Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/461

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 439 Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and useful prose- lyte ; and the general of the Saracens expressed his regard for the most humble merit by detaining the army at Aleppo till Dames was cured of his honourable wounds. The capital of Syria was still covered by the castle of Aazaz and the iron bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of those important posts and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies, the luxury of Antioch ^^^ trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed with three hundred thousand pieces of gold ; but the throne of the successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman govern- ment in the East, which had been decorated by Caesar with the titles of free, and holy, and inviolate, was degraded under the yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town-^*^^ In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war arerughtof clouded on either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his more a.d. ess early and his later days. When the successors of Mahomet un- sheathed the sword of war and religion, he was astonished at the boundless prospect of toil and danger ; his nature was indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of the emperor be kindled to a second effort. The sense of shame, and the importunities of the Syrians, prevented his hasty departure from the scene of action ; but the hero was no more ; and the loss of Damascus and Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk, may be imputed in some degree to the absence or misconduct of the sovereign. Instead of defending the sepulchre of Christ, he in- volved the church and state in a metaphysical controversy for the unity of his will ; and, while Heraclius crowned the offspring of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped of the most valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of Antioch, in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix, he bewailed the sins of the prince and people ; but his confession instructed the world that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to resist the lO'-i The date of the conquest of Antioch by the Arabs is of some importance. By comparing the years of the world in the chronography of Theophanes with the years of the Hegira in the history of Ehiiacin, we shall determine that it was taken between January 23d and September ist, of the year of Christ 638 (Pagi, Critica, in Baron. Annal. torn. ii. p. 812, 813). Al Wakidi (Ockley, vol. i. p. 314) assigns that event to Tuesday, August 21st, an inconsistent date ; since Easter fell that year on April 5th, the 21st of August must have been a Friday (see the Tables of the Art de V(5riher les Dates). [But see above, p. 437, n. 100.] 103 His bounteous edict, which tempted the grateful city to assume the victory of Pharsalia for a perpetual sera, is given if 'Ai'Tioxeio ti; /xrjrpoTrdAet, iep« xai dtrvAcu Kai auTOi'OiUw i:a.'i apxova-ri icai. Trpo.<a9?(/MerT] Tvjs ai'aToArjs. John Malala, in Chron. p. 91, edit. Venet. [p. 216, ed. Bonn]. We may distinguish his authentic information of domestic facts from his gross ignorance of general history.