Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/24

 4 THE DECLINE AND FALL the friend and follower of Ali ; and the last remnant of his strength and life was consumed in a distant and dangerous war against the enemies of the Koran. His memory was revered ; but the place of his burial was neglected and unknowTi, during a period of seven hundred and eighty years, till the conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second. A seasonable vision (for such are the manufacture of every religion) revealed the holy spot at the foot of the walls and the bottom of the harbour ; and the mosque of Ayub has been deservedly chosen for the simple and martial inauguration of the Turkish sultans.^ Peace and tri- The event of tlic Siege revived, both in the East and West, the reputation of the Roman arms, and cast a momentary shade over the glories of the Saracens. The Greek ambassador was favourably received at Damascus, in a general council of the emirs or Koreish ; a peace, or truce, of thirty years was ratified between the two empires ; and the stipulation of an annual tribute, fifty horses of a noble breed, fifty slaves, and three thousand pieces of gold, degraded the majesty of the commander of the faithful.'' The aged caliph was desirous of possessing his dominions, and ending his days, in tranquillity and repose ; while the Moors and Indians trembled at his name, his palace and city of Damascus was insulted by the Mardaites, or Maronites, of mount Libanus, the firmest barrier of the empire, till they were disarmed and transplanted by the suspicious policy of the Greeks J After the revolt of Arabia and Persia, the house of Ommiyah ^ was reduced to the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt ; their distress and fear enforced their compliance with the pressing demands of the Christians ; and the tribute was increased to a slave, an horse, and a thousand pieces of gold, for each of the three hun- dred and sixty-five days of the solar year. But as soon as the State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 10, 11. Voyages deTh^venot, part i. 189. The Christians, who suppose that the martyr Abu Ayub is vulgarly confounded with the patriarch Job, betray their own ignorance rather than that of the Turks. p. 295, 296, 300, 301 [a.m. 6169, 6176]), which are confirmed, with some variation, by the Arabic history of .^bulpharagius (Dynast, p. 128, vers. Pocock). 'The censure of Theophanes is just and pointed, t7;>' 'P<unai/ri)i' iwaaTtCav a.KpwTtjpLd<ra^. . . jraroeicc kolko. ^e~ovftei' rj 'Pto^tat'ia vwo roj!' Apd^uir ^ixpi TOV vvv (Chronograph, p. 302, 303 [..M. 6178]). The series of these events may be traced in the Annals of Theophanes, and in the Abridgment of the Patriarch Nicephorus, p. 22, 24. volume of Ockley's history of the .Saracens, p. 253-370. Besides our printed authors, he draws his materials from the Arabic Mss. of O.xford, which he would have more deeply searched, had he been confined to the Bodleian library instead of the [Cambridge] city jail : a fate how unworthy of the man and of his country !
 * Demetrius Cantemir's Hist, of the Othman Empire, p. 105, 106. Rycaut's
 * Theophanes, though a Greek, deserved credit for these tributes (Chronograph,
 * These domestic revolutions are related in a clear and natural style, in the second