Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/38

 24 SICILY [HISTORY. 829-1060. attacks on Henna Castrum Ennx, now changing into Castrum Johannis (perhaps Kacrrpotdwr)), Castrogiovanni. The actual gain was small ; but the invaders took seizin alike of the coast and of the island. A far greater conquest followed when new invaders came from Spain and when Theodotos was killed in 830. The next year Panormus passed away for ever from Roman, for 230 years from Christian, rule. Syracuse was for fifty years, not only, as of old, the bulwark of Europe, but the bulwark of Christendom. By the conquest of Panormus the Saracens were firmly rooted in the island. We hear dimly of treasonable dealings with them on the part of the strateyos Alexios, son-in-law of the emperor Theophilos ; but we see more clearly that Saracen advance was largely hindered by dissensions between the African and the Spanish settlers. In the end the Moslem con- quests in Sicily became an Aghlabite principality owning at best a formal superiority in the princes of KairawAn. With the Saracen occupation begins a new division of the island, which becomes convenient in tracing the progress of Saracen conquest. This is into three valleys, known in later forms of language as Val di Mazzara or Mazza in the north-west, Val di Noto in the south-east, and Val Demone (a name of uncertain origin) in the north-east (see Amari, Musulmani in Sicilia, i. 465). The first Saracen settlement of Val di Mazzara answers roughly to the old Carthaginian possessions. From Panormus the emir or lord of Sicily, Mohammed ibn Abdallah, sent forth his plunderers through- out Sicily and even into southern Italy. There, though they made no lasting settlements, they often occupied par- ticular points. A consul or duke of Naples in 836 even asked for Saracen help against the Lombards, which he is said to have repaid by help against his fellow-subjects in Sicily (Johan. Diac., 57; Amari, i. 314). The chief work of the next ten years was the conquest of the Val di Noto, but the first great advance was made elsewhere. In 843 the Saracens won the Mamertine city, Messana, and thus stood in the path between Italy and Sicily. Then the work of conquest, as described by the Arabic writers, went on, but slowly. At last, in 859, the very centre of the island, the stronghold of Henna, was taken, and the main part of Val di Noto followed. But the divisions among the Moslems helped the Christians; they won back several towns, and beat off all attacks on Syracuse and Tauromenium. It is strange that the reign of Basil the Macedonian (867), a time of such renewed vigour in the empire, was the time of the greatest of all losses in Sicily. In Italy the imperial frontier largely advanced ; in Sicily imperial fleets threatened Panormus. But in 875 the accession of Ibrahim ibn Ahmed in Africa changed the face of things. The emir in Sicily, Ja'far ibn Ahmed, received strict orders to act vigorously against the eastern towns. In 877 began the only successful Semitic siege of Syracuse. The next year the city, which for 1 600 years had been the seat of Greek, Roman, and Christian life, passed for the first time under the yoke of strangers to the fellowship of Europe. Thus in fifty-one years the imperial and Christian terri- tory in Sicily was cut down to a few points on or near the eastern coast, to the Val Demone in short without Messana. But between Moslem dissension and Chris- tian valour the struggle had still to be waged for eighty- seven years. Henna had been the chief centre of Christian resistance a generation earlier ; its place was now taken by the small fort of Rametta not far from Messina. The Moslems of Sicily were busy in civil wars; Arabs fought against Berbers, both against the African overlord. In 900 Panormus had to be won by a son of Ibrahfm from Moslem rebels provoked by his father's cruelty. But when Ibrahim himself came into Sicily, renewed efforts against the Christians led to the first taking of Tauromenium (908), of Rametta, and of other points. The civil war that followed his death, the endless revolutions of Agrigentum, where the weaker side did not scruple to call in Christian help, hindered any real Saracen occupation of eastern Sicily. The emperors never gave up their claims to Sicily or their hopes of recovering it. Besides the struggle with the Christians in the island, there was often direct warfare between the empire and the Saracens; but such warfare was more active in Italy than in Sicily. In 956 a peace or truce was made by the emperor Constantino Porphyro- genitus. A few years later, Otho the Great, the restorer of the Western empire, looked to Sicily as a land to be won back for Christendom. It had not yet wholly passed away; but the day soon came. Strange to say, as Syracuse fell. in the reign of Basil the Macedonian, the Saracen occupa- tion was completed in the reign of Nikephoros Phokas (Nicephorus Phocas), the deliverer of Crete. In the very year of his accession (963) Tauromenium was taken for the second time, and became for a hundred years a Mohammedan possession. Rametta alone held out. A fleet and army from Constantinople went in vain to its help ; the last stronghold of Christendom was taken (965), and for a season all was over. Thus in 138 years the Arab did what the Canaanite had never done. The whole island was a Semitic, that is now a Mohammedan, possession. The Greek -speaking Roman of Sicily was a bondman in his own land, like the Latin- speaking Roman of Spain. Yet the complete Saracen possession of Sicily may seem a thing of a moment. Its first and longest period lasted only 73 years. In that time Mohammedan Sicily was threatened by a Western Recon- emperor ; the Arabic writers claim the Saracen army by quest by which Otho the Second was beaten back in 982 as a Sicilian army. A mightier enemy was threatening in the East. Basil the Second planned the recovery of Sicily in good earnest. In 1027 he sent a great army ; but his death stopped their progress before they reached the island. But the great conqueror had left behind him men trained in his school, and eleven years later the eagles of the new Rome again marched to Sicilian victories. The ravages of the Sicilian Saracens in the Greek islands were more fright- ful than ever, and George Maniakes, the first captain of his time, was sent to win back the lost land. He too was helped by Saracen dissensions. The emir Abul-afar became a Roman vassal, and, like Alaric of old, became magister militum in the Roman army. His brother and rival Abu- hafas brought help from Africa; and finally all joined against the Christians. Four years of Christian victory (1038- 1042) followed. In the host of Maniakes were men of all races, Normans, who had already begun to show them- selves in south Italy, and the Warangian guard, the best soldiers of the empire, among whom Harold Hardrada himself is said to have held a place. Town after town was delivered, first Messana, then Syracuse, then a crowd of others. The exact extent of the reconquest is uncertain ; Byzantine writers claim the deliverance of the whole island ; but it is certain that the Saracens never lost Panormus. But court influence spoiled everything : Maniakes was recalled; under his successor Stephen, brother-in-law of the emperor Michael, the Saracens won back what they had lost. Messana alone held out, for how long a time is uncertain. But it could not have been again under the yoke for many years when a conqueror came who had no empresses to thwart him. The second Saracen occupation of all Sicily was short indeed. In 1060 began the thirty years' work of the first Roger. . Thus for 263 years the Christian people of some part ^ or other of Sicily were in subjection to Moslem masters. Saracen But that subjection differed widely in different times and rule.