Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/422

 400 THE DECLINE AND FALL evident whether he were enriched or impoverished by the service of the state. He thought himself entitled to a stipend of three pieces of gold, with the sufficient maintenance of a single camel and a black slave ; but on the Friday of each week he distributed the residue of his own and the public money, first to the most worthy, and then to the most indigent, of the Moslems. The remains of his wealth, a coarse garment and five pieces of gold, were delivered to his successor, who lamented with a modest sigh his own inability to equal such an admirable model. Yet the abstinence and humility of Omar were not inferior to the virtues of Abubeker : his food consisted of barley-bread or dates; his drink was water ; he preached in a gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places ; and a Persian satrap, who paid his homage to the conqueror, found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosch of Medina. Economy is the source of liberality, and the increase of the revenue enabled Omar to establish a just and perpetual reward for the past and present services of the faithful. Careless of his own emolument, he assigned to Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, the first and most ample allowance of twenty-five thousand drachms or pieces of sil- ver. Five thousand were allotted to each of the aged warriors, the relics of the field of Beder, and the last and meanest of the companions of Mahomet was distinguished by the annual reward of three thousand pieces. One thousand was the stipend of the veterans who had fought in the first battles against the Greeks and Persians, and the decreasing pay, as low as fifty pieces of silver, was adapted to the respective merit and seniority of the soldiers of Omar. Under his reign and that of his predecessor, the conquerors of the East were the trusty servants of God and the people ; the mass of the public treasure was consecrated to the expenses of peace and war; a prudent mixture of justice and bounty mauitained the discipline of the Saracens, and they united, by a rare felicity, the dispatch and execution of despotism with the equal and frugal maxims of a republican government. The heroic courage of Ali," the consummate prudence of Moa- wiyah,'' excited the emulation of their subjects ; and the talents which had been exercised in the schools of civil discord were more usefully applied to propagate the faith and dominion of 7 His reign in Eutychius, p. 343; Elmacin, p. 51; Abulpharagius, p. 117; Abulfeda, p. 83; D'Herbelot, p. 89. 8 His reign in Eut-chius, p. 344; Elmacin, p. 54; Abulpharagius, p. 123; Abulfeda, p. loi ; D'Herbelot, p. 586.