Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/68

 48 THE DECLINE AND FALL reign of six months he found only the pangs of a guilty consci- ence. If he wept at the sight of an old tapestry which repre- sented the crime and punishment of the son of Chosroes ; if his days were abridged by grief and remorse, we may allow some pity to a paiTicide, who exclaimed, in the bitterness of death, that he had lost both this world and the world to come. After this act of treason, the ensigns of royalty, the garment and walking staff of Mahomet, were given and torn away by the foreign mercenaries, who in four years created, deposed, and murdered three commanders of the faithful. As often as the Turks were inflamed by fear, or rage, or avarice, these caliphs were dragged by the feet, exposed naked to the scorching sun, beaten with iron clubs, and compelled to purchase, by the abdication of their dignity, a short reprieve of inevitable fate.^^' At length, however, the fury of the tempest was spent or diverted ; the Abbassides returned to the less turbulent residence of Bagdad ; the insolence of the Turks was curbed with a firmer and more skilful hand, and their numbers were divided and destroyed in foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been taught to trample on the successors of the prophet ; and the blessings of domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism that I seem to repeat the story of the praetorians of Rome.^^^ Rise and pro While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business, cajTnathians. the pleasure, and the knowledge, of the age, it burned with concentrated heat in the breasts of the chosen few, the con- genial spirits, who were ambitious of reigning either in this world or in the next. How carefully soever the book of prophecy had been sealed by the apostle of Mecca, the wishes, and (if we may profane the word) even the reason, of fanati- cism might believe that, after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, the same God, "^Take a specimen, the death of the caliph Motaz : Correptum pedibus retra- hunt, et sudibus probe permulcnnt, et spoliatum laceris vestibus in sole collocant, prae cujus acerrimo aestu pedes alternis attollebat et deniittebat. Adstantium ali- quis misero colaphos continuo ingerebat, quos ille objectis manibus avertere stude- bat. . . . Quo facto traditus tortori fuit totoque triduo cibo potuque prohibitus. . . . Suffocatus, &c. (Abulfeda, p. 206). Of the caliph Mohtadi, he says, cervices ipsi perpetuis ictibus contundebant, testiculosque pedibus conculcabant (p. 208). ''*See under the reigns of Motassem, Motawakkel, Montasser, Mostain, Motaz, Mohtadi, and Motamed, in the Bibliothcque of d'Herbelot, and the now famiUar annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, [Mustain, a.d. 862-6 ; Mutazz, A.D. 866-9; Muhtadi, a.d. 869-70; Mutamid, a.d. 870-92.]