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 470 THE DECLINE AND FALL Byzantine princes, maintained a disorderly resistance to the re- ligion and power of the successors of Mahomet. Under the standard of their queen Cahina the independent tribes acquired some degree of union and discipline ; and, as the Moors respected in their females the character of a prophetess, they attacked the invaders with an enthusiasm similar to their own. The [Battle of veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the defence of ^^enver Africa ; the conquests of an age were lost in a single day,i^^ and the Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired to the confines of Egypt, and expected, five yeai-s, the promised succours of the caliph. After the retreat of the Saracens, the victorious prophetess assembled the Moorish chiefs, and recom- mended a measure of strange and savage policy. "Our cities," said she, " and the gold and silver which they contain, perpetu- ally attract the arms of the Arabs. These vile metals are not the objects of our ambition ; we content ourselves with the simple productions of the earth. Let us destroy these cities ; let us bury in their ruins those pernicious treasures ; and, when the avarice of our foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps they will cease to disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people." The proposal was accepted with unanimous applause. From Tangier to Tripoli the buildings, or at least the fortifica- tions, were demolished, the fruit-trees were cut down, the means of subsistence wei*e extirpated, a fertile and populous garden was changed into a desert, and the historians of a more recent period could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity and devastation of their ancestors. Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect that their ignorance of anti- quity, the love of the marvellous, and the fashion of extolling the philosophy of barbarians, has induced them to describe, as one voluntary act, the calamities of three hundred years since the first fury of the Donatists and Vandals. In the progress was extended to all the nations who were strangers to the language and manners of the Greeks. 3. In the age of Plautus, the Romans submitted to the insult (Pompeius Festus, 1. ii. p. 48, edit. Dacier) and freely gave themselves the name of barbarians. They insensibly claimed an exemption for Italy and her subject provinces ; and at length removed the disgraceful appellation to the savage or hostile nations beyond the pale of the empire. 4. In every sense, it was due to the Moors ; the familiar word was borrowed from the Latin provincials by the Arabian conquerors, and has justly settled as a local denomination (Barbary) along the northern coast of Africa. [In Moorish history, the Berbers (Moors proper) are clearly distinguished from the Arabs who ruled, and were afterwards mastered by, them.] ^91 [Novairi {loc. cit. p. 340) says that the battle was fought on the banks of the stream Nini (which flows into the lake Guerrat el Tarf near Bagai). Ibn Abd al Hakam says : near a river which is now called the river of destruction. Cp. Weil, i. p. 474. J