Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/97

 68 The truth of this incident is vouched for by two versesof poetry :

On coming within sight of Damascus at a point some four leagues to the north-east on the track leading from Emesa under the eastern declivities of Anti-Libanus, Khālid paused for a moment to wave a banner, a symbol of the speedy occupation of the country to which he confidently looked forward. The eminence on which he stood still bears the name Thanīyat al-ʿOḳāb—the Pass of the Banner. It was the very spot from which the Arabian Prophet some fifty years earlier had obtained his first and only view of the Green City.

Passing under the walls of Damascus, to the astonishment of some Ghassānid tribesmen, who were celebrating a festival—either Easter or Pentecost—and having, it is said, had some communication with the Prefect or Bishop of the City, Khālid was not long in reaching Boṣra, where he joined Yezīd, Shuraḥbīl, and Abu ʿObeida. The capitulation of Boṣra was accepted on the verbal promise of the governor, and the four generals moved southwards to join ʿAmr, who had meantime remained stationary in the ʿAraba.

Sir William Muir gives the following description of the opposing forces:—The Byzantine army numbered 240,000, of whom a portion were felons released for the occasion, and others chained in line that they might not fly, or in token rather of resolve to die. Such are the exaggerated, and itmay be fanciful, rumours handed down as, no doubt, current in the Muslim ranks. But whatever abatement is made from them, so much we may readily accept, that the army with which Heraclius sought to stay the surging tide of Saracen invasion must needs have been very large. We may also believe that though devoid of union, loyalty, and valour, it was well appointed, and elated by its achievements in the Persian war. In discipline and combined movement, and