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634] afterwards 'Amr put in an appearance, coming from Aila with fresh troops, which had been further strengthened on the way by recruits. They raided the whole of southern Palestine as far as Gaza, and 'Amr in fact on one occasion pushed forward into the district of Ḳaisārīya (Caesarea).

Upon hearing of these surprising events the Emperor Heraclius, who at that time was still dwelling at Emesa, in northern Syria, concentrated a great army to the south of Damascus, and placed it under the command of his brother Theodorus. It was unusually difficult for the Greeks to recognise any plan of attack on the part of the Arabs; these simply advanced without any definite aim; the leader of each detachment went whithersoever he listed, and whither he conceived the greatest amount of booty was available. Possibly the troops of Theodorus may have destroyed a small detachment of the Arabs in the country east of the Jordan, but in any case they advanced very slowly in a southerly direction, where the greatest danger threatened, for Jerusalem was temporarily cut off from the sea, and even Caesarea and Gaza were threatened. Immediately after this advance Khālid, approaching in their rear from the Euphrates, suddenly appeared before Damascus (24 April 634). He remained unmolested, because all available troops were then on the way to the South. Clever strategist that he was, and without the selfish greed for plunder of the other leaders, Khālid at once recognised the precarious position of the Arabs in the southern part of Palestine. Advancing down the country east of Jordan he succeeded, probably with the utmost difficulty, in effecting a junction with the detachments in the South, engaged in their own selfish interests. Finally, in the Wādī 'Araba, he united with 'Amr and Yazīd, who were retiring before the approaching Byzantines. This effected, the combined forces of the Muslims once more advanced against Theodorus, who had occupied a strong position at Ajnādain, or better Jannābatain, between Jerusalem and Gaza. On 30 July 634 a bloody battle ensued, terminating in a brilliant victory for the Arabs. Who commanded the Arabs, or whether in fact they had any commander-in-chief, remains a matter of doubt, but it is probably not wide of the mark to recognise the actual victor in Khālid. Hereupon all Palestine lay open to the Arabs, i.e. all the flat country; the well-fortified towns, even though without large garrisons, held out for a considerable time longer. The Arabs, who still regarded themselves as being out on a plundering expedition, probably spared the resident population less than they did later, when the systematic occupation took place. Report states that Gaza also fell at this time, but this simply means that Gaza was laid under contribution in the same way that Ḥīra had been before. The Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem, in his Christmas sermon at the end of the year 634, describes in moving terms the doleful condition of the country. Anarchy appears to have ruled supreme. The Arabs dispersed themselves throughout the country, and even pushed forward far towards the North; the temporary