same manner, the whole formed one entire body. This causeway was made wider than the former, so that the towers which were built in the middle would be out of the reach of the darts and arrows discharged by the boats from the sides. The besieged, on the other hand, did all in their power to stop the progress of the work. But nothing was more useful to them than the operations of their divers, who, swimming under water, came unperceived quite up to the bank, and with hooks, drew such branches to them as projected beyond the work, and pulling forward with great strength, forced away everything that was over them. But, notwithstanding all obstacles, the Macedonian perseverance prevailed, and the dyke was brought to perfection. Military engines of all kinds were placed upon the causeway, in order to shake the walls; and showers of darts, arrows, stones, and burning torches were poured upon the besieged.

Alexander ordered the Cyprian fleet to take its station before the harbour which lay towards Sidon, and that of Phœnicia before the harbour on the side of the causeway facing Egypt, towards the part where his own tent was pitched, and then made preparations for attacking the city on every side. The Tyrians on their part prepared for a vigorous defence. They had erected towers on the parts of the walls next the causeway, of prodigious height and proportionate width, composed of large stones cemented with mortar. The access to any other part was almost as difficult, immense stones being placed along the foot of the wall, to keep the enemy from approaching it. These must be removed; and the Macedonians found the task the more difficult from being unable to stand firmly upon their legs on board the ships. Besides, the Tyrians advanced with covered galleys, and cut the ropes which held the Grecian ships at anchor; so that Alexander was obliged to cover in like manner several vessels of thirty rowers each, and to station these across, to secure the anchors from the attacks of the Tyrian galleys; but the divers cutting the cables of these, the king ordered the anchors to be secured by iron chains. After this, the large stones were drawn away into deep water by cable ropes, where they could do no harm. The foot of the wall being thus cleared, the vessels had very easy access to it, so that the Tyrians were invested on all sides, and attacked by sea and land.

The Macedonians had joined (two-and-two) galleys of four banks of oars, in such a manner that the prows were fastened, and the sterns so far distant from one another as was necessary for the pieces of timber between them to be of proper length. After this, they threw from one stern to the other sailyards, which were fastened together by planks laid across, that the soldiers might stand firmly on that space. The galleys being thus equipped, they rowed towards the city, and shot, under cover, against those who defended the walls, the prows serving them as so many battlements. The king ordered them to advance about midnight, in order to surround the walls and make a general assault. The Tyrians now gave themselves up for lost, when on a sudden the sky was overspread with such thick clouds as quite took away the faint glimmerings of light which before darted through the gloom. The sea rose by insensible degrees, and the billows, being swelled by the fury of the winds, raised a dreadful storm. The vessels dashed against each other with so much violence, that the cables which fastened them together were either loosened or broken to pieces; the planks, splitting with a horrible crash, carried off the soldiers with them; the tempest was so furious, that it became impossible to steer or manage galleys thus fastened together. The soldier was a hinderance to the sailor, and the sailor to the soldier; and, as frequently happens on such occasions, those took the command whose business it was to obey; fear and anxiety throwing all things into confusion. But the rowers exerted themselves with such vigour, that they succeeded in getting the ships ashore, although in a shattered condition.

At this critical minute, thirty ambassadors arrived from Carthage without bringing any of the succour that had been so boastingly promised by that state. There was, however, some validity in their excuse: they had war at home; the Syracusans were laying waste all Africa, and had pitched their camp not far from the walls of Carthage. The Tyrians, though their hopes were thus frustrated, were not dejected; they only took the wise precaution to send their women and children to Carthage, that they might be in a condition to defend themselves to the last extremity, and bear courageously the worst calamities that could befall them, when they had placed in security that which they held dearest in the world.

There was in the city a brazen statue of Apollo, of enormous size: this colossus had formerly stood in the city of Gela, in Sicily. The Carthaginians having taken it about the year 412 before Christ, had given it by way of present to the city of Tyre, which they always considered as the mother of Carthage. The Tyrians had set it up in their city, and worship was paid to it. During the siege, in consequence of a dream which one of the citizens had, the Tyrians imagined that Apollo was determined to leave them, and go over to Alexander. Immediately they fastened with a gold chain his statue to the altar of Hercules, to prevent the deity from leaving them.

Some of the Tyrians proposed the restoring of an old sacrifice which had been discontinued many years; this was, that of a child of free-born parents to Saturn. The Carthaginians, who had borrowed their superstitions from the Tyrians, preserved it till the destruction of their city; and had not the old men, who were invested with much authority in Tyre, opposed the design, this cruel custom would have prevailed over every sentiment of humanity.

The Tyrians, finding their city every moment exposed to be taken by storm, resolved to fall upon the Cyprian fleet, which lay at anchor on the side towards Sidon. They took the opportunity to do this when the seamen of Alexander’s fleet were dispersed in various directions, and when he himself was withdrawn to his tent pitched on the sea-shore. Accordingly, they came out about noon, with thirteen galleys, all manned with choice soldiers accustomed to sea-fights, and, rowing with all their might, came thundering on the enemy’s vessels. Part of them they found empty, and the rest had been manned in great haste. Some of these they sunk, and drove several against the shore, where they were dashed to pieces. The loss would have been still greater, had not Alexander, the instant he heard of the sally, advanced at the head of the whole fleet, with all imaginable despatch, against the Tyrians. They did not, however, await his coming, but withdrew into the harbour, after having lost some of their ships.

And now, the engines being in full play, the city was warmly attacked, and as vigorously defended. The besieged, taught and animated by the imminent danger and the extreme necessity to which they were reduced, invented daily new arts to defend themselves and repulse the enemy. They warded off all the darts discharged from the balistas, by the assistance of turning-wheels, which either broke them to pieces or carried them another away. They deadened the violence of the stones that were hurled at them, by setting up sails and curtains made of soft substances, which easily gave way. To annoy the ships which advanced against the walls, they fixed cranes, grappling-irons, and scythes to joists or beams; then, straining their catapultas (enormous cross-bows), they laid these great pieces of timber upon them instead of arrows, and shot them off on a sudden at the enemy. These crushed some by their great weight, and the hooks, or pensile scythes, with which they were armed, tore others to pieces, and did considerable damage to the ships. They also had brazen shields, which they drew red-hot out of the fire, and filling them with burning sand, hurled them from the top of the wall upon the enemy. There was nothing the Macedonians so much dreaded as this last invention; for the moment the burning sand got to the flesh through the crevices in the armour, it pierced to the very bone, and stuck so close that there was no pulling it off; so that the soldiers, throwing down their arms, and tearing their clothes to pieces, were exposed naked and defenceless to the shot of the enemy.

Discouraged by this vigorous defence, Alexander debated whether he had not better raise the siege and go into Egypt. His conquests had been obtained quickly, and we can suppose nothing more annoying to a man like “Macedonia’s madman” than a protracted siege. We cannot even fancy Buonaparte a good captain at a siege; ambitious men, with views always in advance of their present position, must think every moment lost that detains them before the walls of a fortification. On the other side, Alexander considered it would be a blemish to his reputation, which had done him greater service than his arms, should he leave Tyre behind him as a proof that he was not invincible. He therefore resolved to make a last effort, with a greater number of ships, which he manned with the flower of his army. Accordingly, a second naval engagement was fought, in which the Tyrians, after a contest of great spirit, were obliged to draw off their whole fleet towards the city. The king pursued their rear very closely, but was not able to enter the harbour, being repulsed by arrows shot from the walls: however, he either took or sunk a great number of their ships.

Alexander, after giving both army and fleet two days’ rest, made another assault. Both attack and defence were now more vigorous than ever. The courage of the combatants increased with the danger; and each side, animated by the most powerful motives, fought like lions. Wherever the battering-rams had beaten down any part of the wall, and the bridges were thrown out, instantly the Argyraspides mounted the breach with the utmost valour, being headed by Admetus, one of the bravest officers in the army, who was killed by the thrust of a partisan, as he was encouraging his soldiers. The presence of the king, and especially the example he set, fired his troops with more even than their usual bravery. He himself ascended one of the towers, which was of a prodigious height, and there was exposed to the greatest danger his courage had ever made him hazard: for, being immediately known by his insignia and the richness of his armour, he served as a mark for all the arrows of the enemy. On this occasion he performed wonders; killing with javelins several of those who defended the wall; then advancing nearer to them, he forced some with his sword, and others with his shield, either into the city or the sea; the tower where he fought almost touching the wall. He soon passed on to it, by the assistance of floating bridges; and, followed by his principal officers, possessed himself of two towers, and the space between them. The battering-rams had already made several breaches; the fleet had forced the harbour, and some of the Macedonians had seized the towers that were abandoned. The Tyrians, seeing the enemy masters of their rampart, retired towards an open place called the Square of Agenor, and there stood their ground; but Alexander, marching up with his regiment of body-guards, killed part of them, and obliged the rest to fly. At the same time, the city being taken on the side which lay towards the harbour, the Macedonians made great slaughter, being highly exasperated at the long resistance of the besieged, and the barbarities that had been exercised upon some of their comrades.

The Tyrians, finding themselves overpowered in all quarters, acted as men generally do on such occasions: some ran to the temples, to implore the assistance of their gods; others, shutting themselves up in their houses, escaped the sword of the victor by a voluntary death; whilst the brave remainder rushed upon the enemy, resolved to sell their lives at the dearest rate. At first, the citizens resorted to the customary defence of assaulted cities, and threw stones, bricks, tiles, and everything that came to hand upon the advancing Greeks. The king gave orders to kill all the inhabitants except such as had taken refuge in the temples, and to set fire to every part of Tyre. Although this order was published by sound of trumpet, scarcely a person bearing arms availed himself of the asylum pointed out. The temples were principally filled by the young women and children who had not gone to Carthage: the old men calmly awaited at the doors of their houses the swords of the exasperated soldiery. The Sidonians in Alexander’s army, or rather fleet, saved great numbers; for, remembering their common origin, Agenor having founded both Tyre and Sidon, they had been accustomed to consider the Tyrians as compatriots, and did not desert them in their hour of need, though policy had compelled them to assist in bringing it on. They conveyed them privately on board their ships, and gave them a home in Sidon. The extent of the slaughter may be imagined, when we learn that six thousand soldiers were cut to pieces on the ramparts. Of all great conquerors, we are disposed to like Alexander the best; he had so many fine redeeming qualities, and was such a rare combination of the high gifts of valour and wisdom; therefore we write with regret, that on this occasion the savage warrior prevailed over the civilized Greek, and he immolated, by having them nailed to crosses, two thousand men who were left after the soldiers had glutted their revenge. He pardoned the Carthaginian ambassadors, who had come to their ancient metropolis to offer up their annual sacrifice to Hercules. The number of prisoners, who were all sold into slavery, amounted to thirty thousand. Notwithstanding the length and obstinacy of the siege, the loss of the Macedonians was trifling.

Alexander offered a sacrifice to Hercules, and celebrated gymnastic games in honour of the great demigod. He had the golden chains removed from the statue of Apollo, and ordered that worship should thenceforward be offered to him under the name of Philoalexander. The city of Tyre was taken about the end of September, after a seven months’ siege.

The fate of Tyre is said to be intimately associated with the prophecies of Isaiah, and a great historian makes the following remarks, which we are much afraid find illustration in the histories of most great commercial states:—

“One of God’s designs, in the prophecies just now cited, is to give us a just idea of a traffic whose only motive is avarice, and whose fruits are pleasures, vanity, and the corruption of morals. Mankind look upon cities enriched by commerce like that of Tyre (and it is the same by private persons) as happier than any other; as worthy of envy, and as fit, from their liberty, labour, and the success of their application and conduct, as to be proposed as models for the rest to copy after; but God, on the other hand, exhibits them to us under the shameful image of a woman lost to all sense of virtue, whose only view is to seduce and corrupt youth; who only soothes the passions and flatters the senses; who abhors modesty and every sentiment of honour; and who, banishing from her countenance every indication of shame, glories in her ignominy. We are not to infer from this that traffic is sinful in itself; but we should separate from the essential foundation of trade, which is just and lawful, when rightly used, the passions and extravagantly ambitious and selfish views of men, which intermix with it, and pervert the order and the end of it.”

THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 313.

It would be imagined that a city so laid waste as Tyre was by Alexander, could not easily or shortly recover strength to contend against any enemy, and yet we find Tyre, only nineteen years after, maintaining itself for fifteen months against Antigonus, one of Alexander’s captains, who had been present at its great siege. But the fugitives from Sidon and other parts, the women and children from Carthage, with, most likely, many enterprising strangers, thought the traditions of Tyre too great and tempting to allow it to be long abandoned; and if not so glorious as it had been, this queen of commercial cities soon became a highly respectable mart, though its trade was reduced within much narrower limits: it had embraced the world; it was now confined to the neighbouring countries, and it had lost the empire of the sea. Seconded by the famous Demetrius Poliorcetes, his son, Antigonus presented himself before the place with a numerous fleet, which made him master of the sea, and cut the besieged off from supplies of provisions. As the siege was too protracted to accord with the other views of Antigonus, he left the operations under the command of Andronicus, one of his generals, who, by pressing the Tyrians very closely, and by making frequent assaults, obliged them at length to capitulate. This important conquest was made A.C. 313.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 638.

The curse that was said to be upon Tyre was removed after a considerable time: it received the gospel at an early period, and was for ages a flourishing city. Before the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, a place so situated as Tyre was could not fail of being a mart of trade; and as soon as the back of a conqueror, attracted by its wealth, was turned, it was quickly partially re-peopled and its industry revived.

But at length came the great Mussulman eruption; Mahomet and his generals led their triumphant armies through Asia with that astonishing rapidity and success which have ever attended eastern conquests. In the West, a conquest may be compared to a shower, which, insidiously and with time, permeates the soil; in the East, it is a flood or an avalanche, which overwhelms, devastates, and changes everything in a moment.

Whilst the intrepid Amrou was making Syria tremble with the fame of his victories, the perfidious Ioukinna accelerated the triumphs of Mohammedanism by his stratagems. The master of a fleet which had come to the succour of Tripoli, he hoisted the Roman standard, and presented himself before Tyre. His arrival caused much joy, for he was supposed to bring ammunition and troops to put the place in a state of defence. He landed with nine hundred men, and was admitted into the city, but being betrayed by one of his own people, the little band were surrounded and taken prisoners. Their lives were only saved by a new subject of alarm. Jëzid, a Saracen captain, appeared off Tyre with a force of two thousand men. The governor, with his garrison, went out to meet him, and, whilst the two parties were on the walls, Ioukinna and his soldiers were set at liberty by a Roman, who was looking for an opportunity to win the favour of the Saracens. Ioukinna conveyed the intelligence of his freedom to the soldiers he had left on board the fleet; they joined him, and he informed Jëzid of what was going on in Tyre. Jëzid not only defeated the governor and his party, but cut off his retreat. The gates were thrown open, and the Saracens, within and without, made a frightful slaughter of the inhabitants. Most of those who escaped embraced Islamism, to avoid death or slavery.

FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1123.

The Venetians, who for several ages had enjoyed the commerce of the East, and dreaded breaking useful relations with the Mussulmans of Asia, had taken but very little part in the first crusade, or the events which followed it. They awaited the issue of this great enterprise, to associate themselves without peril with the victories of the Christians; but at length, jealous of the advantages which the Genoese and Pisans had obtained in Syria, they became desirous of likewise sharing the spoils of the Mussulmans, and equipped a formidable expedition against the infidels. Their fleet, whilst crossing the Mediterranean, fell in with that of the Genoese returning from the East, attacked it with fury, and put it to flight in great disorder. After having stained the sea with the blood of Christians, the Venetians pursued their route towards the coasts of Palestine, where they met the fleet of the Saracens, which had come out from the ports of Egypt. A furious engagement ensued, in which the Egyptian vessels were dispersed, and covered the waves with their wrecks.

Whilst the Venetians were thus destroying the Mussulman fleet, an army, sent by the caliph from Cairo, was beaten by the Christians under the walls of Jaffa. The doge of Venice, who commanded the fleet, entered the port of Ptolemaïs (Acre), and was conducted in triumph to Jerusalem. Whilst celebrating the double victory gained over the infidels, it was determined to turn this important expedition to advantage. In a council held in presence of the regent of Jerusalem and the doge of Venice, it was proposed to besiege the city of Tyre, or that of Ascalon. As opinions were divided, it was determined to consult God, according to the superstitions of the time, and be guided by the expression of his will. Two strips of parchment, upon which were written the names of Tyre and Ascalon, were deposited upon the altar of the Holy Sepulchre. Amidst an immense crowd of spectators, a young orphan advanced towards the altar, took one of the two strips, and it proved to be that of the city of Tyre.

The Venetians, more devoted to the interests of their commerce and their nation than to those of the Christian kingdom, demanded, before they laid siege to Tyre, that they should have a church, a street, a free oven, and a national tribunal in all the cities of Palestine. They demanded still further advantages; among which was one-third of the conquered city. The conquest of Tyre seemed so important, that the regent, the chancellor of the kingdom, and the great vassals of the crown, accepted without hesitation the conditions of the Venetians; in an act, which history has preserved, they engaged not to acknowledge as king of Jerusalem either Baldwin du Bourg, or any other prince who should refuse to subscribe to it.

When they had thus shared by treaty a city they had not yet conquered, they commenced their operations for the siege. The Christian army left Jerusalem, and the Venetian fleet the port of Ptolemaïs, towards the beginning of spring. The historian of the kingdom of Jerusalem, William of Tyre, was for a long time archbishop of this celebrated commercial city, and he pauses here to describe the ancient wonders of his metropolis. In his recital, at once religious and profane, he invokes by turns the evidence of Isaiah and Virgil; after speaking of King Hyram and the tomb of Origen, he does nor disdain to celebrate the memory of Cadmus and the country of Dido. The good archbishop particularly vaunts the industry and the commerce of Tyre, the fertility of its territory, its dyes, so celebrated in all antiquity; its sand, which changed itself into transparent vases, and its sugar-canes, which began to be sought for by all regions of the universe. The city of Tyre, in the time of Baldwin, was no longer that sumptuous city, whose rich merchants, according to Isaiah, were princes; but it was still considered as the best-peopled and most commercial of the cities of Syria. It stood upon a delightful shore, screened by mountains from the blasts of the north; it had two large moles, which, like long arms, advanced into the sea, to inclose a port to which storm or tempest could find no access. The city of Tyre, which had stood out during more than seven months against the victorious Alexander, was defended on one side by a stormy sea and steep rocks, and on the other by a triple wall, surmounted by high towers.

The doge of Venice at once penetrated into the port, and closed up all issue or access on the side of the sea. The patriarch of Jerusalem, and Pontius, count of Tripoli, regent of the kingdom, commanded the land army; the king, Baldwin du Bourg, being at that time a captive to the Saracens. In the early days of the siege, the Christians and the Mussulmans fought with obstinate ardour, but with equal success; the disunion of the infidels, however, soon powerfully assisted the efforts of the Franks. The caliph of Egypt had yielded half of the place to the sultan of Damascus, in order to engage him to defend it against the Christians. The Turks and the Egyptians were divided amongst themselves, and refused to fight together; the Pranks took advantage of these divisions, and daily gained a superiority. After a siege of a few months, the walls crumbled away before the machines of the Christians; provisions began to be short in the place; the Mussulmans were about to capitulate, when discord in turn disunited the Christians, and was on the point of rendering useless the prodigies of valour and all the labours of a long siege.

The land army loudly complained that it had to support alone both battles and fatigues; the horse and foot threatened to remain as motionless under their tents as the Venetians in their ships. To remove the cause of their complaints, the doge of Venice came into the Christian camp with his sailors, armed with their oars, and declared himself ready to mount to the breach. From that time a generous emulation inflamed the zeal and the courage of both soldiers and seamen; and the Mussulmans, being without hope of succour, were obliged to succumb, after a siege of five months and a half. The standards of the king of Jerusalem and the doge of Venice floated together over the walls of Tyre; the Christians made their triumphal entrance into the city; whilst the inhabitants, according to the terms of the capitulation, with their wives and children, departed from it. On whichever side our sympathies may be, the end of a great siege is a melancholy object of contemplation; nothing can convey a sadder idea to the mind than this compulsory exodus of a people.

The day on which the news of the conquest of Tyre was received at Jerusalem, was a festival for the inhabitants of the Holy City. Te Deum and hymns of thanks were chanted, amidst the ringing of bells and the shouts of the people; flags were flying over the towers and ramparts of the city; branches of the olive and wreaths of flowers were hung about the streets and public places; rich stuffs ornamented the outsides of houses and the doors of churches. The old talked about the former splendour of the kingdom of Judah, and the young virgins repeated in chorus the psalms in which the prophets had celebrated the city of Tyre.

The doge of Venice, on returning to the Holy City, was saluted by the acclamations of the people and the clergy. The barons and magnates did all in their power to detain him in Palestine; they even went so far as to offer him Baldwin’s crown, some believing that that prince was dead, and others acknowledging no king but at the head of an army and on the field of battle. The doge declined the crown, and, satisfied with the title of prince of Jerusalem, led back his victorious fleet to Italy.

SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1188.

Tyre is most conspicuously associated with great names; next to having had the glory of checking the career of Alexander for seven months, it may reckon that of having successfully resisted the greatest Saracen general that, perhaps, ever lived.

Whilst a new crusade was being earnestly preached in Europe, Saladin was following up the course of his victories in Palestine. The battle of Tiberias and the capture of Jerusalem had spread so great a terror, that the inhabitants of the Holy Land were persuaded the army of the Saracens could not be resisted. Amidst general consternation, a single city, that of Tyre, defied all the united forces of the East. Saladin had twice gathered together his fleets and his armies to attack a place of which he so ardently desired the conquest. But all the inhabitants had sworn rather to die than surrender to the Mussulmans; which generous determination was the work of Conrad, who had just arrived in that place, and whom Heaven seemed to have sent to save it.

Conrad, son of the marquis of Montferrat, bore a name celebrated in the West, and the fame of his exploits had preceded him into Asia. In his early youth he had distinguished himself in the war of the Holy See against the emperor of Germany. A passion for glory and a thirst for adventures afterwards led him to Constantinople, where he quelled a sedition which threatened the imperial throne, and, with his own hand, killed the leader of the rebels on the field of battle. The sister of Izaac Angelus and the title of Cæsar were the rewards of his courage and his services; but his restless character would not allow him to enjoy his good fortune in quiet. Amidst peaceful grandeur, roused all at once by the fame of the holy war, he stole away from the tenderness of a bride and the gratitude of an emperor, to fly into Palestine. Conrad landed on the shores of Phœnicia a few days after the battle of Tiberias. Before his arrival, the city of Tyre had named deputies to demand a capitulation of Saladin; his presence revived the general courage, and changed the aspect of affairs. He caused himself to be appointed commander of the city, he widened the ditches, repaired the fortifications; and the inhabitants of Tyre, attacked by sea and land, become all at once invincible warriors, learnt, under his orders, how to repel the fleets and armies of the Saracens.

The old marquis of Montferrat, the father of Conrad, who, for the sake of visiting the Holy Land, had left his peaceful states, was at the battle of Tiberias. Made prisoner by the Mussulmans, he awaited, in the prisons of Damascus, the time when his children would deliver him or purchase his liberty.