Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/37

 HISTORY.] SICILY 23 Yitensis, i. 4) the island on condition of a tribute, which was hardly paid by Theodoric. Sicily was now ruled by a Gothic count, and the Goths claimed to have treated the land with special tenderness (Procopius, Bell. Goth., iii. 16). The island, like the rest of Theodoric's dominions, was certainly well looked after by the great king and his minister ; yet we hear darkly of disaffection to Gothic rule (Cass., Var., i. 3). Theodoric gave back Lilybaion to the Vandal king Thrasamund as the dowry of his sister Anala- frida (Proc., Bell. Vand., i. 8). Yet Lilybaion was a Gothic possession when Belisarius, conqueror of Africa, demanded it in vain as part of the Vandal possessions (Proc., Bell. Vane!,, ii. 5 ; Bell Goth., i. 3). In the Gothic war Sicily was the first land to be recovered for the empire, and that with the good will of its people (535). Panormus alone was stoutly defended by its Gothic garrison. In 550 Totila took some fortresses, but the great cities all with- stood him, and the Goths were driven out the next year. Sicily Sicily was thus won back to the Roman dominion, but underthe the seat of the Roman dominion was now at Constantinople. Eastern B e ii sar i us was Pyrrhos and Marcellus in one. For 430 years some part of Sicily, for 282 years the whole of it, again remained a Roman province. To the Gothic count again succeeded, under Justinian, a Roman praetor, in Greek o-r/aar^yos. That was the official title ; we often hear of & patrician of Sicily, but patrician was in strictness a personal rank. In the later mapping out of the empire into purely military divisions, the theme (8tp.a) of Sicily took in both the island and the nearest peninsula of the main- land, the oldest Italy. The island itself was divided for financial purposes, almost as in the older times, into the two divisions of Syracuse and Lilybaion. The revolutions of Italy hardly touched a land which looked steadily to the^eastern Rome as its head. The Lombard and Frankish masters of the peninsula never fixed themselves in the island. When the Frank took the imperial crown of the West, Sicily still kept its allegiance to the Augustus who reigned at Constantinople, and was only torn away piece- meal from the empire by the next race of conquerors. E'desi- This connexion of Sicily with the eastern division of astical the empire no doubt largely helped to keep up Greek life This was of course strengthened by union with a power which had already a Greek side, and where the Greek side soon became dominant. Still the con- nexion with Italy was close, especially the ecclesiastical connexion. Some things tend to make Sicily look less Greek than it really was. The great source of our know- ledge of Sicily in the century which followed the recon- quest by Belisarius is the Letters of Pope Gregory the Great, and they naturally show the most Latin side of things. The merely official use of Latin was, it must be remembered, common to Sicily with Constantinople. Gregory's Letters are largely occupied with the affairs of the great Sicilian estates held by the Roman Church, as by the churches of Milan and Ravenna. But they deal with many other matters (see the collection in Johannes, C.D., where the letters bearing on Sicily are brought together, or the usual collection of his letters). Saint Paul's visit to Syracuse naturally gave rise to many legends ; but the Christian Church undoubtedly took early root in Sicily. We hear of Manichseans (C.D., 163) ; Jews were plentiful, and Gregory causes compensation to be made for the unlawful destruction of synagogues. Of paganism we find no trace, save that pagan slaves, doubt- less not natives of the island, were held by Jews (C.D., 127). Herein is a contrast between Sicily and Sardinia, where, ac- cording to a letter from Gregory to the empress Constantina, wife of Maurice (594-595), praying for a lightening of taxa- tion in both islands, paganism still lingered (C.D., 121). Sicily belonged to the Latin patriarchate ; but we already (C.D., 103) see glimmerings of the coming disputes between 477-829. the Eastern and Western Churches. Things were changed when, in the early days of the iconoclast controversy, Leo the Isaurian confiscated the Sicilian and Calabrian estates of the Roman Church (Theoph., i. 631). In the 9th, 10th, and llth centuries the old drama of Sicily was acted again. The island is again disputed between Europe and Asia, transplanted to Africa between Greek and Semitic dwellers on her own soil. Panormus and Syracuse are again the headquarters of races and creeds, of creeds yet more than of races. The older religious differences not small certainly when the choice lay between Zeus and Moloch were small compared with the strife for life and death between Christendom and Islam. Gregory and Mahomet were contemporaries, and, though Saracen occupation did not begin in Sicily till more than two centuries after Gregory's death, Saracen inroads began much sooner. In 655 (Theoph., Early i. 532) part of Sicily was plundered, and its inhabitants Saracen carried to Damascus. Then came the strange episode of inroads> the visit of Constans the Second (641-668), the first emperor, it would seem, who had set foot in Sicily since Julian. After a war with the Lombards, after twelve days' plunder of Rome, he came on to Syracuse, where his oppressions led to his murder in 668. Sicily now saw for the first time the setting up of a tyrant in the later sense. Meketios, commander of the Eastern army of Constans, revolted, but Sicily and Roman Italy kept their allegiance to the new emperor Constantine Pogonatos, who came in person to destroy him. Then came another Saracen inroad from Alexandria, in which Syracuse was sacked (Paul. Diac., v. 13). Others followed, but there was as yet no lasting settlement. Towards the end of the 8th century, though Sicily itself was untouched, its patricians and their forces play a part in the affairs of southern Italy as enemies of the Frankish power. Charles himself was believed (Theoph., i. 736) to have designs on Sicily; but, when it came to Saracen invasion, the sympathies of both pope and Cassar lay with the invaded Christian land (Mon. Car., 323, 328). In 813 a peace for ten years was made between the Saracen Saracens and the patrician Gregory. A few years after it conquest, expired Saracen settlement in the island begins. This was a special time of Saracen inroad on the islands belonging to the Eastern empire. Almost at the same moment Crete was seized by a band of adventurers from Spain. But the first Saracen settlers in Sicily were the African neighbours of Sicily, and they were called to the work by a home treason. The story has been tricked out with many romantic details (Chron. Salem., 60, ap. Pertz, iii. 498 ; Theoph. Cont., ii. 272 ; George Kedrenos, ii. 97) ; but it seems plain that Euphemios or Euthymios of Syracuse, supported by his own citizens, revolted against Michael the Stammerer (820-829), and, when defeated by an imperial army, asked help of Ziyadet Allah, the Aghlabite prince of Kairawan, and offered to hold the island of him. The struggle of 138 years now began. Euphemios, a puppet emperor, was led about by his Saracen allies much as earlier puppet emperors had been led about by Alaric and Ataulf, till he was slain in one of the many sieges. The second Semitic conquest of Sicily began in 827 at Mazzara on the old border of Greek and Phoenician. But the land had a brave defender in the patrician Theodotos, and the invaders met with a stout resistance both in the island and from armies both from Constantinople and from Byzantine Italy. The advance of the invaders was slow. In two years all that was done was to occupy Mazzara and Mineum the old Menai of Douketios strange points certainly to begin with, and seemingly to destroy Agrigentum, well used to destruction. Attacks on Syracuse failed ; so did