Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/344

 322 THE DECLINE AND FALL freedom was of a very different cast from the nice and artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman republics, in which each member possessed an undivided share of the civil and political rights of the community. In the more simple state of the Arabs the nation is free, because each of her sons disdains a base sub- mission to the will of a master. His breast is fortified with the austere virtues of courage, patience, and sobriety ; the love of independence prompts him to exercise the habits of self-com- mand ; and the fear of dishonour guards him from the meaner apprehension of pain, of danger, and of death. The gravity and firmness of the mind is conspicuous in his outward demeanour ; his speech is slow, weighty, and concise ; he is seldom provoked to laughter ; his only gesture is that of stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood ; and the sense of his own impor- tance teaches him to accost his equals without levity and his superiors without awe.-^" The liberty of the Saracens survived their conquests ; the first caliphs indulged the bold and familiar language of their subjects ; they ascended the pulpit to persuade and edify the congregation ; nor was it before the seat of empire was removed to the Tigris that the Abbassides adopted the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine courts, civil wars In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes ?eveSge^^** that render them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exasperate, the social character. The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has ac- customed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy ; and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of juris- prudence which they believe and practise to the present hour. They pretend that, in the division of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were assigned to the other branches of the human family ; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might re- cover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny, the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandise ; the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged ; and their neighbours, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris,^* W I must remind the reader that d'Arvieux, d'Herbelot, and Niebuhr represent, in the most lively colours, the manners and government of the Arabs, which are illustrated by many incidental;passages in the life of Mahomet. ^8 Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall of 1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. 1. i. p. 67). Under the name of Hycsos, the shepherd kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt