Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/78

 58 THE DECLINE AND FALL The Eastern conquests of Nicephorus Phocas, and Jolm Zimis- ces. AD. 963 975 Conquest of CUlcia [Mopsuestia taken. AD. 964] [Tarsus. A.D 965] of a triumph ; but the imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the services, or satisfy the ambition^ of Nicephorus. After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania^^*^^ successively married Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two heroes of the age. They reigned as the guardians and colleagues of her infant sons ; and the twelve years of their military command form the most splendid period of the Byzantine annals. The subjects and confederates, whom they led to war, appeared, at least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand strong ; and of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses. ^2' A train of four thousand mules attended their march ; and their evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron spikes. A series of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing more than an anticipation of what would have been effected in a few years by the course of nature ; but I shall briefly prosecute the conquests of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the desert of Bagdad. ^^^ The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tar- sus in Cilicia first expressed the skill and perseverance of their troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is divided by the river Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were predestined to death or slavery,^^^ a surprising degree of popula- tion, which must at least include the inhabitants of the dependent districts. The}^ were surrounded and taken by assault ; but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine ; and no sooner had the Saracens yielded on honourable terms than they were mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval succours of Egypt. They were disinissed with a safe-conduct to the confines of Syria ; a part of the Christians had quietly lived under their dominion ; and the vacant habitations were re- plenished by a new colony. But the mosque was converted into 136a [^Leg. Theophano.] I-''' Elmacin, Hist. Saracen, p. 278, 279. Liutprand was disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men. 138 [^Por the Asiatic campaign of Nicephorus and Tzimisces, see Schlumberger, op. cit., and L'6pop(?e byzantine ; and K. Leonhardt, Kaiser Nicephorus II. Phokas und die Hamdaniden, 960-969.] 1^'' Ducenta fere milHa hominum numerabat urbs (.-Xbulfeda, Annal. Moslem, p. 231) of Mopsuestia, orMafifa, Mampsysta, Mansista, Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more correctly, styled in the middle ages (Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 580). Yet I cannot credit this extreme populousness a few years after the testimony of the emperor Leo, oO yap 7roAv7rAr)0ia crrpaToO toI? KiAifi /Sappapoi? ccrrir (Tactica, C. XViii^. in Meursii Oper. torn. vi. p. 817 [p. 980, ap. Migne, P.atr. Gr. vol. 107]).