Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/415

875-916]Byzantine Conquest of Bari year 878 was certainly a severe blow; Calabria and Taranto were still in the hands of the Muslims, and the Adriatic too was not safe from them. Basil was however the first to succeed in defeating the Saracens at sea, to land in Calabria, conquer Taranto (880), and a few years later to expel the last remnants of the Saracens from Calabria. Thus Southern Italy became once more a portion of the Byzantine Empire. The subsequent attacks of the Saracens in this quarter were no more than episodes, although the coast towns were again occasionally laid under tribute to the Saracens, and the constant strife between Saracens and Byzantines did not in fact cease until the Normans conquered both contending parties.

Through the downfall of Bari, the Saracens' base of attack for Central Italy had naturally been shifted. They came now exclusively from the West. The small Lombard States, rendered shrewd by their experiences in the past, had made a treaty with the Sicilian Saracens, on which account the latter, from 875 onwards, directed their raids principally towards the north, and harassed the pope. In 878 Pope John VIII was even compelled to pay the Saracens a tribute, in order to purchase a short period of rest and quiet. For several years thereafter the Saracens succeeded once again in gaining strong bases on the coast and in the interior, as, for instance, in the mountains to the north of Benevento and on the right bank of the Garigliano at Trajetto. Especially from the latter point they still undertook numerous plundering expeditions through Central Italy up to the gates of Rome; Monte Cassino too, which they had not previously entered, was looted and destroyed in the course of one of these raids. It was not until 915 that, thanks to the initiative of John X, the camp on the Garigliano was destroyed. Thus ended the reign of Islām on Italian soil, though we still hear of many a later piratical excursion.

Owing to the irregular nature of the Saracenic raids in Southern Italy, the events in Sicily and on the mainland have had to be portrayed separately, but it is easy to see the inner connexion of the two. The subsequent march of events can be given without further ceremony in connexion with the history of the island. The Muslim command here had been in the meantime changed. On the ruins of the Aghlabid dominion the Fāṭimite Mahdī had founded a new and promising State; the Arabs and Berbers of Sicily seemed apparently to have submitted with a good grace to the new order of things in their native country (910), but the fact soon made itself apparent, that the governor sent by Mahdī was not equal to the situation. The Saracens of Sicily, under the leadership of the Arab Amīr Ahmad ibn Ḳurhub, thereupon declared their independence and named the Abbasid Caliph instead of the Fāṭimite in their pulpit prayers (913). But such a period of unity, patched up in times of need, between Berbers and Arabs, never lasted long. As early as 916 the Berbers gave up the unfortunate Amīr to