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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 211 trophies of their fathers, and in the maturity of their strength they contended with the decline of an African power. When the Fatiniite caliph departed for the conquest of Egypt, he rewarded the real merit and apparent fidelity of his servant Joseph with a gift of his royal mantle and forty Arabian horses, his palace, with its sumptuous furniture, and the government of the kingdoms of Tunis and Algiers. The Zeirides,^-- the descendants of Joseph, forgot their allegiance and gratitude to a distant benefactor, grasped and abused the fruits of pros- perity ; and, after running the little course of an Oriental dynasty, were now fainting in their own weakness. On the side of the land, they were pressed by the Almohades, the fanatic princes of Morocco, while the sea-coast was open to the enterprises of the Greeks and Franks, who, before the close of the eleventh century, had extorted a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. By the first arms of Roger, the island or rock of Malta, which has been since ennobled by a military and religious colony, was inseparably annexed to the crown of Sicily. Tripoli,^-'-* a strong and maritime city, was the next object of his attack ; and the slaughter of the males, the cap- tivity of the females, might be justified by the frequent practice of the Moslems themselves. The capital of the Zeirides was named Africa from the country, and Mahadia ^-^ from the Arabian founder ; it is strongly built on a neck of land, but the imperfec- tion of the harbour is not compensated by the fertility of the adjacent plain. Mahadia was besieged by George the Sicilian admiral, with a fleet of one hundred and fifty galleys, amply provided with men and the instruments of mischief; the sove- reign had fled, the Moorish governor refused to capitulate, declined the last and irresistible assault, and, secretly escaping with the Moslem inhabitants, abandoned the place and its treasures to the rapacious Franks. In successive expeditions, the king of Sicily or his lieutenants reduced the cities of Tunis, 122 See de Guignes, Hist. G6n6rale des Huns, tom. i. p. 369-373, and Cardonne, Hist, de I'Afrique, &c. sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 70-144. Their common original appears to be Novairi. i'-^' Tripoli (says the Nubian geographer, or more properly the Sherif al Edrisi) urbs fortis, saxeo muro vallata, sita propelittus maris. Hancexpugnavit Rogerius, qui mulieribus captivis ductis, viros peremit. 121 See the geography of Leo Africanus (in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 74, verso, fol. 75, recto) and Shaw's Travels (p. no), the viith book of Thuanus, and the xith of the Abb6 de Vertot. The possession and defence of the place was offered by Charles V. and wisely declined by the knights of Malta.