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Title: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: Henry Hart Milman

Release date: June 7, 2008 [eBook #735]
Most recently updated: March 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/735

Credits: David Reed and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — VOLUME 5
***

HISTORY OF THE DECLINE
AND FALL OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 5

1788 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Contents
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I.

Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt
Of Italy And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—
Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Establishment Of
Images.—Character And Coronation Of Charlemagne.—
Restoration And Decay Of The Roman Empire In The West.
—Independence Of Italy.— Constitution Of The Germanic
Body.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part III.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part V.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part VI.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I.

Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth,
Character, And Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At
Mecca.— Flies To Medina.—Propagates His Religion By
The Sword.— Voluntary Or Reluctant Submission Of The
Arabs.—His Death And Successors.—The Claims And
Fortunes Of Ali And His Descendants.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part II.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part III.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part IV.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part V.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VI.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII.

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.

The Conquest Of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, And Spain,
By The Arabs Or Saracens.—Empire Of The Caliphs, Or
Successors Of Mahomet.—State Of The Christians, &c.,
Under Their Government.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VII.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.

The Two Sieges Of Constantinople By The Arabs.—Their
Invasion Of France, And Defeat By Charles Martel.—Civil
War Of The Ommiades And Abbassides.—Learning Of The
Arabs.— Luxury Of The Caliphs.—Naval Enterprises On
Crete, Sicily, And Rome.—Decay And Division Of The
Empire Of The Caliphs. —Defeats And Victories Of The
Greek Emperors.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part I.

Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.—Extent
And Division.—Wealth And Revenue.—Palace Of
Constantinople.— Titles And Offices.—Pride And Power Of
The Emperors.— Tactics Of The Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.

—Loss Of The Latin Tongue.—Studies And Solitude Of The
Greeks.

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part II.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part III.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part I.

Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Their Persecution
By The Greek Emperors.—Revolt In Armenia &c.—
Transplantation Into Thrace.—Propagation In The West.—
The Seeds, Character, And Consequences Of The
Reformation.

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part I.

The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of
The Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—
The Monarchy Of Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars
Of The Russians Against The Greek Empire.—Conversion
Of The Barbarians.

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
II.
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
III.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I.

The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First
Adventures And Settlement Of The Normans.—Character
And Conquest Of Robert Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia—
Deliverance Of Sicily By His Brother Roger.—Victories Of
Robert Over The Emperors Of The East And West.—Roger,
King Of Sicily, Invades Africa And Greece.—The Emperor
Manuel Comnenus.— Wars Of The Greeks And Normans.—
Extinction Of The Normans.

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part II.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part III.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part IV.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.

The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against
Mahmud Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia,
And Protects The Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The
Emperor Romanus Diogenes By Alp Arslan.—Power And
Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia Minor
And Syria.—State And Oppression Of Jerusalem.—
Pilgrimages To The Holy Sepulchre.

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.

Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of
The Latin Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—
Policy Of The Greek Emperor Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice,
Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The Franks.—Deliverance Of
The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon, First King Of
Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin Kingdom.

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part IV.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part V.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
—Part I.
Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of
Italy And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest
Of Italy By The Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character
And Coronation Of Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The
Roman Empire In The West.—Independence Of Italy.—
Constitution Of The Germanic Body.

In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the former as
subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a salutary maxim, if in fact, as
well as in narrative, it had ever been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy
of the Gnostics, the dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of Christ’s
body, 1 I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of speculative divines.
But I have reviewed, with diligence and pleasure, the objects of
ecclesiastical history, by which the decline and fall of the Roman empire
were materially affected, the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of
the Catholic church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the
mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation. At the
head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of images, so fiercely
disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries; since a question of popular
superstition produced the revolt of Italy, the temporal power of the popes,
and the restoration of the Roman empire in the West.
1 (return)
[ The learned Selden has given the history of
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence:
“This opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic,” (his Works,
vol. iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]
The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable
repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may be
ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The
Mosaic law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity; and

that precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the
chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the
foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own hands;
the images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed with sense
and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal to adore the
creative powers of the artist. 2 Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts
of the Gnostic tribe might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the
profane honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; 3 but
the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and spiritual; and
the first notice of the use of pictures is in the censure of the council of
Illiberis, three hundred years after the Christian aera. Under the successors
of Constantine, in the peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more
prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the
benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no
longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. The first
introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and
of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were
seated on the right hand of God; but the gracious and often supernatural
favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered round their tomb,
conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited,
and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of their merits
and sufferings. 4 But a memorial, more interesting than the skull or the
sandals of a departed worthy, is the faithful copy of his person and features,
delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so
congenial to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private
friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors were
adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a reverence less
ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues of sages and
patriots; and these profane virtues, these splendid sins, disappeared in the
presence of the holy men, who had died for their celestial and everlasting
country. At first, the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the
venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to
awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By
a slow though inevitable progression, the honors of the original were
transferred to the copy: the devout Christian prayed before the image of a
saint; and the Pagan rites of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again
stole into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were

silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures
which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy,
and may be considered as the proper objects of religious adoration. The
most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash attempt of defining, by
forms and colors, the infinite Spirit, the eternal Father, who pervades and
sustains the universe. 5 But the superstitious mind was more easily
reconciled to paint and to worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of
God, under the human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to
assume. The second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real and
mortal body; but that body had ascended into heaven: and, had not some
similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the spiritual worship
of Christ might have been obliterated by the visible relics and
representations of the saints. A similar indulgence was requisite and
propitious for the Virgin Mary: the place of her burial was unknown; and
the assumption of her soul and body into heaven was adopted by the
credulity of the Greeks and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of
images was firmly established before the end of the sixth century: they were
fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the
Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new
superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly entertained by
the rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the West. The bolder forms of
sculpture, in brass or marble, which peopled the temples of antiquity, were
offensive to the fancy or conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a smooth
surface of colors has ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode
of imitation. 6
2 (return)
[ Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a
quo sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is
the last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the
form and matter.]
3 (return)
[ See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage, Hist.
des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic
practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of
Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]
4 (return)
[ See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434; vol. iii. p.
158-163.]

5 (return)
[ (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii. p.
1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point
souffrir d’images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les
defenseurs les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-
ci, et le concile de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus
Christ et des Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
154.)]
6 (return)
[ This general history of images is drawn from the xxiid
book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom. ii.
p. 1310-1337. He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and
on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the right,
that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of
poor Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]
The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with the
original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the genuine features
of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles: the statue of Christ at
Paneas in Palestine 7 was more probably that of some temporal savior; the
Gnostics and their profane monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of
the Christian artists could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of
some heathen model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention
assured at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the worship.
A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular basis of a Syrian
legend, on the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, so famous in the days
of Eusebius, so reluctantly deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop
of Caesarea 8 records the epistle, 9 but he most strangely forgets the picture
of Christ; 10 the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with which he
gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had invoked his healing power,
and offered the strong city of Edessa to protect him against the malice of the
Jews. The ignorance of the primitive church is explained by the long
imprisonment of the image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an
oblivion of five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and
seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and most glorious
exploit was the deliverance of the city from the arms of Chosroes
Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge of the divine promise, that
Edessa should never be taken by a foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the
text of Procopius ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth
and valor of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the
assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane historian, of
the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in the ecclesiastical page of

Evagrius, that the Palladium was exposed on the rampart, and that the water
which had been sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added
new fuel to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if the
Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks adored the
similitude, which was not the work of any mortal pencil, but the immediate
creation of the divine original. The style and sentiments of a Byzantine
hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest
idolatry. “How can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose
celestial splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who
dwells in heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image;
He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a picture, which the
Father has delineated with his immaculate hand, which he has formed in an
ineffable manner, and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.”
Before the end of the sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in
Greek it is a single word, 11 were propagated in the camps and cities of the
Eastern empire: 12 they were the objects of worship, and the instruments of
miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult, their venerable presence
could revive the hope, rekindle the courage, or repress the fury, of the
Roman legions. Of these pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a
human pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper
title: but there were some of higher descent, who derived their resemblance
from an immediate contact with the original, endowed, for that purpose,
with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The most ambitious aspired from a
filial to a fraternal relation with the image of Edessa; and such is the
veronica of Rome, or Spain, or Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and
bloody sweat applied to his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The
fruitful precedent was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints
and martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the
Mother of God 13 were deeply inscribed in a marble column; the East and
West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke; and the Evangelist,
who was perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the occupation of
a painter, so profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians. The
Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias,
might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these
Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the
last degeneracy of taste and genius. 14

7 (return)
[ After removing some rubbish of miracle and inconsistency,
it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300, Paneas in
Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue, representing a
grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a grateful or
suppliant female kneeling before him, and that an inscription
was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the Christians,
this group was foolishly explained of their founder and the
poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb.
vii. 18, Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more
reasonably conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the
emperor Vespasian: in the latter supposition, the female is a
city, a province, or perhaps the queen Berenice,
(Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii. p. 1-92.)]
8 (return)
[ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned Assemannus has
brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians, St. Ephrem,
Josua Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do not find
any notice of the Syriac original or the archives of Edessa,
(Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 318, 420, 554;) their vague belief
is probably derived from the Greeks.]
9 (return)
[ The evidence for these epistles is stated and rejected by the
candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p. 297-309.)
Among the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from this
convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the
Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c., to discover Mr. Addison, an
English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528, Baskerville’s
edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian religion
owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
applause of our clergy.]
10 (return)
[ From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius, (Hist.
Eccles. l. iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was invented
between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the
siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i. p. 416. Procopius,
de Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and buckler of, Gregory
II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom. viii. p. 656,
657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit.
Lequien,) and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p.
1030.) The most perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus,
(Compend. p. 175-178.)]
11 (return)
[ See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject is treated
with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser,
(Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem
Codini de Officiis, p. 289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of
Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit

by the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy
which he has spread through many volumes of the
Bibliotheque Germanique, (tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68,
xxv. p. 1-36, xxvii. p. 85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-
148, xxxii. p. 75-107, xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]
12 (return)
[ Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii. c. 1, p. 63)
celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since he adds
(of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]
13 (return)
[ See, in the genuine or supposed works of John
Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke,
which have not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently
by Beausobre, (Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)]
14 (return)
[ “Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass:
they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that the
ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the
pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to
accept.]
The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible degrees,
and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of
comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the beginning of the eighth century, in
the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened
by an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored
the religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief and impatience, the name
of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and Mahometans, 15 who
derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal hatred to graven images
and all relative worship. The servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal,
and depreciate their authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned
at Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach
the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine,
and Egypt had been fortified with the images of Christ, his mother, and his
saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous
defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and
these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive
judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and inanimate
idols. 1511 For a while Edessa had braved the Persian assaults; but the
chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved in the common ruin; and his
divine resemblance became the slave and trophy of the infidels. After a
servitude of three hundred years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion

of Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver, the
redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce for the
territory of Edessa. 16 In this season of distress and dismay, the eloquence
of the monks was exercised in the defence of images; and they attempted to
prove, that the sin and schism of the greatest part of the Orientals had
forfeited the favor, and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols.
But they were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and of the
primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of the church. As the
worship of images had never been established by any general or positive
law, its progress in the Eastern empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by
the differences of men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and
the personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was fondly
cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive genius of the
Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote districts of Asia were strangers
to this innovation of sacred luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics
and Arians maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which
had preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike subjects
of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to the sight of images.
17 These various denominations of men afforded a fund of prejudice and
aversion, of small account in the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which,
in the fortune of a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often connected
with the powers of the church and state.
15 (return)
[ By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the origin of
the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and two
Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches
of these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd
conspiracy for restoring the purity of the Christian worship,
(see Spanheim, Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]
1511 (return)
[ Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae, caused all
the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year 719;
hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following
the example of the Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon.
Johan. Jerosylym. Script. Byzant. vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des
Repub. Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126.—G.]
16 (return)
[ See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,) Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 264,),
and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The prudent

Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image of
Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa; but its repose is
inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no longer
famous or fashionable.]
17 (return)
[ (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are still
content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p.
148;) but surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the
superstition of the Germans of the xiith century.]
Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the Third,
18 who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne of the East. He
was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but his education, his reason,
perhaps his intercourse with the Jews and Arabs, had inspired the martial
peasant with a hatred of images; and it was held to be the duty of a prince to
impose on his subjects the dictates of his own conscience. But in the outset
of an unsettled reign, during ten years of toil and danger, Leo submitted to
the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before the idols which he despised, and
satisfied the Roman pontiff with the annual professions of his orthodoxy
and zeal. In the reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and
cautious: he assembled a great council of senators and bishops, and enacted,
with their consent, that all the images should be removed from the
sanctuary and altar to a proper height in the churches where they might be
visible to the eyes, and inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it
was impossible on either side to check the rapid through adverse impulse of
veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position, the sacred images still
edified their votaries, and reproached the tyrant. He was himself provoked
by resistance and invective; and his own party accused him of an imperfect
discharge of his duty, and urged for his imitation the example of the Jewish
king, who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the temple. By
a second edict, he proscribed the existence as well as the use of religious
pictures; the churches of Constantinople and the provinces were cleansed
from idolatry; the images of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints, were
demolished, or a smooth surface of plaster was spread over the walls of the
edifice. The sect of the Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism
of six emperors, and the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict of
one hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the Isaurian to
pronounce the condemnation of images as an article of faith, and by the
authority of a general council: but the convocation of such an assembly was
reserved for his son Constantine; 19 and though it is stigmatized by

triumphant bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own partial and
mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety. The debates and
decrees of many provincial synods introduced the summons of the general
council which met in the suburbs of Constantinople, and was composed of
the respectable number of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of Europe
and Anatolia; for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were the slaves
of the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the churches of Italy
and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This Byzantine synod
assumed the rank and powers of the seventh general council; yet even this
title was a recognition of the six preceding assemblies, which had
laboriously built the structure of the Catholic faith. After a serious
deliberation of six months, the three hundred and thirty-eight bishops
pronounced and subscribed a unanimous decree, that all visible symbols of
Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either blasphemous or heretical; that
image-worship was a corruption of Christianity and a renewal of Paganism;
that all such monuments of idolatry should be broken or erased; and that
those who should refuse to deliver the objects of their private superstition,
were guilty of disobedience to the authority of the church and of the
emperor. In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits of
their temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice they intrusted the
execution of their spiritual censures. At Constantinople, as in the former
councils, the will of the prince was the rule of episcopal faith; but on this
occasion, I am inclined to suspect that a large majority of the prelates
sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of hope and fear. In the
long night of superstition, the Christians had wandered far away from the
simplicity of the gospel: nor was it easy for them to discern the clew, and
tread back the mazes, of the labyrinth. The worship of images was
inseparably blended, at least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the
Saints and their relics; the holy ground was involved in a cloud of miracles
and visions; and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and scepticism, were
benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief. Constantine himself is
accused of indulging a royal license to doubt, or deny, or deride the
mysteries of the Catholics, 20 but they were deeply inscribed in the public
and private creed of his bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault
with a secret horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were
consecrated to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the faculties of

man: the thirst of innovation superseded the reverence of antiquity; and the
vigor of Europe could disdain those phantoms which terrified the sickly and
servile weakness of the Greeks.
18 (return)
[ Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the
Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils,
tom. viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the
historical writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses,
Cedrenus, Zonoras, &c. Of the modern Catholics, Baronius,
Pagi, Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Eccles. Seculum viii. and ix.,)
and Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclasts,) have treated the
subject with learning, passion, and credulity. The Protestant
labors of Frederick Spanheim (Historia Imaginum restituta)
and James Basnage (Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l.
xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast into the Iconoclast scale. With
this mutual aid, and opposite tendency, it is easy for us to
poise the balance with philosophic indifference. * Note:
Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der Bilder-sturmender
Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of research and
impartiality—M.]
19 (return)
[ Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled (Opera,
tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim’s Apology for the Synod of
Constantinople (p. 171, &c.) is worked up with truth and
ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in the Nicene
Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus converts it
into slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p. 806]
20 (return)
[ He is accused of proscribing the title of saint; styling the
Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her delivery to
an empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his
defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed
between the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an
orthodox divine.]
The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the people
by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most ignorant can
perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation and downfall of their
visible deities. The first hostilities of Leo were directed against a lofty
Christ on the vestibule, and above the gate, of the palace. A ladder had been
planted for the assault, but it was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots
and women: they beheld, with pious transport, the ministers of sacrilege
tumbling from on high and dashed against the pavement: and the honors of
the ancient martyrs were prostituted to these criminals, who justly suffered
for murder and rebellion. 21 The execution of the Imperial edicts was

resisted by frequent tumults in Constantinople and the provinces: the person
of Leo was endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular
enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and military
power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous islands were filled
with images and monks: their votaries abjured, without scruple, the enemy
of Christ, his mother, and the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and galleys,
displayed their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the harbor of
Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God and the
people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their miracles were
inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the defeat and conflagration of
the fleet, the naked islands were abandoned to the clemency or justice of the
conqueror. The son of Leo, in the first year of his reign, had undertaken an
expedition against the Saracens: during his absence, the capital, the palace,
and the purple, were occupied by his kinsman Artavasdes, the ambitious
champion of the orthodox faith. The worship of images was triumphantly
restored: the patriarch renounced his dissimulation, or dissembled his
sentiments and the righteous claims of the usurper was acknowledged, both
in the new, and in ancient, Rome. Constantine flew for refuge to his
paternal mountains; but he descended at the head of the bold and
affectionate Isaurians; and his final victory confounded the arms and
predictions of the fanatics. His long reign was distracted with clamor,
sedition, conspiracy, and mutual hatred, and sanguinary revenge; the
persecution of images was the motive or pretence, of his adversaries; and, if
they missed a temporal diadem, they were rewarded by the Greeks with the
crown of martyrdom. In every act of open and clandestine treason, the
emperor felt the unforgiving enmity of the monks, the faithful slaves of the
superstition to which they owed their riches and influence. They prayed,
they preached, they absolved, they inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of
Palestine poured forth a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John
Damascenus, 22 the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant’s head,
both in this world and the next. 23 2311 I am not at leisure to examine how
far the monks provoked, nor how much they have exaggerated, their real
and pretended sufferings, nor how many lost their lives or limbs, their eyes
or their beards, by the cruelty of the emperor. 2312 From the chastisement
of individuals, he proceeded to the abolition of the order; and, as it was
wealthy and useless, his resentment might be stimulated by avarice, and
justified by patriotism. The formidable name and mission of the Dragon, 24

his visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence of the black nation: the
religious communities were dissolved, the buildings were converted into
magazines, or barracks; the lands, movables, and cattle were confiscated;
and our modern precedents will support the charge, that much wanton or
malicious havoc was exercised against the relics, and even the books of the
monasteries. With the habit and profession of monks, the public and private
worship of images was rigorously proscribed; and it should seem, that a
solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted from the subjects, or at least from
the clergy, of the Eastern empire. 25
21 (return)
[ The holy confessor Theophanes approves the principle of
their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in Epist. i. ad Imp.
Leon. Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds the zeal of the
Byzantine women who killed the Imperial officers.]
22 (return)
[ John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus, who
held a considerable office in the service of the caliph. His
zeal in the cause of images exposed him to the resentment
and treachery of the Greek emperor; and on the suspicion of
a treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right
hand, which was miraculously restored by the Virgin. After
this deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed his
wealth, and buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas,
between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous;
but his learned editor, Father Lequien, has a unluckily
proved that St. John Damascenus was already a monk before
the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera, tom. i. Vit. St. Joan.
Damascen. p. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.)]
23 (return)
[ After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his heir,
(Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of this
piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no
longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the
titles. (tom. i. p. 306.)]
2311 (return)
[ The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under Leo, an
image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led
through the streets on an ass, with his face to the tail; and,
reinvested in his dignity, became again the obsequious
minister of Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See
Schlosser p. 211.—M.]
2312 (return)
[ Compare Schlosser, p. 228-234.—M.]
24 (return)
[ In the narrative of this persecution from Theophanes and

Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235-238) is happy to compare the
Draco of Leo with the dragoons (Dracones) of Louis XIV.;
and highly solaces himself with the controversial pun.]
25 (return)
[ (Damascen. Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and subscription
I do not remember to have seen in any modern compilation]
The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images; they were
fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the independent zeal of the
Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and jurisdiction, the patriarch of
Constantinople and the pope of Rome were nearly equal. But the Greek
prelate was a domestic slave under the eye of his master, at whose nod he
alternately passed from the convent to the throne, and from the throne to the
convent. A distant and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians of the West,
excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin bishops.
Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public and
private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and the weakness or
neglect of the emperors compelled them to consult, both in peace and war,
the temporal safety of the city. In the school of adversity the priest
insensibly imbibed the virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same
character was assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the
Greek, or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and, after the loss
of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of the popes again
restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed, that in the eighth century,
their dominion was founded on rebellion, and that the rebellion was
produced, and justified, by the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of
the second and third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously
interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The Byzantine
writers unanimously declare, that, after a fruitless admonition, they
pronounced the separation of the East and West, and deprived the
sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and sovereignty of Italy. Their
excommunication is still more clearly expressed by the Greeks, who beheld
the accomplishment of the papal triumphs; and as they are more strongly
attached to their religion than to their country, they praise, instead of
blaming, the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 26 The modern
champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise and the precedent: this
great and glorious example of the deposition of royal heretics is celebrated
by the cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine; 27 and if they are asked, why the
same thunders were not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity,

they reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the sole cause of
her patient loyalty. 28 On this occasion the effects of love and hatred are the
same; and the zealous Protestants, who seek to kindle the indignation, and
to alarm the fears, of princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and
treason of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. 29 They are
defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most part, of the Gallican
church, 30 who respect the saint, without approving the sin. These common
advocates of the crown and the mitre circumscribe the truth of facts by the
rule of equity, Scripture, and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the
Latins, 31 and the lives 32 and epistles of the popes; themselves.
26 (return)
[ Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this Gregory is
styled by Cedrenus. (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the thunder,
(tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that the
Greeks are apt to confound the times and actions of two
Gregories.]
27 (return)
[ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5; dignum
exemplum! Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8:
mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l.
iii. Opera, tom. ii. p. 169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that
Sigonius is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philipus
Argelatus, a Bolognese, and subject of the pope.]
28 (return)
[ Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut
Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis,
(honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal
Perron adds a distinction more honorable to the first
Christians, but not more satisfactory to modern princes—the
treason of heretics and apostates, who break their oath, belie
their coin, and renounce their allegiance to Christ and his
vicar, (Perroniana, p. 89.)]
29 (return)
[ Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist. d’Eglise,
p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum,) who, with a hundred more, tread in the footsteps
of the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]
30 (return)
[ See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist. vii. 7, p. 456-
474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti, secul. viii.
dissert. i. p. 92-98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 215, 216,) and
Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p. 317-320,) a
disciple of the Gallican school In the field of controversy I
always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open
middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.]

31 (return)
[ They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de Gestis
Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script. Ital. Muratori,
tom. i. pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius, (de Vit. Pont. in
Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154. Gregorius III.
p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.; Paulus, p.
172. Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo III. p.
195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius (Hist.
Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella, (l. xxi.
p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]
32 (return)
[ With some minute difference, the most learned critics,
Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini,
Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that
the Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the
apostolic librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth
centuries; and that the last and smallest part is the work of
Anastasius, whose name it bears. The style is barbarous, the
narrative partial, the details are trifling—yet it must be read
as a curious and authentic record of the times. The epistles
of the popes are dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
—Part II.
Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor Leo, are
still extant; 33 and if they cannot be praised as the most perfect models of
eloquence and logic, they exhibit the portrait, or at least the mask, of the
founder of the papal monarchy. “During ten pure and fortunate years,” says
Gregory to the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal
letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred pledges of
your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the
change! how tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of
idolatry; and, by the accusation, you betray your own impiety and
ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our
style and arguments: the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your
confusion; and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the
enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to
cast their horn-books at your head.” After this decent salutation, the pope
attempts the usual distinction between the idols of antiquity and the
Christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms
or daemons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in
any visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother,
and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles, the innocence
and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed have trusted to the
ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the perpetual use of images, from
the apostolic age, and their venerable presence in the six synods of the
Catholic church. A more specious argument is drawn from present
possession and recent practice the harmony of the Christian world
supersedes the demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly confesses,
than such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of an orthodox
prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a heretic, he
recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of

Constantinople and Rome. The limits of civil and ecclesiastical powers are
defined by the pontiff. To the former he appropriates the body; to the latter,
the soul: the sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate: the more
formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy; and in
the exercise of their divine commission a zealous son will not spare his
offending father: the successor of St. Peter may lawfully chastise the kings
of the earth. “You assault us, O tyrant! with a carnal and military hand:
unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the
heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your
body and the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance, I
will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break in pieces the image of St.
Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in
chains, and in exile, to the foot of the Imperial throne. Would to God that I
might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the
fate of Constans serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After
his just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the
fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant: the saint is still adored by the
nations of Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But
it is our duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people;
nor are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as
you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the
city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can remove to the
distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the Lombards, and
then—you may pursue the winds. 34 Are you ignorant that the popes are the
bond of union, the mediators of peace, between the East and West? The
eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God
upon earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. 35
The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present their homage to
Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to visit one of their most
powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the sacrament of
baptism. 36 The Barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while
you alone are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are
kindled into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon
your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we
are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on your
own head!”

33 (return)
[ The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved in the
Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They are
without a date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the
year 726, by Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in
729, and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that
some papists have praised the good sense and moderation of
these letters.]
34 (return)
[ (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards is hard of
digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu
Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly
reckons the xxivth stadia, not from Rome, but from the
limits of the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora,
of the Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the
pedantry of the age, employs stadia for miles, without much
inquiry into the genuine measure.]
35 (return)
[ {Greek}]
36 (return)
[ (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran;
and in his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced
Christianity. May not this unknown Septetus have some
reference to the chief of the Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina king of
Wessex, who, in the pontificate of Gregory the Second,
visited Rome for the purpose, not of baptism, but of
pilgrimage! (Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D. 726, No. 15.)]
The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had been
witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West, who related with
grief and indignation the sacrilege of the emperor. But on the reception of
his proscriptive edict, they trembled for their domestic deities: the images
of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished
in all the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to the
Roman pontiff, the royal favor as the price of his compliance, degradation
and exile as the penalty of his disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed
him to hesitate; and the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the
emperor displays his confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the powers of
resistance. Without depending on prayers or miracles, he boldly armed
against the public enemy, and his pastoral letters admonished the Italians of
their danger and their duty. 37 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the
cities of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion; their
military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of the natives;
and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused into the mercenary

strangers. The Italians swore to live and die in the defence of the pope and
the holy images; the Roman people was devoted to their father, and even
the Lombards were ambitious to share the merit and advantage of this holy
war. The most treasonable act, but the most obvious revenge, was the
destruction of the statues of Leo himself: the most effectual and pleasing
measure of rebellion, was the withholding the tribute of Italy, and depriving
him of a power which he had recently abused by the imposition of a new
capitation. 38 A form of administration was preserved by the election of
magistrates and governors; and so high was the public indignation, that the
Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to conduct him
with a fleet and army to the palace of Constantinople. In that palace, the
Roman bishops, the second and third Gregory, were condemned as the
authors of the revolt, and every attempt was made, either by fraud or force,
to seize their persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was repeatedly
visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and dukes and exarchs of
high dignity or secret trust; they landed with foreign troops, they obtained
some domestic aid, and the superstition of Naples may blush that her fathers
were attached to the cause of heresy. But these clandestine or open attacks
were repelled by the courage and vigilance of the Romans; the Greeks were
overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an ignominious death, and
the popes, however inclined to mercy, refused to intercede for these guilty
victims. At Ravenna, 39 the several quarters of the city had long exercised a
bloody and hereditary feud; in religious controversy they found a new
aliment of faction: but the votaries of images were superior in numbers or
spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem the torrent, lost his life in a
popular sedition. To punish this flagitious deed, and restore his dominion in
Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and army into the Adriatic Gulf. After
suffering from the winds and waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made
their descent in the neighborhood of Ravenna: they threatened to
depopulate the guilty capital, and to imitate, perhaps to surpass, the
example of Justinian the Second, who had chastised a former rebellion by
the choice and execution of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The women
and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in prayer: the men were in
arms for the defence of their country; the common danger had united the
factions, and the event of a battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a
siege. In a hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and
advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was

victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated to their ships,
but the populous sea-coast poured forth a multitude of boats; the waters of
the Po were so deeply infected with blood, that during six years the public
prejudice abstained from the fish of the river; and the institution of an
annual feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of the
Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the Roman pontiff
convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against the heresy of the
Iconoclasts. With their consent, he pronounced a general excommunication
against all who by word or deed should attack the tradition of the fathers
and the images of the saints: in this sentence the emperor was tacitly
involved, 40 but the vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance may seem to
imply that the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner
had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and the
freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have relaxed of their
severity, and to have spared the relics of the Byzantine dominion. Their
moderate councils delayed and prevented the election of a new emperor,
and they exhorted the Italians not to separate from the body of the Roman
monarchy. The exarch was permitted to reside within the walls of Ravenna,
a captive rather than a master; and till the Imperial coronation of
Charlemagne, the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name
of the successors of Constantine. 41
37 (return)
[ I shall transcribe the important and decisive passage of the
Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir profanam
principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra
hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique
se cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis.
Igitur permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum
exercitus contra Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes
se nunquam in ejusdem pontificis condescendere necem, sed
pro ejus magis defensione viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]
38 (return)
[ A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;) a most
cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims the
zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and
Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh’s numbering the
male children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar
to the Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was
imposed a few years afterwards in France by his patron
Louis XIV.]
39 (return)
[ See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the Scriptores

Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose deeper
shade of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and
Ravenna. Yet we are indebted to him for some curious and
domestic facts—the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p.
154,) the revenge of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of
the Greeks, (p. 170, 171,) &c.]
40 (return)
[ Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis ....
imaginum sacrarum.... destructor.... extiterit, sit extorris a
cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae unitate. The
canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name
constitutes the excommunication; and the decision is of the
last importance to their safety, since, according to the oracle
(Gratian, Caus. xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p.
112) homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]
41 (return)
[ Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans conversionem
principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab amore et
fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and
Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the
strange epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran
(A.D. 798) represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St.
Peter and the banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali
d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 337.)]
The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and arts of
Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude,
from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By the Caesars, the triumphs of
the consuls had been annihilated: in the decline and fall of the empire, the
god Terminus, the sacred boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean,
the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her
ancient territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth of
the Tyber. 42 When the kings were banished, the republic reposed on the
firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom and virtue. Their
perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two annual magistrates: the
senate continued to exercise the powers of administration and counsel; and
the legislative authority was distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the arts of
luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and
war: the will of the community was absolute: the rights of individuals were
sacred: one hundred and thirty thousand citizens were armed for defence or
conquest; and a band of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation
deserving of freedom and ambitious of glory. 43 When the sovereignty of
the Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the sad

image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her liberty an
accident; the effect of superstition, and the object of her own amazement
and terror. The last vestige of the substance, or even the forms, of the
constitution, was obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans;
and they were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of a
commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves and strangers,
was despicable in the eyes of the victorious Barbarians. As often as the
Franks or Lombards expressed their most bitter contempt of a foe, they
called him a Roman; “and in this name,” says the bishop Liutprand, “we
include whatever is base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the
extremes of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the
dignity of human nature.” 44 441 By the necessity of their situation, the
inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model of a republican
government: they were compelled to elect some judges in peace, and some
leaders in war: the nobles assembled to deliberate, and their resolves could
not be executed without the union and consent of the multitude. The style of
the Roman senate and people was revived, 45 but the spirit was fled; and
their new independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of
vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be supplied by
the influence of religion, and their foreign and domestic counsels were
moderated by the authority of the bishop. His alms, his sermons, his
correspondence with the kings and prelates of the West, his recent services,
their gratitude, and oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the
first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the popes
was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their face and
inscription are still apparent on the most ancient coins. 46 Their temporal
dominion is now confirmed by the reverence of a thousand years; and their
noblest title is the free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from
slavery.
42 (return)
[ I have traced the Roman duchy according to the maps, and
the maps according to the excellent dissertation of father
Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p.
216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of
Lombard foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was
usurped by the Greeks.]
43 (return)
[ On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman kingdom, the
reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours Preliminaire
to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom. i.,) who

will not be accused of too much credulity for the early ages
of Rome.]
44 (return)
[ Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones, Franci,
Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud
contumeliarum nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est
Romanorum nomine, quicquid ignobilitatis, quicquid
timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae, quicquid luxuriae, quicquid
mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est comprehendentes,
(Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom. ii. para i. p. 481.) For
the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have imposed as a fit
penance the daily perusal of this barbarous passage.]
441 (return)
[ Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by Robertson
(Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by the
angry bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he
admits to be the genuine descendants of Romulus.—M.]
45 (return)
[ Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque universa
populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex
Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160. The
names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct,
(Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle ages
they signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c.,
(Ducange, Gloss. Latin.)]
46 (return)
[ See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii.
Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with
the word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des
Medailles, tom. ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli
Officina B (secunda.)]
In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis enjoyed a
perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and in the exercise of the
Olympic games. 47 Happy would it have been for the Romans, if a similar
privilege had guarded the patrimony of St. Peter from the calamities of war;
if the Christians, who visited the holy threshold, would have sheathed their
swords in the presence of the apostle and his successor. But this mystic
circle could have been traced only by the wand of a legislator and a sage:
this pacific system was incompatible with the zeal and ambition of the
popes; the Romans were not addicted, like the inhabitants of Elis, to the
innocent and placid labors of agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy,
though softened by the climate, were far below the Grecian states in the
institutions of public and private life. A memorable example of repentance

and piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of the Lombards. In arms, at the
gate of the Vatican, the conqueror listened to the voice of Gregory the
Second, 48 withdrew his troops, resigned his conquests, respectfully visited
the church of St. Peter, and after performing his devotions, offered his
sword and dagger, his cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his crown of
gold, on the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was the illusion,
perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of interest is strong and
lasting; the love of arms and rapine was congenial to the Lombards; and
both the prince and people were irresistibly tempted by the disorders of
Italy, the nakedness of Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her new
chief. On the first edicts of the emperor, they declared themselves the
champions of the holy images: Liutprand invaded the province of Romagna,
which had already assumed that distinctive appellation; the Catholics of the
Exarchate yielded without reluctance to his civil and military power; and a
foreign enemy was introduced for the first time into the impregnable
fortress of Ravenna. That city and fortress were speedily recovered by the
active diligence and maritime forces of the Venetians; and those faithful
subjects obeyed the exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the
personal guilt of Leo from the general cause of the Roman empire. 49 The
Greeks were less mindful of the service, than the Lombards of the injury:
the two nations, hostile in their faith, were reconciled in a dangerous and
unnatural alliance: the king and the exarch marched to the conquest of
Spoleto and Rome: the storm evaporated without effect, but the policy of
Liutprand alarmed Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and truce.
His successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the emperor
and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery, 50 and this final
conquest extinguished the series of the exarchs, who had reigned with a
subordinate power since the time of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic
kingdom. Rome was summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as
her lawful sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the
ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was unsheathed to
exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans hesitated; they
entreated; they complained; and the threatening Barbarians were checked
by arms and negotiations, till the popes had engaged the friendship of an
ally and avenger beyond the Alps. 51
47 (return)
[ See West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games, (Pindar.

vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious
reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]
48 (return)
[ The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely composed
by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii. p. 173,)
who imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or Livy.]
49 (return)
[ The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron. Venet.
p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer. Ital.
tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory. The
loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in Script.
Ital. tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists, Pagi,
Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or circumstances]
50 (return)
[ The option will depend on the various readings of the Mss.
of Anastasius—deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital. tom.
iii. pars i. p. 167.)]
51 (return)
[ The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles of the
popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,)
Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was
formed by the last of these princes. His original and
authentic Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the
Imperial library of Vienna, and has been published by
Lambecius and Muratori, (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars
ii. p. 75, &c.)]
In his distress, the first 511 Gregory had implored the aid of the hero of
the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French monarchy with the
humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his signal victory over the
Saracens, had saved his country, and perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan
yoke. The ambassadors of the pope were received by Charles with decent
reverence; but the greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life,
prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a friendly and
ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of his power and virtues,
assumed the office of champion of the Roman church; and the zeal of the
French prince appears to have been prompted by the love of glory and
religion. But the danger was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those
of the Seine, and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced the generous
resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy and France, to
deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite the pity and indignation of
his friend. After soothing the public despair by litanies and orations, he

undertook this laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French
monarch and the Greek emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable;
but his threats could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the
Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the abbey of St.
Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his protector; a hand which
was never lifted in vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen was
entertained as the visible successor of the apostle; at the next assembly, the
field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike
nation, and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror, at
the head of a French army, which was led by the king in person. The
Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an ignominious peace, and
swore to restore the possessions, and to respect the sanctity, of the Roman
church. But no sooner was Astolphus delivered from the presence of the
French arms, than he forgot his promise and resented his disgrace. Rome
was again encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of
fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine allies enforced his complaint and
request by an eloquent letter in the name and person of St. Peter himself. 52
The apostle assures his adopted sons, the king, the clergy, and the nobles of
France, that, dead in the flesh, he is still alive in the spirit; that they now
hear, and must obey, the voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman
church; that the Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the
host of heaven, unanimously urge the request, and will confess the
obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their pious
enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their neglect, if
they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people, to fall into the hands of the
perfidious Lombards. The second expedition of Pepin was not less rapid
and fortunate than the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome was again saved,
and Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice and sincerity by the scourge
of a foreign master. After this double chastisement, the Lombards
languished about twenty years in a state of languor and decay. But their
minds were not yet humbled to their condition; and instead of affecting the
pacific virtues of the feeble, they peevishly harassed the Romans with a
repetition of claims, evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without
reflection, and terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring
monarchy was pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the First,
the genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the son of Pepin;
these heroes of the church and state were united in public and domestic

friendship, and while they trampled on the prostrate, they varnished their
proceedings with the fairest colors of equity and moderation. 53 The passes
of the Alps, and the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards;
the former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of Pepin; and
after a blockade of two years, 531 Desiderius, the last of their native
princes, surrendered his sceptre and his capital.
Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of their
national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather than the subjects,
of the Franks; who derived their blood, and manners, and language, from
the same Germanic origin. 54
511 (return)
[ Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read Gregory
III.—M]
52 (return)
[ See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex Carolinus,
epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have charged them
with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to persuade
rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or of
immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is
executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the age.]
53 (return)
[ Except in the divorce of the daughter of Desiderius, whom
Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope Stephen
IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance of a noble Frank
—cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda, foetentissima natione
Longobardorum—to whom he imputes the first stain of
leprosy, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another
reason against the marriage was the existence of a first wife,
(Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.)
But Charlemagne indulged himself in the freedom of
polygamy or concubinage.]
531 (return)
[ Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p. 187.—
M.]
54 (return)
[ See the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and the three
first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. i.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
—Part III.
The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family form
the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and ecclesiastical, history.
In the conquest of Italy, the champions of the Roman church obtained a
favorable occasion, a specious title, the wishes of the people, the prayers
and intrigues of the clergy. But the most essential gifts of the popes to the
Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of France, 55 and of patrician
of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to
resume the practice of seeking, on the banks of the Tyber, their kings, their
laws, and the oracles of their fate. The Franks were perplexed between the
name and substance of their government. All the powers of royalty were
exercised by Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title,
was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his valor; his
friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the savior of
Christendom; and the claims of personal merit were repeated and ennobled
in a descent of four generations. The name and image of royalty was still
preserved in the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble Childeric; but his
obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition: the nation
was desirous of restoring the simplicity of the constitution; and Pepin, a
subject and a prince, was ambitious to ascertain his own rank and the
fortune of his family. The mayor and the nobles were bound, by an oath of
fidelity, to the royal phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in
their eyes; and their common ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to
dispel their scruples, or to absolve their promise. The interest of Pope
Zachary, the successor of the two Gregories, prompted him to decide, and to
decide in their favor: he pronounced that the nation might lawfully unite in
the same person the title and authority of king; and that the unfortunate
Childeric, a victim of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and
confined in a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so

agreeable to their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a
casuist, the sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet: the Merovingian
race disappeared from the earth; and Pepin was exalted on a buckler by the
suffrage of a free people, accustomed to obey his laws and to march under
his standard. His coronation was twice performed, with the sanction of the
popes, by their most faithful servant St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany,
and by the grateful hands of Stephen the Third, who, in the monastery of St.
Denys placed the diadem on the head of his benefactor. The royal unction of
the kings of Israel was dexterously applied: 56 the successor of St. Peter
assumed the character of a divine ambassador: a German chieftain was
transformed into the Lord’s anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused
and maintained by the superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The
Franks were absolved from their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was
thundered against them and their posterity, if they should dare to renew the
same freedom of choice, or to elect a king, except in the holy and
meritorious race of the Carlovingian princes. Without apprehending the
future danger, these princes gloried in their present security: the secretary of
Charlemagne affirms, that the French sceptre was transferred by the
authority of the popes; 57 and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with
confidence, on this signal and successful act of temporal jurisdiction.
55 (return)
[ Besides the common historians, three French critics,
Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p. 477-487,)
Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,) and
Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p.
96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of
Childeric with learning and attention, but with a strong bias
to save the independence of the crown. Yet they are hard
pressed by the texts which they produce of Eginhard,
Theophanes, and the old annals, Laureshamenses,
Fuldenses, Loisielani]
56 (return)
[ Not absolutely for the first time. On a less conspicuous
theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith centuries, by
the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The royal
unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in
the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions
that of Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible
ceremony. See Selden’s Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol.
iii. part i. p. 234-249.]
57 (return)
[ See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9, &c., c. iii. p.

24. Childeric was deposed—jussu, the Carlovingians were
established—auctoritate, Pontificis Romani. Launoy, &c.,
pretend that these strong words are susceptible of a very soft
interpretation. Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the world,
the court, and the Latin language.]
II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome 58
were far removed from the senate of Romulus, or the palace of Constantine,
from the free nobles of the republic, or the fictitious parents of the emperor.
After the recovery of Italy and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the
importance and danger of those remote provinces required the presence of a
supreme magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the patrician;
and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place in the chronology of
princes, extended their jurisdiction over the Roman city. Since the revolt of
Italy and the loss of the Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted
some sacrifice of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised
the right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate and
people successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity with the
honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful nation would have
disdained a servile title and subordinate office; but the reign of the Greek
emperors was suspended; and, in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a
more glorious commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman
ambassadors presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St.
Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner which it
was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the church and city. 59
In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin, the interposition of the Lombard
kingdom covered the freedom, while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and
the patriciate represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these
distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne annihilated an
enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit to the capital, he was
received with all the honors which had formerly been paid to the exarch, the
representative of the emperor; and these honors obtained some new
decorations from the joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. 60 No
sooner was he informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet him, with the
banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of one mile, the
Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or national communities, of
Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman youth were under arms; and the
children of a more tender age, with palms and olive branches in their hands,

chanted the praises of their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses,
and ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the procession
of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the stairs, devoutly kissed
each step of the threshold of the apostles. In the portico, Adrian expected
him at the head of his clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in
their march to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right hand of the
pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain and empty demonstrations
of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed between the conquest of
Lombardy and his Imperial coronation, Rome, which had been delivered by
the sword, was subject, as his own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The
people swore allegiance to his person and family: in his name money was
coined, and justice was administered; and the election of the popes was
examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and self-
inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative remaining,
which the title of emperor could add to the patrician of Rome. 61
58 (return)
[ For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica,
A.D. 740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p.
308-329,) and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d’Italie,
tom. i. p. 379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most
disposed to make the patrician a lieutenant of the church,
rather than of the empire.]
59 (return)
[ The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning of
the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum
dimisimus, or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii.
pars ii. p. 76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In
the Ms. of the Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum,
rogum, prayer or request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of
Charles Martel is subverted by this important correction,
(Catalani, in his Critical Prefaces, Annali d’Italia, tom. xvii.
p. 95-99.)]
60 (return)
[ In the authentic narrative of this reception, the Liber
Pontificalis observes—obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens
venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum,
aut patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi
fecit, (tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]
61 (return)
[ Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city—vestrae
civitates (ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de
Metensis Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals,

struck at Rome, have engaged Le Blanc to write an
elaborate, though partial, dissertation on their authority at
Rome, both as patricians and emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692,
in 4to.)]
The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these obligations, and
their names are consecrated, as the saviors and benefactors of the Roman
church. Her ancient patrimony of farms and houses was transformed by
their bounty into the temporal dominion of cities and provinces; and the
donation of the Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin. 62
Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and the hostages of
the principal cities were delivered to the French ambassador; and, in his
master’s name, he presented them before the tomb of St. Peter. The ample
measure of the Exarchate 63 might comprise all the provinces of Italy
which had obeyed the emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper
limits were included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its
inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along the
Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the midland-country as
far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this transaction, the ambition and
avarice of the popes have been severely condemned. Perhaps the humility
of a Christian priest should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was
not easy for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his profession.
Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy, would have been less
impatient to divide the spoils of the Barbarian; and if the emperor had
intrusted Stephen to solicit in his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I
will not absolve the pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But
in the rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without injury,
whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice. The Greek emperor
had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the Exarchate; and the sword of
Astolphus was broken by the stronger sword of the Carlovingian. It was not
in the cause of the Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in
a double expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks he piously
replied that no human consideration should tempt him to resume the gift
which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff for the remission of his sins,
and the salvation of his soul. The splendid donation was granted in supreme
and absolute dominion, and the world beheld for the first time a Christian
bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the choice of
magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes, and the wealth

of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of the Lombard kingdom, the
inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto 64 sought a refuge from the storm,
shaved their heads after the Roman fashion, declared themselves the
servants and subjects of St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary
surrender, the present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That mysterious
circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the verbal or written donation
of Charlemagne, 65 who, in the first transports of his victory, despoiled
himself and the Greek emperor of the cities and islands which had formerly
been annexed to the Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and
reflection, he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness
of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of his own and his father’s promises
was respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks and Lombards asserted the
inalienable rights of the empire; and, in his life and death, Ravenna, 66 as
well as Rome, was numbered in the list of his metropolitan cities. The
sovereignty of the Exarchate melted away in the hands of the popes; they
found in the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic rival: 67 the
nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and in the disorders of the
times, they could only retain the memory of an ancient claim, which, in a
more prosperous age, they have revived and realized.
62 (return)
[ Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs this
donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act
has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis
represents, (p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes, this
ample gift. Both are contemporary records and the latter is
the more authentic, since it has been preserved, not in the
Papal, but the Imperial, library.]
63 (return)
[ Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow concessions, of
interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori
(Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been
guided, in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the
Dissertatio Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p.
160-180.]
64 (return)
[ Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B. Petri receperet
et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius, p. 185.)
Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own
persons or their country.]
65 (return)
[ The policy and donations of Charlemagne are carefully
examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who has

well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
they were only verbal. The most ancient act of donation that
pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
(Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p. 267-270.)
Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much questioned,
(Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p.
432, &c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no
reasonable objection to these princes so freely disposing of
what was not their own.]
66 (return)
[ Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the proprietor,
Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for the
decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p.
223.)]
67 (return)
[ The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo of
Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir
corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset,
nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent,
(Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom.
ii. pars. i. p. 107.)]
Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong, though
ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of sacerdotal policy. The
Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and manufacture, which, according to
the occasion, have produced or concealed a various collection of false or
genuine, of corrupt or suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the
interest of the Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the decretals, and
the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars of the spiritual and
temporal monarchy of the popes. This memorable donation was introduced
to the world by an epistle of Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to
imitate the liberality, and revive the name, of the great Constantine. 68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was healed of
the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by St. Silvester, the
Roman bishop; and never was physician more gloriously recompensed. His
royal proselyte withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared
his resolution of founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the
popes; the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces
of the West. 69 This fiction was productive of the most beneficial effects.
The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt of usurpation; and the revolt
of Gregory was the claim of his lawful inheritance. The popes were
delivered from their debt of gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the

Carlovingians were no more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a
scanty portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the successors of St.
Peter and Constantine were invested with the purple and prerogatives of the
Caesars. So deep was the ignorance and credulity of the times, that the most
absurd of fables was received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in
France, and is still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law. 70 The
emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a forgery, that
subverted their rights and freedom; and the only opposition proceeded from
a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the twelfth century, disputed
the truth and validity of the donation of Constantine. 71 In the revival of
letters and liberty, this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of
Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot. 72 His
contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his sacrilegious
boldness; yet such is the silent and irresistible progress of reason, that,
before the end of the next age, the fable was rejected by the contempt of
historians 73 and poets, 74 and the tacit or modest censure of the advocates
of the Roman church. 75 The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the
credulity of the vulgar; 76 but a false and obsolete title still sanctifies their
reign; and, by the same fortune which has attended the decretals and the
Sibylline oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the foundations have been
undermined.
68 (return)
[ Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S. R.
Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est.... Quia ecce novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49,
in tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who
borrowed the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of
Peccator was ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his
merchandise was indeed profitable, and a few sheets of
paper were sold for much wealth and power.]
69 (return)
[ Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has enumerated
the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin. The copy
which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to be
taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from
Gratian’s Decree, to which, according to him and others, it
has been surreptitiously tacked.]
70 (return)
[ In the year 1059, it was believed (was it believed?) by

Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori places
(Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious donations of
Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione Constantini.
See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv. diss. 25,
p. 335-350.]
71 (return)
[ See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105) which
arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a
copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey.
They were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le
Blanc and Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first
volume of the Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they
are now imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars
ii. p. 269) by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the
future cardinal yielded to the voice of authority and the
whispers of ambition, (Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-
136.)]
72 (return)
[ I have read in the collection of Schardius (de Potestate
Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated discourse,
which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years
after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement
party pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the
Romans, and would even approve the use of a dagger
against their sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the
persecution of the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is
buried in the Lateran, (Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla;
Vossius, de Historicis Latinis, p. 580.)]
73 (return)
[ See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that long and
valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the last
edition, correctly published from the author’s Ms. and
printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of
Friburgo, 1775, (Istoria d’Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]
74 (return)
[ The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among the
things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv.
80.) Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa, Ch’ebbe gia
buono odore, or puzza forte: Questo era il dono (se pero dir
lece) Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Yet this
incomparable poem has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]
75 (return)
[ See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No. 51,
&c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered
by Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation
he considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]
76 (return)
[ Baronius n’en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t’il trop dit,

et l’on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui
l’empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J’en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose “che
volete? i Canonici la tengono,” il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]
While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion, the
images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the Eastern empire.
77 Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the union of civil and
ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree, without extirpating the root,
of superstition. The idols (for such they were now held) were secretly
cherished by the order and the sex most prone to devotion; and the fond
alliance of the monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason
and authority of man. Leo the Fourth maintained with less rigor the religion
of his father and grandfather; but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had
imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the
philosophy, of their ancestors. During the life of her husband, these
sentiments were inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only
labor to protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from
their caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But as
soon as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene more
seriously undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the first step of her
future persecution was a general edict for liberty of conscience.
In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed to the
public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of their sufferings and
miracles. By the opportunities of death or removal, the episcopal seats were
judiciously filled; the most eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor
anticipated and flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the promotion
of her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of Constantinople, and the
command of the Oriental church. But the decrees of a general council could
only be repealed by a similar assembly: 78 the Iconoclasts whom she
convened were bold in possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble
voice of the bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of a year, the
separation of the disaffected troops, and the choice of Nice for a second
orthodox synod, removed these obstacles; and the episcopal conscience was
again, after the Greek fashion, in the hands of the prince. No more than
eighteen days were allowed for the consummation of this important work:
the Iconoclasts appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the

scene was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarchs, 79 the decrees were framed by the president Taracius, and
ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three hundred and fifty
bishops. They unanimously pronounced, that the worship of images is
agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the fathers and councils of the church:
but they hesitate whether that worship be relative or direct; whether the
Godhead, and the figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of
adoration. Of this second Nicene council the acts are still extant; a curious
monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. I shall only
notice the judgment of the bishops on the comparative merit of image-
worship and morality. A monk had concluded a truce with the daemon of
fornication, on condition of interrupting his daily prayers to a picture that
hung in his cell. His scruples prompted him to consult the abbot. “Rather
than abstain from adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it
would be better for you,” replied the casuist, “to enter every brothel, and
visit every prostitute, in the city.” 80 For the honor of orthodoxy, at least the
orthodoxy of the Roman church, it is somewhat unfortunate, that the two
princes who convened the two councils of Nice are both stained with the
blood of their sons. The second of these assemblies was approved and
rigorously executed by the despotism of Irene, and she refused her
adversaries the toleration which at first she had granted to her friends.
During the five succeeding reigns, a period of thirty-eight years, the contest
was maintained, with unabated rage and various success, between the
worshippers and the breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to pursue
with minute diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus allowed
a general liberty of speech and practice; and the only virtue of his reign is
accused by the monks as the cause of his temporal and eternal perdition.
Superstition and weakness formed the character of Michael the First, but
the saints and images were incapable of supporting their votary on the
throne. In the purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of an
Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents, were condemned to
a second exile. Their applause would have sanctified the murder of an
impious tyrant, but his assassin and successor, the second Michael, was
tainted from his birth with the Phrygian heresies: he attempted to mediate
between the contending parties; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics
insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by
timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the last

and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly
against them; and the emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated
and punished by the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, the final
victory of the images was achieved by a second female, his widow
Theodora, whom he left the guardian of the empire. Her measures were
bold and decisive. The fiction of a tardy repentance absolved the fame and
the soul of her deceased husband; the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch
was commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two hundred
lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the festival of
orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph of the images. A
single question yet remained, whether they are endowed with any proper
and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by the Greeks of the eleventh century;
81 and as this opinion has the strongest recommendation of absurdity, I am
surprised that it was not more explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the
West, Pope Adrian the First accepted and announced the decrees of the
Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the seventh in
rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were docile to the voice of
their father; but the greatest part of the Latin Christians were far behind in
the race of superstition. The churches of France, Germany, England, and
Spain, steered a middle course between the adoration and the destruction of
images, which they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship,
but as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry book of
controversy was composed and published in the name of Charlemagne: 82
under his authority a synod of three hundred bishops was assembled at
Frankfort: 83 they blamed the fury of the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced
a more severe censure against the superstition of the Greeks, and the
decrees of their pretended council, which was long despised by the
Barbarians of the West. 84 Among them the worship of images advanced
with a silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for their
hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages which precede the
reformation, and of the countries, both in Europe and America, which are
still immersed in the gloom of superstition.
77 (return)
[ The remaining history of images, from Irene to Theodora,
is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi, (A.D.
780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii.
Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin,
(Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by
Spanheim, (Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de

l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The
Protestants, except Mosheim, are soured with controversy;
but the Catholics, except Dupin, are inflamed by the fury
and superstition of the monks; and even Le Beau, (Hist. du
Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar, is infected by the
odious contagion.]
78 (return)
[ See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second Council of
Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith volume
of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with some
critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a sigh or a
smile.]
79 (return)
[ The pope’s legates were casual messengers, two priests
without any special commission, and who were disavowed
on their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by
the Catholics to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This
curious anecdote is revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i.
38, in Sirmond. Opp. tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest
Iconoclasts of the age.]
80 (return)
[ These visits could not be innocent since the daemon of
fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]
81 (return)
[ See an account of this controversy in the Alexius of Anna
Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 371, 372.)]
82 (return)
[ The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,) composed in
the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at Worms,
A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who
answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil.
tom. vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections
against the Nicene synod and such words as these are the
flowers of their rhetoric—Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis
obsoletum errorem .... argumenta insanissima et
absurdissima.... derisione dignas naenias, &c., &c.]
83 (return)
[ The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as well as
ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort,
must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even
the principal laymen.]
84 (return)
[ Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et sacerdotes)
omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt,

(Concil. tom. ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic
must be hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of
Baronius, Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this
unlucky sentence.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
—Part IV.
It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the pious Irene, that
the popes consummated the separation of Rome and Italy, by the translation
of the empire to the less orthodox Charlemagne. They were compelled to
choose between the rival nations: religion was not the sole motive of their
choice; and while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld,
with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their foes. The
difference of language and manners had perpetuated the enmity of the two
capitals; and they were alienated from each other by the hostile opposition
of seventy years. In that schism the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the
popes of sovereignty: their submission would have exposed them to the
revenge of a jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the
impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The Greek
emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored the Calabrian
estates 85 and the Illyrian diocese, 86 which the Iconociasts had torn away
from the successors of St. Peter; and Pope Adrian threatens them with a
sentence of excommunication unless they speedily abjure this practical
heresy. 87 The Greeks were now orthodox; but their religion might be
tainted by the breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now
contumacious; but a discerning eye might discern their approaching
conversion, from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes; but the
conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a statesman, to the
various practice of France and Italy. In his four pilgrimages or visits to the
Vatican, he embraced the popes in the communion of friendship and piety;
knelt before the tomb, and consequently before the image, of the apostle;
and joined, without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman
liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to renounce their
benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift of the Exarchate? Had they

power to abolish his government of Rome? The title of patrician was below
the merit and greatness of Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the
Western empire that they could pay their obligations or secure their
establishment. By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the
claims of the Greeks; from the debasement of a provincial town, the
majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be united,
under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis; and the conquerors of the
West would receive their crown from the successors of St. Peter. The
Roman church would acquire a zealous and respectable advocate; and,
under the shadow of the Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise,
with honor and safety, the government of the city. 88
85 (return)
[ Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and Calabria,
which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a half of
gold, (perhaps 7000 L. sterling.) Liutprand more pompously
enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in Greece,
Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya,
which were detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor,
(Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii.
pars i. p. 481.)]
86 (return)
[ The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with Apulia,
Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the
patriarch of Constantinople had detached from Rome the
metropolitans of Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis,
and Patrae, (Luc. Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his
spiritual conquests extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria
Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No.
11.)]
87 (return)
[ In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore reversis, in
aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
errore.... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum
increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit
hereticum eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia
decernemus, (Epist. Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum Magnum, in
Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598;) to which he adds a reason, most
directly opposite to his conduct, that he preferred the
salvation of souls and rule of faith to the goods of this
transitory world.]
88 (return)
[ Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than the
advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See
Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori

reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the
emperor. In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut.
Hist. Eccles. p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire
as the most honorable species of fief or benefice—
premuntur nocte caliginosa!]
Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a wealthy
bishopric had often been productive of tumult and bloodshed. The people
was less numerous, but the times were more savage, the prize more
important, and the chair of St. Peter was fiercely disputed by the leading
ecclesiastics who aspired to the rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the
First 89 surpasses the measure of past or succeeding ages; 90 the walls of
Rome, the sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of
Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified the throne
of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the virtues of a great
prince. His memory was revered; but in the next election, a priest of the
Lateran, Leo the Third, was preferred to the nephew and the favorite of
Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first dignities of the church. Their
acquiescence or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest
intention of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of
conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows and
wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or
liberty was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and remorse. Leo
was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of
his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event
was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of
which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.
91 From his prison he escaped to the Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened
to his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of
Paderborn in Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman
pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and bishops, the
guards of his safety and the judges of his innocence; and it was not without
reluctance, that the conqueror of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year
the personal discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last pilgrimage,
he was received at Rome with the due honors of king and patrician: Leo
was permitted to purge himself by oath of the crimes imputed to his charge:
his enemies were silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life was
punished by the mild and insufficient penalty of exile. On the festival of
Christmas, the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the

church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged
the simple dress of his country for the habit of a patrician. 92 After the
celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on
his head, 93 and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the people,
“Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by
God the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The head and body of
Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the example of
the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff: his coronation oath
represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the church; and
the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the shrine of his apostle. In
his familiar conversation, the emperor protested the ignorance of the
intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his absence on that
memorable day. But the preparations of the ceremony must have disclosed
the secret; and the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and
expectation: he had acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of
his ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only
adequate reward of his merit and services. 94
89 (return)
[ His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself
the author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans
Carolus haec carmina scripsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo
plango pater... Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra
Adrianus, Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. The poetry might be
supplied by Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious tribute,
can only belong to Charlemagne.]
90 (return)
[ Every new pope is admonished—“Sancte Pater, non
videbis annos Petri,” twenty-five years. On the whole series
the average is about eight years—a short hope for an
ambitious cardinal.]
91 (return)
[ The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p. 197, 198) is
supported by the credulity of some French annalists; but
Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more
natural and sincere. “Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus,”
says John the deacon of Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in
Scriptores Muratori, tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) Theodolphus, a
contemporary bishop of Orleans, observes with prudence (l.
iii. carm. 3.) Reddita sunt? mirum est: mirum est auferre
nequtsse. Est tamen in dubio, hinc mirer an inde magis.]
92 (return)
[ Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he appeared at

Rome,—longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et calceamentis
quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p. 109-
113) describes, like Suetonius the simplicity of his dress, so
popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to
France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the
apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p. 109.)]
93 (return)
[ See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c.xxviii. p. 124-
128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the
oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope’s
adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales
Bertiniani, (Script. Murator. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]
94 (return)
[ This great event of the translation or restoration of the
empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander, (secul.
ix. dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,) Muratori,
(Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de Regno
Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247-251,) Spanheim, (de ficta
Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St.
Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438-450,) Gaillard,
(Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386-446.) Almost all these
moderns have some religious or national bias.]
The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor the title has
been indissolubly blended with the name. That name, with the addition of
saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar; and the saint, by a rare felicity, is
crowned with the praises of the historians and philosophers of an
enlightened age. 95 His real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism
of the nation and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent
magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and
the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor from the nakedness of the
surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may discern some
blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the restorer of the Western
empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous: 96 but
the public happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or
concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the
multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long
celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, 97 whom the father was
suspected of loving with too fond a passion. 971 I shall be scarcely
permitted to accuse the ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal
retribution, the sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of
Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded

on the same spot, would have something to allege against the justice and
humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons 98 was
an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less sanguinary than his
arms, and in the discussion of his motives, whatever is subtracted from
bigotry must be imputed to temper. The sedentary reader is amazed by his
incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects and enemies were not
less astonished at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed
him at the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war, nor
summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy cannot easily
reconcile the annals of his reign with the geography of his expeditions. 981
But this activity was a national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant
life of a Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military adventures;
and the journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished only by a more
numerous train and a more important purpose. His military renown must be
tried by the scrutiny of his troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander
conquered with the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded
Charlemagne bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the
companions of their victories. At the head of his veteran and superior
armies, he oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were incapable
of confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever encounter an
equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms The science of war
has been lost and revived with the arts of peace; but his campaigns are not
illustrated by any siege or battle of singular difficulty and success; and he
might behold, with envy, the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After the
Spanish expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean
mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was irretrievable, and whose
valor was useless, might accuse, with their last breath, the want of skill or
caution of their general. 99 I touch with reverence the laws of Charlemagne,
so highly applauded by a respectable judge. They compose not a system,
but a series, of occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses,
the reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the laws and
the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however feeble and imperfect,
are deserving of praise: the inveterate evils of the times were suspended or
mollified by his government; 100 but in his institutions I can seldom
discover the general views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who
survives himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and stability of his

empire depended on the life of a single man: he imitated the dangerous
practice of dividing his kingdoms among his sons; and after his numerous
diets, the whole constitution was left to fluctuate between the disorders of
anarchy and despotism. His esteem for the piety and knowledge of the
clergy tempted him to intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion
and civil jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped and
degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the imprudence of
his father. His laws enforced the imposition of tithes, because the daemons
had proclaimed in the air that the default of payment had been the cause of
the last scarcity. 101 The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the
foundation of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were
published in his name, and his familiar connection with the subjects and
strangers whom he invited to his court to educate both the prince and
people. His own studies were tardy, laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke
Latin, and understood Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from
conversation, rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor
strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant now learns in
his infancy. 102 The grammar and logic, the music and astronomy, of the
times, were only cultivated as the handmaids of superstition; but the
curiosity of the human mind must ultimately tend to its improvement, and
the encouragement of learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre
on the character of Charlemagne. 103 The dignity of his person, 104 the
length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his government,
and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from the royal crowd;
and Europe dates a new aera from his restoration of the Western empire.
95 (return)
[ By Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles
V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the
year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de
Charlemagne, (in 4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and
profitably used. The author is a man of sense and humanity;
and his work is labored with industry and elegance. But I
have likewise examined the original monuments of the
reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the 5th volume of the
Historians of France.]
96 (return)
[ The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven years
after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory,
with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty
member, while the rest of his body, the emblem of his

virtues, is sound and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317-
360.)]
97 (return)
[ The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the
probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without
excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis
Schmincke.) The husband must have been too strong for the
historian.]
971 (return)
[ This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly observes,
“seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage of
Eginhard.” Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16.—M.]
98 (return)
[ Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain of
death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The
refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A
relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5.
Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime
might be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii.
p. 241-247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends
and equals of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae,
p.133.)]
981 (return)
[ M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273) has
compiled the following statement of Charlemagne’s military
campaigns:—

1. Against the Aquitanians.

18. ” the Saxons.

5. ” the Lombards.

7. ” the Arabs in Spain.

1. ” the Thuringians.

4. ” the Avars.

2. ” the Bretons.

1. ” the Bavarians.

4. ” the Slaves beyond the Elbe

5. ” the Saracens in Italy.

3. ” the Danes.

2. ” the Greeks.
___

53 total.—M.]

99 (return)
[ In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando, Orlando, was
slain—cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in Eginhard, (c.
9, p. 51-56,) and the fable in an ingenious Supplement of M.
Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are too proud of a
victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons, and romance
to the Saracens. * Note: In fact, it was a sudden onset of the
Gascons, assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and possibly
a few Navarrese.—M.]
100 (return)
[ Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents the
interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des
Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45-49.)]
101 (return)
[ Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno,
quo illa valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a
daemonibus devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such
is the decree and assertion of the great Council of Frankfort,
(canon xxv. tom. ix. p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes;
Works, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des
Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12) represent Charlemagne as the first legal
author of tithes. Such obligations have country gentlemen to
his memory!]
102 (return)
[ Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat et
scribere... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et
sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected
this obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard’s
dissertation (tom. iii. p. 247-260) betrays his partiality. *
Note: This point has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and
Monsieur Sismondl concur with Gibbon. See Middle Ages,
iii. 330, Histoire de Francais, tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible
observations of the latter are quoted in the Quarterly Review,
vol. xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I may add, quotes from Mabillon a
remarkable evidence that Charlemagne “had a mark to
himself like an honest, plain-dealing man.” Ibid.—M.]
103 (return)
[ See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138-176, and Schmidt, tom. ii. p.
121-129.]
104 (return)
[ M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true stature of
Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad
calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of
French, about six feet one inch and a fourth English,
measure. The romance writers have increased it to eight feet,
and the giant was endowed with matchless strength and

appetite: at a single stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut
asunder a horseman and his horse; at a single repast, he
devoured a goose, two fowls, a quarter of mutton, &c.]
That empire was not unworthy of its title; 105 and some of the fairest
kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a prince, who
reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Hungary.
106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had been transformed into the name
and monarchy of France; but, in the decay of the Merovingian line, its
limits were contracted by the independence of the Britons and the revolt of
Aquitain. Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of
the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language are so
different from the French, was chastised by the imposition of tribute,
hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive contest, the rebellion of the
dukes of Aquitain was punished by the forfeiture of their province, their
liberty, and their lives.
Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the palace. But a
recent discovery 107 has proved that these unhappy princes were the last
and lawful heirs of the blood and sceptre of Clovis, and younger branch,
from the brother of Dagobert, of the Merovingian house. Their ancient
kingdom was reduced to the duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of
Fesenzac and Armagnac, at the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was
propagated till the beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving
their Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the injustice, or the
favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of Aquitain, France was enlarged
to its present boundaries, with the additions of the Netherlands and Spain,
as far as the Rhine. II.
The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and
father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part of Spain,
from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst their civil divisions, an
Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his protection in the diet of Paderborn.
Charlemagne undertook the expedition, restored the emir, and, without
distinction of faith, impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
rewarded the obedience and services of the Mahometans. In his absence he
instituted the Spanish march, 108 which extended from the Pyrenees to the
River Ebro: Barcelona was the residence of the French governor: he
possessed the counties of Rousillon and Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms

of Navarre and Arragon were subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the
Lombards, and patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,
109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of Calabria. The
duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at the expense of the
Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples. But Arrechis, the reigning
duke, refused to be included in the slavery of his country; assumed the
independent title of prince; and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian
monarchy. His defence was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the
emperor was content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses,
and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The artful
flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of father, but he asserted
his dignity with prudence, and Benventum insensibly escaped from the
French yoke. 110 IV. Charlemagne was the first who united Germany under
the same sceptre. The name of Oriental France is preserved in the circle of
Franconia; and the people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently
incorporated with the victors, by the conformity of religion and
government. The Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful
vassals and confederates of the Franks; and their country was inscribed
within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and Switzerland. The
Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and manners, were less
patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo justified the abolition of
their hereditary dukes; and their power was shared among the counts, who
judged and guarded that important frontier. But the north of Germany, from
the Rhine and beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan; nor was it till
after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under the yoke of
Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries were extirpated: the
foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and
Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, define, on either
side of the Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were
the first schools and cities of that savage land; and the religion and
humanity of the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the
parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar manners and
various denominations, overspread the modern dominions of Prussia,
Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient marks of obedience have tempted
the French historian to extend the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula. The
conquest or conversion of those countries is of a more recent age; but the
first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be justly ascribed to

the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the Avars, or Huns of
Pannonia, the same calamities which they had inflicted on the nations. Their
rings, the wooden fortifications which encircled their districts and villages,
were broken down by the triple effort of a French army, that was poured
into their country by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains and
along the plain of the Danube. After a bloody conflict of eight years, the
loss of some French generals was avenged by the slaughter of the most
noble Huns: the relics of the nation submitted the royal residence of the
chagan was left desolate and unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two
hundred and fifty years, enriched the victorious troops, or decorated the
churches of Italy and Gaul. 111 After the reduction of Pannonia, the empire
of Charlemagne was bounded only by the conflux of the Danube with the
Teyss and the Save: the provinces of Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an
easy, though unprofitable, accession; and it was an effect of his moderation,
that he left the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty of the
Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the reputation than to
the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he risk any ecclesiastical
foundations to reclaim the Barbarians from their vagrant life and idolatrous
worship. Some canals of communication between the rivers, the Saone and
the Meuse, the Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. 112 Their
execution would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labor were
often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. 1121
105 (return)
[ See the concise, but correct and original, work of
D’Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de
l’Empire Romain en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose
map includes the empire of Charlemagne; the different parts
are illustrated, by Valesius (Notitia Galliacum) for France,
Beretti (Dissertatio Chorographica) for Italy, De Marca
(Marca Hispanica) for Spain. For the middle geography of
Germany, I confess myself poor and destitute.]
106 (return)
[ After a brief relation of his wars and conquests, (Vit. Carol.
c. 5-14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few words, (c. 15,) the
countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus Hist.
German. p. 118-149) was inserted in his Notes the texts of
the old Chronicles.]
107 (return)
[ On a charter granted to the monastery of Alaon (A.D. 845)
by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal pedigree. I
doubt whether some subsequent links of the ixth and xth
centuries are equally firm; yet the whole is approved and

defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii. p.60-81, 203-206,) who
affirms that the family of Montesquiou (not of the President
de Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from
Clotaire and Clovis—an innocent pretension!]
108 (return)
[ The governors or counts of the Spanish march revolted
from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and a poor
pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the
kings of France, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom
i. p. 220-222.) Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects,
and annually pays 2,600,000 livres, (Necker, Administration
des Finances, tom. i. p. 278, 279;) more people, perhaps, and
doubtless more money than the march of Charlemagne.]
109 (return)
[ Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 200, &c.]
110 (return)
[ See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the Annals of
Muratori.]
111 (return)
[ Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis effusum sit!
Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et locus in quo
regia Cagani fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem
humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum
nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis pecunia et congesti
ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard, cxiii.]
112 (return)
[ The junction of the Rhine and Danube was undertaken only
for the service of the Pannonian war, (Gaillard, Vie de
Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal, which would
have been only two leagues in length, and of which some
traces are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by
excessive rains, military avocations, and superstitious fears,
(Schaepflin, Hist. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii.
p. 256. Molimina fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]
1121 (return)
[ I should doubt this in the time of Charlemagne, even if the
term “expended” were substituted for “wasted.”—M.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
—Part V.
If we retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will be seen that
the empire of the Franks extended, between east and west, from the Ebro to
the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and south, from the duchy of
Beneventum to the River Eyder, the perpetual boundary of Germany and
Denmark. The personal and political importance of Charlemagne was
magnified by the distress and division of the rest of Europe. The islands of
Great Britain and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes of Saxon or
Scottish origin: and, after the loss of Spain, the Christian and Gothic
kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the narrow range of the
Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered the power or virtue of
the Carlovingian monarch, implored the honor and support of his alliance,
and styled him their common parent, the sole and supreme emperor of the
West. 113 He maintained a more equal intercourse with the caliph Harun al
Rashid, 114 whose dominion stretched from Africa to India, and accepted
from his ambassadors a tent, a water-clock, an elephant, and the keys of the
Holy Sepulchre. It is not easy to conceive the private friendship of a Frank
and an Arab, who were strangers to each other’s person, and language, and
religion: but their public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their
remote situation left no room for a competition of interest. Two thirds of the
Western empire of Rome were subject to Charlemagne, and the deficiency
was amply supplied by his command of the inaccessible or invincible
nations of Germany. But in the choice of his enemies, 1141 we may be
reasonably surprised that he so often preferred the poverty of the north to
the riches of the south. The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously
consumed in the woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to
assert the amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks from Italy
and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks would have
insured an easy victory; and the holy crusade against the Saracens would

have been prompted by glory and revenge, and loudly justified by religion
and policy. Perhaps, in his expeditions beyond the Rhine and the Elbe, he
aspired to save his monarchy from the fate of the Roman empire, to disarm
the enemies of civilized society, and to eradicate the seed of future
emigrations. But it has been wisely observed, that, in a light of precaution,
all conquest must be ineffectual, unless it could be universal, since the
increasing circle must be involved in a larger sphere of hostility. 115 The
subjugation of Germany withdrew the veil which had so long concealed the
continent or islands of Scandinavia from the knowledge of Europe, and
awakened the torpid courage of their barbarous natives. The fiercest of the
Saxon idolaters escaped from the Christian tyrant to their brethren of the
North; the Ocean and Mediterranean were covered with their piratical
fleets; and Charlemagne beheld with a sigh the destructive progress of the
Normans, who, in less than seventy years, precipitated the fall of his race
and monarchy.
113 (return)
[ See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-385, who
mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of
Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor’s gift of his own
sword, and the modest answer of his Saxon disciple. The
anecdote, if genuine, would have adorned our English
histories.]
114 (return)
[ The correspondence is mentioned only in the French
annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph’s
friendship for the Christian dog—a polite appellation, which
Harun bestows on the emperor of the Greeks.]
1141 (return)
[ Had he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently described the
position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y fit face par
le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme offensive: il
transporta la lutte sur le territoire des peuples qui voulaient
envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir les races etrangeres, et
extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode de
gouvernement et la fondation de son empire: la guerre
offensive et la conquete voulaient cette vaste et redoutable
unite. Compare observations in the Quarterly Review, vol.
xlviii., and James’s Life of Charlemagne.—M.]
115 (return)
[ Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-365, 471-476, 492. I have
borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne’s plan of
conquest, and the judicious distinction of his enemies of the
first and the second enceinte, (tom. ii. p. 184, 509, &c.)]

Had the pope and the Romans revived the primitive constitution, the
titles of emperor and Augustus were conferred on Charlemagne for the term
of his life; and his successors, on each vacancy, must have ascended the
throne by a formal or tacit election. But the association of his son Lewis the
Pious asserts the independent right of monarchy and conquest, and the
emperor seems on this occasion to have foreseen and prevented the latent
claims of the clergy. The royal youth was commanded to take the crown
from the altar, and with his own hands to place it on his head, as a gift
which he held from God, his father, and the nation. 116 The same ceremony
was repeated, though with less energy, in the subsequent associations of
Lothaire and Lewis the Second: the Carlovingian sceptre was transmitted
from father to son in a lineal descent of four generations; and the ambition
of the popes was reduced to the empty honor of crowning and anointing
these hereditary princes, who were already invested with their power and
dominions. The pious Lewis survived his brothers, and embraced the whole
empire of Charlemagne; but the nations and the nobles, his bishops and his
children, quickly discerned that this mighty mass was no longer inspired by
the same soul; and the foundations were undermined to the centre, while the
external surface was yet fair and entire. After a war, or battle, which
consumed one hundred thousand Franks, the empire was divided by treaty
between his three sons, who had violated every filial and fraternal duty. The
kingdoms of Germany and France were forever separated; the provinces of
Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps, the Meuse and the Rhine, were
assigned, with Italy, to the Imperial dignity of Lothaire. In the partition of
his share, Lorraine and Arles, two recent and transitory kingdoms, were
bestowed on the younger children; and Lewis the Second, his eldest son,
was content with the realm of Italy, the proper and sufficient patrimony of a
Roman emperor. On his death without any male issue, the vacant throne
was disputed by his uncles and cousins, and the popes most dexterously
seized the occasion of judging the claims and merits of the candidates, and
of bestowing on the most obsequious, or most liberal, the Imperial office of
advocate of the Roman church. The dregs of the Carlovingian race no
longer exhibited any symptoms of virtue or power, and the ridiculous
epithets of the bard, the stammerer, the fat, and the simple, distinguished the
tame and uniform features of a crowd of kings alike deserving of oblivion.
By the failure of the collateral branches, the whole inheritance devolved to
Charles the Fat, the last emperor of his family: his insanity authorized the

desertion of Germany, Italy, and France: he was deposed in a diet, and
solicited his daily bread from the rebels by whose contempt his life and
liberty had been spared. According to the measure of their force, the
governors, the bishops, and the lords, usurped the fragments of the falling
empire; and some preference was shown to the female or illegitimate blood
of Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the title and possession were alike
doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the contracted scale of their
dominions. Those who could appear with an army at the gates of Rome
were crowned emperors in the Vatican; but their modesty was more
frequently satisfied with the appellation of kings of Italy: and the whole
term of seventy-four years may be deemed a vacancy, from the abdication
of Charles the Fat to the establishment of Otho the First.
116 (return)
[ Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates this coronation:
and Baronius has honestly transcribed it, (A.D. 813, No. 13,
&c. See Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 506, 507, 508,) howsoever
adverse to the claims of the popes. For the series of the
Carlovingians, see the historians of France, Italy, and
Germany; Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even
Voltaire, whose pictures are sometimes just, and always
pleasing.]
Otho 117 was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and if he truly
descended from Witikind, the adversary and proselyte of Charlemagne, the
posterity of a vanquished people was exalted to reign over their conquerors.
His father, Henry the Fowler, was elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to
save and institute the kingdom of Germany. Its limits 118 were enlarged on
every side by his son, the first and greatest of the Othos. A portion of Gaul,
to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, was
assigned to the Germans, by whose blood and language it has been tinged
since the time of Caesar and Tacitus.
Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the successors of Otho
acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms of Burgundy and
Arles. In the North, Christianity was propagated by the sword of Otho, the
conqueror and apostle of the Slavic nations of the Elbe and Oder: the
marches of Brandenburgh and Sleswick were fortified with German
colonies; and the king of Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia,
confessed themselves his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious army,
he passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the pope, and
forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany. From

that memorable aera, two maxims of public jurisprudence were introduced
by force and ratified by time. I. That the prince, who was elected in the
German diet, acquired, from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and
Rome. II. But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and
Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman
pontiff. 119
117 (return)
[ He was the son of Otho, the son of Ludolph, in whose
favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D. 858.
Ruotgerus, the biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot.
Bunavianae Catalog. tom. iii. vol. ii. p. 679,) gives a
splendid character of his family. Atavorum atavi usque ad
hominum memoriam omnes nobilissimi; nullus in eorum
stirpe ignotus, nullus degener facile reperitur, (apud
Struvium, Corp. Hist. German. p. 216.) Yet Gundling (in
Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of his descent from
Witikind.]
118 (return)
[ See the treatise of Conringius, (de Finibus Imperii
Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he rejects the
extravagant and improper scale of the Roman and
Carlovingian empires, and discusses with moderation the
rights of Germany, her vassals, and her neighbors.]
119 (return)
[ The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I. and
Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which
was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians,
Muratori for instance, are more scrupulous and correct, and
only reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome.]
The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by the
alteration of his style; and instead of saluting his fathers, the Greek
emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and familiar appellation of
brother. 120 Perhaps in his connection with Irene he aspired to the name of
husband: his embassy to Constantinople spoke the language of peace and
friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious
princess, who had renounced the most sacred duties of a mother. The
nature, the duration, the probable consequences of such a union between
two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to conjecture; but the
unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us to suspect, that the report was
invented by the enemies of Irene, to charge her with the guilt of betraying
the church and state to the strangers of the West. 121 The French
ambassadors were the spectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the

conspiracy of Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Constantinople was
exasperated by the treason and sacrilege of ancient Rome: a proverb, “That
the Franks were good friends and bad neighbors,” was in every one’s
mouth; but it was dangerous to provoke a neighbor who might be tempted
to reiterate, in the church of St. Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial
coronation. After a tedious journey of circuit and delay, the ambassadors of
Nicephorus found him in his camp, on the banks of the River Sala; and
Charlemagne affected to confound their vanity by displaying, in a
Franconian village, the pomp, or at least the pride, of the Byzantine palace.
122 The Greeks were successively led through four halls of audience: in the
first they were ready to fall prostrate before a splendid personage in a chair
of state, till he informed them that he was only a servant, the constable, or
master of the horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same
answer, were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the steward,
and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually heightened, till the
doors of the presence-chamber were thrown open, and they beheld the
genuine monarch, on his throne, enriched with the foreign luxury which he
despised, and encircled with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs.
A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and
the limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present
possession. But the Greeks 123 soon forgot this humiliating equality, or
remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it was extorted. During
the short union of virtue and power, they respectfully saluted the august
Charlemagne, with the acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the
Romans. As soon as these qualities were separated in the person of his
pious son, the Byzantine letters were inscribed, “To the king, or, as he styles
himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards.” When both power and
virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the Second of his hereditary title,
and with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the
crowd of Latin princes. His reply 124 is expressive of his weakness: he
proves, with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history, the
name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at
Constantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial sense, he
claims from his ancestors, and from the popes, a just participation of the
honors of the Roman purple. The same controversy was revived in the reign
of the Othos; and their ambassador describes, in lively colors, the insolence
of the Byzantine court. 125 The Greeks affected to despise the poverty and

ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline refused to
prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman emperors.
120 (return)
[ Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P. imperatoribus
super hoc indignantibus) magna tulit patientia, vicitque
eorum contumaciam... mittendo ad eos crebras legationes, et
in epistolis fratres eos appellando. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128.
Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus, he
affected some reluctance to receive the empire.]
121 (return)
[ Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of
Charles (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of marriage
with Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins.
Gaillard relates his transactions with the Greek empire,
(tom. ii. p. 446-468.)]
122 (return)
[ Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant was a
farce suitable to children only; but that it was indeed
represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of children
of a larger growth.]
123 (return)
[ Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi, (tom. iii.
A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c.,) the contrast of
Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors of
Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est
lingua Graeca laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et
appellantes; to the latter, Vocato imperatori Francorum, &c.]
124 (return)
[ See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous writer
of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254, c. 93-
107,) whom Baronius (A.D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for
Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.]
125 (return)
[ Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est sua lingua, sed ob
indignationem, id est regem nostra vocabat, Liutprand, in
Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had
exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace
with Otho, the august emperor of the Romans—quae
inscriptio secundum Graecos peccatoria et temeraria...
imperatorem inquiunt, universalem, Romanorum,
Augustum, magnum, solum, Nicephorum, (p. 486.)]
These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to exercise the
powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and Grecian princes; and the
importance of this prerogative increased with the temporal estate and
spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman church. In the Christian aristocracy, the
principal members of the clergy still formed a senate to assist the

administration, and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided
into twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal
priest, or presbyter, a title which, however common or modest in its origin,
has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their number was enlarged by
the association of the seven deacons of the most considerable hospitals, the
seven palatine judges of the Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church.
This ecclesiastical senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the
Roman province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia,
Porto, Velitrae, Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their
weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the honors and
authority of the apostolic see. On the death of the pope, these bishops
recommended a successor to the suffrage of the college of cardinals, 126
and their choice was ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the
Roman people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be
legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the church, had
graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal commissioner
examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the proceedings; nor was it
till after a previous scrutiny into the qualifications of the candidates, that he
accepted an oath of fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had
successively enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms,
the rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and in a
synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to condemn, and to punish, the
crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First imposed a treaty on the senate and
people, who engaged to prefer the candidate most acceptable to his majesty:
127 his successors anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the
Roman benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their
chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the merit of a Frank or
Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition of foreign power.
These acts of prerogative were most speciously excused by the vices of a
popular election. The competitor who had been excluded by the cardinals
appealed to the passions or avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and the
Lateran were stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the
marquises of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in
a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the ninth and tenth
centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and murdered, by their tyrants; and
such was their indigence, after the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical
patrimonies, that they could neither support the state of a prince, nor

exercise the charity of a priest. 128 The influence of two sister prostitutes,
Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their
political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were
rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign 129 may have suggested to
the darker ages 130 the fable 131 of a female pope. 132 The bastard son, the
grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated
in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the
second of these became the head of the Latin church. 1321 His youth and
manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could
bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman
synod, and in the presence of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced
the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be
dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames
that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open
simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous
invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious.
But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived
in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was
turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and
widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter,
lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor. 133 The
Protestants have dwelt with malicious pleasure on these characters of
Antichrist; but to a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less
dangerous than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic see
was reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory VII. That
ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two projects. I. To fix in
the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of election, and
forever to abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors and the Roman
people. II. To bestow and resume the Western empire as a fief or benefice
134 of the church, and to extend his temporal dominion over the kings and
kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first of these
designs was accomplished by the firm support of the ecclesiastical order,
whose liberty was connected with that of their chief. But the second
attempt, though it was crowned with some partial and apparent success, has
been vigorously resisted by the secular power, and finally extinguished by
the improvement of human reason.

126 (return)
[ The origin and progress of the title of cardinal may be
found in Themassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 1261-
1298,) Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. vi.
Dissert. lxi. p. 159-182,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. p. 345-347,) who accurately remarks the form and
changes of the election. The cardinal-bishops so highly
exalted by Peter Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest
of the sacred college.]
127 (return)
[ Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut
audinaturos, praeter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii
sui. (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important concession
may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and
people of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and
Muratori, (A.D. 964,) and so well defended and explained
by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 808-816, tom. iv. p. 1167-
1185.) Consult the historical critic, and the Annals of
Muratori, for for the election and confirmation of each
pope.]
128 (return)
[ The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in the xth
century, are strongly painted in the history and legation of
Liutprand, (see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c.;) and it is
whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the
invectives of Baronius against the popes. But these popes
had been chosen, not by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons.]
129 (return)
[ The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed
somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two
years of her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between
Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius
indissolubly links the death of Leo and the elevation of
Benedict, (illico, mox, p. 247;) and the accurate chronology
of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year
857.]
130 (return)
[ The advocates for Pope Joan produce one hundred and fifty
witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and xvith
centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the
legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story must
have been repeated by writers of every description to whom
it was known. On those of the ixth and xth centuries, the
recent event would have flashed with a double force. Would
Photius have spared such a reproach? Could Liutprand have
missed such scandal? It is scarcely worth while to discuss
the various readings of Martinus Polonus, Sigeber of
Gamblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a most palpable

forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been foisted
into some Mss. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.]
131 (return)
[ As false, it deserves that name; but I would not pronounce
it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own
times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church,
instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised
her to St. Peter’s chair; her amours would have been natural:
her delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable.]
132 (return)
[ Till the reformation the tale was repeated and believed
without offence: and Joan’s female statue long occupied her
place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi,
Critica, tom. iii. p. 624-626.) She has been annihilated by
two learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionnaire
Critique, Papesse, Polonus, Blondel;) but their brethren were
scandalized by this equitable and generous criticism.
Spanheim and Lenfant attempt to save this poor engine of
controversy, and even Mosheim condescends to cherish
some doubt and suspicion, (p. 289.)]
1321 (return)
[ John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not of her
lover, Pope Sergius III., as Muratori has distinctly proved,
Ann. ad ann. 911, tom. p. 268. Her grandson Octavian,
otherwise called John XII., was pope; but a great-grandson
cannot be discovered in any of the succeeding popes; nor
does our historian himself, in his subsequent narration, (p.
202,) seem to know of one. Hobhouse, Illustrations of
Childe Harold, p. 309.—M.]
133 (return)
[ Lateranense palatium... prostibulum meretricum ... Testis
omnium gentium, praeterquam Romanorum, absentia
mulierum, quae sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratia
timent visere, cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc
audierint conjugatas, viduas, virgines vi oppressisse,
(Liutprand, Hist. l. vi. c. 6, p. 471. See the whole affair of
John XII., p. 471-476.)]
134 (return)
[ A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the
beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope
conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin word
may signify either a legal fief, or a simple favor, an
obligation, (we want the word bienfait.) (See Schmidt, Hist.
des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel, Abrege
Chronologique, tom. i. p. 229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500,
505, 509, &c.)]
In the revival of the empire of empire of Rome, neither the bishop nor the
people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho the provinces which were

lost, as they had been won, by the chance of arms. But the Romans were
free to choose a master for themselves; and the powers which had been
delegated to the patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French and
Saxon emperors of the West. The broken records of the times 135 preserve
some remembrance of their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts,
and the sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was
derived from Caesar to the praefect of the city. 136 Between the arts of the
popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy was crushed and
annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor and Augustus, the successors
of Charlemagne neglected to assert this local jurisdiction. In the hour of
prosperity, their ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the
decay and division of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of
their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous Marozia
invited one of the usurpers to assume the character of her third husband;
and Hugh, king of Burgundy was introduced by her faction into the mole of
Hadrian or Castle of St. Angelo, which commands the principal bridge and
entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to
attend at the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was
chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive of a
revolution. “Romans,” exclaimed the youth, “once you were the masters of
the world, and these Burgundians the most abject of your slaves. They now
reign, these voracious and brutal savages, and my injury is the
commencement of your servitude.” 137 The alarum bell rang to arms in
every quarter of the city: the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame;
Marozia was imprisoned by her victorious son, and his brother, Pope John
XI., was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the title of
prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the government of Rome; and
he is said to have gratified the popular prejudice, by restoring the office, or
at least the title, of consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian
assumed, with the pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his predecessor,
he was provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the church
and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with the Imperial
dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans were impatient, the
festival of the coronation was disturbed by the secret conflict of prerogative
and freedom, and Otho commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his
person, lest he should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar. 138
Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the revolt of the people

and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded in a synod; the
praefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through the city, and cast into a
dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty were hanged, others were mutilated or
banished; and this severe process was justified by the ancient laws of
Theodosius and Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho
of a perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he had
invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality and friendship.
139 In the minority of his son Otho the Third, Rome made a bold attempt to
shake off the Saxon yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the
republic. From the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the
command of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and
formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek emperors. 1391
In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an obstinate siege, till the
unfortunate consul was betrayed by a promise of safety: his body was
suspended on a gibbet, and his head was exposed on the battlements of the
castle. By a reverse of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was
besieged three days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful escape
saved him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy was
the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius enjoyed the pleasure
or the fame of revenging her husband, by a poison which she administered
to her Imperial lover. It was the design of Otho the Third to abandon the
ruder countries of the North, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the
institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once in their
lives appeared on the banks of the Tyber, to receive their crown in the
Vatican. 140 Their absence was contemptible, their presence odious and
formidable. They descended from the Alps, at the head of their barbarians,
who were strangers and enemies to the country; and their transient visit was
a scene of tumult and bloodshed. 141 A faint remembrance of their
ancestors still tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious
indignation the succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and Bohemians,
who usurped the purple and prerogatives of the Caesars.
135 (return)
[ For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy, see
Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, Opp. tom. ii., with the Notes of
Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more
distinctly to the authors of his great collection.]
136 (return)
[ See the Dissertations of Le Blanc at the end of his treatise

des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some
Roman coins of the French emperors.]
137 (return)
[ Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones,
Romanis imperent?.... Romanae urbis dignitas ad tantam est
stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat?
(Liutprand, l. iii. c. 12, p. 450.) Sigonius (l. vi. p. 400)
positively affirms the renovation of the consulship; but in
the old writers Albericus is more frequently styled princeps
Romanorum.]
138 (return)
[ Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 439.]
139 (return)
[ This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in the
Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p.
436, 437,) who flourished towards the end of the xiith
century, (Fabricius Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimi Aevi, tom.
iii. p. 69, edit. Mansi;) but his evidence, which imposed on
Sigonius, is reasonably suspected by Muratori (Annali, tom.
viii. p. 177.)]
1391 (return)
[ The Marquis Maffei’s gallery contained a medal with Imp.
Caes August. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers that
he affected the empire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
Harold, p. 252.—M.]
140 (return)
[ The coronation of the emperor, and some original
ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the Panegyric
on Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 405-414,)
illustrated by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius and Leibnitz.
Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman
expedition, in good Latin, but with some errors of time and
fact, (l. vii. p. 441-446.)]
141 (return)
[ In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II. Muratori takes
leave to observe—doveano ben essere allora, indisciplinati,
Barbari, e bestials Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii. p. 368.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
—Part VI.
There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold
in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their
inclination and interest. A torrent of Barbarians may pass over the earth, but
an extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and
oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in
resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts;
fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration
to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, without
provoking discontent and despair. Far different was the situation of the
German Caesars, who were ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their
patrimonial estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in the
provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the imprudence or
distress of successive princes; and their revenue, from minute and vexatious
prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of their household.
Their troops were formed by the legal or voluntary service of their feudal
vassals, who passed the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine
and disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the campaign.
Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential influence of the climate:
the survivors brought back the bones of their princes and nobles, 142 and
the effects of their own intemperance were often imputed to the treachery
and malice of the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of the
Barbarians. This irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms with the
petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or the reader, be much interested
in the event of the quarrel. But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the
Lombards rekindled the flame of industry and freedom; and the generous
example was at length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. 1421 In the
Italian cities a municipal government had never been totally abolished; and
their first privileges were granted by the favor and policy of the emperors,

who were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier against the independence
of the nobles. But their rapid progress, the daily extension of their power
and pretensions, were founded on the numbers and spirit of these rising
communities. 143 Each city filled the measure of her diocese or district: the
jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of the marquises and counts, was
banished from the land; and the proudest nobles were persuaded or
compelled to desert their solitary castles, and to embrace the more
honorable character of freemen and magistrates. The legislative authority
was inherent in the general assembly; but the executive powers were
intrusted to three consuls, annually chosen from the three orders of captains,
valvassors, 144 and commons, into which the republic was divided. Under
the protection of equal law, the labors of agriculture and commerce were
gradually revived; but the martial spirit of the Lombards was nourished by
the presence of danger; and as often as the bell was rung, or the standard
145 erected, the gates of the city poured forth a numerous and intrepid
band, whose zeal in their own cause was soon guided by the use and
discipline of arms. At the foot of these popular ramparts, the pride of the
Caesars was overthrown; and the invincible genius of liberty prevailed over
the two Frederics, the greatest princes of the middle age; the first, superior
perhaps in military prowess; the second, who undoubtedly excelled in the
softer accomplishments of peace and learning.
142 (return)
[ After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for that purpose
were a necessary piece of travelling furniture; and a German
who was using it for his brother, promised it to a friend, after
it should have been employed for himself, (Schmidt, tom. iii.
p. 423, 424.) The same author observes that the whole Saxon
line was extinguished in Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)]
1421 (return)
[ Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiannes.
Hallam Middle Ages. Raumer, Geschichte der
Hohenstauffen. Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts,
vol. iii. p. 19 with the authors quoted.—M.]
143 (return)
[ Otho, bishop of Frisingen, has left an important passage on
the Italian cities, (l. ii. c. 13, in Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 707-
710: ) and the rise, progress, and government of these
republics are perfectly illustrated by Muratori, (Antiquitat.
Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. iv. dissert xlv.—lii. p. 1-675. Annal.
tom. viii. ix. x.)]
144 (return)
[ For these titles, see Selden, (Titles of Honor, vol. iii. part 1

p. 488.) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 140, tom. vi. p.
776,) and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p.
719.)]
145 (return)
[ The Lombards invented and used the carocium, a standard
planted on a car or wagon, drawn by a team of oxen,
(Ducange, tom. ii. p. 194, 195. Muratori Antiquitat tom. ii.
dis. xxvi. p. 489-493.)]
Ambitious of restoring the splendor of the purple, Frederic the First
invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the arts of a statesman, the valor of
a soldier, and the cruelty of a tyrant. The recent discovery of the Pandects
had renewed a science most favorable to despotism; and his venal advocates
proclaimed the emperor the absolute master of the lives and properties of
his subjects. His royal prerogatives, in a less odious sense, were
acknowledged in the diet of Roncaglia; and the revenue of Italy was fixed at
thirty thousand pounds of silver, 146 which were multiplied to an indefinite
demand by the rapine of the fiscal officers. The obstinate cities were
reduced by the terror or the force of his arms: his captives were delivered to
the executioner, or shot from his military engines; and. after the siege and
surrender of Milan, the buildings of that stately capital were razed to the
ground, three hundred hostages were sent into Germany, and the inhabitants
were dispersed in four villages, under the yoke of the inflexible conqueror.
147 But Milan soon rose from her ashes; and the league of Lombardy was
cemented by distress: their cause was espoused by Venice, Pope Alexander
the Third, and the Greek emperor: the fabric of oppression was overturned
in a day; and in the treaty of Constance, Frederic subscribed, with some
reservations, the freedom of four-and-twenty cities. His grandson contended
with their vigor and maturity; but Frederic the Second 148 was endowed
with some personal and peculiar advantages. His birth and education
recommended him to the Italians; and in the implacable discord of the two
factions, the Ghibelins were attached to the emperor, while the Guelfs
displayed the banner of liberty and the church. The court of Rome had
slumbered, when his father Henry the Sixth was permitted to unite with the
empire the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily; and from these hereditary realms
the son derived an ample and ready supply of troops and treasure. Yet
Frederic the Second was finally oppressed by the arms of the Lombards and
the thunders of the Vatican: his kingdom was given to a stranger, and the
last of his family was beheaded at Naples on a public scaffold. During sixty

years, no emperor appeared in Italy, and the name was remembered only by
the ignominious sale of the last relics of sovereignty.
146 (return)
[ Gunther Ligurinus, l. viii. 584, et seq., apud Schmidt, tom.
iii. p. 399.]
147 (return)
[ Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut petram, (Burcard.
de Excidio Mediolani, Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 917.) This
volume of Muratori contains the originals of the history of
Frederic the First, which must be compared with due regard
to the circumstances and prejudices of each German or
Lombard writer. * Note: Von Raumer has traced the fortunes
of the Swabian house in one of the ablest historical works of
modern times. He may be compared with the spirited and
independent Sismondi.—M.]
148 (return)
[ For the history of Frederic II. and the house of Swabia at
Naples, see Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xiv. -xix.]
The Barbarian conquerors of the West were pleased to decorate their
chief with the title of emperor; but it was not their design to invest him with
the despotism of Constantine and Justinian. The persons of the Germans
were free, their conquests were their own, and their national character was
animated by a spirit which scorned the servile jurisprudence of the new or
the ancient Rome. It would have been a vain and dangerous attempt to
impose a monarch on the armed freemen, who were impatient of a
magistrate; on the bold, who refused to obey; on the powerful, who aspired
to command. The empire of Charlemagne and Otho was distributed among
the dukes of the nations or provinces, the counts of the smaller districts, and
the margraves of the marches or frontiers, who all united the civil and
military authority as it had been delegated to the lieutenants of the first
Caesars. The Roman governors, who, for the most part, were soldiers of
fortune, seduced their mercenary legions, assumed the Imperial purple, and
either failed or succeeded in their revolt, without wounding the power and
unity of government. If the dukes, margraves, and counts of Germany, were
less audacious in their claims, the consequences of their success were more
lasting and pernicious to the state. Instead of aiming at the supreme rank,
they silently labored to establish and appropriate their provincial
independence. Their ambition was seconded by the weight of their estates
and vassals, their mutual example and support, the common interest of the
subordinate nobility, the change of princes and families, the minorities of

Otho the Third and Henry the Fourth, the ambition of the popes, and the
vain pursuit of the fugitive crowns of Italy and Rome. All the attributes of
regal and territorial jurisdiction were gradually usurped by the commanders
of the provinces; the right of peace and war, of life and death, of coinage
and taxation, of foreign alliance and domestic economy. Whatever had been
seized by violence, was ratified by favor or distress, was granted as the
price of a doubtful vote or a voluntary service; whatever had been granted
to one could not, without injury, be denied to his successor or equal; and
every act of local or temporary possession was insensibly moulded into the
constitution of the Germanic kingdom. In every province, the visible
presence of the duke or count was interposed between the throne and the
nobles; the subjects of the law became the vassals of a private chief; and the
standard which he received from his sovereign, was often raised against
him in the field. The temporal power of the clergy was cherished and
exalted by the superstition or policy of the Carlovingian and Saxon
dynasties, who blindly depended on their moderation and fidelity; and the
bishoprics of Germany were made equal in extent and privilege, superior in
wealth and population, to the most ample states of the military order. As
long as the emperors retained the prerogative of bestowing on every
vacancy these ecclesiastic and secular benefices, their cause was maintained
by the gratitude or ambition of their friends and favorites. But in the quarrel
of the investitures, they were deprived of their influence over the episcopal
chapters; the freedom of election was restored, and the sovereign was
reduced, by a solemn mockery, to his first prayers, the recommendation,
once in his reign, to a single prebend in each church. The secular governors,
instead of being recalled at the will of a superior, could be degraded only by
the sentence of their peers. In the first age of the monarchy, the appointment
of the son to the duchy or county of his father, was solicited as a favor; it
was gradually obtained as a custom, and extorted as a right: the lineal
succession was often extended to the collateral or female branches; the
states of the empire (their popular, and at length their legal, appellation)
were divided and alienated by testament and sale; and all idea of a public
trust was lost in that of a private and perpetual inheritance. The emperor
could not even be enriched by the casualties of forfeiture and extinction:
within the term of a year, he was obliged to dispose of the vacant fief; and,
in the choice of the candidate, it was his duty to consult either the general or
the provincial diet.

After the death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a monster with
a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates disputed the ruins of the
empire: the lords of innumerable castles were less prone to obey, than to
imitate, their superiors; and, according to the measure of their strength, their
incessant hostilities received the names of conquest or robbery. Such
anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and manners of Europe;
and the kingdoms of France and Italy were shivered into fragments by the
violence of the same tempest. But the Italian cities and the French vassals
were divided and destroyed, while the union of the Germans has produced,
under the name of an empire, a great system of a federative republic. In the
frequent and at last the perpetual institution of diets, a national spirit was
kept alive, and the powers of a common legislature are still exercised by the
three branches or colleges of the electors, the princes, and the free and
Imperial cities of Germany. I. Seven of the most powerful feudatories were
permitted to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the exclusive
privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors were the king
of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburgh, the count
palatine of the Rhine, and the three archbishops of Mentz, of Treves, and of
Cologne. II. The college of princes and prelates purged themselves of a
promiscuous multitude: they reduced to four representative votes the long
series of independent counts, and excluded the nobles or equestrian order,
sixty thousand of whom, as in the Polish diets, had appeared on horseback
in the field of election. III. The pride of birth and dominion, of the sword
and the mitre, wisely adopted the commons as the third branch of the
legislature, and, in the progress of society, they were introduced about the
same aera into the national assemblies of France England, and Germany.
The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation of the north:
the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace and intercourse of the
inland country; the influence of the cities has been adequate to their wealth
and policy, and their negative still invalidates the acts of the two superior
colleges of electors and princes. 149
149 (return)
[ In the immense labyrinth of the jus publicum of Germany, I
must either quote one writer or a thousand; and I had rather
trust to one faithful guide, than transcribe, on credit, a
multitude of names and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel,
the author of the best legal and constitutional history that I
know of any country, (Nouvel Abrege Chronologique de
l’Histoire et du Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776, 2 vols.

in 4to.) His learning and judgment have discerned the most
interesting facts; his simple brevity comprises them in a
narrow space. His chronological order distributes them
under the proper dates; and an elaborate index collects them
under their respective heads. To this work, in a less perfect
state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully indebted for that
masterly sketch which traces even the modern changes of
the Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of
Struvius has been likewise consulted, the more usefully, as
that huge compilation is fortified in every page with the
original texts. * Note: For the rise and progress of the
Hanseatic League, consult the authoritative history by
Sartorius; Geschichte des Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile,
Gottingen, 1802. New and improved edition by Lappenberg
Elamburg, 1830. The original Hanseatic League
comprehended Cologne and many of the great cities in the
Netherlands and on the Rhine.—M.]
It is in the fourteenth century that we may view in the strongest light the
state and contrast of the Roman empire of Germany, which no longer held,
except on the borders of the Rhine and Danube, a single province of Trajan
or Constantine. Their unworthy successors were the counts of Hapsburgh,
of Nassau, of Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor Henry the
Seventh procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and his grandson
Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and barbarous in the
estimation of the Germans themselves. 150 After the excommunication of
Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift or promise of the vacant empire from
the Roman pontiffs, who, in the exile and captivity of Avignon, affected the
dominion of the earth. The death of his competitors united the electoral
college, and Charles was unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and
future emperor; a title which, in the same age, was prostituted to the
Caesars of Germany and Greece. The German emperor was no more than
the elective and impotent magistrate of an aristocracy of princes, who had
not left him a village that he might call his own. His best prerogative was
the right of presiding and proposing in the national senate, which was
convened at his summons; and his native kingdom of Bohemia, less opulent
than the adjacent city of Nuremberg, was the firmest seat of his power and
the richest source of his revenue. The army with which he passed the Alps
consisted of three hundred horse. In the cathedral of St. Ambrose, Charles
was crowned with the iron crown, which tradition ascribed to the Lombard
monarchy; but he was admitted only with a peaceful train; the gates of the
city were shut upon him; and the king of Italy was held a captive by the

arms of the Visconti, whom he confirmed in the sovereignty of Milan. In
the Vatican he was again crowned with the golden crown of the empire; but,
in obedience to a secret treaty, the Roman emperor immediately withdrew,
without reposing a single night within the walls of Rome. The eloquent
Petrarch, 151 whose fancy revived the visionary glories of the Capitol,
deplores and upbraids the ignominious flight of the Bohemian; and even his
contemporaries could observe, that the sole exercise of his authority was in
the lucrative sale of privileges and titles. The gold of Italy secured the
election of his son; but such was the shameful poverty of the Roman
emperor, that his person was arrested by a butcher in the streets of Worms,
and was detained in the public inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment
of his expenses.
150 (return)
[ Yet, personally, Charles IV. must not be considered as a
Barbarian. After his education at Paris, he recovered the use
of the Bohemian, his native, idiom; and the emperor
conversed and wrote with equal facility in French, Latin,
Italian, and German, (Struvius, p. 615, 616.) Petrarch always
represents him as a polite and learned prince.]
151 (return)
[ Besides the German and Italian historians, the expedition
of Charles IV. is painted in lively and original colors in the
curious Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 376-
430, by the Abbe de Sade, whose prolixity has never been
blamed by any reader of taste and curiosity.]
From this humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent majesty of the
same Charles in the diets of the empire. The golden bull, which fixes the
Germanic constitution, is promulgated in the style of a sovereign and
legislator. A hundred princes bowed before his throne, and exalted their own
dignity by the voluntary honors which they yielded to their chief or
minister. At the royal banquet, the hereditary great officers, the seven
electors, who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed their solemn
and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple kingdom were
borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and Treves, the
perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and Arles. The great marshal,
on horseback, exercised his function with a silver measure of oats, which he
emptied on the ground, and immediately dismounted to regulate the order
of the guests. The great steward, the count palatine of the Rhine, place the
dishes on the table. The great chamberlain, the margrave of Brandenburgh,
presented, after the repast, the golden ewer and basin, to wash. The king of

Bohemia, as great cup-bearer, was represented by the emperor’s brother, the
duke of Luxemburgh and Brabant; and the procession was closed by the
great huntsmen, who introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of
horns and hounds. 152 Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined to
Germany alone: the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the
preeminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the Christian
princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the West: 153 to his
person the title of majesty was long appropriated; and he disputed with the
pope the sublime prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils.
The oracle of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a pensioner of Charles
the Fourth; and his school resounded with the doctrine, that the Roman
emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth, from the rising to the
setting sun. The contrary opinion was condemned, not as an error, but as a
heresy, since even the gospel had pronounced, “And there went forth a
decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” 154
152 (return)
[ See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p. 629]
153 (return)
[ The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor at its
head, was never represented with more dignity than in the
council of Constance. See Lenfant’s History of that
assembly.]
154 (return)
[ Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]
If we annihilate the interval of time and space between Augustus and
Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast between the two Caesars;
the Bohemian who concealed his weakness under the mask of ostentation,
and the Roman, who disguised his strength under the semblance of
modesty. At the head of his victorious legions, in his reign over the sea and
land, from the Nile and Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean, Augustus
professed himself the servant of the state and the equal of his fellow-
citizens. The conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed a popular and
legal form of a censor, a consul, and a tribune. His will was the law of
mankind, but in the declaration of his laws he borrowed the voice of the
senate and people; and from their decrees their master accepted and
renewed his temporary commission to administer the republic. In his dress,
his domestics, 155 his titles, in all the offices of social life, Augustus
maintained the character of a private Roman; and his most artful flatterers
respected the secret of his absolute and perpetual monarchy.

155 (return)
[ Six thousand urns have been discovered of the slaves and
freedmen of Augustus and Livia. So minute was the division
of office, that one slave was appointed to weigh the wool
which was spun by the empress’s maids, another for the care
of her lap-dog, &c., (Camera Sepolchrale, by Bianchini.
Extract of his work in the Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iv. p.
175. His Eloge, by Fontenelle, tom. vi. p. 356.) But these
servants were of the same rank, and possibly not more
numerous than those of Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove
the general riches of the city.]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part I.
Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth,
Character, And Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.—
Flies To Medina.—Propagates His Religion By The Sword.—
Voluntary Or Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs.—His Death
And Successors.—The Claims And Fortunes Of Ali And His
Descendants.

After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars of
Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign of Heraclius, on
the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy. While the state was exhausted
by the Persian war, and the church was distracted by the Nestorian and
Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in
the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The
genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of
his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire;
and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable revolutions,
which have impressed a new and lasting character on the nations of the
globe. 1
1 (return)
[ As in this and the following chapter I shall display much
Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the
Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned
interpreters, who have transfused their science into the
Latin, French, and English languages. Their collections,
versions, and histories, I shall occasionally notice.]
In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Aethiopia, the
Arabian peninsula 2 may be conceived as a triangle of spacious but
irregular dimensions. From the northern point of Beles 3 on the Euphrates,
a line of fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel
and the land of frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the
middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the Persian
Gulf to the Red Sea. 4 The sides of the triangle are gradually enlarged, and

the southern basis presents a front of a thousand miles to the Indian Ocean.
The entire surface of the peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of
Germany or France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with
the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of Tartary are
decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and luxuriant herbage; and
the lonesome traveller derives a sort of comfort and society from the
presence of vegetable life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless
level of sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of
the desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense
rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds, particularly
from the south-west, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapor; the hillocks
of sand which they alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows
of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and buried
in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an object of desire and
contest; and such is the scarcity of wood, that some art is requisite to
preserve and propagate the element of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable
rivers, which fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent
regions: the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth:
the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike their roots
into the clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty
supply of rain is collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs
are the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, 5 after many
a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters which have
rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such is the general and genuine picture
of the climate of Arabia. The experience of evil enhances the value of any
local or partial enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of
fresh water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to the
fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to themselves and
their cattle, and which encourage their industry in the cultivation of the
palmtree and the vine. The high lands that border on the Indian Ocean are
distinguished by their superior plenty of wood and water; the air is more
temperate, the fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race
more numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil of the
husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense 6 and coffee have
attracted in different ages the merchants of the world. If it be compared with
the rest of the peninsula, this sequestered region may truly deserve the
appellation of the happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has

been suggested by contrast, and countenanced by distance. It was for this
earthly paradise that Nature had reserved her choicest favors and her most
curious workmanship: the incompatible blessings of luxury and innocence
were ascribed to the natives: the soil was impregnated with gold 7 and
gems, and both the land and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic
sweets. This division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to
the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and it is
singular enough, that a country, whose language and inhabitants have ever
been the same, should scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient geography. The
maritime districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia.
The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of
Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over the inland space; and the
birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of Hejaz along the coast of
the Red Sea. 8
2 (return)
[ The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three
classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive
knowledge may be traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro,
in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. i.,) Diodorus Siculus,
(tom. i. l. ii. p. 159-167, l. iii. p. 211-216, edit. Wesseling,)
Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122-
1132, from Artemidorus,) Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,)
Pliny, (Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi. 32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et
Tabulae Urbium, in Hudson, tom. iii.) 2. The Arabic writers,
who have treated the subject with the zeal of patriotism or
devotion: the extracts of Pocock (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p.
125-128) from the Geography of the Sherif al Edrissi, render
us still more dissatisfied with the version or abridgment (p.
24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which the Maronites have
published under the absurd title of Geographia Nubiensis,
(Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and French translators, Greaves
(in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la Palestine
par La Roque, p. 265-346,) have opened to us the Arabia of
Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the
peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the
Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi
passim. 3. The European travellers; among whom Shaw (p.
438-455) and Niebuhr (Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i.
1776) deserve an honorable distinction: Busching
(Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p. 416-510) has
compiled with judgment, and D’Anville’s Maps (Orbis
Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l’Asie) should lie before
the reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-
231. * Note: Of modern travellers may be mentioned the

adventurer who called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the
intelligent, the enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.—M.]
3 (return)
[ Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D’Anville, l’Euphrate et
le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the paradise or
garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks first
passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit.
Wells.)]
4 (return)
[ Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,
1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of the
Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of
the Indian Ocean.
2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks or
negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]
5 (return)
[ In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and Mecca,
there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route of the
Hadjees, in Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]
6 (return)
[ The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense, of
Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet
(Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors
that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabaean
coast:——Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent,
old Ocean smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]
7 (return)
[ Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were found,
from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was twice,
and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro, p.
60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no
gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr,
Description, p. 124.) * Note: A brilliant passage in the
geographical poem of Dionysius Periegetes embodies the
notions of the ancients on the wealth and fertility of Yemen.
Greek mythology, and the traditions of the “gorgeous east,”
of India as well as Arabia, are mingled together in
indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the southern coast of
Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut. Wellsted—M.]
8 (return)
[ Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae
Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of
text and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory
Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon.
1663, in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty-eight notes form a
classic and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]

The measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence; and
the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be outnumbered by the subjects
of a fertile and industrious province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf,
of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, 9 or fish eaters,
continued to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive and
abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute,
without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly
distinguished from the rest of the animal creation. Generations and ages
might roll away in silent oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained
from multiplying his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his
existence to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of
antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene of
misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a people of hunters,
they rose at once to the more secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral
life. The same life is uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert;
and in the portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of
their ancestors, 10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt under
similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and sheep, to the
same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is
increased, by our dominion over the useful animals; and the Arabian
shepherd had acquired the absolute possession of a faithful friend and a
laborious slave. 11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine
and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not indeed to
the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that generous animal. The merit
of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture
of Arabian blood: 12 the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the
honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high
price, but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble foal was
esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation.
These horses are educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs,
with a tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness and
attachment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their
sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip:
their powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no
sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than they dart away
with the swiftness of the wind; and if their friend be dismounted in the rapid
career, they instantly stop till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of

Africa and Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and
patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking, a journey
of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a
fifth stomach of the animal, whose body is imprinted with the marks of
servitude: the larger breed is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand
pounds; and the dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of the camel is
serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and nutritious: the young and
tender flesh has the taste of veal: 13 a valuable salt is extracted from the
urine: the dung supplies the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls
each year and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the
furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons, they
consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert: during the heats of
summer and the scarcity of winter, they remove their encampments to the
sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and
have often extorted the dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile,
and the villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is a life
of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he
may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private citizen in Europe is in the
possession of more solid and pleasing luxury than the proudest emir, who
marches in the field at the head of ten thousand horse.
9 (return)
[ Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of Hejez,
(Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p. 15.)
It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the
largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time,
perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any
cannibals were left among the savages in the reign of
Justinian. (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]
10 (return)
[ See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2, 5, 86,
&c. The journey of M. d’Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of
the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine,
Amsterdam, 1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture
of the life of the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from
Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 327-344) and Volney,
(tom. i. p. 343-385,) the last and most judicious of our
Syrian travellers.]
11 (return)
[ Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable articles of
the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M. de
Buffon.]

12 (return)
[ For the Arabian horses, see D’Arvieux (p. 159-173) and
Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the
horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen
strong and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The
horses of Europe, the tenth and last class, were generally
despised as having too much body and too little spirit,
(D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339: ) their strength was
requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armor]
13 (return)
[ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces sunt, was
the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen, p.
88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the
cow, and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of
Mecca and Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier
Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 404.)]
Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of Scythia
and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were collected into towns,
and employed in the labors of trade and agriculture. A part of their time and
industry was still devoted to the management of their cattle: they mingled,
in peace and war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens
derived from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and some
rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities of Arabia, 14
enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous were situate in the
happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, 15 and the marvellous reservoir of
Merab, 16 were constructed by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane
lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of Medina 17 and Mecca, 18
near the Red Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and
seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the Greeks under
the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the word is expressive of its
greatness, which has not, indeed, in the most flourishing period, exceeded
the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of
superstition, must have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most
unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a
plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of three barren
mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the holy well of Zemzem is
bitter or brackish; the pastures are remote from the city; and grapes are
transported above seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and
spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among
the Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of agriculture,
and their position was favorable to the enterprises of trade. By the seaport

of Gedda, at the distance only of forty miles, they maintained an easy
correspondence with Abyssinia; and that Christian kingdom afforded the
first refuge to the disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were
conveyed over the Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein,
a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; 19 and from
thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts
to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an equal distance,
a month’s journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand.
The former was the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans;
and their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the tedious and
troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets of Saana and Merab,
in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels of the Koreishites were laden
with a precious cargo of aromatics; a supply of corn and manufactures was
purchased in the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange
diffused plenty and riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her
sons united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. 20
14 (return)
[ Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom. i.
Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-
four towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be
small—the faith of the writer might be large.]
15 (return)
[ It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p. 54) to
Damascus, and is still the residence of the Imam of Yemen,
(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-
four parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight
from Aden, (p. 53.)]
16 (return)
[ Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 52.
Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was
destroyed by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi.
32,) and had not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed.
Descript. Arab. p. 58.) * Note: See note 2 to chap. i. The
destruction of Meriaba by the Romans is doubtful. The town
never recovered the inundation which took place from the
bursting of a large reservoir of water—an event of great
importance in the Arabian annals, and discussed at
considerable length by modern Orientalists.—M.]
17 (return)
[ The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to Yatreb. (the
Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet. The distances
from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations, or days’
journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to Bassora,
xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to Cairo,

xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden,
xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw’s Travels, p.
477;) which, according to the estimate of D’Anville,
(Mesures Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five
English miles for a day’s journey. From the land of
frankincense (Hadramaut, in Yemen, between Aden and
Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny (Hist. Nat. xii. 32)
computes lxv. mansions of camels. These measures may
assist fancy and elucidate facts.]
18 (return)
[ Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the Arabians,
(D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371. Pocock,
Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no unbeliever
is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent; and the
short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part i. p. 490)
are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African renegado.
Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv. p.
167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not
been so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by
Ludovico Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who
was taken prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to
Mahometanism. His volume is a curious, though plain,
account of his sufferings and travels. Since that time Mecca
has been entered, and the ceremonies witnessed, by Dr.
Seetzen, whose papers were unfortunately lost; by the
Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey; and, lastly, by
Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing wanting to
satisfy the curiosity.—M.]
19 (return)
[ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt houses near
Bassora, in D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]
20 (return)
[ Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in
commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.)
See Sale’s Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.
D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux’s Life of
Mahomet, p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120,
126, &c.]
The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise
among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy transform this
singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favor of the posterity of
Ismael. 21 Some exceptions, that can neither be dismissed nor eluded,
render this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom
of Yemen has been successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians,
the sultans of Egypt, 22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman

province of Arabia 24 embraced the peculiar wilderness in which Ismael
and his sons must have pitched their tents in the face of their brethren. Yet
these exceptions are temporary or local; the body of the nation has escaped
the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus,
of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the
present sovereign of the Turks 25 may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but
his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is
dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious causes of their
freedom are inscribed on the character and country of the Arabs. Many ages
before Mahomet, 26 their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their
neighbors in offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a
soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.
The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe;
but the martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback,
and in the field, to practise the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the
cimeter. The long memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its
perpetuity and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent,
and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds are suspended on the
approach of a common enemy; and in their last hostilities against the Turks,
the caravan of Mecca was attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of
the confederates. When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the
front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels, who,
in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five hundred miles,
disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters of the desert elude his
search, and his victorious troops are consumed with thirst, hunger, and
fatigue, in the pursuit of an invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely
reposes in the heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the
Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but the
barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote from war, are
enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate. The legions of Augustus
melted away in disease and lassitude; 27 and it is only by a naval power that
the reduction of Yemen has been successfully attempted. When Mahomet
erected his holy standard, 28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian
empire; yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the mountains;
and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget his distant country
and his unfortunate master. The historians of the age of Justinian represent
the state of the independent Arabs, who were divided by interest or

affection in the long quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to
encamp on the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form a
city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of Babylon. Their
service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but their friendship was venal,
their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite
than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of
war, they learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of
Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes 29
were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the general appellation of
Saracens, 30 a name which every Christian mouth has been taught to
pronounce with terror and abhorrence.
21 (return)
[ A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo edition)
has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by the
independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions
of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,)
the extent of the application, and the foundation of the
pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is
probably the least contestable of the three.—M.]
22 (return)
[ It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the great
Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites,
(Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D’Herbelot, p.
477.)]
23 (return)
[ By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and Selim II.,
(1568.) See Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p. 201,
221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-
one beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte,
(Marsigli, Stato Militare dell’ Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,)
and the Turks were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr,
p. 167, 168.)]
24 (return)
[ Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and the
third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra,
which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were
subdued by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l.
lxviii.) Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose
name is derived from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen.
xxv. 12, &c., with the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and
Calmet.) Justinian relinquished a palm country of ten days’
journey to the south of Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c.
19,) and the Romans maintained a centurion and a custom-
house, (Arrian in Periplo Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson,
tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus Albus, Hawara) in the territory of

Medina, (D’Anville, Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 243.) These
real possessions, and some naval inroads of Trajan, (Peripl.
p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history and medals into the
Roman conquest of Arabia. * Note: On the ruins of Petra,
see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and of Leon de
Laborde.—M.]
25 (return)
[ Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 302, 303, 329-331)
affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of the
Turkish empire in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr’s,
notwithstanding the multitude of later travellers, maintains
its ground, as the classical work on Arabia.—M.]
26 (return)
[ Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393, edit.
Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the
Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and
his son.]
27 (return)
[ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 32. Aelius
Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a thousand
miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and the Ocean.
The non ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the
intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace, attest the
virgin purity of Arabia.]
28 (return)
[ See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock, Specimen,
p. 55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as far as it
could be known or preserved in the time of ignorance. *
Note: Compare the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen
at Bonn 1880 particularly the translator’s preface.—M.]
29 (return)
[ They are described by Menander, (Excerpt. Legation p.
149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l. ii. c. 10,)
and, in the most lively colors, by Ammianus Marcellinus, (l.
xiv. c. 4,) who had spoken of them as early as the reign of
Marcus.]
30 (return)
[ The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more
confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has
been derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham,
obscurely from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,)
more plausibly from the Arabic words, which signify a
thievish character, or Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist.
Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7, 8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35.
Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and
most popular of these etymologies is refuted by Ptolemy,
(Arabia, p. 2, 18, in Hudson, tom. iv.,) who expressly
remarks the western and southern position of the Saracens,
then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt. The

appellation cannot therefore allude to any national character;
and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not
in the Arabic, but in a foreign language. * Note: Dr. Clarke,
(Travels, vol. ii. p. 491,) after expressing contemptuous pity
for Gibbon’s ignorance, derives the word from Zara, Zaara,
Sara, the Desert, whence Saraceni, the children of the
Desert. De Marles adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a
robber, (Hist. des Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L. Martin from
Scharkioun, or Sharkun, Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55.)—M.]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part II.
The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national
independence: but the Arab is personally free; and he enjoys, in some
degree, the benefits of society, without forfeiting the prerogatives of nature.
In every tribe, superstition, or gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a particular
family above the heads of their equals. The dignities of sheick and emir
invariably descend in this chosen race; but the order of succession is loose
and precarious; and the most worthy or aged of the noble kinsmen are
preferred to the simple, though important, office of composing disputes by
their advice, and guiding valor by their example. Even a female of sense
and spirit has been permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia. 31
The momentary junction of several tribes produces an army: their more
lasting union constitutes a nation; and the supreme chief, the emir of emirs,
whose banner is displayed at their head, may deserve, in the eyes of
strangers, the honors of the kingly name.
If the Arabian princes abuse their power, they are quickly punished by the
desertion of their subjects, who had been accustomed to a mild and parental
jurisdiction. Their spirit is free, their steps are unconfined, the desert is
open, and the tribes and families are held together by a mutual and
voluntary compact. The softer natives of Yemen supported the pomp and
majesty of a monarch; but if he could not leave his palace without
endangering his life, 32 the active powers of government must have been
devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The cities of Mecca and Medina
present, in the heart of Asia, the form, or rather the substance, of a
commonwealth. The grandfather of Mahomet, and his lineal ancestors,
appear in foreign and domestic transactions as the princes of their country;
but they reigned, like Pericles at Athens, or the Medici at Florence, by the
opinion of their wisdom and integrity; their influence was divided with their
patrimony; and the sceptre was transferred from the uncles of the prophet to

a younger branch of the tribe of Koreish. On solemn occasions they
convened the assembly of the people; and, since mankind must be either
compelled or persuaded to obey, the use and reputation of oratory among
the ancient Arabs is the clearest evidence of public freedom. 33 But their
simple freedom was of a very different cast from the nice and artificial
machinery of the Greek and Roman republics, in which each member
possessed an undivided share of the civil and political rights of the
community. In the more simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free,
because each of her sons disdains a base submission to the will of a master.
His breast is fortified by the austere virtues of courage, patience, and
sobriety; the love of independence prompts him to exercise the habits of
self-command; and the fear of dishonor guards him from the meaner
apprehension of pain, of danger, and of death. The gravity and firmness of
the mind is conspicuous in his outward demeanor; his speech is low,
weighty, and concise; he is seldom provoked to laughter; his only gesture is
that of stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood; and the sense
of his own importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity, and
his superiors without awe. 34 The liberty of the Saracens survived their
conquests: the first caliphs indulged the bold and familiar language of their
subjects; they ascended the pulpit to persuade and edify the congregation;
nor was it before the seat of empire was removed to the Tigris, that the
Abbasides adopted the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and
Byzantine courts.
31 (return)
[ Saraceni... mulieres aiunt in eos regnare, (Expositio totius
Mundi, p. 3, in Hudson, tom. iii.) The reign of Mavia is
famous in ecclesiastical story Pocock, Specimen, p. 69, 83.]
32 (return)
[ The report of Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 63, 64, in
Hudson, tom. i.) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. iii. c. 47, p.
215,) and Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1124.) But I much suspect that
this is one of the popular tales, or extraordinary accidents,
which the credulity of travellers so often transforms into a
fact, a custom, and a law.]
33 (return)
[ Non gloriabantur antiquitus Arabes, nisi gladio, hospite, et
eloquentia (Sephadius apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 161, 162.)
This gift of speech they shared only with the Persians; and
the sententious Arabs would probably have disdained the
simple and sublime logic of Demosthenes.]

34 (return)
[ I must remind the reader that D’Arvieux, D’Herbelot, and
Niebuhr, represent, in the most lively colors, the manners
and government of the Arabs, which are illustrated by many
incidental passages in the Life of Mahomet. * Note: See,
likewise the curious romance of Antar, the most vivid and
authentic picture of Arabian manners.—M.]
In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes that render
them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to narrow or enlarge, to
mollify or exasperate, the social character. The separation of the Arabs from
the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger
and enemy; and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of
jurisprudence, which they believe and practise to the present hour. They
pretend, that, in the division of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were
assigned to the other branches of the human family; and that the posterity of
the outlaw Ismael might recover, by fraud or force, the portion of
inheritance of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to the
remark of Pliny, the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and
merchandise; the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged;
and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris, 35 have
been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween discovers from afar
a solitary traveller, he rides furiously against him, crying, with a loud voice,
“Undress thyself, thy aunt (my wife) is without a garment.” A ready
submission entitles him to mercy; resistance will provoke the aggressor, and
his own blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in
legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates, are branded with
their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous band assume the
character of lawful and honorable war. The temper of a people thus armed
against mankind was doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine,
murder, and revenge. In the constitution of Europe, the right of peace and
war is now confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much smaller,
list of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity and renown,
might point his javelin against the life of his countrymen. The union of the
nation consisted only in a vague resemblance of language and manners; and
in each community, the jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and
impotent. Of the time of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen
hundred battles 36 are recorded by tradition: hostility was imbittered with
the rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in prose or verse, of an obsolete
feud, was sufficient to rekindle the same passions among the descendants of

the hostile tribes. In private life every man, at least every family, was the
judge and avenger of his own cause. The nice sensibility of honor, which
weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the
quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their beards, is most
easily wounded; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated
only by the blood of the offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that
they expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or
compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians of every age: but in
Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to accept the atonement, or to
exercise with their own hands the law of retaliation. The refined malice of
the Arabs refuses even the head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for
the guilty person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most
considerable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their
hands, they are exposed, in their turn, to the danger of reprisals, the interest
and principal of the bloody debt are accumulated: the individuals of either
family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometimes
elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled. 37 This
sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been moderated,
however, by the maxims of honor, which require in every private encounter
some decent equality of age and strength, of numbers and weapons. An
annual festival of two, perhaps of four, months, was observed by the Arabs
before the time of Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously
sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility; and this partial truce is
more strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare. 38
35 (return)
[ Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall of 1500
stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis,
(Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of Hycsos,
the shepherd kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt,
(Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 98-163) &c.) * Note: This
origin of the Hycsos, though probable, is by no means so
certain here is some reason for supposing them Scythians.—
M]
36 (return)
[ Or, according to another account, 1200, (D’Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75: ) the two historians who wrote
of the Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs, lived in the 9th
and 10th century. The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was
occasioned by two horses, lasted forty years, and ended in a
proverb, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 48.)]

37 (return)
[ The modern theory and practice of the Arabs in the revenge
of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description, p. 26-31.)
The harsher features of antiquity may be traced in the Koran,
c. 2, p. 20, c. 17, p. 230, with Sale’s Observations.]
38 (return)
[ Procopius (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 16) places the two holy
months about the summer solstice. The Arabians consecrate
four months of the year—the first, seventh, eleventh, and
twelfth; and pretend, that in a long series of ages the truce
was infringed only four or six times, (Sale’s Preliminary
Discourse, p. 147-150, and Notes on the ixth chapter of the
Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii.
p. 20, 21.)]
But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder
influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is encompassed by
the most civilized nations of the ancient world; the merchant is the friend of
mankind; and the annual caravans imported the first seeds of knowledge
and politeness into the cities, and even the camps of the desert. Whatever
may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the same
original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldaean tongues; the
independence of the tribes was marked by their peculiar dialects; 39 but
each, after their own, allowed a just preference to the pure and perspicuous
idiom of Mecca. In Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language
outstripped the refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the
fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five hundred of
a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was
intrusted to the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments of the
Homerites were inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious character; but
the Cufic letters, the groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on
the banks of the Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by
a stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The arts of
grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the freeborn
eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was sharp, their fancy
luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious, 40 and their more elaborate
compositions were addressed with energy and effect to the minds of their
hearers. The genius and merit of a rising poet was celebrated by the
applause of his own and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared,
and a chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp of
their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and husbands the felicity of

their native tribe; that a champion had now appeared to vindicate their
rights; that a herald had raised his voice to immortalize their renown. The
distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by
the fanaticism of the first Moslems; a national assembly that must have
contributed to refine and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty days were
employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and
poetry. The prize was disputed by the generous emulation of the bards; the
victorious performance was deposited in the archives of princes and emirs;
and we may read in our own language, the seven original poems which
were inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of Mecca. 41
The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of the age; and if they
sympathized with the prejudices, they inspired and crowned the virtues, of
their countrymen. The indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the
darling theme of their song; and when they pointed their keenest satire
against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of reproach, that
the men knew not how to give, nor the women to deny. 42 The same
hospitality, which was practised by Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is
still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The ferocious Bedoweens, the
terror of the desert, embrace, without inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who
dares to confide in their honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind
and respectful: he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host; and, after a
needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with thanks, with blessings, and
perhaps with gifts. The heart and hand are more largely expanded by the
wants of a brother or a friend; but the heroic acts that could deserve the
public applause, must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion and
experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of Mecca, was
entitled to the prize of generosity; and a successive application was made to
the three who were deemed most worthy of the trial. Abdallah, the son of
Abbas, had undertaken a distant journey, and his foot was in the stirrup
when he heard the voice of a suppliant, “O son of the uncle of the apostle of
God, I am a traveller, and in distress!” He instantly dismounted to present
the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of four thousand
pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either for its intrinsic value, or as
the gift of an honored kinsman. The servant of Kais informed the second
suppliant that his master was asleep: but he immediately added, “Here is a
purse of seven thousand pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house,) and
here is an order, that will entitle you to a camel and a slave;” the master, as

soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his faithful steward, with a
gentle reproof, that by respecting his slumbers he had stinted his bounty.
The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was
supporting his steps on the shoulders of two slaves. “Alas!” he replied, “my
coffers are empty! but these you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce them.”
At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with his
staff.
The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue: 43 he was
brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful robber; forty camels
were roasted at his hospitable feast; and at the prayer of a suppliant enemy
he restored both the captives and the spoil. The freedom of his countrymen
disdained the laws of justice; they proudly indulged the spontaneous
impulse of pity and benevolence.
39 (return)
[ Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo Maris
Erythraei, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the dialects
of the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously treated
by Pocock, (Specimen, p. 150-154,) Casiri, (Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1, 83, 292, tom. ii. p. 25, &c.,)
and Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p. 72-36) I pass
slightly; I am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.]
40 (return)
[ A familiar tale in Voltaire’s Zadig (le Chien et le Cheval) is
related, to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs,
(D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de
Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37-46: ) but D’Arvieux, or rather La
Roque, (Voyage de Palestine, p. 92,) denies the boasted
superiority of the Bedoweens. The one hundred and sixty-
nine sentences of Ali (translated by Ockley, London, 1718)
afford a just and favorable specimen of Arabian wit. * Note:
Compare the Arabic proverbs translated by Burckhardt.
London. 1830—M.]
41 (return)
[ Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17,
&c.) speak of the Arabian poets before Mahomet; the seven
poems of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir
William Jones; but his honorable mission to India has
deprived us of his own notes, far more interesting than the
obscure and obsolete text.]
42 (return)
[ Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30]
43 (return)
[ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie de

Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock,
Specimen, p. 43, 46, 48) were likewise conspicuous for their
liberality; and the latter is elegantly praised by an Arabian
poet: “Videbis eum cum accesseris exultantem, ac si dares
illi quod ab illo petis.” * Note: See the translation of the
amusing Persian romance of Hatim Tai, by Duncan Forbes,
Esq., among the works published by the Oriental Translation
Fund.—M.]
The religion of the Arabs, 44 as well as of the Indians, consisted in the
worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars; a primitive and specious
mode of superstition. The bright luminaries of the sky display the visible
image of a Deity: their number and distance convey to a philosophic, or
even a vulgar, eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of eternity is
marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay:
the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or
instinct; and their real, or imaginary, influence encourages the vain belief
that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The
science of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs
was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal marches, they
steered by the guidance of the stars: their names, and order, and daily
station, were familiar to the curiosity and devotion of the Bedoween; and he
was taught by experience to divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac of the
moon, and to bless the constellations who refreshed, with salutary rains, the
thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be extended
beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical powers were necessary
to sustain the transmigration of souls and the resurrection of bodies: a camel
was left to perish on the grave, that he might serve his master in another
life; and the invocation of departed spirits implies that they were still
endowed with consciousness and power. I am ignorant, and I am careless,
of the blind mythology of the Barbarians; of the local deities, of the stars,
the air, and the earth, of their sex or titles, their attributes or subordination.
Each tribe, each family, each independent warrior, created and changed the
rites and the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every age, has
bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine
antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the Christian aera; in describing the
coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus 45 has remarked,
between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, a famous temple, whose
superior sanctity was revered by all the Arabians; the linen or silken veil,
which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a

pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred years before the
time of Mahomet. 46 A tent, or a cavern, might suffice for the worship of
the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay has been erected in its place;
and the art and power of the monarchs of the East have been confined to the
simplicity of the original model. 47 A spacious portico encloses the
quadrangle of the Caaba; a square chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-
three broad, and twenty-seven high: a door and a window admit the light;
the double roof is supported by three pillars of wood; a spout (now of gold)
discharges the rain-water, and the well Zemzen is protected by a dome from
accidental pollution. The tribe of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired
the custody of the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four lineal
descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the family of the Hashemites,
from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and sacred in the eyes of
their country. 48 The precincts of Mecca enjoyed the rights of sanctuary;
and, in the last month of each year, the city and the temple were crowded
with a long train of pilgrims, who presented their vows and offerings in the
house of God. The same rites which are now accomplished by the faithful
Mussulman, were invented and practised by the superstition of the idolaters.
At an awful distance they cast away their garments: seven times, with hasty
steps, they encircled the Caaba, and kissed the black stone: seven times they
visited and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones
into the valley of Mina; and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present
hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair and
nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or introduced in the
Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was adorned, or defiled, with
three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most
conspicuous was the statue of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven
arrows, without heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane
divination. But this statue was a monument of Syrian arts: the devotion of
the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a tablet; and the rocks of the
desert were hewn into gods or altars, in imitation of the black stone 49 of
Mecca, which is deeply tainted with the reproach of an idolatrous origin.
From Japan to Peru, the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the
votary has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by destroying or consuming, in
honor of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their gifts. The life of a
man 50 is the most precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity: the
altars of Phoenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted

with human gore: the cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs; in
the third century, a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of the
Dumatians; 51 and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the prince of
the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor Justinian. 52 A parent who
drags his son to the altar, exhibits the most painful and sublime effort of
fanaticism: the deed, or the intention, was sanctified by the example of
saints and heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash
vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a hundred camels. In the
time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians, abstained from
the taste of swine’s flesh; 53 they circumcised 54 their children at the age of
puberty: the same customs, without the censure or the precept of the Koran,
have been silently transmitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has been
sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn
prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to believe that he adhered to
the habits and opinions of his youth, without foreseeing that a practice
congenial to the climate of Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on
the banks of the Danube or the Volga.
44 (return)
[ Whatever can now be known of the idolatry of the ancient
Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89-136,
163, 164.) His profound erudition is more clearly and
concisely interpreted by Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14-
24;) and Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom. iv. p. 580-590) has
added some valuable remarks.]
45 (return)
[ (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 211.) The character and
position are so correctly apposite, that I am surprised how
this curious passage should have been read without notice or
application. Yet this famous temple had been overlooked by
Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 58, in Hudson, tom. i.,)
whom Diodorus copies in the rest of the description. Was the
Sicilian more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the Caaba
built between the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of
their respective histories? (Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i.
Hudson, p. 72. Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 770.) *
Note: Mr. Forster (Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118, et
seq.) has raised an objection, as I think, fatal to this
hypothesis of Gibbon. The temple, situated in the country of
the Banizomeneis, was not between the Thamudites and the
Sabaeans, but higher up than the coast inhabited by the
former. Mr. Forster would place it as far north as Moiiah. I
am not quite satisfied that this will agree with the whole
description of Diodorus—M. 1845.]

46 (return)
[ Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of Mahomet
we ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years before the
Christian aera. The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and
gold, was no more than a piece of Egyptian linen, (Abulfeda,
in Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)]
47 (return)
[ The original plan of the Caaba (which is servilely copied in
Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a Turkish draught,
which Reland (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 113-123) has
corrected and explained from the best authorities. For the
description and legend of the Caaba, consult Pocock,
(Specimen, p. 115-122,) the Bibliotheque Orientale of
D’Herbelot, (Caaba, Hagir, Zemzem, &c.,) and Sale
(Preliminary Discourse, p. 114-122.)]
48 (return)
[ Cosa, the fifth ancestor of Mahomet, must have usurped
the Caaba A.D. 440; but the story is differently told by
Jannabi, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 65-69,) and by
Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. 6, p. 13.)]
49 (return)
[ In the second century, Maximus of Tyre attributes to the
Arabs the worship of a stone, (Dissert. viii. tom. i. p. 142,
edit. Reiske;) and the reproach is furiously reechoed by the
Christians, (Clemens Alex. in Protreptico, p. 40. Arnobius
contra Gentes, l. vi. p. 246.) Yet these stones were no other
than of Syria and Greece, so renowned in sacred and profane
antiquity, (Euseb. Praep. Evangel. l. i. p. 37. Marsham,
Canon. Chron. p. 54-56.)]
50 (return)
[ The two horrid subjects are accurately discussed by the
learned Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chron. p. 76-78, 301-
304.) Sanchoniatho derives the Phoenician sacrifices from
the example of Chronus; but we are ignorant whether
Chronus lived before, or after, Abraham, or indeed whether
he lived at all.]
51 (return)
[ The reproach of Porphyry; but he likewise imputes to the
Roman the same barbarous custom, which, A. U. C. 657,
had been finally abolished. Dumaetha, Daumat al Gendai, is
noticed by Ptolemy (Tabul. p. 37, Arabia, p. 9-29) and
Abulfeda, (p. 57,) and may be found in D’Anville’s maps, in
the mid-desert between Chaibar and Tadmor.]
52 (return)
[ Prcoopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 28,) Evagrius, (l. vi. c.
21,) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 72, 86,) attest the human
sacrifices of the Arabs in the vith century. The danger and
escape of Abdallah is a tradition rather than a fact, (Gagnier,
Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 82-84.)]

53 (return)
[ Suillis carnibus abstinent, says Solinus, (Polyhistor. c. 33,)
who copies Pliny (l. viii. c. 68) in the strange supposition,
that hogs can not live in Arabia. The Egyptians were
actuated by a natural and superstitious horror for that
unclean beast, (Marsham, Canon. p. 205.) The old Arabians
likewise practised, post coitum, the rite of ablution,
(Herodot. l. i. c. 80,) which is sanctified by the Mahometan
law, (Reland, p. 75, &c., Chardin, or rather the Mollah of
Shah Abbas, tom. iv. p. 71, &c.)]
54 (return)
[ The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the subject; yet
they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and even
pretend that Mahomet was miraculously born without a
foreskin, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 319, 320. Sale’s Preliminary
Discourse, p. 106, 107.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part III.
Arabia was free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the storms of
conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the happy land where
they might profess what they thought, and practise what they professed. The
religions of the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were
disseminated from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In a remote period of
antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the science of the
Chaldaeans 55 and the arms of the Assyrians. From the observations of two
thousand years, the priests and astronomers of Babylon 56 deduced the
eternal laws of nature and providence. They adored the seven gods or
angels, who directed the course of the seven planets, and shed their
irresistible influence on the earth. The attributes of the seven planets, with
the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the twenty-four constellations of the
northern and southern hemisphere, were represented by images and
talismans; the seven days of the week were dedicated to their respective
deities; the Sabians prayed thrice each day; and the temple of the moon at
Haran was the term of their pilgrimage. 57 But the flexible genius of their
faith was always ready either to teach or to learn: in the tradition of the
creation, the deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with
their Jewish captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and
Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last remnant
of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John, in the territory of Bassora.
58 The altars of Babylon were overturned by the Magians; but the injuries
of the Sabians were revenged by the sword of Alexander; Persia groaned
above five hundred years under a foreign yoke; and the purest disciples of
Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of idolatry, and breathed with their
adversaries the freedom of the desert. 59 Seven hundred years before the
death of Mahomet, the Jews were settled in Arabia; and a far greater
multitude was expelled from the Holy Land in the wars of Titus and

Hadrian. The industrious exiles aspired to liberty and power: they erected
synagogues in the cities, and castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile
converts were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they resembled
in the outward mark of circumcision. The Christian missionaries were still
more active and successful: the Catholics asserted their universal reign; the
sects whom they oppressed, successively retired beyond the limits of the
Roman empire; the Marcionites and Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic
opinions and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes of
Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite and
Nestorian bishops. 60 The liberty of choice was presented to the tribes: each
Arab was free to elect or to compose his private religion: and the rude
superstition of his house was mingled with the sublime theology of saints
and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was inculcated by the
consent of the learned strangers; the existence of one supreme God who is
exalted above the powers of heaven and earth, but who has often revealed
himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and prophets, and whose
grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable miracles, the order of nature.
The most rational of the Arabs acknowledged his power, though they
neglected his worship; 61 and it was habit rather than conviction that still
attached them to the relics of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the
people of the Book; the Bible was already translated into the Arabic
language, 62 and the volume of the Old Testament was accepted by the
concord of these implacable enemies. In the story of the Hebrew patriarchs,
the Arabs were pleased to discover the fathers of their nation. They
applauded the birth and promises of Ismael; revered the faith and virtue of
Abraham; traced his pedigree and their own to the creation of the first man,
and imbibed, with equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the
dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.
55 (return)
[ Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145) has cast on their
religion the curious but superficial glance of a Greek. Their
astronomy would be far more valuable: they had looked
through the telescope of reason, since they could doubt
whether the sun were in the number of the planets or of the
fixed stars.]
56 (return)
[ Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de Coelo, l. ii. com.
xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474,
who doubts the fact, because it is adverse to his systems.
The earliest date of the Chaldaean observations is the year

2234 before Christ. After the conquest of Babylon by
Alexander, they were communicated at the request of
Aristotle, to the astronomer Hipparchus. What a moment in
the annals of science!]
57 (return)
[ Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient.
p. 162-203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124, 128,
&c.,) D’Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale, (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 14, 15,) rather excite than gratify our curiosity;
and the last of these writers confounds Sabianism with the
primitive religion of the Arabs.]
58 (return)
[ D’Anville (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130-137) will fix the
position of these ambiguous Christians; Assemannus
(Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607-614) may explain their
tenets. But it is a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an
ignorant people afraid and ashamed to disclose their secret
traditions. * Note: The Codex Nasiraeus, their sacred book,
has been published by Norberg whose researches contain
almost all that is known of this singular people. But their
origin is almost as obscure as ever: if ancient, their creed has
been so corrupted with mysticism and Mahometanism, that
its native lineaments are very indistinct.—M.]
59 (return)
[ The Magi were fixed in the province of Bhrein, (Gagnier,
Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114,) and mingled with the old
Arabians, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 146-150.)]
60 (return)
[ The state of the Jews and Christians in Arabia is described
by Pocock from Sharestani, &c., (Specimen, p. 60, 134,
&c.,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 212-238,) D’Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 474-476,) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom.
vii. p. 185, tom. viii. p. 280,) and Sale, (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 22, &c., 33, &c.)]
61 (return)
[ In their offerings, it was a maxim to defraud God for the
profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more irritable,
patron, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)]
62 (return)
[ Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or Christian,
appear more recent than the Koran; but the existence of a
prior translation may be fairly inferred,—1. From the
perpetual practice of the synagogue of expounding the
Hebrew lesson by a paraphrase in the vulgar tongue of the
country; 2. From the analogy of the Armenian, Persian,
Aethiopic versions, expressly quoted by the fathers of the
fifth century, who assert that the Scriptures were translated
into all the Barbaric languages, (Walton, Prolegomena ad
Biblia Polyglot, p. 34, 93-97. Simon, Hist. Critique du V. et

du N. Testament, tom. i. p. 180, 181, 282-286, 293, 305,
306, tom. iv. p. 206.)]
The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny of the
Christians, 63 who exalt instead of degrading the merit of their adversary.
His descent from Ismael was a national privilege or fable; but if the first
steps of the pedigree 64 are dark and doubtful, he could produce many
generations of pure and genuine nobility: he sprung from the tribe of
Koreish and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the
princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The
grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy
and generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the supplies
of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the liberality of the father, was
saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom of Yemen was subject to the
Christian princes of Abyssinia; their vassal Abrahah was provoked by an
insult to avenge the honor of the cross; and the holy city was invested by a
train of elephants and an army of Africans. A treaty was proposed; and, in
the first audience, the grandfather of Mahomet demanded the restitution of
his cattle. “And why,” said Abrahah, “do you not rather implore my
clemency in favor of your temple, which I have threatened to destroy?”
“Because,” replied the intrepid chief, “the cattle is my own; the Caaba
belongs to the gods, and they will defend their house from injury and
sacrilege.” The want of provisions, or the valor of the Koreish, compelled
the Abyssinians to a disgraceful retreat: their discomfiture has been adorned
with a miraculous flight of birds, who showered down stones on the heads
of the infidels; and the deliverance was long commemorated by the aera of
the elephant. 65 The glory of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with domestic
happiness; his life was prolonged to the age of one hundred and ten years;
and he became the father of six daughters and thirteen sons. His best
beloved Abdallah was the most beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth;
and in the first night, when he consummated his marriage with Amina, 651
of the noble race of the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have
expired of jealousy and despair. Mahomet, or more properly Mohammed,
the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after
the death of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians,
66 whose victory would have introduced into the Caaba the religion of the
Christians. In his early infancy, he was deprived of his father, his mother,
and his grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and, in the

division of the inheritance, the orphan’s share was reduced to five camels
and an Aethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad, in peace and war,
Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian
of his youth; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the service of Cadijah,
a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the
gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage contract, in the simple style of
antiquity, recites the mutual love of Mahomet and Cadijah; describes him as
the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish; and stipulates a dowry of
twelve ounces of gold and twenty camels, which was supplied by the
liberality of his uncle. 67 By this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored
to the station of his ancestors; and the judicious matron was content with his
domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, 68 he assumed the title
of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.
63 (return)
[ In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique genere ortum,
&c, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet Theophanes, the
most ancient of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie,
confesses that Mahomet was of the race of Ismael,
(Chronograph. p. 277.)]
64 (return)
[ Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2) and Gagnier (Vie de
Mahomet, p. 25-97) describe the popular and approved
genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca, I would not dispute its
authenticity: at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1. That
from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of 2500 years, they
reckon thirty, instead of seventy five, generations: 2. That
the modern Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and
careless of their pedigree, (Voyage de D’Arvieux p. 100,
103.) * Note: The most orthodox Mahometans only reckon
back the ancestry of the prophet for twenty generations, to
Adnan. Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, p. 1.—M. 1845.]
65 (return)
[ The seed of this history, or fable, is contained in the cvth
chapter of the Koran; and Gagnier (in Praefat. ad Vit.
Moham. p. 18, &c.) has translated the historical narrative of
Abulfeda, which may be illustrated from D’Herbelot
(Bibliot. Orientale, p. 12) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 64.)
Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 48) calls it a lie of the
coinage of Mahomet; but Sale, (Koran, p. 501-503,) who is
half a Mussulman, attacks the inconsistent faith of the
Doctor for believing the miracles of the Delphic Apollo.
Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 14, tom. ii. p. 823)
ascribes the miracle to the devil, and extorts from the
Mahometans the confession, that God would not have
defended against the Christians the idols of the Caaba. *

Note: Dr. Weil says that the small-pox broke out in the army
of Abrahah, but he does not give his authority, p. 10.—M.
1845.]
651 (return)
[ Amina, or Emina, was of Jewish birth. V. Hammer,
Geschichte der Assass. p. 10.—M.]
66 (return)
[ The safest aeras of Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. i. p. 2,) of
Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or
Nabonassar, 1316, equally lead us to the year 569. The old
Arabian calendar is too dark and uncertain to support the
Benedictines, (Art. de Verifer les Dates, p. 15,) who, from
the day of the month and week, deduce a new mode of
calculation, and remove the birth of Mahomet to the year of
Christ 570, the 10th of November. Yet this date would agree
with the year 882 of the Greeks, which is assigned by
Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 5) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p.
101, and Errata, Pocock’s version.) While we refine our
chronology, it is possible that the illiterate prophet was
ignorant of his own age. * Note: The date of the birth of
Mahomet is not yet fixed with precision. It is only known
from Oriental authors that he was born on a Monday, the
10th Reby 1st, the third month of the Mahometan year; the
year 40 or 42 of Chosroes Nushirvan, king of Persia; the
year 881 of the Seleucidan aera; the year 1316 of the aera of
Nabonassar. This leaves the point undecided between the
years 569, 570, 571, of J. C. See the Memoir of M. Silv. de
Sacy, on divers events in the history of the Arabs before
Mahomet, Mem. Acad. des Loscript. vol. xlvii. p. 527, 531.
St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 59.—M. ——Dr. Weil decides on A.D.
571. Mahomet died in 632, aged 63; but the Arabs reckoned
his life by lunar years, which reduces his life nearly to 61 (p.
21.)—M. 1845]
67 (return)
[ I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb to his family
and nephew. Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine
Ismaelis constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et nos
judices hominibus statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi
nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo cum ex aequo librabitur e
Koraishidis quispiam cui non praeponderaturus est, bonitate
et excellentia, et intellectu et gloria, et acumine etsi opum
inops fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum
quod reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijae filiae Chowailedi
tenetur, et illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice
petieritis, ego in me suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e
septima parte libri Ebn Hamduni.)]
68 (return)
[ The private life of Mahomet, from his birth to his mission,
is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3-7,) and the Arabian

writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are alleged by
Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 204-211) Maracci, (tom. i. p. 10-
14,) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97-134.)]
According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet 69 was
distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is seldom
despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. Before he spoke, the
orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or private audience.
They applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing
eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted
every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression
of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life he scrupulously adhered to the
grave and ceremonious politeness of his country: his respectful attention to
the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to
the poorest citizens of Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed the
artifice of his views; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to personal
friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was capacious and
retentive; his wit easy and social; his imagination sublime; his judgment
clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and
action; and, although his designs might gradually expand with his success,
the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of
an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the
bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia; and the
fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the practice of
discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence, Mahomet
was an illiterate Barbarian: his youth had never been instructed in the arts of
reading and writing; 70 the common ignorance exempted him from shame
or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and
deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our mind the minds of
sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man was open to his view;
and some fancy has been indulged in the political and philosophical
observations which are ascribed to the Arabian traveller. 71 He compares
the nations and the regions of the earth; discovers the weakness of the
Persian and Roman monarchies; beholds, with pity and indignation, the
degeneracy of the times; and resolves to unite under one God and one king
the invincible spirit and primitive virtues of the Arabs. Our more accurate
inquiry will suggest, that, instead of visiting the courts, the camps, the
temples, of the East, the two journeys of Mahomet into Syria were confined
to the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of age

when he accompanied the caravan of his uncle; and that his duty compelled
him to return as soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of Cadijah. In
these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of genius might discern some
objects invisible to his grosser companions; some seeds of knowledge
might be cast upon a fruitful soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language
must have checked his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the life or
writings of Mahomet, that his prospect was far extended beyond the limits
of the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world, the pilgrims
of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of devotion and commerce:
in the free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in his native tongue,
might study the political state and character of the tribes, the theory and
practice of the Jews and Christians. Some useful strangers might be
tempted, or forced, to implore the rights of hospitality; and the enemies of
Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk, whom
they accuse of lending their secret aid to the composition of the Koran. 72
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of
genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist.
From his earliest youth Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation;
each year, during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and
from the arms of Cadijah: in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, 73
he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the
heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of
Islam, he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal
truth, and a necessary fiction, That there is only one God, and that Mahomet
is the apostle of God.
69 (return)
[ Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet,
tom. iii. p. 272-289. The best traditions of the person and
conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali,
and Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley’s Hist. of
the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat,
who died in the year 59 of the Hegira. * Note: Compare,
likewise, the new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed der
prophet) by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new
tradition, that Mahomet was at one time a shepherd. This
assimilation to the life of Moses, instead of giving
probability to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests, makes it more
suspicious. Note, p. 34.—M. 1845.]
70 (return)
[ Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write are
incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the

Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts,
and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt,
by Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,)
Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione
Mohammedica, p. 236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p.
42.) Mr. White, almost alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse
the imposture, of the prophet. His arguments are far from
satisfactory. Two short trading journeys to the fairs of Syria
were surely not sufficient to infuse a science so rare among
the citizens of Mecca: it was not in the cool, deliberate act of
treaty, that Mahomet would have dropped the mask; nor can
any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease and
delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the
prophetic character, must have often exercised, in private
life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of
his own family, would have been the first to detect and
upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White’s Sermons, p. 203,
204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.) * Note: (Academ. des
Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth
Sura implies that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone
denies it, and, according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another
reading of the tradition, that “he could not read well.” Dr.
Weil is not quite so successful in explaining away Sura xxix.
It means, he thinks that he had not read any books, from
which he could have borrowed.—M. 1845.]
71 (return)
[ The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p. 202-228)
leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon, or
the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is
probably a fiction nor can I trace the origin of his
exclamation, “Les Grecs sont pour tant des hommes.” The
two Syrian journeys are expressed by almost all the Arabian
writers, both Mahometans and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed.
p. 10.)]
72 (return)
[ I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or conjectures
which name the strangers accused or suspected by the
infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with
Sale’s Remarks. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27.
Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p.
400.) Even Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must
have been secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of
Arabia.]
73 (return)
[ Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p. 133, 135.
The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda
(Geograph. Arab p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the
cave of Egeria, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, of
the Idaean Mount, where Minos conversed with Jove, &c.]

It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned nations of
antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism, their simple ancestors
of Palestine preserved the knowledge and worship of the true God. The
moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with the standard
of human virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed; but each
page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of his power: the
unity of his name is inscribed on the first table of the law; and his sanctuary
was never defiled by any visible image of the invisible essence. After the
ruin of the temple, the faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and
enlightened, by the spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of
Mahomet will not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca or
Medina adored Ezra as the son of God. 74 But the children of Israel had
ceased to be a people; and the religions of the world were guilty, at least in
the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or daughters, or companions, to the
supreme God. In the rude idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and
audacious: the Sabians are poorly excused by the preeminence of the first
planet, or intelligence, in their celestial hierarchy; and in the Magian system
the conflict of the two principles betrays the imperfection of the conqueror.
The Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a
semblance of Paganism: their public and private vows were addressed to the
relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the
Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the
objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished
in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and
honors of a goddess. 75 The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear
to contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense, they
introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into the
substance of the Son of God: 76 an orthodox commentary will satisfy only a
believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn the veil of the
sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects was eager to confess that all,
except themselves, deserved the reproach of idolatry and polytheism. The
creed of Mahomet is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a
glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the
worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle that
whatever rises must set, that whatever is born must die, that whatever is
corruptible must decay and perish. 77 In the Author of the universe, his
rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an infinite and eternal being,

without form or place, without issue or similitude, present to our most
secret thoughts, existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving
from himself all moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime truths,
thus announced in the language of the prophet, 78 are firmly held by his
disciples, and defined with metaphysical precision by the interpreters of the
Koran. A philosophic theist might subscribe the popular creed of the
Mahometans; 79 a creed too sublime, perhaps, for our present faculties.
What object remains for the fancy, or even the understanding, when we
have abstracted from the unknown substance all ideas of time and space, of
motion and matter, of sensation and reflection? The first principle of reason
and revolution was confirmed by the voice of Mahomet: his proselytes,
from India to Morocco, are distinguished by the name of Unitarians; and the
danger of idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The
doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is strictly embraced
by the Mahometans; and they struggle, with the common difficulties, how
to reconcile the prescience of God with the freedom and responsibility of
man; how to explain the permission of evil under the reign of infinite power
and infinite goodness.
74 (return)
[ Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other
commentators quoted by Sale, adhere to the charge; but I do
not understand that it is colored by the most obscure or
absurd tradition of the Talmud.]
75 (return)
[ Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 225-228. The Collyridian heresy
was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some women, and the
name was borrowed from the cake, which they offered to the
goddess. This example, that of Beryllus bishop of Bostra,
(Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 33,) and several others, may
excuse the reproach, Arabia haerese haersewn ferax.]
76 (return)
[ The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p. 92) are
obviously directed against our Catholic mystery: but the
Arabic commentators understand them of the Father, the
Son, and the Virgin Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as
it is said, by some Barbarians at the Council of Nice,
(Eutych. Annal. tom. i. p. 440.) But the existence of the
Marianites is denied by the candid Beausobre, (Hist. de
Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 532;) and he derives the mistake
from the word Roxah, the Holy Ghost, which in some
Oriental tongues is of the feminine gender, and is
figuratively styled the mother of Christ in the Gospel of the
Nazarenes.]

77 (return)
[ This train of thought is philosophically exemplified in the
character of Abraham, who opposed in Chaldaea the first
introduction of idolatry, (Koran, c. 6, p. 106. D’Herbelot,
Bibliot. Orient. p. 13.)]
78 (return)
[ See the Koran, particularly the second, (p. 30,) the fifty-
seventh, (p. 437,) the fifty-eighth (p. 441) chapters, which
proclaim the omnipotence of the Creator.]
79 (return)
[ The most orthodox creeds are translated by Pocock,
(Specimen, p. 274, 284-292,) Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
vol. ii. p. lxxxii.—xcv.,) Reland, (de Religion. Moham. l. i.
p. 7-13,) and Chardin, (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 4-28.)
The great truth, that God is without similitude, is foolishly
criticized by Maracci, (Alcoran, tom. i. part iii. p. 87-94,)
because he made man after his own image.]
The God of nature has written his existence on all his works, and his law
in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one, and the practice of
the other, has been the real or pretended aim of the prophets of every age:
the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his predecessors the same credit which
he claimed for himself; and the chain of inspiration was prolonged from the
fall of Adam to the promulgation of the Koran. 80 During that period, some
rays of prophetic light had been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four
thousand of the elect, discriminated by their respective measure of virtue
and grace; three hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special
commission to recall their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and
four volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six legislators of
transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive
revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The authority
and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in
just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of
the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The writings of the patriarchs
were extant only in the apocryphal copies of the Greeks and Syrians: 81 the
conduct of Adam had not entitled him to the gratitude or respect of his
children; the seven precepts of Noah were observed by an inferior and
imperfect class of the proselytes of the synagogue; 82 and the memory of
Abraham was obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of
Chaldaea: of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone lived and
reigned; and the remnant of the inspired writings was comprised in the
books of the Old and the New Testament. The miraculous story of Moses is

consecrated and embellished in the Koran; 83 and the captive Jews enjoy
the secret revenge of imposing their own belief on the nations whose recent
creeds they deride. For the author of Christianity, the Mahometans are
taught by the prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. 84
“Verily, Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word,
which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him; honorable
in this world, and in the world to come, and one of those who approach near
to the presence of God.” 85 The wonders of the genuine and apocryphal
gospels 86 are profusely heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not
disdained to borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception 87 of his
virgin mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal; and, at the day of judgment, his
testimony will serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him as a
prophet, and the Christians, who adore him as the Son of God. The malice
of his enemies aspersed his reputation, and conspired against his life; but
their intention only was guilty; a phantom or a criminal was substituted on
the cross; and the innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven. 88
During six hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation; but
the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and example of their founder;
and Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to accuse the church, as well
as the synagogue, of corrupting the integrity of the sacred text. 89 The piety
of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more
illustrious than themselves: the evangelical promise of the Paraclete, or
Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person, of
Mahomet, 90 the greatest and the last of the apostles of God.
80 (return)
[ Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. i. p. 17-47. Sale’s Preliminary
Discourse, p. 73-76. Voyage de Chardin, tom. iv. p. 28-37,
and 37-47, for the Persian addition, “Ali is the vicar of
God!” Yet the precise number of the prophets is not an
article of faith.]
81 (return)
[ For the apocryphal books of Adam, see Fabricius, Codex
Pseudepigraphus V. T. p. 27-29; of Seth, p. 154-157; of
Enoch, p. 160-219. But the book of Enoch is consecrated, in
some measure, by the quotation of the apostle St. Jude; and a
long legendary fragment is alleged by Syncellus and
Scaliger. * Note: The whole book has since been recovered
in the Ethiopic language,—and has been edited and
translated by Archbishop Lawrence, Oxford, 1881—M.]
82 (return)
[ The seven precepts of Noah are explained by Marsham,

(Canon Chronicus, p. 154-180,) who adopts, on this
occasion, the learning and credulity of Selden.]
83 (return)
[ The articles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c., in the
Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, are gayly bedecked with the
fanciful legends of the Mahometans, who have built on the
groundwork of Scripture and the Talmud.]
84 (return)
[ Koran, c. 7, p. 128, &c., c. 10, p. 173, &c. D’Herbelot, p.
647, &c.]
85 (return)
[ Koran, c. 3, p. 40, c. 4. p. 80. D’Herbelot, p. 399, &c.]
86 (return)
[ See the Gospel of St. Thomas, or of the Infancy, in the
Codex Apocryphus N. T. of Fabricius, who collects the
various testimonies concerning it, (p. 128-158.) It was
published in Greek by Cotelier, and in Arabic by Sike, who
thinks our present copy more recent than Mahomet. Yet his
quotations agree with the original about the speech of Christ
in his cradle, his living birds of clay, &c. (Sike, c. i. p. 168,
169, c. 36, p. 198, 199, c. 46, p. 206. Cotelier, c. 2, p. 160,
161.)]
87 (return)
[ It is darkly hinted in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 39,) and more
clearly explained by the tradition of the Sonnites, (Sale’s
Note, and Maracci, tom. ii. p. 112.) In the xiith century, the
immaculate conception was condemned by St. Bernard as a
presumptuous novelty, (Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio di
Trento, l. ii.)]
88 (return)
[ See the Koran, c. 3, v. 53, and c. 4, v. 156, of Maracci’s
edition. Deus est praestantissimus dolose agentium (an odd
praise)... nec crucifixerunt eum, sed objecta est eis
similitudo; an expression that may suit with the system of
the Docetes; but the commentators believe (Maracci, tom. ii.
p. 113-115, 173. Sale, p. 42, 43, 79) that another man, a
friend or an enemy, was crucified in the likeness of Jesus; a
fable which they had read in the Gospel of St. Barnabus, and
which had been started as early as the time of Irenaeus, by
some Ebionite heretics, (Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme,
tom. ii. p. 25, Mosheim. de Reb. Christ. p. 353.)]
89 (return)
[ This charge is obscurely urged in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 45;)
but neither Mahomet, nor his followers, are sufficiently
versed in languages and criticism to give any weight or color
to their suspicions. Yet the Arians and Nestorians could
relate some stories, and the illiterate prophet might listen to

the bold assertions of the Manichaeans. See Beausobre, tom.
i. p. 291-305.]
90 (return)
[ Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament,
which are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the
Mussulmans, they apply to the prophet the promise of the
Paraclete, or Comforter, which had been already usurped by
the Montanists and Manichaeans, (Beausobre, Hist. Critique
du Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 263, &c.;) and the easy change of
letters affords the etymology of the name of Mohammed,
(Maracci, tom. i. part i. p. 15-28.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part IV.
The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and
language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without effect on the
ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of their understandings, if it
be compared with the contact of an infinite and a finite mind, with the word
of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of a mortal! The inspiration of
the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be
incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory; and the
diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition of
the books of the Old and New Testament. But Mahomet was content with a
character, more humble, yet more sublime, of a simple editor; the substance
of the Koran, 91 according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and
eternal; subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of
light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy, in a volume of
silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel,
who, under the Jewish economy, had indeed been despatched on the most
important errands; and this trusty messenger successively revealed the
chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and
perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were
produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the
emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is removed by
the saving maxim, that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by
any subsequent passage. The word of God, and of the apostle, was
diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones
of mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were cast into a
domestic chest, in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death
of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend
and successor Abubeker: the work was revised by the caliph Othman, in the
thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various editions of the Koran assert the

same miraculous privilege of a uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit
of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the
merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate
the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone could
dictate this incomparable performance. 92 This argument is most
powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith
and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds; and whose
ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. 93
The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the
European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent
rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a
sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes
lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian
missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of
the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the
same language. 94 If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a
man to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or
the Philippics of Demosthenes? In all religions, the life of the founder
supplies the silence of his written revelation: the sayings of Mahomet were
so many lessons of truth; his actions so many examples of virtue; and the
public and private memorials were preserved by his wives and companions.
At the end of two hundred years, the Sonna, or oral law, was fixed and
consecrated by the labors of Al Bochari, who discriminated seven thousand
two hundred and seventy-five genuine traditions, from a mass of three
hundred thousand reports, of a more doubtful or spurious character. Each
day the pious author prayed in the temple of Mecca, and performed his
ablutions with the water of Zemzem: the pages were successively deposited
on the pulpit and the sepulchre of the apostle; and the work has been
approved by the four orthodox sects of the Sonnites. 95
91 (return)
[ For the Koran, see D’Herbelot, p. 85-88. Maracci, tom. i.
in Vit. Mohammed. p. 32-45. Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p.
58-70.]
92 (return)
[ Koran, c. 17, v. 89. In Sale, p. 235, 236. In Maracci, p. 410.
* Note: Compare Von Hammer Geschichte der Assassinen p.
11.-M.]
93 (return)
[ Yet a sect of Arabians was persuaded, that it might be

equalled or surpassed by a human pen, (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 221, &c.;) and Maracci (the polemic is too hard for the
translator) derides the rhyming affectation of the most
applauded passage, (tom. i. part ii. p. 69-75.)]
94 (return)
[ Colloquia (whether real or fabulous) in media Arabia atque
ab Arabibus habita, (Lowth, de Poesi Hebraeorum. Praelect.
xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv, with his German editor, Michaelis,
Epimetron iv.) Yet Michaelis (p. 671-673) has detected many
Egyptian images, the elephantiasis, papyrus, Nile, crocodile,
&c. The language is ambiguously styled Arabico-Hebraea.
The resemblance of the sister dialects was much more
visible in their childhood, than in their mature age,
(Michaelis, p. 682. Schultens, in Praefat. Job.) * Note: The
age of the book of Job is still and probably will still be
disputed. Rosenmuller thus states his own opinion: “Certe
serioribus reipublicae temporibus assignandum esse librum,
suadere videtur ad Chaldaismum vergens sermo.” Yet the
observations of Kosegarten, which Rosenmuller has given in
a note, and common reason, suggest that this Chaldaism may
be the native form of a much earlier dialect; or the Chaldaic
may have adopted the poetical archaisms of a dialect,
differing from, but not less ancient than, the Hebrew. See
Rosenmuller, Proleg. on Job, p. 41. The poetry appears to
me to belong to a much earlier period.—M.]
95 (return)
[ Ali Bochari died A. H. 224. See D’Herbelot, p. 208, 416,
827. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. c. 19, p. 33.]
The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Jesus had been
confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mahomet was repeatedly urged,
by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, to produce a similar evidence of
his divine legation; to call down from heaven the angel or the volume of his
revelation, to create a garden in the desert, or to kindle a conflagration in
the unbelieving city. As often as he is pressed by the demands of the
Koreish, he involves himself in the obscure boast of vision and prophecy,
appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and shields himself behind the
providence of God, who refuses those signs and wonders that would
depreciate the merit of faith, and aggravate the guilt of infidelity But the
modest or angry tone of his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation;
and these passages of scandal established, beyond suspicion, the integrity of
the Koran. 96 The votaries of Mahomet are more assured than himself of
his miraculous gifts; and their confidence and credulity increase as they are
farther removed from the time and place of his spiritual exploits. They
believe or affirm that trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by

stones; that water gushed from his fingers; that he fed the hungry, cured the
sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a camel
complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him of its being
poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature were equally subject
to the apostle of God. 97 His dream of a nocturnal journey is seriously
described as a real and corporeal transaction. A mysterious animal, the
Borak, conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem: with
his companion Gabriel he successively ascended the seven heavens, and
received and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the
angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh heaven, Mahomet
alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the veil of unity, approached
within two bow-shots of the throne, and felt a cold that pierced him to the
heart, when his shoulder was touched by the hand of God. After this
familiar, though important conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem,
remounted the Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of
a night the journey of many thousand years. 98 According to another
legend, the apostle confounded in a national assembly the malicious
challenge of the Koreish. His resistless word split asunder the orb of the
moon: the obedient planet stooped from her station in the sky, accomplished
the seven revolutions round the Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian
tongue, and, suddenly contracting her dimensions, entered at the collar, and
issued forth through the sleeve, of his shirt. 99 The vulgar are amused with
these marvellous tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman doctors imitate the
modesty of their master, and indulge a latitude of faith or interpretation. 100
They might speciously allege, that in preaching the religion it was needless
to violate the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with mystery may
be excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was not less
potent than the rod of Moses.
96 (return)
[ See, more remarkably, Koran, c. 2, 6, 12, 13, 17. Prideaux
(Life of Mahomet, p. 18, 19) has confounded the impostor.
Maracci, with a more learned apparatus, has shown that the
passages which deny his miracles are clear and positive,
(Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 7-12,) and those which seem to
assert them are ambiguous and insufficient, (p. 12-22.)]
97 (return)
[ See the Specimen Hist. Arabum, the text of Abulpharagius,
p. 17, the notes of Pocock, p. 187-190. D’Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 76, 77. Voyages de Chardin, tom.
iv. p. 200-203. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. p. 22-64) has most

laboriously collected and confuted the miracles and
prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some writers,
amount to three thousand.]
98 (return)
[ The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related by
Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, c. 19, p. 33,) who wishes to
think it a vision; by Prideaux, (p. 31-40,) who aggravates the
absurdities; and by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343,) who
declares, from the zealous Al Jannabi, that to deny this
journey, is to disbelieve the Koran. Yet the Koran without
naming either heaven, or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only
dropped a mysterious hint: Laus illi qui transtulit servum
suum ab oratorio Haram ad oratorium remotissimum,
(Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407; for Sale’s
version is more licentious.) A slender basis for the aerial
structure of tradition.]
99 (return)
[ In the prophetic style, which uses the present or past for the
future, Mahomet had said, Appropinquavit hora, et scissa est
luna, (Koran, c. 54, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 688.) This
figure of rhetoric has been converted into a fact, which is
said to be attested by the most respectable eye-witnesses,
(Maracci, tom. ii. p. 690.) The festival is still celebrated by
the Persians, (Chardin, tom. iv. p. 201;) and the legend is
tediously spun out by Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p.
183-234,) on the faith, as it should seem, of the credulous Al
Jannabi. Yet a Mahometan doctor has arraigned the credit of
the principal witness, (apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 187;) the
best interpreters are content with the simple sense of the
Koran. (Al Beidawi, apud Hottinger, Hist. Orient. l. ii. p.
302;) and the silence of Abulfeda is worthy of a prince and a
philosopher. * Note: Compare Hamaker Notes to Inc. Auct.
Lib. de Exped. Memphides, p. 62—M.]
100 (return)
[ Abulpharagius, in Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 17; and his
scepticism is justified in the notes of Pocock, p. 190-194,
from the purest authorities.]
The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of superstition: a
thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven with the essence of the
Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel had evaporated in the pageantry of
the church. The prophet of Mecca was tempted by prejudice, or policy, or
patriotism, to sanctify the rites of the Arabians, and the custom of visiting
the holy stone of the Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself
inculcates a more simple and rational piety: prayer, fasting, and alms, are
the religious duties of a Mussulman; and he is encouraged to hope, that
prayer will carry him half way to God, fasting will bring him to the door of

his palace, and alms will gain him admittance. 101 I. According to the
tradition of the nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference
with the Deity, was commanded to impose on his disciples the daily
obligation of fifty prayers. By the advice of Moses, he applied for an
alleviation of this intolerable burden; the number was gradually reduced to
five; without any dispensation of business or pleasure, or time or place: the
devotion of the faithful is repeated at daybreak, at noon, in the afternoon, in
the evening, and at the first watch of the night; and in the present decay of
religious fervor, our travellers are edified by the profound humility and
attention of the Turks and Persians. Cleanliness is the key of prayer: the
frequent lustration of the hands, the face, and the body, which was practised
of old by the Arabs, is solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is
formally granted to supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and
attitudes of supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or standing, or
prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or authority; but the
prayer is poured forth in short and fervent ejaculations; the measure of zeal
is not exhausted by a tedious liturgy; and each Mussulman for his own
person is invested with the character of a priest. Among the theists, who
reject the use of images, it has been found necessary to restrain the
wanderings of the fancy, by directing the eye and the thought towards a
kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet was at first inclined to
gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem; but he soon returned to a more
natural partiality; and five times every day the eyes of the nations at
Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca.
Yet every spot for the service of God is equally pure: the Mahometans
indifferently pray in their chamber or in the street. As a distinction from the
Jews and Christians, the Friday in each week is set apart for the useful
institution of public worship: the people is assembled in the mosch; and the
imam, some respectable elder, ascends the pulpit, to begin the prayer and
pronounce the sermon. But the Mahometan religion is destitute of
priesthood or sacrifice; and the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down
with contempt on the ministers and the slaves of superstition. 1011
II. The voluntary 102 penance of the ascetics, the torment and glory of
their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his companions a rash
vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and sleep; and firmly declared,
that he would suffer no monks in his religion. 103 Yet he instituted, in each
year, a fast of thirty days; and strenuously recommended the observance as

a discipline which purifies the soul and subdues the body, as a salutary
exercise of obedience to the will of God and his apostle. During the month
of Ramadan, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the Mussulman
abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and baths, and perfumes;
from all nourishment that can restore his strength, from all pleasure that can
gratify his senses. In the revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan
coincides, by turns, with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the
patient martyr, without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must
expect the close of a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine,
peculiar to some orders of priests or hermits, is converted by Mahomet
alone into a positive and general law; 104 and a considerable portion of the
globe has abjured, at his command, the use of that salutary, though
dangerous, liquor. These painful restraints are, doubtless, infringed by the
libertine, and eluded by the hypocrite; but the legislator, by whom they are
enacted, cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by the
indulgence of their sensual appetites. III. The charity of the Mahometans
descends to the animal creation; and the Koran repeatedly inculcates, not as
a merit, but as a strict and indispensable duty, the relief of the indigent and
unfortunate. Mahomet, perhaps, is the only lawgiver who has defined the
precise measure of charity: the standard may vary with the degree and
nature of property, as it consists either in money, in corn or cattle, in fruits
or merchandise; but the Mussulman does not accomplish the law, unless he
bestows a tenth of his revenue; and if his conscience accuses him of fraud
or extortion, the tenth, under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth.
105 Benevolence is the foundation of justice, since we are forbid to injure
those whom we are bound to assist. A prophet may reveal the secrets of
heaven and of futurity; but in his moral precepts he can only repeat the
lessons of our own hearts.
101 (return)
[ The most authentic account of these precepts, pilgrimage,
prayer, fasting, alms, and ablutions, is extracted from the
Persian and Arabian theologians by Maracci, (Prodrom. part
iv. p. 9-24,) Reland, (in his excellent treatise de Religione
Mohammedica, Utrecht, 1717, p. 67-123,) and Chardin,
(Voyages in Perse, tom. iv. p. 47-195.) Marace is a partial
accuser; but the jeweller, Chardin, had the eyes of a
philosopher; and Reland, a judicious student, had travelled
over the East in his closet at Utrecht. The xivth letter of
Tournefort (Voyage du Levont, tom. ii. p. 325-360, in

octavo) describes what he had seen of the religion of the
Turks.]
1011 (return)
[ Such is Mahometanism beyond the precincts of the Holy
City. But Mahomet retained, and the Koran sanctions,
(Sale’s Koran, c. 5, in inlt. c. 22, vol. ii. p. 171, 172,) the
sacrifice of sheep and camels (probably according to the old
Arabian rites) at Mecca; and the pilgrims complete their
ceremonial with sacrifices, sometimes as numerous and
costly as those of King Solomon. Compare note, vol. iv. c.
xxiii. p. 96, and Forster’s Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. p.
420. This author quotes the questionable authority of
Benjamin of Tudela, for the sacrifice of a camel by the
caliph at Bosra; but sacrifice undoubtedly forms no part of
the ordinary Mahometan ritual; nor will the sanctity of the
caliph, as the earthly representative of the prophet, bear any
close analogy to the priesthood of the Mosaic or Gentila
religions.—M.]
102 (return)
[ Mahomet (Sale’s Koran, c. 9, p. 153) reproaches the
Christians with taking their priests and monks for their lords,
besides God. Yet Maracci (Prodromus, part iii. p. 69, 70)
excuses the worship, especially of the pope, and quotes,
from the Koran itself, the case of Eblis, or Satan, who was
cast from heaven for refusing to adore Adam.]
103 (return)
[ Koran, c. 5, p. 94, and Sale’s note, which refers to the
authority of Jallaloddin and Al Beidawi. D’Herbelot
declares, that Mahomet condemned la vie religieuse; and
that the first swarms of fakirs, dervises, &c., did not appear
till after the year 300 of the Hegira, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 292,
718.)]
104 (return)
[ See the double prohibition, (Koran, c. 2, p. 25, c. 5, p. 94;)
the one in the style of a legislator, the other in that of a
fanatic. The public and private motives of Mahomet are
investigated by Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 62-64) and
Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 124.)]
105 (return)
[ The jealousy of Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p. 33)
prompts him to enumerate the more liberal alms of the
Catholics of Rome. Fifteen great hospitals are open to many
thousand patients and pilgrims; fifteen hundred maidens are
annually portioned; fifty-six charity schools are founded for
both sexes; one hundred and twenty confraternities relieve
the wants of their brethren, &c. The benevolence of London
is still more extensive; but I am afraid that much more is to
be ascribed to the humanity, than to the religion, of the
people.]

The two articles of belief, and the four practical duties, of Islam, are
guarded by rewards and punishments; and the faith of the Mussulman is
devoutly fixed on the event of the judgment and the last day. The prophet
has not presumed to determine the moment of that awful catastrophe,
though he darkly announces the signs, both in heaven and earth, which will
precede the universal dissolution, when life shall be destroyed, and the
order of creation shall be confounded in the primitive chaos. At the blast of
the trumpet, new worlds will start into being: angels, genii, and men will
arise from the dead, and the human soul will again be united to the body.
The doctrine of the resurrection was first entertained by the Egyptians; 106
and their mummies were embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to
preserve the ancient mansion of the soul, during a period of three thousand
years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing; and it is with a more
philosophic spirit that Mahomet relies on the omnipotence of the Creator,
whose word can reanimate the breathless clay, and collect the innumerable
atoms, that no longer retain their form or substance. 107 The intermediate
state of the soul it is hard to decide; and those who most firmly believe her
immaterial nature, are at a loss to understand how she can think or act
without the agency of the organs of sense.
106 (return)
[ See Herodotus (l. ii. c. 123) and our learned countryman
Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 46.) The same
writer (p. 254-274) is an elaborate sketch of the infernal
regions, as they were painted by the fancy of the Egyptians
and Greeks, of the poets and philosophers of antiquity.]
107 (return)
[ The Koran (c. 2, p. 259, &c.; of Sale, p. 32; of Maracci, p.
97) relates an ingenious miracle, which satisfied the
curiosity, and confirmed the faith, of Abraham.]
The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final judgment
of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian picture, the prophet has too
faithfully represented the forms of proceeding, and even the slow and
successive operations, of an earthly tribunal. By his intolerant adversaries
he is upbraided for extending, even to themselves, the hope of salvation, for
asserting the blackest heresy, that every man who believes in God, and
accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day a favorable sentence.
Such rational indifference is ill adapted to the character of a fanatic; nor is it
probable that a messenger from heaven should depreciate the value and
necessity of his own revelation. In the idiom of the Koran, 108 the belief of

God is inseparable from that of Mahomet: the good works are those which
he has enjoined, and the two qualifications imply the profession of Islam, to
which all nations and all sects are equally invited.
Their spiritual blindness, though excused by ignorance and crowned with
virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments; and the tears which
Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother for whom he was forbidden to
pray, display a striking contrast of humanity and enthusiasm. 109 The doom
of the infidels is common: the measure of their guilt and punishment is
determined by the degree of evidence which they have rejected, by the
magnitude of the errors which they have entertained: the eternal mansions
of the Christians, the Jews, the Sabians, the Magians, and idolaters, are sunk
below each other in the abyss; and the lowest hell is reserved for the
faithless hypocrites who have assumed the mask of religion. After the
greater part of mankind has been condemned for their opinions, the true
believers only will be judged by their actions. The good and evil of each
Mussulman will be accurately weighed in a real or allegorical balance; and
a singular mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of
injuries: the aggressor will refund an equivalent of his own good actions,
for the benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and if he should be
destitute of any moral property, the weight of his sins will be loaded with an
adequate share of the demerits of the sufferer. According as the shares of
guilt or virtue shall preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all,
without distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of the
abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet, will
gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty will fall into the first
and mildest of the seven hells. The term of expiation will vary from nine
hundred to seven thousand years; but the prophet has judiciously promised,
that all his disciples, whatever may be their sins, shall be saved, by their
own faith and his intercession from eternal damnation. It is not surprising
that superstition should act most powerfully on the fears of her votaries,
since the human fancy can paint with more energy the misery than the bliss
of a future life. With the two simple elements of darkness and fire, we
create a sensation of pain, which may be aggravated to an infinite degree by
the idea of endless duration. But the same idea operates with an opposite
effect on the continuity of pleasure; and too much of our present
enjoyments is obtained from the relief, or the comparison, of evil. It is
natural enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell with rapture on the

groves, the fountains, and the rivers of paradise; but instead of inspiring the
blessed inhabitants with a liberal taste for harmony and science,
conversation and friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the
robes of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines, artificial
dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of sensual and costly
luxury, which becomes insipid to the owner, even in the short period of this
mortal life. Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty,
blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for
the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to
a thousand years; and his faculties will be increased a hundred fold, to
render him worthy of his felicity. Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the
gates of heaven will be open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified
the male companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the
jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by the suspicion
of an everlasting marriage. This image of a carnal paradise has provoked
the indignation, perhaps the envy, of the monks: they declaim against the
impure religion of Mahomet; and his modest apologists are driven to the
poor excuse of figures and allegories. But the sounder and more consistent
party adhere without shame, to the literal interpretation of the Koran:
useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless it were restored to the
possession and exercise of its worthiest faculties; and the union of sensual
and intellectual enjoyment is requisite to complete the happiness of the
double animal, the perfect man. Yet the joys of the Mahometan paradise
will not be confined to the indulgence of luxury and appetite; and the
prophet has expressly declared that all meaner happiness will be forgotten
and despised by the saints and martyrs, who shall be admitted to the
beatitude of the divine vision. 110
108 (return)
[ The candid Reland has demonstrated, that Mahomet damns
all unbelievers, (de Religion. Moham. p. 128-142;) that
devils will not be finally saved, (p. 196-199;) that paradise
will not solely consist of corporeal delights, (p. 199-205;)
and that women’s souls are immortal. (p. 205-209.)]
109 (return)
[ A Beidawi, apud Sale. Koran, c. 9, p. 164. The refusal to
pray for an unbelieving kindred is justified, according to
Mahomet, by the duty of a prophet, and the example of
Abraham, who reprobated his own father as an enemy of
God. Yet Abraham (he adds, c. 9, v. 116. Maracci, tom. ii. p.
317) fuit sane pius, mitis.]

110 (return)
[ For the day of judgment, hell, paradise, &c., consult the
Koran, (c. 2, v. 25, c. 56, 78, &c.;) with Maracci’s virulent,
but learned, refutation, (in his notes, and in the Prodromus,
part iv. p. 78, 120, 122, &c.;) D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 368, 375;) Reland, (p. 47-61;) and Sale, (p. 76-
103.) The original ideas of the Magi are darkly and
doubtfully explored by their apologist, Dr. Hyde, (Hist.
Religionis Persarum, c. 33, p. 402-412, Oxon. 1760.) In the
article of Mahomet, Bayle has shown how indifferently wit
and philosophy supply the absence of genuine information.]
The first and most arduous conquests of Mahomet 111 were those of his
wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend; 112 since he presented himself as
a prophet to those who were most conversant with his infirmities as a man.
Yet Cadijah believed the words, and cherished the glory, of her husband; the
obsequious and affectionate Zeid was tempted by the prospect of freedom;
the illustrious Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, embraced the sentiments of his
cousin with the spirit of a youthful hero; and the wealth, the moderation, the
veracity of Abubeker confirmed the religion of the prophet whom he was
destined to succeed. By his persuasion, ten of the most respectable citizens
of Mecca were introduced to the private lessons of Islam; they yielded to
the voice of reason and enthusiasm; they repeated the fundamental creed,
“There is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;” and their faith,
even in this life, was rewarded with riches and honors, with the command
of armies and the government of kingdoms. Three years were silently
employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his
mission; but in the fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and
resolving to impart to his family the light of divine truth, he prepared a
banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of
forty guests of the race of Hashem. “Friends and kinsmen,” said Mahomet
to the assembly, “I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of
gifts, the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has
commanded me to call you to his service. Who among you will support my
burden? Who among you will be my companion and my vizier?” 113 No
answer was returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and
contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a youth in
the fourteenth year of his age. “O prophet, I am the man: whosoever rises
against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up
his belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizier over them.” Mahomet accepted his
offer with transport, and Abu Taled was ironically exhorted to respect the

superior dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father of Ali advised
his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design.
“Spare your remonstrances,” replied the intrepid fanatic to his uncle and
benefactor; “if they should place the sun on my right hand, and the moon on
my left, they should not divert me from my course.” He persevered ten
years in the exercise of his mission; and the religion which has overspread
the East and the West advanced with a slow and painful progress within the
walls of Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the satisfaction of beholding the
increase of his infant congregation of Unitarians, who revered him as a
prophet, and to whom he seasonably dispensed the spiritual nourishment of
the Koran. The number of proselytes may be esteemed by the absence of
eighty-three men and eighteen women, who retired to Aethiopia in the
seventh year of his mission; and his party was fortified by the timely
conversion of his uncle Hamza, and of the fierce and inflexible Omar, who
signalized in the cause of Islam the same zeal, which he had exerted for its
destruction. Nor was the charity of Mahomet confined to the tribe of
Koreish, or the precincts of Mecca: on solemn festivals, in the days of
pilgrimage, he frequented the Caaba, accosted the strangers of every tribe,
and urged, both in private converse and public discourse, the belief and
worship of a sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his weakness, he
asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed the use of religious
violence: 114 but he called the Arabs to repentance, and conjured them to
remember the ancient idolaters of Ad and Thamud, whom the divine justice
had swept away from the face of the earth. 115
111 (return)
[ Before I enter on the history of the prophet, it is incumbent
on me to produce my evidence. The Latin, French, and
English versions of the Koran are preceded by historical
discourses, and the three translators, Maracci, (tom. i. p. 10-
32,) Savary, (tom. i. p. 1-248,) and Sale, (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 33-56,) had accurately studied the language
and character of their author. Two professed Lives of
Mahomet have been composed by Dr. Prideaux (Life of
Mahomet, seventh edition, London, 1718, in octavo) and the
count de Boulainvilliers, (Vie de Mahomed, Londres, 1730,
in octavo: ) but the adverse wish of finding an impostor or a
hero, has too often corrupted the learning of the doctor and
the ingenuity of the count. The article in D’Herbelot
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 598-603) is chiefly drawn from Novairi
and Mirkond; but the best and most authentic of our guides
is M. Gagnier, a Frenchman by birth, and professor at

Oxford of the Oriental tongues. In two elaborate works,
(Ismael Abulfeda de Vita et Rebus gestis Mohammedis, &c.
Latine vertit, Praefatione et Notis illustravit Johannes
Gagnier, Oxon. 1723, in folio. La Vie de Mahomet traduite
et compilee de l’Alcoran, des Traditions Authentiques de la
Sonna et des meilleurs Auteurs Arabes; Amsterdam, 1748, 3
vols. in 12mo.,) he has interpreted, illustrated, and supplied
the Arabic text of Abulfeda and Al Jannabi; the first, an
enlightened prince who reigned at Hamah, in Syria, A.D.
1310-1332, (see Gagnier Praefat. ad Abulfed.;) the second, a
credulous doctor, who visited Mecca A.D. 1556.
(D’Herbelot, p. 397. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 209, 210.) These
are my general vouchers, and the inquisitive reader may
follow the order of time, and the division of chapters. Yet I
must observe that both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi are modern
historians, and that they cannot appeal to any writers of the
first century of the Hegira. * Note: A new Life, by Dr. Weil,
(Stuttgart. 1843,) has added some few traditions unknown in
Europe. Of Dr. Weil’s Arabic scholarship, which professes to
correct many errors in Gagnier, in Maracci, and in M. von
Hammer, I am no judge. But it is remarkable that he does
not seem acquainted with the passage of Tabari, translated
by Colonel Vans Kennedy, in the Bombay Transactions,
(vol. iii.,) the earliest and most important addition made to
the traditionary Life of Mahomet. I am inclined to think
Colonel Vans Kennedy’s appreciation of the prophet’s
character, which may be overlooked in a criticism on
Voltaire’s Mahomet, the most just which I have ever read.
The work of Dr. Weil appears to me most valuable in its
dissection and chronological view of the Koran.—M. 1845]
112 (return)
[ After the Greeks, Prideaux (p. 8) discloses the secret
doubts of the wife of Mahomet. As if he had been a privy
counsellor of the prophet, Boulainvilliers (p. 272, &c.)
unfolds the sublime and patriotic views of Cadijah and the
first disciples.]
113 (return)
[ Vezirus, portitor, bajulus, onus ferens; and this plebeian
name was transferred by an apt metaphor to the pillars of the
state, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 19.) I endeavor to
preserve the Arabian idiom, as far as I can feel it myself in a
Latin or French translation.]
114 (return)
[ The passages of the Koran in behalf of toleration are strong
and numerous: c. 2, v. 257, c. 16, 129, c. 17, 54, c. 45, 15, c.
50, 39, c. 88, 21, &c., with the notes of Maracci and Sale.
This character alone may generally decide the doubts of the
learned, whether a chapter was revealed at Mecca or
Medina.]

115 (return)
[ See the Koran, (passim, and especially c. 7, p. 123, 124,
&c.,) and the tradition of the Arabs, (Pocock, Specimen, p.
35-37.) The caverns of the tribe of Thamud, fit for men of
the ordinary stature, were shown in the midway between
Medina and Damascus. (Abulfed Arabiae Descript. p. 43,
44,) and may be probably ascribed to the Throglodytes of
the primitive world, (Michaelis, ad Lowth de Poesi
Hebraeor. p. 131-134. Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii.
p. 48, &c.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part V.
The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by superstition and
envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the prophet, affected to despise
the presumption of an orphan, the reformer of his country: the pious
orations of Mahomet in the Caaba were answered by the clamors of Abu
Taleb. “Citizens and pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken not to his
impious novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lata and Al Uzzah.” Yet
the son of Abdallah was ever dear to the aged chief: and he protected the
fame and person of his nephew against the assaults of the Koreishites, who
had long been jealous of the preeminence of the family of Hashem. Their
malice was colored with the pretence of religion: in the age of Job, the
crime of impiety was punished by the Arabian magistrate; 116 and
Mahomet was guilty of deserting and denying the national deities. But so
loose was the policy of Mecca, that the leaders of the Koreish, instead of
accusing a criminal, were compelled to employ the measures of persuasion
or violence. They repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in the style of reproach
and menace. “Thy nephew reviles our religion; he accuses our wise
forefathers of ignorance and folly; silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult
and discord in the city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against
him and his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy
fellow-citizens.” The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded the
violence of religious faction; the most helpless or timid of the disciples
retired to Aethiopia, and the prophet withdrew himself to various places of
strength in the town and country. As he was still supported by his family,
the rest of the tribe of Koreish engaged themselves to renounce all
intercourse with the children of Hashem, neither to buy nor sell, neither to
marry not to give in marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity,
till they should deliver the person of Mahomet to the justice of the gods.
The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes of the nation; the

messengers of the Koreish pursued the Mussulman exiles in the heart of
Africa: they besieged the prophet and his most faithful followers,
intercepted their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the
retaliation of injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances
of concord till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of
his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic comforts
by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of
the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the principality of the republic of
Mecca. A zealous votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he
convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to decide the fate
of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the despair of his
enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic would diffuse
the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved; and
they agreed that a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to
divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites.
An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only
resource of Mahomet. 117 At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend
Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the assassins watched at the
door; but they were deceived by the figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed,
and was covered with the green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish
respected the piety of the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are
still extant, exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness, and
his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his companion were
concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca; and
in the close of each evening, they received from the son and daughter of
Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the
Koreish explored every haunt in the neighborhood of the city: they arrived
at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider’s web
and a pigeon’s nest is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary
and inviolate. “We are only two,” said the trembling Abubeker. “There is a
third,” replied the prophet; “it is God himself.” No sooner was the pursuit
abated than the two fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their
camels: on the road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the
Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their
hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might have changed
the history of the world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina

has fixed the memorable aera of the Hegira, 118 which, at the end of twelve
centuries, still discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. 119
116 (return)
[ In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was punished by
the Arabian magistrate, (c. 21, v. 26, 27, 28.) I blush for a
respectable prelate (de Poesi Hebraeorum, p. 650, 651, edit.
Michaelis; and letter of a late professor in the university of
Oxford, p. 15-53,) who justifies and applauds this patriarchal
inquisition.]
117 (return)
[ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a particular
history of the flight of Mahomet.]
118 (return)
[ The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second caliph, in
imitation of the aera of the martyrs of the Christians,
(D’Herbelot, p. 444;) and properly commenced sixty-eight
days before the flight of Mahomet, with the first of
Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year which coincides
with Friday, July 16th, A.D. 622, (Abulfeda, Vit Moham, c.
22, 23, p. 45-50; and Greaves’s edition of Ullug Beg’s
Epochae Arabum, &c., c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.) * Note:
Chronologists dispute between the 15th and 16th of July. St.
Martin inclines to the 8th, ch. xi. p. 70.—M.]
119 (return)
[ Mahomet’s life, from his mission to the Hegira, may be
found in Abulfeda (p. 14-45) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 134-
251, 342-383.) The legend from p. 187-234 is vouched by Al
Jannabi, and disdained by Abulfeda.]
The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had not
Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of Mecca.
Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb, before it was
sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was divided between the tribes of
the Charegites and the Awsites, whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the
slightest provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal race,
were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs, they introduced
the taste of science and religion, which distinguished Medina as the city of
the Book. Some of her noblest citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Canaba, were
converted by the preaching of Mahomet; on their return, they diffused the
belief of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by their
deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs of
Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites united in faith and love,
protested, in the name of their wives, their children, and their absent
brethren, that they would forever profess the creed, and observe the

precepts, of the Koran. The second was a political association, the first vital
spark of the empire of the Saracens. 120 Seventy-three men and two women
of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his kinsman, and his
disciples; and pledged themselves to each other by a mutual oath of fidelity.
They promised, in the name of the city, that if he should be banished, they
would receive him as a confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him
to the last extremity, like their wives and children. “But if you are recalled
by your country,” they asked with a flattering anxiety, “will you not
abandon your new allies?” “All things,” replied Mahomet with a smile, “are
now common between us; your blood is as my blood, your ruin as my ruin.
We are bound to each other by the ties of honor and interest. I am your
friend, and the enemy of your foes.” “But if we are killed in your service,
what,” exclaimed the deputies of Medina, “will be our reward?” “Paradise,”
replied the prophet. “Stretch forth thy hand.” He stretched it forth, and they
reiterated the oath of allegiance and fidelity. Their treaty was ratified by the
people, who unanimously embraced the profession of Islam; they rejoiced
in the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his safety, and impatiently
expected his arrival. After a perilous and rapid journey along the sea-coast,
he halted at Koba, two miles from the city, and made his public entry into
Medina, sixteen days after his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the
citizens advanced to meet him; he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty
and devotion; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella shaded
his head, and a turban was unfurled before him to supply the deficiency of a
standard. His bravest disciples, who had been scattered by the storm,
assembled round his person; and the equal, though various, merit of the
Moslems was distinguished by the names of Mohagerians and Ansars, the
fugitives of Mecca, and the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of
jealousy, Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the
rights and obligations of brethren; and when Ali found himself without a
peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that he would be the companion and
brother of the noble youth. The expedient was crowned with success; the
holy fraternity was respected in peace and war, and the two parties vied
with each other in a generous emulation of courage and fidelity. Once only
the concord was slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel: a patriot of
Medina arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their
expulsion was heard with abhorrence; and his own son most eagerly offered
to lay at the apostle’s feet the head of his father.

120 (return)
[ The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by
Abulfeda (p. 30, 33, 40, 86) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 342,
&c., 349, &c., tom. ii. p. 223 &c.)]
From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of the
regal and sacerdotal office; and it was impious to appeal from a judge
whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A small portion of
ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was acquired by gift or purchase;
121 on that chosen spot he built a house and a mosch, more venerable in
their rude simplicity than the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs.
His seal of gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he
prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the trunk of
a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged himself in the use of a chair
or pulpit of rough timber. 122 After a reign of six years, fifteen hundred
Moslems, in arms and in the field, renewed their oath of allegiance; and
their chief repeated the assurance of protection till the death of the last
member, or the final dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that
the deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the faithful to the
words and looks of the prophet, by the eagerness with which they collected
his spittle, a hair that dropped on the ground, the refuse water of his
lustrations, as if they participated in some degree of the prophetic virtue. “I
have seen,” said he, “the Chosroes of Persia and the Caesar of Rome, but
never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet among his
companions.” The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with more energy and
truth than the cold and formal servility of courts.
121 (return)
[ Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44) reviles the wickedness
of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the sons
of a carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the
Disputatio contra Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the
year 1130; but the honest Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53) has
shown that they were deceived by the word Al Nagjar, which
signifies, in this place, not an obscure trade, but a noble tribe
of Arabs. The desolate state of the ground is described by
Abulfeda; and his worthy interpreter has proved, from Al
Bochari, the offer of a price; from Al Jannabi, the fair
purchase; and from Ahmeq Ben Joseph, the payment of the
money by the generous Abubeker On these grounds the
prophet must be honorably acquitted.]
122 (return)
[ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246, 324) describes
the seal and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the apostle of

God; and the portrait of his court is taken from Abulfeda, (c.
44, p. 85.)]
In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by force of arms,
his person and his possessions; to repel, or even to prevent, the violence of
his enemies, and to extend his hostilities to a reasonable measure of
satisfaction and retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of
subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Mahomet, in the exercise
of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been despoiled and banished by
the injustice of his countrymen. The choice of an independent people had
exalted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of a sovereign; and he was
invested with the just prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging
offensive or defensive war. The imperfection of human rights was supplied
and armed by the plenitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina
assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary tone, which
proves that his former moderation was the effect of weakness: 123 the
means of persuasion had been tried, the season of forbearance was elapsed,
and he was now commanded to propagate his religion by the sword, to
destroy the monuments of idolatry, and, without regarding the sanctity of
days or months, to pursue the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same
bloody precepts, so repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the
author to the Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the evangelic
style may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not bring peace on the
earth, but a sword: his patient and humble virtues should not be confounded
with the intolerant zeal of princes and bishops, who have disgraced the
name of his disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet might
appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the Judges, and the
kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews are still more rigid than
those of the Arabian legislator. 124 The Lord of hosts marched in person
before the Jews: if a city resisted their summons, the males, without
distinction, were put to the sword: the seven nations of Canaan were
devoted to destruction; and neither repentance nor conversion, could shield
them from the inevitable doom, that no creature within their precincts
should be left alive. 1241 The fair option of friendship, or submission, or
battle, was proposed to the enemies of Mahomet. If they professed the creed
of Islam, they were admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his
primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to extend the
religion which they had embraced. The clemency of the prophet was

decided by his interest: yet he seldom trampled on a prostrate enemy; and
he seems to promise, that on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his
unbelieving subjects might be indulged in their worship, or at least in their
imperfect faith. In the first months of his reign he practised the lessons of
holy warfare, and displayed his white banner before the gates of Medina:
the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or sieges; 125 and fifty
enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by himself or his lieutenants.
The Arab continued to unite the professions of a merchant and a robber; and
his petty excursions for the defence or the attack of a caravan insensibly
prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia. The distribution of the spoil
was regulated by a divine law: 126 the whole was faithfully collected in one
common mass: a fifth of the gold and silver, the prisoners and cattle, the
movables and immovables, was reserved by the prophet for pious and
charitable uses; the remainder was shared in adequate portions by the
soldiers who had obtained the victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of
the slain devolved to their widows and orphans; and the increase of cavalry
was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the horse and to the
man. From all sides the roving Arabs were allured to the standard of
religion and plunder: the apostle sanctified the license of embracing the
female captives as their wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of wealth
and beauty was a feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant
martyrs of the faith. “The sword,” says Mahomet, “is the key of heaven and
of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of
more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle,
his sins are forgiven: at the day of judgment his wounds shall be
resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs
shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.” The intrepid souls
of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm: the picture of the invisible world
was strongly painted on their imagination; and the death which they had
always despised became an object of hope and desire. The Koran
inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate and predestination,
which would extinguish both industry and virtue, if the actions of man were
governed by his speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has
exalted the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of
Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearless confidence: there is no danger
where there is no chance: they were ordained to perish in their beds; or they
were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. 127

123 (return)
[ The viiith and ixth chapters of the Koran are the loudest
and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p. 59-
64) has inveighed with more justice than discretion against
the double dealing of the impostor.]
124 (return)
[ The xth and xxth chapters of Deuteronomy, with the
practical comments of Joshua, David, &c., are read with
more awe than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the
present age. But the bishops, as well as the rabbis of former
times, have beat the drum-ecclesiastic with pleasure and
success. (Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 142, 143.)]
1241 (return)
[ The editor’s opinions on this subject may be read in the
History of the Jews vol. i. p. 137.—M]
125 (return)
[ Abulfeda, in Vit. Moham. p. 156. The private arsenal of the
apostle consisted of nine swords, three lances, seven pikes or
half-pikes, a quiver and three bows, seven cuirasses, three
shields, and two helmets, (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 328-334,)
with a large white standard, a black banner, (p. 335,) twenty
horses, (p. 322, &c.) Two of his martial sayings are recorded
by tradition, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 88, 334.)]
126 (return)
[ The whole subject de jure belli Mohammedanorum is
exhausted in a separate dissertation by the learned Reland,
(Dissertationes Miscellaneae, tom. iii. Dissertat. x. p. 3-53.)]
127 (return)
[ The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which few
religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the
Koran, (c. 3, p. 52, 53, c. 4, p. 70, &c., with the notes of
Sale, and c. 17, p. 413, with those of Maracci.) Reland (de
Relig. Moham. p. 61-64) and Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p.
103) represent the opinions of the doctors, and our modern
travellers the confidence, the fading confidence, of the
Turks]
Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the dight of Mahomet,
had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance of an enemy,
who could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed and repassed through the
territory of Medina. Abu Sophian himself, with only thirty or forty
followers, conducted a wealthy caravan of a thousand camels; the fortune or
dexterity of his march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet; but the chief of
the Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in ambush to
await his return. He despatched a messenger to his brethren of Mecca, and
they were roused, by the fear of losing their merchandise and their

provisions, unless they hastened to his relief with the military force of the
city. The sacred band of Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen
Moslems, of whom seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries;
they mounted by turns a train of seventy camels, (the camels of Yathreb
were formidable in war;) but such was the poverty of his first disciples, that
only two could appear on horseback in the field. 128 In the fertile and
famous vale of Beder, 129 three stations from Medina, he was informed by
his scouts of the caravan that approached on one side; of the Koreish, one
hundred horse, eight hundred and fifty foot, who advanced on the other.
After a short debate, he sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the pursuit of
glory and revenge, and a slight intrenchment was formed, to cover his
troops, and a stream of fresh water, that glided through the valley. “O God,”
he exclaimed, as the numbers of the Koreish descended from the hills, “O
God, if these are destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth?
—Courage, my children; close your ranks; discharge your arrows, and the
day is your own.” At these words he placed himself, with Abubeker, on a
throne or pulpit, 130 and instantly demanded the succor of Gabriel and
three thousand angels. His eye was fixed on the field of battle: the
Mussulmans fainted and were pressed: in that decisive moment the prophet
started from his throne, mounted his horse, and cast a handful of sand into
the air: “Let their faces be covered with confusion.” Both armies heard the
thunder of his voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors: 131 the
Koreish trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were slain; and seventy
captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. The dead bodies of the
Koreish were despoiled and insulted: two of the most obnoxious prisoners
were punished with death; and the ransom of the others, four thousand
drams of silver, compensated in some degree the escape of the caravan. But
it was in vain that the camels of Abu Sophian explored a new road through
the desert and along the Euphrates: they were overtaken by the diligence of
the Mussulmans; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty thousand
drams could be set apart for the fifth of the apostle. The resentment of the
public and private loss stimulated Abu Sophian to collect a body of three
thousand men, seven hundred of whom were armed with cuirasses, and two
hundred were mounted on horseback; three thousand camels attended his
march; and his wife Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly
sounded their timbrels to animate the troops, and to magnify the greatness
of Hobal, the most popular deity of the Caaba. The standard of God and

Mahomet was upheld by nine hundred and fifty believers: the disproportion
of numbers was not more alarming than in the field of Beder; and their
presumption of victory prevailed against the divine and human sense of the
apostle. The second battle was fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the
north of Medina; 132 the Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent; and
the right wing of cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful
of the Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on
the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a detachment of fifty
archers. The weight of their charge impelled and broke the centre of the
idolaters: but in the pursuit they lost the advantage of their ground: the
archers deserted their station: the Mussulmans were tempted by the spoil,
disobeyed their general, and disordered their ranks. The intrepid Caled,
wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed, with a loud voice,
that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the face with a javelin:
two of his teeth were shattered with a stone; yet, in the midst of tumult and
dismay, he reproached the infidels with the murder of a prophet; and
blessed the friendly hand that stanched his blood, and conveyed him to a
place of safety. Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the people; they fell,
said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his lifeless companion;
133 their bodies were mangled by the inhuman females of Mecca; and the
wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet.
They might applaud their superstition, and satiate their fury; but the
Mussulmans soon rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or
courage to undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing year
by an army of ten thousand enemies; and this third expedition is variously
named from the nations, which marched under the banner of Abu Sophian,
from the ditch which was drawn before the city, and a camp of three
thousand Mussulmans. The prudence of Mahomet declined a general
engagement: the valor of Ali was signalized in single combat; and the war
was protracted twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates. A
tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents: their private quarrels
were fomented by an insidious adversary; and the Koreish, deserted by their
allies, no longer hoped to subvert the throne, or to check the conquests, of
their invincible exile. 134
128 (return)
[ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows him seventy
or eighty horse; and on two other occasions, prior to the
battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10) and of 500

(p. 66) troopers. Yet the Mussulmans, in the field of Ohud,
had no more than two horses, according to the better sense
of Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. xxxi. p. 65.) In the Stony
province, the camels were numerous; but the horse appears
to have been less numerous than in the Happy or the Desert
Arabia.]
129 (return)
[ Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and forty
from Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt; and
the pilgrims annually commemorate the prophet’s victory by
illuminations, rockets, &c. Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]
130 (return)
[ The place to which Mahomet retired during the action is
styled by Gagnier (in Abulfeda, c. 27, p. 58. Vie de
Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 30, 33) Umbraculum, une loge de bois
avec une porte. The same Arabic word is rendered by Reiske
(Annales Moslemici Abulfedae, p. 23) by Solium, Suggestus
editior; and the difference is of the utmost moment for the
honor both of the interpreter and of the hero. I am sorry to
observe the pride and acrimony with which Reiske chastises
his fellow-laborer. Saepi sic vertit, ut integrae paginae
nequeant nisi una litura corrigi Arabice non satis callebat, et
carebat judicio critico. J. J. Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji
Chalisae Tabulas, p. 228, ad calcero Abulfedae Syriae
Tabulae; Lipsiae, 1766, in 4to.]
131 (return)
[ The loose expressions of the Koran (c. 3, p. 124, 125, c. 8,
p. 9) allow the commentators to fluctuate between the
numbers of 1000, 3000, or 9000 angels; and the smallest of
these might suffice for the slaughter of seventy of the
Koreish, (Maracci, Alcoran, tom. ii. p. 131.) Yet the same
scholiasts confess that this angelic band was not visible to
any mortal eye, (Maracci, p. 297.) They refine on the words
(c. 8, 16) “not thou, but God,” &c. (D’Herbelot. Bibliot.
Orientale p. 600, 601.)]
132 (return)
[ Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.]
133 (return)
[ In the iiid chapter of the Koran, (p. 50-53) with Sale’s
notes, the prophet alleges some poor excuses for the defeat
of Ohud. * Note: Dr. Weil has added some curious
circumstances, which he gives as on good traditional
authority, on the rescue of Mahomet. The prophet was
attacked by Ubeijj Ibn Challaf, whom he struck on the neck
with a mortal wound. This was the only time, it is added,
that Mahomet personally engaged in battle. (p. 128.)—M.
1845.]
134 (return)
[ For the detail of the three Koreish wars, of Beder, of Ohud,

and of the ditch, peruse Abulfeda, (p. 56-61, 64-69, 73-77,)
Gagnier (tom. i. p. 23-45, 70-96, 120-139,) with the proper
articles of D’Herbelot, and the abridgments of Elmacin
(Hist. Saracen. p. 6, 7) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 102.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part VI.
The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer discovers the early
propensity of Mahomet in favor of the Jews; and happy would it have been
for their temporal interest, had they recognized, in the Arabian prophet, the
hope of Israel and the promised Messiah. Their obstinacy converted his
friendship into implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate
people to the last moment of his life; and in the double character of an
apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was extended to both worlds. 135
The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of the city; he seized the
occasion of an accidental tumult, and summoned them to embrace his
religion, or contend with him in battle. “Alas!” replied the trembling Jews,
“we are ignorant of the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith and
worship of our fathers; why wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just
defence?” The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days; and it was
with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the importunity of his
allies, and consented to spare the lives of the captives. But their riches were
confiscated, their arms became more effectual in the hands of the
Mussulmans; and a wretched colony of seven hundred exiles was driven,
with their wives and children, to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria.
The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired, in a friendly
interview, to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their castle, three miles
from Medina; but their resolute defence obtained an honorable capitulation;
and the garrison, sounding their trumpets and beating their drums, was
permitted to depart with the honors of war. The Jews had excited and joined
the war of the Koreish: no sooner had the nations retired from the ditch,
than Mahomet, without laying aside his armor, marched on the same day to
extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha. After a resistance of
twenty-five days, they surrendered at discretion. They trusted to the
intercession of their old allies of Medina; they could not be ignorant that

fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose
judgment they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death; seven
hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the city; they
descended alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial; and
the apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his helpless
enemies. Their sheep and camels were inherited by the Mussulmans: three
hundred cuirasses, five hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the
most useful portion of the spoil. Six days’ journey to the north-east of
Medina, the ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of the Jewish
power in Arabia: the territory, a fertile spot in the desert, was covered with
plantations and cattle, and protected by eight castles, some of which were
esteemed of impregnable strength. The forces of Mahomet consisted of two
hundred horse and fourteen hundred foot: in the succession of eight regular
and painful sieges they were exposed to danger, and fatigue, and hunger;
and the most undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The apostle revived
their faith and courage by the example of Ali, on whom he bestowed the
surname of the Lion of God: perhaps we may believe that a Hebrew
champion of gigantic stature was cloven to the chest by his irresistible
cimeter; but we cannot praise the modesty of romance, which represents
him as tearing from its hinges the gate of a fortress and wielding the
ponderous buckler in his left hand. 136 After the reduction of the castles,
the town of Chaibar submitted to the yoke. The chief of the tribe was
tortured, in the presence of Mahomet, to force a confession of his hidden
treasure: the industry of the shepherds and husbandmen was rewarded with
a precarious toleration: they were permitted, so long as it should please the
conqueror, to improve their patrimony, in equal shares, for his emolument
and their own. Under the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were
transported to Syria; and the caliph alleged the injunction of his dying
master; that one and the true religion should be professed in his native land
of Arabia. 137
135 (return)
[ The wars of Mahomet against the Jewish tribes of Kainoka,
the Nadhirites, Koraidha, and Chaibar, are related by
Abulfeda (p. 61, 71, 77, 87, &c.) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p.
61-65, 107-112, 139-148, 268-294.)]
136 (return)
[ Abu Rafe, the servant of Mahomet, is said to affirm that he
himself, and seven other men, afterwards tried, without
success, to move the same gate from the ground, (Abulfeda,

p. 90.) Abu Rafe was an eye-witness, but who will be
witness for Abu Rafe?]
137 (return)
[ The banishment of the Jews is attested by Elmacin (Hist.
Saracen, p. 9) and the great Al Zabari, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p.
285.) Yet Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 324) believes
that the Jewish religion, and Karaite sect, are still professed
by the tribe of Chaibar; and that, in the plunder of the
caravans, the disciples of Moses are the confederates of
those of Mahomet.]
Five times each day the eyes of Mahomet were turned towards Mecca,
138 and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful motives to revisit, as
a conqueror, the city and the temple from whence he had been driven as an
exile. The Caaba was present to his waking and sleeping fancy: an idle
dream was translated into vision and prophecy; he unfurled the holy banner;
and a rash promise of success too hastily dropped from the lips of the
apostle. His march from Medina to Mecca displayed the peaceful and
solemn pomp of a pilgrimage: seventy camels, chosen and bedecked for
sacrifice, preceded the van; the sacred territory was respected; and the
captives were dismissed without ransom to proclaim his clemency and
devotion. But no sooner did Mahomet descend into the plain, within a day’s
journey of the city, than he exclaimed, “They have clothed themselves with
the skins of tigers:” the numbers and resolution of the Koreish opposed his
progress; and the roving Arabs of the desert might desert or betray a leader
whom they had followed for the hopes of spoil. The intrepid fanatic sunk
into a cool and cautious politician: he waived in the treaty his title of
apostle of God; concluded with the Koreish and their allies a truce of ten
years; engaged to restore the fugitives of Mecca who should embrace his
religion; and stipulated only, for the ensuing year, the humble privilege of
entering the city as a friend, and of remaining three days to accomplish the
rites of the pilgrimage. A cloud of shame and sorrow hung on the retreat of
the Mussulmans, and their disappointment might justly accuse the failure of
a prophet who had so often appealed to the evidence of success. The faith
and hope of the pilgrims were rekindled by the prospect of Mecca: their
swords were sheathed; 1381 seven times in the footsteps of the apostle they
encompassed the Caaba: the Koreish had retired to the hills, and Mahomet,
after the customary sacrifice, evacuated the city on the fourth day. The
people was edified by his devotion; the hostile chiefs were awed, or
divided, or seduced; and both Kaled and Amrou, the future conquerors of

Syria and Egypt, most seasonably deserted the sinking cause of idolatry.
The power of Mahomet was increased by the submission of the Arabian
tribes; ten thousand soldiers were assembled for the conquest of Mecca; and
the idolaters, the weaker party, were easily convicted of violating the truce.
Enthusiasm and discipline impelled the march, and preserved the secret till
the blaze of ten thousand fires proclaimed to the astonished Koreish the
design, the approach, and the irresistible force of the enemy. The haughty
Abu Sophian presented the keys of the city, admired the variety of arms and
ensigns that passed before him in review; observed that the son of Abdallah
had acquired a mighty kingdom, and confessed, under the cimeter of Omar,
that he was the apostle of the true God. The return of Marius and Scylla was
stained with the blood of the Romans: the revenge of Mahomet was
stimulated by religious zeal, and his injured followers were eager to execute
or to prevent the order of a massacre. Instead of indulging their passions
and his own, 139 the victorious exile forgave the guilt, and united the
factions, of Mecca. His troops, in three divisions, marched into the city:
eight-and-twenty of the inhabitants were slain by the sword of Caled;
eleven men and six women were proscribed by the sentence of Mahomet;
but he blamed the cruelty of his lieutenant; and several of the most
obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives to his clemency or
contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his feet. “What mercy
can you expect from the man whom you have wronged?” “We confide in
the generosity of our kinsman.” “And you shall not confide in vain: begone!
you are safe, you are free” The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by
the profession of Islam; and after an exile of seven years, the fugitive
missionary was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his native country.
140 But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba were ignominiously
broken: the house of God was purified and adorned: as an example to future
times, the apostle again fulfilled the duties of a pilgrim; and a perpetual law
was enacted that no unbeliever should dare to set his foot on the territory of
the holy city. 141
138 (return)
[ The successive steps of the reduction of Mecca are related
by Abulfeda (p. 84-87, 97-100, 102-111) and Gagnier, (tom.
ii. p. 202-245, 309-322, tom. iii. p. 1-58,) Elmacin, (Hist.
Saracen. p. 8, 9, 10,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 103.)]
1381 (return)
[ This peaceful entrance into Mecca took place, according to
the treaty the following year. Weil, p. 202—M. 1845.]

139 (return)
[ After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of Voltaire
imagines and perpetuates the most horrid crimes. The poet
confesses, that he is not supported by the truth of history,
and can only allege, que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au
nom de Dieu, est capable de tout, (Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom.
xv. p. 282.) The maxim is neither charitable nor philosophic;
and some reverence is surely due to the fame of heroes and
the religion of nations. I am informed that a Turkish
ambassador at Paris was much scandalized at the
representation of this tragedy.]
140 (return)
[ The Mahometan doctors still dispute, whether Mecca was
reduced by force or consent, (Abulfeda, p. 107, et Gagnier
ad locum;) and this verbal controversy is of as much
moment as our own about William the Conqueror.]
141 (return)
[ In excluding the Christians from the peninsula of Arabia,
the province of Hejaz, or the navigation of the Red Sea,
Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 166) and Reland
(Dissertat. Miscell. tom. iii. p. 61) are more rigid than the
Mussulmans themselves. The Christians are received
without scruple into the ports of Mocha, and even of Gedda;
and it is only the city and precincts of Mecca that are
inaccessible to the profane, (Niebuhr, Description de
l’Arabie, p. 308, 309, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 205, 248,
&c.)]
The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of the
Arabian tribes; 142 who, according to the vicissitudes of fortune, had
obeyed, or disregarded, the eloquence or the arms of the prophet.
Indifference for rites and opinions still marks the character of the
Bedoweens; and they might accept, as loosely as they hold, the doctrine of
the Koran. Yet an obstinate remnant still adhered to the religion and liberty
of their ancestors, and the war of Honain derived a proper appellation from
the idols, whom Mahomet had vowed to destroy, and whom the
confederates of Tayef had sworn to defend. 143 Four thousand Pagans
advanced with secrecy and speed to surprise the conqueror: they pitied and
despised the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended on the
wishes, and perhaps the aid, of a people who had so lately renounced their
gods, and bowed beneath the yoke of their enemy. The banners of Medina
and Mecca were displayed by the prophet; a crowd of Bedoweens increased
the strength or numbers of the army, and twelve thousand Mussulmans
entertained a rash and sinful presumption of their invincible strength. They

descended without precaution into the valley of Honain: the heights had
been occupied by the archers and slingers of the confederates; their
numbers were oppressed, their discipline was confounded, their courage
was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at their impending destruction. The
prophet, on his white mule, was encompassed by the enemies: he attempted
to rush against their spears in search of a glorious death: ten of his faithful
companions interposed their weapons and their breasts; three of these fell
dead at his feet: “O my brethren,” he repeatedly cried, with sorrow and
indignation, “I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of truth! O man,
stand fast in the faith! O God, send down thy succor!” His uncle Abbas,
who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled in the loudness of his voice, made
the valley resound with the recital of the gifts and promises of God: the
flying Moslems returned from all sides to the holy standard; and Mahomet
observed with pleasure that the furnace was again rekindled: his conduct
and example restored the battle, and he animated his victorious troops to
inflict a merciless revenge on the authors of their shame. From the field of
Honain, he marched without delay to the siege of Tayef, sixty miles to the
south-east of Mecca, a fortress of strength, whose fertile lands produce the
fruits of Syria in the midst of the Arabian desert. A friendly tribe, instructed
(I know not how) in the art of sieges, supplied him with a train of battering-
rams and military engines, with a body of five hundred artificers. But it was
in vain that he offered freedom to the slaves of Tayef; that he violated his
own laws by the extirpation of the fruit-trees; that the ground was opened
by the miners; that the breach was assaulted by the troops. After a siege of
twenty-days, the prophet sounded a retreat; but he retreated with a song of
devout triumph, and affected to pray for the repentance and safety of the
unbelieving city. The spoils of this fortunate expedition amounted to six
thousand captives, twenty-four thousand camels, forty thousand sheep, and
four thousand ounces of silver: a tribe who had fought at Hoinan redeemed
their prisoners by the sacrifice of their idols; but Mahomet compensated the
loss, by resigning to the soldiers his fifth of the plunder, and wished, for
their sake, that he possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in
the province of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection of the
Koreish, he endeavored to cut out their tongues, (his own expression,) and
to secure their attachment by a superior measure of liberality: Abu Sophian
alone was presented with three hundred camels and twenty ounces of silver;
and Mecca was sincerely converted to the profitable religion of the Koran.

142 (return)
[ Abulfeda, p. 112-115. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 67-88.
D’Herbelot, Mohammed.]
143 (return)
[ The siege of Tayef, division of the spoil, &c., are related by
Abulfeda (p. 117-123) and Gagnier, (tom. iii. p. 88-111.) It is
Al Jannabi who mentions the engines and engineers of the
tribe of Daws. The fertile spot of Tayef was supposed to be a
piece of the land of Syria detached and dropped in the
general deluge]
The fugitives and auxiliaries complained, that they who had borne the
burden were neglected in the season of victory “Alas!” replied their artful
leader, “suffer me to conciliate these recent enemies, these doubtful
proselytes, by the gift of some perishable goods. To your guard I intrust my
life and fortunes. You are the companions of my exile, of my kingdom, of
my paradise.” He was followed by the deputies of Tayef, who dreaded the
repetition of a siege. “Grant us, O apostle of God! a truce of three years,
with the toleration of our ancient worship.” “Not a month, not an hour.”
“Excuse us at least from the obligation of prayer.” “Without prayer religion
is of no avail.” They submitted in silence: their temples were demolished,
and the same sentence of destruction was executed on all the idols of
Arabia. His lieutenants, on the shores of the Red Sea, the Ocean, and the
Gulf of Persia, were saluted by the acclamations of a faithful people; and
the ambassadors, who knelt before the throne of Medina, were as numerous
(says the Arabian proverb) as the dates that fall from the maturity of a palm-
tree. The nation submitted to the God and the sceptre of Mahomet: the
opprobrious name of tribute was abolished: the spontaneous or reluctant
oblations of arms and tithes were applied to the service of religion; and one
hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the last pilgrimage
of the apostle. 144
144 (return)
[ The last conquests and pilgrimage of Mahomet are
contained in Abulfeda, (p. 121, 133,) Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.
119-219,) Elmacin, (p. 10, 11,) Abulpharagius, (p. 103.) The
ixth of the Hegira was styled the Year of Embassies,
(Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 121.)]
When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he entertained,
at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahomet, who invited the princes and
nations of the earth to the profession of Islam. On this foundation the zeal
of the Arabians has supposed the secret conversion of the Christian

emperor: the vanity of the Greeks has feigned a personal visit of the prince
of Medina, who accepted from the royal bounty a rich domain, and a secure
retreat, in the province of Syria. 145 But the friendship of Heraclius and
Mahomet was of short continuance: the new religion had inflamed rather
than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the Saracens, and the murder of an
envoy afforded a decent pretence for invading, with three thousand soldiers,
the territory of Palestine, that extends to the eastward of the Jordan. The
holy banner was intrusted to Zeid; and such was the discipline or
enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the noblest chiefs served without
reluctance under the slave of the prophet. On the event of his decease,
Jaafar and Abdallah were successively substituted to the command; and if
the three should perish in the war, the troops were authorized to elect their
general. The three leaders were slain in the battle of Muta, 146 the first
military action, which tried the valor of the Moslems against a foreign
enemy. Zeid fell, like a soldier, in the foremost ranks: the death of Jaafar
was heroic and memorable: he lost his right hand: he shifted the standard to
his left: the left was severed from his body: he embraced the standard with
his bleeding stumps, till he was transfixed to the ground with fifty
honorable wounds. 1461 “Advance,” cried Abdallah, who stepped into the
vacant place, “advance with confidence: either victory or paradise is our
own.” The lance of a Roman decided the alternative; but the falling
standard was rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca: nine swords were
broken in his hand; and his valor withstood and repulsed the superior
numbers of the Christians. In the nocturnal council of the camp he was
chosen to command: his skilful evolutions of the ensuing day secured either
the victory or the retreat of the Saracens; and Caled is renowned among his
brethren and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the Sword of God.
In the pulpit, Mahomet described, with prophetic rapture, the crowns of the
blessed martyrs; but in private he betrayed the feelings of human nature: he
was surprised as he wept over the daughter of Zeid: “What do I see?” said
the astonished votary. “You see,” replied the apostle, “a friend who is
deploring the loss of his most faithful friend.” After the conquest of Mecca,
the sovereign of Arabia affected to prevent the hostile preparations of
Heraclius; and solemnly proclaimed war against the Romans, without
attempting to disguise the hardships and dangers of the enterprise. 147 The
Moslems were discouraged: they alleged the want of money, or horses, or
provisions; the season of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer:

“Hell is much hotter,” said the indignant prophet. He disdained to compel
their service: but on his return he admonished the most guilty, by an
excommunication of fifty days. Their desertion enhanced the merit of
Abubeker, Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted their lives
and fortunes; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the head of ten thousand
horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful indeed was the distress of the
march: lassitude and thirst were aggravated by the scorching and
pestilential winds of the desert: ten men rode by turns on one camel; and
they were reduced to the shameful necessity of drinking the water from the
belly of that useful animal. In the mid-way, ten days’ journey from Medina
and Damascus, they reposed near the grove and fountain of Tabuc. Beyond
that place Mahomet declined the prosecution of the war: he declared
himself satisfied with the peaceful intentions, he was more probably
daunted by the martial array, of the emperor of the East. But the active and
intrepid Caled spread around the terror of his name; and the prophet
received the submission of the tribes and cities, from the Euphrates to
Ailah, at the head of the Red Sea. To his Christian subjects, Mahomet
readily granted the security of their persons, the freedom of their trade, the
property of their goods, and the toleration of their worship. 148 The
weakness of their Arabian brethren had restrained them from opposing his
ambition; the disciples of Jesus were endeared to the enemy of the Jews;
and it was the interest of a conqueror to propose a fair capitulation to the
most powerful religion of the earth.
145 (return)
[ Compare the bigoted Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p.
232-255) with the no less bigoted Greeks, Theophanes, (p.
276-227,) Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 86,) and Cedrenus, (p.
421.)]
146 (return)
[ For the battle of Muta, and its consequences, see Abulfeda
(p 100-102) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p. 327-343.).]
1461 (return)
[ To console the afflicted relatives of his kinsman Jauffer, he
(Mahomet) represented that, in Paradise, in exchange for the
arms which he had lost, he had been furnished with a pair of
wings, resplendent with the blushing glories of the ruby, and
with which he was become the inseparable companion of the
archangal Gabriel, in his volitations through the regions of
eternal bliss. Hence, in the catalogue of the martyrs, he has
been denominated Jauffer teyaur, the winged Jauffer. Price,

Chronological Retrospect of Mohammedan History, vol. i. p.
5.-M.]
147 (return)
[ The expedition of Tabuc is recorded by our ordinary
historians Abulfeda (Vit. Moham. p. 123-127) and Gagnier,
(Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 147-163: ) but we have the
advantage of appealing to the original evidence of the
Koran, (c. 9, p. 154, 165,) with Sale’s learned and rational
notes.]
148 (return)
[ The Diploma securitatis Ailensibus is attested by Ahmed
Ben Joseph, and the author Libri Splendorum, (Gagnier,
Not. ad Abulfe dam, p. 125;) but Abulfeda himself, as well
as Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 11,) though he owns
Mahomet’s regard for the Christians, (p 13,) only mentions
peace and tribute. In the year 1630, Sionita published at
Paris the text and version of Mahomet’s patent in favor of
the Christians; which was admitted and reprobated by the
opposite taste of Salmasius and Grotius, (Bayle, Mahomet,
Rem. Aa.) Hottinger doubts of its authenticity, (Hist. Orient.
p. 237;) Renaudot urges the consent of the Mohametans,
(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 169;) but Mosheim (Hist. Eccles. p.
244) shows the futility of their opinion and inclines to
believe it spurious. Yet Abulpharagius quotes the impostor’s
treaty with the Nestorian patriarch, (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom. ii. p. 418;) but Abulpharagius was primate of
the Jacobites.]
Till the age of sixty-three years, the strength of Mahomet was equal to
the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His epileptic fits, an
absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an object of pity rather than
abhorrence; 149 but he seriously believed that he was poisoned at Chaibar
by the revenge of a Jewish female. 150 During four years, the health of the
prophet declined; his infirmities increased; but his mortal disease was a
fever of fourteen days, which deprived him by intervals of the use of
reason. As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he edified his brethren
by the humility of his virtue or penitence. “If there be any man,” said the
apostle from the pulpit, “whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own
back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a
Mussulman? let him proclaim my thoughts in the face of the congregation.
Has any one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall
compensate the principal and the interest of the debt.” “Yes,” replied a
voice from the crowd, “I am entitled to three drams of silver.” Mahomet
heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor for

accusing him in this world rather than at the day of judgment. He beheld
with temperate firmness the approach of death; enfranchised his slaves
(seventeen men, as they are named, and eleven women;) minutely directed
the order of his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his weeping
friends, on whom he bestowed the benediction of peace. Till the third day
before his death, he regularly performed the function of public prayer: the
choice of Abubeker to supply his place, appeared to mark that ancient and
faithful friend as his successor in the sacerdotal and regal office; but he
prudently declined the risk and envy of a more explicit nomination. At a
moment when his faculties were visibly impaired, he called for pen and ink
to write, or, more properly, to dictate, a divine book, the sum and
accomplishment of all his revelations: a dispute arose in the chamber,
whether he should be allowed to supersede the authority of the Koran; and
the prophet was forced to reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples.
If the slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his wives and
companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his family, and to the last
moments of his life, the dignity 1501 of an apostle, and the faith of an
enthusiast; described the visits of Gabriel, who bade an everlasting farewell
to the earth, and expressed his lively confidence, not only of the mercy, but
of the favor, of the Supreme Being. In a familiar discourse he had
mentioned his special prerogative, that the angel of death was not allowed
to take his soul till he had respectfully asked the permission of the prophet.
The request was granted; and Mahomet immediately fell into the agony of
his dissolution: his head was reclined on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved
of all his wives; he fainted with the violence of pain; recovering his spirits,
he raised his eyes towards the roof of the house, and, with a steady look,
though a faltering voice, uttered the last broken, though articulate, words:
“O God!..... pardon my sins....... Yes, ...... I come,...... among my fellow-
citizens on high;” and thus peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the
floor. An expedition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful
event; the army halted at the gates of Medina; the chiefs were assembled
round their dying master. The city, more especially the house, of the
prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow of silent despair: fanaticism
alone could suggest a ray of hope and consolation. “How can he be dead,
our witness, our intercessor, our mediator, with God? By God he is not
dead: like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily
will he return to his faithful people.” The evidence of sense was

disregarded; and Omar, unsheathing his cimeter, threatened to strike off the
heads of the infidels, who should dare to affirm that the prophet was no
more. The tumult was appeased by the weight and moderation of Abubeker.
“Is it Mahomet,” said he to Omar and the multitude, “or the God of
Mahomet, whom you worship? The God of Mahomet liveth forever; but the
apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and according to his own prediction, he
has experienced the common fate of mortality.” He was piously interred by
the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot on which he expired:
151 Medina has been sanctified by the death and burial of Mahomet; and
the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often turn aside from the way, to bow, in
voluntary devotion, 152 before the simple tomb of the prophet. 153
149 (return)
[ The epilepsy, or falling-sickness, of Mahomet is asserted
by Theophanes, Zonaras, and the rest of the Greeks; and is
greedily swallowed by the gross bigotry of Hottinger, (Hist.
Orient. p. 10, 11,) Prideaux, (Life of Mahomet, p. 12,) and
Maracci, (tom. ii. Alcoran, p. 762, 763.) The titles (the
wrapped-up, the covered) of two chapters of the Koran, (73,
74) can hardly be strained to such an interpretation: the
silence, the ignorance of the Mahometan commentators, is
more conclusive than the most peremptory denial; and the
charitable side is espoused by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
tom. i. p. 301,) Gagnier, (ad Abulfedam, p. 9. Vie de
Mahomet, tom. i. p. 118,) and Sale, (Koran, p. 469-474.) *
Note: Dr Weil believes in the epilepsy, and adduces strong
evidence for it; and surely it may be believed, in perfect
charity; and that the prophet’s visions were connected, as
they appear to have been, with these fits. I have little doubt
that he saw and believed these visions, and visions they
were. Weil, p. 43.—M. 1845.]
150 (return)
[ This poison (more ignominious since it was offered as a
test of his prophetic knowledge) is frankly confessed by his
zealous votaries, Abulfeda (p. 92) and Al Jannabi, (apud
Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 286-288.)]
1501 (return)
[ Major Price, who writes with the authority of one widely
conversant with the original sources of Eastern knowledge,
and in a very candid tone, takes a very different view of the
prophet’s death. “In tracing the circumstances of
Mahommed’s illness, we look in vain for any proofs of that
meek and heroic firmness which might be expected to
dignify and embellish the last moments of the apostle of
God. On some occasions he betrayed such want of fortitude,
such marks of childish impatience, as are in general to be
found in men only of the most ordinary stamp; and such as

extorted from his wife Ayesha, in particular, the sarcastic
remark, that in herself, or any of her family, a similar
demeanor would long since have incurred his severe
displeasure. * * * He said that the acuteness and violence of
his sufferings were necessarily in the proportion of those
honors with which it had ever pleased the hand of
Omnipotence to distinguish its peculiar favorites.” Price,
vol. i. p. 13.—M]
151 (return)
[ The Greeks and Latins have invented and propagated the
vulgar and ridiculous story, that Mahomet’s iron tomb is
suspended in the air at Mecca, (Laonicus Chalcondyles, de
Rebus Turcicis, l. iii. p. 66,) by the action of equal and
potent loadstones, (Dictionnaire de Bayle, Mahomet, Rem.
Ee. Ff.) Without any philosophical inquiries, it may suffice,
that, 1. The prophet was not buried at Mecca; and, 2. That
his tomb at Medina, which has been visited by millions, is
placed on the ground, (Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. ii. c. 19,
p. 209-211. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 263-268.)
* Note: According to the testimony of all the Eastern
authors, Mahomet died on Monday the 12th Reby 1st, in the
year 11 of the Hegira, which answers in reality to the 8th
June, 632, of J. C. We find in Ockley (Hist. of Saracens) that
it was on Monday the 6th June, 632. This is a mistake; for
the 6th June of that year was a Saturday, not a Monday; the
8th June, therefore, was a Monday. It is easy to discover that
the lunar year, in this calculation has been confounded with
the solar. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 186.—M.]
152 (return)
[ Al Jannabi enumerates (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 372-
391) the multifarious duties of a pilgrim who visits the
tombs of the prophet and his companions; and the learned
casuist decides, that this act of devotion is nearest in
obligation and merit to a divine precept. The doctors are
divided which, of Mecca or Medina, be the most excellent,
(p. 391-394.)]
153 (return)
[ The last sickness, death, and burial of Mahomet, are
described by Abulfeda and Gagnier, (Vit. Moham. p. 133-
142. —Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 220-271.) The most
private and interesting circumstances were originally
received from Ayesha, Ali, the sons of Abbas, &c.; and as
they dwelt at Medina, and survived the prophet many years,
they might repeat the pious tale to a second or third
generation of pilgrims.]
At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be expected,
that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide whether the
title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary

man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task
would still be difficult, and the success uncertain: at the distance of twelve
centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of religious
incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting
resemblance would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the
preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty
revolution appears to have been endowed with a pious and contemplative
disposition: so soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want,
he avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty he
lived with innocence, and would have died without a name. The unity of
God is an idea most congenial to nature and reason; and a slight
conversation with the Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and
detest the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart
the doctrine of salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and
error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object, would
convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm suggestions of
the understanding or the fancy would be felt as the inspirations of Heaven;
the labor of thought would expire in rapture and vision; and the inward
sensation, the invisible monitor, would be described with the form and
attributes of an angel of God. 154 From enthusiasm to imposture, the step is
perilous and slippery: the daemon of Socrates 155 affords a memorable
instance, how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may
deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle
state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud. Charity may believe that the
original motives of Mahomet were those of pure and genuine benevolence;
but a human missionary is incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers
who reject his claims despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might
forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies of God;
the stern passions of pride and revenge were kindled in the bosom of
Mahomet, and he sighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the destruction of
the rebels whom he had condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice
of Medina, transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into
the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated by the example of the
saints; and the same God who afflicts a sinful world with pestilence and
earthquakes, might inspire for their conversion or chastisement the valor of
his servants. In the exercise of political government, he was compelled to
abate of the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the

prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the vices of
mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use of fraud and perfidy,
of cruelty and injustice, were often subservient to the propagation of the
faith; and Mahomet commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews
and idolaters who had escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition of
such acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually stained; and
the influence of such pernicious habits would be poorly compensated by the
practice of the personal and social virtues which are necessary to maintain
the reputation of a prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last
years, ambition was the ruling passion; and a politician will suspect, that he
secretly smiled (the victorious impostor!) at the enthusiasm of his youth,
and the credulity of his proselytes. 156 A philosopher will observe, that
their credulity and his success would tend more strongly to fortify the
assurance of his divine mission, that his interest and religion were
inseparably connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the
persuasion, that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the obligation of
positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige of his native innocence,
the sins of Mahomet may be allowed as an evidence of his sincerity. In the
support of truth, the arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal;
and he would have started at the foulness of the means, had he not been
satisfied of the importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or a
priest, I can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity; and the
decree of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the mothers should never
be separated from their children, may suspend, or moderate, the censure of
the historian. 157
154 (return)
[ The Christians, rashly enough, have assigned to Mahomet
a tame pigeon, that seemed to descend from heaven and
whisper in his ear. As this pretended miracle is urged by
Grotius, (de Veritate Religionis Christianae,) his Arabic
translator, the learned Pocock, inquired of him the names of
his authors; and Grotius confessed, that it is unknown to the
Mahometans themselves. Lest it should provoke their
indignation and laughter, the pious lie is suppressed in the
Arabic version; but it has maintained an edifying place in
the numerous editions of the Latin text, (Pocock, Specimen,
Hist. Arabum, p. 186, 187. Reland, de Religion. Moham. l.
ii. c. 39, p. 259-262.)]
155 (return)
[ (Plato, in Apolog. Socrat. c. 19, p. 121, 122, edit. Fischer.)
The familiar examples, which Socrates urges in his Dialogue

with Theages, (Platon. Opera, tom. i. p. 128, 129, edit. Hen.
Stephan.) are beyond the reach of human foresight; and the
divine inspiration of the philosopher is clearly taught in the
Memorabilia of Xenophon. The ideas of the most rational
Platonists are expressed by Cicero, (de Divinat. i. 54,) and in
the xivth and xvth Dissertations of Maximus of Tyre, (p.
153-172, edit. Davis.)]
156 (return)
[ In some passage of his voluminous writings, Voltaire
compares the prophet, in his old age, to a fakir, “qui detache
la chaine de son cou pour en donner sur les oreilles a ses
confreres.”]
157 (return)
[ Gagnier relates, with the same impartial pen, this humane
law of the prophet, and the murders of Caab, and Sophian,
which he prompted and approved, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii.
p. 69, 97, 208.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part VII.
The good sense of Mahomet 158 despised the pomp of royalty: the
apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family: he kindled the
fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended with his own hands his
shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining the penance and merit of a
hermit, he observed, without effort or vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab
and a soldier. On solemn occasions he feasted his companions with rustic
and hospitable plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks would elapse
without a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The interdiction of
wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was appeased with a
sparing allowance of barley-bread: he delighted in the taste of milk and
honey; but his ordinary food consisted of dates and water. Perfumes and
women were the two sensual enjoyments which his nature required, and his
religion did not forbid; and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his
devotion was increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate
inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion has been
noticed by the writers of antiquity. 159 Their incontinence was regulated by
the civil and religious laws of the Koran: their incestuous alliances were
blamed; the boundless license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate
wives or concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably
determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery was
condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex, was punished
with a hundred stripes. 160 Such were the calm and rational precepts of the
legislator: but in his private conduct, Mahomet indulged the appetites of a
man, and abused the claims of a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him
from the laws which he had imposed on his nation: the female sex, without
reserve, was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative excited
the envy, rather than the scandal, the veneration, rather than the envy, of the
devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven hundred wives and three

hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of
the Arabian, who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven
are enumerated who occupied at Medina their separate apartments round
the house of the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal
society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting only
Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. She was doubtless a virgin, since
Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the premature ripeness of the
climate) when she was only nine years of age. The youth, the beauty, the
spirit of Ayesha, gave her a superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted
by the prophet; and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long
revered as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous and
indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left behind; and in the
morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a man. The temper of Mahomet
was inclined to jealousy; but a divine revelation assured him of her
innocence: he chastised her accusers, and published a law of domestic
peace, that no woman should be condemned unless four male witnesses had
seen her in the act of adultery. 161 In his adventures with Zeineb, the wife
of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet forgot
the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his freedman and
adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the beauty of Zeineb, and burst
forth into an ejaculation of devotion and desire. The servile, or grateful,
freedman understood the hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of
his benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and scandal,
the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the deed, to annul the
adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle for distrusting the indulgence of
his God. One of his wives, Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on
her own bed, in the embraces of his Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy
and forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of Mary.
Both parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again descended with a
chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his oath, and to exhort him freely
to enjoy his captives and concubines, without listening to the clamors of his
wives. In a solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to
fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were satiated,
he summoned to his presence his eleven wives, reproached their
disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened them with a sentence of
divorce, both in this world and in the next; a dreadful sentence, since those
who had ascended the bed of the prophet were forever excluded from the

hope of a second marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be
palliated by the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; 162 he united
the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam: and the apostle might
rival the thirteenth labor 163 of the Grecian Hercules. 164 A more serious
and decent excuse may be drawn from his fidelity to Cadijah. During the
twenty-four years of their marriage, her youthful husband abstained from
the right of polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron
was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, he placed her in
the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of Moses, the mother of
Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. “Was she not old?”
said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty; “has not God given
you a better in her place?” “No, by God,” said Mahomet, with an effusion
of honest gratitude, “there never can be a better! She believed in me when
men despised me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and persecuted
by the world.” 165
158 (return)
[ For the domestic life of Mahomet, consult Gagnier, and the
corresponding chapters of Abulfeda; for his diet, (tom. iii. p.
285-288;) his children, (p. 189, 289;) his wives, (p. 290-
303;) his marriage with Zeineb, (tom. ii. p. 152-160;) his
amour with Mary, (p. 303-309;) the false accusation of
Ayesha, (p. 186-199.) The most original evidence of the
three last transactions is contained in the xxivth, xxxiiid, and
lxvith chapters of the Koran, with Sale’s Commentary.
Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 80-90) and Maracci
(Prodrom. Alcoran, part iv. p. 49-59) have maliciously
exaggerated the frailties of Mahomet.]
159 (return)
[ Incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in Venerem uterque
solvitur sexus, (Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 4.)]
160 (return)
[ Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p. 133-137) has recapitulated
the laws of marriage, divorce, &c.; and the curious reader of
Selden’s Uror Hebraica will recognize many Jewish
ordinances.]
161 (return)
[ In a memorable case, the Caliph Omar decided that all
presumptive evidence was of no avail; and that all the four
witnesses must have actually seen stylum in pyxide,
(Abulfedae Annales Moslemici, p. 71, vers. Reiske.)]
162 (return)
[ Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri habent,
inesse jacteret: ita ut unica hora posset undecim foeminis
satisfacere, ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus

Paschasius, c. 2., (Maracci, Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55.
See likewise Observations de Belon, l. iii. c. 10, fol. 179,
recto.) Al Jannabi (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 287) records his own
testimony, that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigor; and
Abulfeda mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed the
body after his death, “O propheta, certe penis tuus coelum
versus erectus est,” in Vit. Mohammed, p. 140.]
163 (return)
[ I borrow the style of a father of the church, (Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108.)]
164 (return)
[ The common and most glorious legend includes, in a single
night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin daughters
of Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274. Pausanias, l.
ix. p. 763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.) But Athenaeus
allows seven nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p. 556,) and
Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of Hercules,
who was then no more than eighteen years of age, (Bibliot. l.
ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332.)]
165 (return)
[ Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum Notis
Gagnier]
In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion and
empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous posterity and a
lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were fatally disappointed. The
virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of mature age and approved fertility,
were barren in his potent embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in their
infancy. Mary, his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the birth of
Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his grave; but
he sustained with firmness the raillery of his enemies, and checked the
adulation or credulity of the Moslems, by the assurance that an eclipse of
the sun was not occasioned by the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise
given him four daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his
disciples: the three eldest died before their father; but Fatima, who
possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her cousin Ali, and
the mother of an illustrious progeny. The merit and misfortunes of Ali and
his descendants will lead me to anticipate, in this place, the series of the
Saracen caliphs, a title which describes the commanders of the faithful as
the vicars and successors of the apostle of God. 166
166 (return)
[ This outline of the Arabian history is drawn from the
Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (under the names of
Aboubecre, Omar Othman, Ali, &c.;) from the Annals of

Abulfeda, Abulpharagius, and Elmacin, (under the proper
years of the Hegira,) and especially from Ockley’s History
of the Saracens, (vol. i. p. 1-10, 115-122, 229, 249, 363-372,
378-391, and almost the whole of the second volume.) Yet
we should weigh with caution the traditions of the hostile
sects; a stream which becomes still more muddy as it flows
farther from the source. Sir John Chardin has too faithfully
copied the fables and errors of the modern Persians,
(Voyages, tom. ii. p. 235-250, &c.)]
The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him above the
rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the vacant throne of
Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own right, the chief of the family
of Hashem, and the hereditary prince or guardian of the city and temple of
Mecca. The light of prophecy was extinct; but the husband of Fatima might
expect the inheritance and blessing of her father: the Arabs had sometimes
been patient of a female reign; and the two grandsons of the prophet had
often been fondled in his lap, and shown in his pulpit as the hope of his age,
and the chief of the youth of paradise. The first of the true believers might
aspire to march before them in this world and in the next; and if some were
of a graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never
outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications of a poet, a
soldier, and a saint: his wisdom still breathes in a collection of moral and
religious sayings; 167 and every antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or
of the sword, was subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the first hour
of his mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never forsaken
by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his brother, his
vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses. The son of Abu Taleb
was afterwards reproached for neglecting to secure his interest by a solemn
declaration of his right, which would have silenced all competition, and
sealed his succession by the decrees of Heaven. But the unsuspecting hero
confided in himself: the jealousy of empire, and perhaps the fear of
opposition, might suspend the resolutions of Mahomet; and the bed of
sickness was besieged by the artful Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker, and
the enemy of Ali. 1671
167 (return)
[ Ockley (at the end of his second volume) has given an
English version of 169 sentences, which he ascribes, with
some hesitation, to Ali, the son of Abu Taleb. His preface is
colored by the enthusiasm of a translator; yet these sentences
delineate a characteristic, though dark, picture of human
life.]

1671 (return)
[ Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite account
of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the time
when he composed his History. Major Price, writing from
Persian authorities, affords us the advantage of comparing
throughout what may be fairly considered the Shiite Version.
The glory of Ali is the constant burden of their strain. He
was destined, and, according to some accounts, designated,
for the caliphate by the prophet; but while the others were
fiercely pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the
remains of Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested
magnanimity, on each separate occasion, declined the
sceptre, and gave the noble example of obedience to the
appointed caliph. He is described, in retirement, on the
throne, and in the field of battle, as transcendently pious,
magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost his empire
through his excess of virtue and love for the faithful his life
through his confidence in God, and submission to the
decrees of fate. Compare the curious account of this apathy
in Price, chapter ii. It is to be regretted, I must add, that
Major Price has contented himself with quoting the names of
the Persian works which he follows, without any account of
their character, age, and authority.—M.]
The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the people;
and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on the choice of his
successor. The hereditary claim and lofty spirit of Ali were offensive to an
aristocracy of elders, desirous of bestowing and resuming the sceptre by a
free and frequent election: the Koreish could never be reconciled to the
proud preeminence of the line of Hashem; the ancient discord of the tribes
was rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and the auxiliaries of Medina asserted
their respective merits; and the rash proposal of choosing two independent
caliphs would have crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the
Saracens. The tumult was appeased by the disinterested resolution of Omar,
who, suddenly renouncing his own pretensions, stretched forth his hand,
and declared himself the first subject of the mild and venerable Abubeker.
1672 The urgency of the moment, and the acquiescence of the people,
might excuse this illegal and precipitate measure; but Omar himself
confessed from the pulpit, that if any Mulsulman should hereafter presume
to anticipate the suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected
would be worthy of death. 168 After the simple inauguration of Abubeker,
he was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of Arabia: the
Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and their chief, in his own
house, maintained, above six months, a sullen and independent reserve;

without listening to the threats of Omar, who attempted to consume with
fire the habitation of the daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima, and
the decline of his party, subdued the indignant spirit of Ali: he
condescended to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his excuse
of the necessity of preventing their common enemies, and wisely rejected
his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the Arabians. After a
reign of two years, the aged caliph was summoned by the angel of death. In
his testament, with the tacit approbation of his companions, he bequeathed
the sceptre to the firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. “I have no occasion,”
said the modest candidate, “for the place.” “But the place has occasion for
you,” replied Abubeker; who expired with a fervent prayer, that the God of
Mahomet would ratify his choice, and direct the Mussulmans in the way of
concord and obedience. The prayer was not ineffectual, since Ali himself, in
a life of privacy and prayer, professed to revere the superior worth and
dignity of his rival; who comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most
flattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth year of his reign,
Omar received a mortal wound from the hand of an assassin: he rejected
with equal impartiality the names of his son and of Ali, refused to load his
conscience with the sins of his successor, and devolved on six of the most
respectable companions the arduous task of electing a commander of the
faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again blamed by his friends 169 for
submitting his right to the judgment of men, for recognizing their
jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six electors. He might have
obtained their suffrage, had he deigned to promise a strict and servile
conformity, not only to the Koran and tradition, but likewise to the
determinations of two seniors. 170 With these limitations, Othman, the
secretary of Mahomet, accepted the government; nor was it till after the
third caliph, twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, that Ali was
invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal office. The
manners of the Arabians retained their primitive simplicity, and the son of
Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity of this world. At the hour of
prayer, he repaired to the mosch of Medina, clothed in a thin cotton gown, a
coarse turban on his head, his slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other,
instead of a walking-staff. The companions of the prophet, and the chiefs of
the tribes, saluted their new sovereign, and gave him their right hands as a
sign of fealty and allegiance.

1672 (return)
[ Abubeker, the father of the virgin Ayesha. St. Martin, vol.
XL, p. 88—M.]
168 (return)
[ Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 5, 6,) from an
Arabian Ms., represents Ayesha as adverse to the
substitution of her father in the place of the apostle. This
fact, so improbable in itself, is unnoticed by Abulfeda, Al
Jannabi, and Al Bochari, the last of whom quotes the
tradition of Ayesha herself, (Vit. Mohammed, p. 136 Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 236.)]
169 (return)
[ Particularly by his friend and cousin Abdallah, the son of
Abbas, who died A.D. 687, with the title of grand doctor of
the Moslems. In Abulfeda he recapitulates the important
occasions in which Ali had neglected his salutary advice, (p.
76, vers. Reiske;) and concludes, (p. 85,) O princeps
fidelium, absque controversia tu quidem vere fortis es, at
inops boni consilii, et rerum gerendarum parum callens.]
170 (return)
[ I suspect that the two seniors (Abulpharagius, p. 115.
Ockley, tom. i. p. 371,) may signify not two actual
counsellors, but his two predecessors, Abubeker and Omar.]
The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually
confined to the times and countries in which they have been agitated. But
the religious discord of the friends and enemies of Ali has been renewed in
every age of the Hegira, and is still maintained in the immortal hatred of the
Persians and Turks. 171 The former, who are branded with the appellation
of Shiites or sectaries, have enriched the Mahometan creed with a new
article of faith; and if Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the
vicar, of God. In their private converse, in their public worship, they bitterly
execrate the three usurpers who intercepted his indefeasible right to the
dignity of Imam and Caliph; and the name of Omar expresses in their
tongue the perfect accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. 172 The
Sonnites, who are supported by the general consent and orthodox tradition
of the Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at least a more decent,
opinion. They respect the memory of Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the
holy and legitimate successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and
most humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that the
order of succession was determined by the decrees of sanctity. 173 An
historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand unshaken by
superstition, will calmly pronounce that their manners were alike pure and

exemplary; that their zeal was fervent, and probably sincere; and that, in the
midst of riches and power, their lives were devoted to the practice of moral
and religious duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar, the
prudence of the first, the severity of the second, maintained the peace and
prosperity of their reigns. The feeble temper and declining age of Othman
were incapable of sustaining the weight of conquest and empire. He chose,
and he was deceived; he trusted, and he was betrayed: the most deserving of
the faithful became useless or hostile to his government, and his lavish
bounty was productive only of ingratitude and discontent. The spirit of
discord went forth in the provinces: their deputies assembled at Medina;
and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics who disclaimed the yoke of
subordination and reason, were confounded among the free-born Arabs,
who demanded the redress of their wrongs and the punishment of their
oppressors. From Cufa, from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of the
desert, they rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina, and
despatched a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring him to execute
justice, or to descend from the throne. His repentance began to disarm and
disperse the insurgents; but their fury was rekindled by the arts of his
enemies; and the forgery of a perfidious secretary was contrived to blast his
reputation and precipitate his fall. The caliph had lost the only guard of his
predecessors, the esteem and confidence of the Moslems: during a siege of
six weeks his water and provisions were intercepted, and the feeble gates of
the palace were protected only by the scruples of the more timorous rebels.
Forsaken by those who had abused his simplicity, the hopeless and
venerable caliph expected the approach of death: the brother of Ayesha
marched at the head of the assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his
lap, was pierced with a multitude of wounds. 1731 A tumultuous anarchy of
five days was appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his refusal would have
provoked a general massacre. In this painful situation he supported the
becoming pride of the chief of the Hashemites; declared that he had rather
serve than reign; rebuked the presumption of the strangers; and required the
formal, if not the voluntary, assent of the chiefs of the nation. He has never
been accused of prompting the assassin of Omar; though Persia indiscreetly
celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The quarrel between Othman and
his subjects was assuaged by the early mediation of Ali; and Hassan, the
eldest of his sons, was insulted and wounded in the defence of the caliph.
Yet it is doubtful whether the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere in

his opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he enjoyed the benefit of
their crime. The temptation was indeed of such magnitude as might stagger
and corrupt the most obdurate virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer
aspired to the barren sceptre of Arabia; the Saracens had been victorious in
the East and West; and the wealthy kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt
were the patrimony of the commander of the faithful.
171 (return)
[ The schism of the Persians is explained by all our travellers
of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth volumes of
their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior merit, has
the advantage of writing so late as the year 1764, (Voyages
en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208-233,) since the ineffectual
attempt of Nadir Shah to change the religion of the nation,
(see his Persian History translated into French by Sir
William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144-155.)]
172 (return)
[ Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a saint.
When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry,
“May this arrow go to the heart of Omar!” (Voyages de
Chardin, tom. ii. p 239, 240, 259, &c.)]
173 (return)
[ This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a creed
illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and a
Sonnite argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
tom. ii. p. 230.) The practice of cursing the memory of Ali
was abolished, after forty years, by the Ommiades
themselves, (D’Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are few among
the Turks who presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages
de Chardin, tom. iv. p. 46.)]
1731 (return)
[ Compare Price, p. 180.—M.]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its
Inhabitants.—Part VIII.
A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial activity of
Ali; but in a mature age, after a long experience of mankind, he still
betrayed in his conduct the rashness and indiscretion of youth. 1732 In the
first days of his reign, he neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the
doubtful allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the
Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from thence to
Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and usurped the government of Irak,
or Assyria, which they had vainly solicited as the reward of their services.
The mask of patriotism is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies;
and the enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded
vengeance for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha,
the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her life, an
implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity of Fatima. The most
reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the mother of the faithful should
expose in a camp her person and character; 1733 but the superstitious
crowd was confident that her presence would sanctify the justice, and
assure the success, of their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his
loyal Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph
encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under the walls
of Bassora. 1734 Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, 1735 were slain in the
first battle that stained with civil blood the arms of the Moslems. 1736 After
passing through the ranks to animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post
amidst the dangers of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who
held the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and the
cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and darts like the
quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive sustained with firmness the
reproaches of the conqueror, and was speedily dismissed to her proper
station at the tomb of Mahomet, with the respect and tenderness that was

still due to the widow of the apostle. 1737 After this victory, which was
styled the Day of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable
adversary; against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed
the title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of Syria
and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage of Thapsacus,
the plain of Siffin 174 extends along the western bank of the Euphrates. On
this spacious and level theatre, the two competitors waged a desultory war
of one hundred and ten days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes,
the loss of Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five,
thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with the names of
five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder under the standard of
Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the lawful caliph displayed a superior
character of valor and humanity. 1741 His troops were strictly enjoined to
await the first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to
respect the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female captives. He
generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems by a single combat;
but his trembling rival declined the challenge as a sentence of inevitable
death. The ranks of the Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who
was mounted on a piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his
ponderous and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted
the Allah Acbar, “God is victorious!” and in the tumult of a nocturnal battle,
he was heard to repeat four hundred times that tremendous exclamation.
The prince of Damascus already meditated his flight; but the certain victory
was snatched from the grasp of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of
his troops. Their conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of
the Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was
compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious compromise. He
retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa; his party was discouraged;
the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen, and of Egypt, were subdued or
seduced by his crafty rival; and the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed
against the three chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of
Mahomet. In the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts
discoursed of the disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that
the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the viceroy of
Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the assassins
chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired
to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first

mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his
seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the
lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from the hand
of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his age, and mercifully
recommended to his children, that they would despatch the murderer by a
single stroke. 1742 The sepulchre of Ali 175 was concealed from the tyrants
of the house of Ommiyah; 176 but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a
temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Cufa. 177 Many thousands of the
Shiites repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and the desert
is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem
their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca.
1732 (return)
[ Ali had determined to supersede all the lieutenants in the
different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare, on the conduct
of Telha and Zobeir, p. 193—M.]
1733 (return)
[ See the very curious circumstances which took place
before and during her flight. Price, p. 196.—M.]
1734 (return)
[ The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true believers is
strikingly described by Major Price’s Persian historians.
Price, p. 222.—M.]
1735 (return)
[ See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir. He was
murdered after having abandoned the army of the insurgents.
Telha was about to do the same, when his leg was pierced
with an arrow by one of his own party The wound was
mortal. Price, p. 222.—M.]
1736 (return)
[ According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the Benni
Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p. 225.)—
M]
1737 (return)
[ She was escorted by a guard of females disguised as
soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much
gratified by the delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been
offended by the familiar approach of so many men. Price, p.
229.—M.]
174 (return)
[ The plain of Siffin is determined by D’Anville (l’Euphrate
et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of
Procopius.]
1741 (return)
[ The Shiite authors have preserved a noble instance of Ali’s

magnanimity. The superior generalship of Moawiyah had cut
off the army of Ali from the Euphrates; his soldiers were
perishing from want of water. Ali sent a message to his rival
to request free access to the river, declaring that under the
same circumstances he would not allow any of the faithful,
though his adversaries, to perish from thirst. After some
debate, Moawiyah determined to avail himself of the
advantage of his situation, and to reject the demand of Ali.
The soldiers of Ali became desperate; forced their way
through that part of the hostile army which commanded the
river, and in their turn entirely cut off the troops of
Moawiyah from the water. Moawiyah was reduced to make
the same supplication to Ali. The generous caliph instantly
complied; and both armies, with their cattle enjoyed free and
unmolested access to the river. Price, vol. i. p. 268, 272—
M.]
1742 (return)
[ His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia and
Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or seven
months, in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p 375.—
M.]
175 (return)
[ Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the different opinions
concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the sepulchre of
Cufa, hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium
celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount
annually to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living, (tom.
ii. p. 208, 209.)]
176 (return)
[ All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat (A.D. 977,
D’Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743, Hist.
de Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of
Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a
bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the
distance of many a mile.]
177 (return)
[ The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the ruins of
Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad, is
of the size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed
Hosein, larger and more populous, is at the distance of thirty
miles.]
The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his children; and
the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads of his religion and
empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had been fierce and obstinate; his
conversion was tardy and reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity
and interest; he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the
time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the family of

Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the cruel Henda, was
dignified, in his early youth, with the office or title of secretary of the
prophet: the judgment of Omar intrusted him with the government of Syria;
and he administered that important province above forty years, either in a
subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valor and
liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and moderation: a grateful
people was attached to their benefactor; and the victorious Moslems were
enriched with the spoils of Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing
the assassins of Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The
bloody shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the emir
deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand Syrians were
engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and revenge. Amrou, the
conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the first who saluted the new
monarch, and divulged the dangerous secret, that the Arabian caliphs might
be created elsewhere than in the city of the prophet. 178 The policy of
Moawiyah eluded the valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he
negotiated the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above
or below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh from
the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his grandfather. The
aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally crowned by the important change
of an elective to an hereditary kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or
fanaticism attested the reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina
refused the oath of fidelity; but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted
with vigor and address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute youth, was
proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the successor of the
apostle of God.
178 (return)
[ I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and expression
of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano posse
imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]
A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons of Ali. In
serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a dish of scalding broth
on his master: the heedless wretch fell prostrate, to deprecate his
punishment, and repeated a verse of the Koran: “Paradise is for those who
command their anger: “—“I am not angry: “—“and for those who pardon
offences: “—“I pardon your offence: “—“and for those who return good for
evil: “—”I give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver.” With an
equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan, inherited a

remnant of his father’s spirit, and served with honor against the Christians
in the siege of Constantinople. The primogeniture of the line of Hashem,
and the holy character of grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person,
and he was at liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of
Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never deigned
to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa to Medina, of
one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who professed their attachment
to his cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so soon as he should
appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest
friends, he resolved to trust his person and family in the hands of a
perfidious people. He traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue
of women and children; but as he approached the confines of Irak he was
alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country, and suspected either
the defection or ruin of his party. His fears were just: Obeidollah, the
governor of Cufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and
Hosein, in the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five
thousand horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the
river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the desert, that had defied
the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in the fidelity of the tribe
of Tai, which would have armed ten thousand warriors in his defence.
In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the option of
three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed to return to Medina,
or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted
to the presence of Yezid. But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant,
were stern and absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either
submit as a captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or
expect the consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied he, “to
terrify me with death?” And, during the short respite of a night, 1781 he
prepared with calm and solemn resignation to encounter his fate. He
checked the lamentations of his sister Fatima, who deplored the impending
ruin of his house. “Our trust,” said Hosein, “is in God alone. All things,
both in heaven and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My
brother, my father, my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman
has an example in the prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult their
safety by a timely flight: they unanimously refused to desert or survive their
beloved master: and their courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the
assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on

horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: his
generous band of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot;
but their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a deep
trench which they had filled with lighted fagots, according to the practice of
the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance, and one of their chiefs
deserted, with thirty followers, to claim the partnership of inevitable death.
In every close onset, or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was
invincible; but the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with
a cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain; a truce
was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at length
expired by the death of the last companions of Hosein. Alone, weary, and
wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent. As he tasted a drop of
water, he was pierced in the mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two
beautiful youths, were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they
were full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the
dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured
the general of the Cufians, that he would not suffer Hosein to be murdered
before his eyes: a tear trickled down his venerable beard; and the boldest of
his soldiers fell back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among
them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful, reproached
their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with three-and-
thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had trampled on his body,
they carried his head to the castle of Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah
struck him on the mouth with a cane: “Alas,” exclaimed an aged
Mussulman, “on these lips have I seen the lips of the apostle of God!” In a
distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken
the sympathy of the coldest reader. 179 1791 On the annual festival of his
martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his Persian votaries
abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of sorrow and indignation. 180
1781 (return)
[ According to Major Price’s authorities a much longer time
elapsed (p. 198 &c.)—M.]
179 (return)
[ I have abridged the interesting narrative of Ockley, (tom. ii.
p. 170-231.) It is long and minute: but the pathetic, almost
always, consists in the detail of little circumstances.]
1791 (return)
[ The account of Hosein’s death, in the Persian Tarikh Tebry,
is much longer; in some circumstances, more pathetic, than

that of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family, after his
defenders were all slain, perished in succession before his
eyes. They had been cut off from the water, and suffered all
the agonies of thirst. His eldest son, Ally Akbar, after ten
different assaults on the enemy, in each of which he slew
two or three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat
and thirst. “His father arose, and introducing his own tongue
within the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored
to alleviate his sufferings by the only means of which his
enemies had not yet been able to deprive him.” Ally was
slain and cut to pieces in his sight: this wrung from him his
first and only cry; then it was that his sister Zeyneb rushed
from the tent. The rest, including his nephew, fell in
succession. Hosein’s horse was wounded—he fell to the
ground. The hour of prayer, between noon and sunset, had
arrived; the Imaun began the religious duties:—as Hosein
prayed, he heard the cries of his infant child Abdallah, only
twelve months old. The child was, at his desire, placed on
his bosom: as he wept over it, it was transfixed by an arrow.
Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates: as he slaked his
burning thirst, his mouth was pierced by an arrow: he drank
his own blood. Wounded in four-and-thirty places, he still
gallantly resisted. A soldier named Zeraiah gave the fatal
wound: his head was cut off by Ziliousheng. Price, p. 402,
410.—M.]
180 (return)
[ Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208,
&c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has dared
to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres
are in the hands of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the
devotion of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of
Hosein is amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller
whom I have often praised.]
When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains to the throne
of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the enmity of a popular
and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond the hope of reconciliation.
But Yezid preferred the councils of mercy; and the mourning family was
honorably dismissed to mingle their tears with their kindred at Medina. The
glory of martyrdom superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve
imams, 181 or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and
the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without arms, or
treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the veneration of the
people, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning caliphs: their tombs, at
Mecca or Medina, on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the province of
Chorasan, are still visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were

often the pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints despised
the pomp of the world: submitted to the will of God and the injustice of
man; and devoted their innocent lives to the study and practice of religion.
The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or
the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He
concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of his death
are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still lives, and will appear
before the day of judgment to overthrow the tyranny of Dejal, or the
Antichrist. 182 In the lapse of two or three centuries, the posterity of Abbas,
the uncle of Mahomet, had multiplied to the number of thirty-three
thousand: 183 the race of Ali might be equally prolific: the meanest
individual was above the first and greatest of princes; and the most eminent
were supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their adverse fortune,
and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire, allowed an ample scope for
every bold and artful imposture, who claimed affinity with the holy seed:
the sceptre of the Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in
Egypt and Syria; 184 of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia;
185 has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under their
reigns it might be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of their birth; and one
of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an indiscreet question by drawing his
cimeter: “This,” said Moez, “is my pedigree; and these,” casting a handful
of gold to his soldiers,—“and these are my kindred and my children.” In the
various conditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or merchants, or
beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious descendants of Mahomet and
Ali is honored with the appellation of sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the
Ottoman empire they are distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend
from the treasury; are judged only by their chief; and, however debased by
fortune or character, still assert the proud preeminence of their birth. A
family of three hundred persons, the pure and orthodox branch of the caliph
Hassan, is preserved without taint or suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina, and still retains, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, the
custody of the temple, and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame
and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian race, and the ancient blood
of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty of the kings of the earth. 186
181 (return)
[ The general article of Imam, in D’Herbelot’s Bibliotheque,
will indicate the succession; and the lives of the twelve are
given under their respective names.]

182 (return)
[ The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but the
Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every
religion, (Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the
royal stable of Ispahan, two horses were always kept
saddled, one for the Mahadi himself, the other for his
lieutenant, Jesus the son of Mary.]
183 (return)
[ In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See D’Herbelot,
p. 146]
184 (return)
[ D’Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites disgraced
them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced their
genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial
Abulfeda allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were
owned by many, qui absque controversia genuini sunt
Alidarum, homines propaginum suae gentis exacte callentes.
He quotes some lines from the celebrated Scherif or Rahdi,
Egone humilitatem induam in terris hostium? (I suspect him
to be an Edrissite of Sicily,) cum in Aegypto sit Chalifa de
gente Alii, quocum ego communem habeo patrem et
vindicem.]
185 (return)
[ The kings of Persia in the last century are descended from
Sheik Sefi, a saint of the xivth century, and through him,
from Moussa Cassem, the son of Hosein, the son of Ali,
(Olearius, p. 957. Chardin, tom. iii. p. 288.) But I cannot
trace the intermediate degrees in any genuine or fabulous
pedigree. If they were truly Fatimites, they might draw their
origin from the princes of Mazanderan, who reigned in the
ixth century, (D’Herbelot, p. 96.)]
186 (return)
[ The present state of the family of Mahomet and Ali is most
accurately described by Demetrius Cantemir (Hist. of the
Othmae Empire, p. 94) and Niebuhr, (Description de
l’Arabie, p. 9-16, 317 &c.) It is much to be lamented, that
the Danish traveller was unable to purchase the chronicles of
Arabia.]
The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his success has,
perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration. Are we surprised that a
multitude of proselytes should embrace the doctrine and the passions of an
eloquent fanatic? In the heresies of the church, the same seduction has been
tried and repeated from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers.
Does it seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and the
sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by his victorious
arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of the East, a hundred

fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser origin, surmounted more
formidable obstacles, and filled a larger scope of empire and conquest.
Mahomet was alike instructed to preach and to fight; and the union of these
opposite qualities, while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success:
the operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually
acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to their irresistible power. His
voice invited the Arabs to freedom and victory, to arms and rapine, to the
indulgence of their darling passions in this world and the other: the
restraints which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the
prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the only objection
to his success was his rational creed of the unity and perfections of God. It
is not the propagation, but the permanency, of his religion, that deserves our
wonder: the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca
and Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, by the
Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. If the Christian
apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might
possibly inquire the name of the Deity who is worshipped with such
mysterious rites in that magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they
would experience less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to
peruse the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox commentators
on their own writings and the words of their Master. But the Turkish dome
of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendor and size, represents the humble
tabernacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans
have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their
faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. “I
believe in one God, and Mahomet the apostle of God,” is the simple and
invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never
been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of the prophet have never
transgressed the measure of human virtue; and his living precepts have
restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and
religion. The votaries of Ali have, indeed, consecrated the memory of their
hero, his wife, and his children; and some of the Persian doctors pretend
that the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the Imams; but their
superstition is universally condemned by the Sonnites; and their impiety has
afforded a seasonable warning against the worship of saints and martyrs.
The metaphysical questions on the attributes of God, and the liberty of man,
have been agitated in the schools of the Mahometans, as well as in those of

the Christians; but among the former they have never engaged the passions
of the people, or disturbed the tranquillity of the state. The cause of this
important difference may be found in the separation or union of the regal
and sacerdotal characters. It was the interest of the caliphs, the successors
of the prophet and commanders of the faithful, to repress and discourage all
religious innovations: the order, the discipline, the temporal and spiritual
ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the Moslems; and the sages of the
law are the guides of their conscience and the oracles of their faith. From
the Atlantic to the Ganges, the Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental
code, not only of theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the
laws which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are guarded by
the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of God. This religious
servitude is attended with some practical disadvantage; the illiterate
legislator had been often misled by his own prejudices and those of his
country; and the institutions of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the
wealth and numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the
Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and substitutes a
dexterous interpretation more apposite to the principles of equity, and the
manners and policy of the times.
His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is the last
consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most bitter or most bigoted
of his Christian or Jewish foes will surely allow that he assumed a false
commission to inculcate a salutary doctrine, less perfect only than their
own. He piously supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity
of their prior revolutions, the virtues and miracles of their founders. The
idols of Arabia were broken before the throne of God; the blood of human
victims was expiated by prayer, and fasting, and alms, the laudable or
innocent arts of devotion; and his rewards and punishments of a future life
were painted by the images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal
generation. Mahomet was, perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and
political system for the use of his countrymen: but he breathed among the
faithful a spirit of charity and friendship; recommended the practice of the
social virtues; and checked, by his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge,
and the oppression of widows and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in
faith and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in domestic
quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign enemy. Had the impulse
been less powerful, Arabia, free at home and formidable abroad, might have

flourished under a succession of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was
lost by the extent and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were
scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled with the
blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of three caliphs, the
throne was transported from Medina to the valley of Damascus and the
banks of the Tigris; the holy cities were violated by impious war; Arabia
was ruled by the rod of a subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens
of the desert, awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old
and solitary independence. 187
187 (return)
[ The writers of the Modern Universal History (vols. i. and
ii.) have compiled, in 850 folio pages, the life of Mahomet
and the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage of
reading, and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet,
notwithstanding their high-sounding boasts, I cannot find,
after the conclusion of my work, that they have afforded me
much (if any) additional information. The dull mass is not
quickened by a spark of philosophy or taste; and the
compilers indulge the criticism of acrimonious bigotry
against Boulainvilliers, Sale, Gagnier, and all who have
treated Mahomet with favor, or even justice.]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.
The Conquest Of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, And Spain, By
The Arabs Or Saracens.—Empire Of The Caliphs, Or Successors
Of Mahomet.—State Of The Christians, &c., Under Their
Government.

The revolution of Arabia had not changed the character of the Arabs: the
death of Mahomet was the signal of independence; and the hasty structure
of his power and religion tottered to its foundations. A small and faithful
band of his primitive disciples had listened to his eloquence, and shared his
distress; had fled with the apostle from the persecution of Mecca, or had
received the fugitive in the walls of Medina. The increasing myriads, who
acknowledged Mahomet as their king and prophet, had been compelled by
his arms, or allured by his prosperity. The polytheists were confounded by
the simple idea of a solitary and invisible God; the pride of the Christians
and Jews disdained the yoke of a mortal and contemporary legislator. The
habits of faith and obedience were not sufficiently confirmed; and many of
the new converts regretted the venerable antiquity of the law of Moses, or
the rites and mysteries of the Catholic church; or the idols, the sacrifices,
the joyous festivals, of their Pagan ancestors. The jarring interests and
hereditary feuds of the Arabian tribes had not yet coalesced in a system of
union and subordination; and the Barbarians were impatient of the mildest
and most salutary laws that curbed their passions, or violated their customs.
They submitted with reluctance to the religious precepts of the Koran, the
abstinence from wine, the fast of the Ramadan, and the daily repetition of
five prayers; and the alms and tithes, which were collected for the treasury
of Medina, could be distinguished only by a name from the payment of a
perpetual and ignominious tribute. The example of Mahomet had excited a
spirit of fanaticism or imposture, and several of his rivals presumed to
imitate the conduct, and defy the authority, of the living prophet. At the
head of the fugitives and auxiliaries, the first caliph was reduced to the
cities of Mecca, Medina, and Tayef; and perhaps the Koreish would have

restored the idols of the Caaba, if their levity had not been checked by a
seasonable reproof. “Ye men of Mecca, will ye be the last to embrace, and
the first to abandon, the religion of Islam?” After exhorting the Moslems to
confide in the aid of God and his apostle, Abubeker resolved, by a vigorous
attack, to prevent the junction of the rebels. The women and children were
safely lodged in the cavities of the mountains: the warriors, marching under
eleven banners, diffused the terror of their arms; and the appearance of a
military force revived and confirmed the loyalty of the faithful. The
inconstant tribes accepted, with humble repentance, the duties of prayer,
and fasting, and alms; and, after some examples of success and severity, the
most daring apostates fell prostrate before the sword of the Lord and of
Caled. In the fertile province of Yemanah, 1 between the Red Sea and the
Gulf of Persia, in a city not inferior to Medina itself, a powerful chief (his
name was Moseilama) had assumed the character of a prophet, and the tribe
of Hanifa listened to his voice. A female prophetess 1111 was attracted by
his reputation; the decencies of words and actions were spurned by these
favorites of Heaven; 2 and they employed several days in mystic and
amorous converse. An obscure sentence of his Koran, or book, is yet extant;
3 and in the pride of his mission, Moseilama condescended to offer a
partition of the earth. The proposal was answered by Mahomet with
contempt; but the rapid progress of the impostor awakened the fears of his
successor: forty thousand Moslems were assembled under the standard of
Caled; and the existence of their faith was resigned to the event of a
decisive battle. 3111 In the first action they were repulsed by the loss of
twelve hundred men; but the skill and perseverance of their general
prevailed; their defeat was avenged by the slaughter of ten thousand
infidels; and Moseilama himself was pierced by an Aethiopian slave with
the same javelin which had mortally wounded the uncle of Mahomet. The
various rebels of Arabia without a chief or a cause, were speedily
suppressed by the power and discipline of the rising monarchy; and the
whole nation again professed, and more steadfastly held, the religion of the
Koran. The ambition of the caliphs provided an immediate exercise for the
restless spirit of the Saracens: their valor was united in the prosecution of a
holy war; and their enthusiasm was equally confirmed by opposition and
victory.
1 (return)
[ See the description of the city and country of Al Yamanah,
in Abulfeda, Descript. Arabiae, p. 60, 61. In the xiiith

century, there were some ruins, and a few palms; but in the
present century, the same ground is occupied by the visions
and arms of a modern prophet, whose tenets are imperfectly
known, (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 296-302.)]
1111 (return)
[ This extraordinary woman was a Christian; she was at the
head of a numerous and flourishing sect; Moseilama
professed to recognize her inspiration. In a personal
interview he proposed their marriage and the union of their
sects. The handsome person, the impassioned eloquence, and
the arts of Moseilama, triumphed over the virtue of the
prophetesa who was rejected with scorn by her lover, and by
her notorious unchastity ost her influence with her own
followers. Gibbon, with that propensity too common,
especially in his later volumes, has selected only the grosser
part of this singular adventure.—M.]
2 (return)
[ The first salutation may be transcribed, but cannot be
translated. It was thus that Moseilama said or sung:—

Surge tandem itaque strenue permolenda; nam stratus tibi thorus est.
Aut in propatulo tentorio si velis, aut in abditiore cubiculo si malis;
Aut supinam te humi exporrectam fustigabo, si velis,
Aut si malis manibus pedibusque nixam.
Aut si velis ejus (Priapi) gemino triente aut si malis totus veniam.
Imo, totus venito, O Apostole Dei, clamabat foemina.
Id ipsum, dicebat
Moseilama, mihi quoque suggessit Deus.

The prophetess Segjah, after the fall of her lover, returned to
idolatry; but under the reign of Moawiyah, she became a
Mussulman, and died at Bassora, (Abulfeda, Annal. vers.
Reiske, p. 63.)]
3 (return)
[ See this text, which demonstrates a God from the work of
generation, in Abulpharagius (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p.
13, and Dynast. p. 103) and Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 63.)]
3111 (return)
[ Compare a long account of this battle in Price, p. 42.—M.]
From the rapid conquests of the Saracens a presumption will naturally
arise, that the caliphs 311 commanded in person the armies of the faithful,
and sought the crown of martyrdom in the foremost ranks of the battle. The
courage of Abubeker, 4 Omar, 5 and Othman, 6 had indeed been tried in the
persecution and wars of the prophet; and the personal assurance of paradise
must have taught them to despise the pleasures and dangers of the present
world. But they ascended the throne in a venerable or mature age; and
esteemed the domestic cares of religion and justice the most important

duties of a sovereign. Except the presence of Omar at the siege of
Jerusalem, their longest expeditions were the frequent pilgrimage from
Medina to Mecca; and they calmly received the tidings of victory as they
prayed or preached before the sepulchre of the prophet. The austere and
frugal measure of their lives was the effect of virtue or habit, and the pride
of their simplicity insulted the vain magnificence of the kings of the earth.
When Abubeker assumed the office of caliph, he enjoined his daughter
Ayesha to take a strict account of his private patrimony, that it might be
evident whether he were enriched or impoverished by the service of the
state. He thought himself entitled to a stipend of three pieces of gold, with
the sufficient maintenance of a single camel and a black slave; but on the
Friday of each week he distributed the residue of his own and the public
money, first to the most worthy, and then to the most indigent, of the
Moslems. The remains of his wealth, a coarse garment, and five pieces of
gold, were delivered to his successor, who lamented with a modest sigh his
own inability to equal such an admirable model. Yet the abstinence and
humility of Omar were not inferior to the virtues of Abubeker: his food
consisted of barley bread or dates; his drink was water; he preached in a
gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places; and the Persian satrap, who
paid his homage to the conqueror, found him asleep among the beggars on
the steps of the mosch of Medina. Oeeconomy is the source of liberality,
and the increase of the revenue enabled Omar to establish a just and
perpetual reward for the past and present services of the faithful. Careless of
his own emolument, he assigned to Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, the first
and most ample allowance of twenty-five thousand drachms or pieces of
silver. Five thousand were allotted to each of the aged warriors, the relics of
the field of Beder; and the last and meanest of the companions of Mahomet
was distinguished by the annual reward of three thousand pieces. One
thousand was the stipend of the veterans who had fought in the first battles
against the Greeks and Persians; and the decreasing pay, as low as fifty
pieces of silver, was adapted to the respective merit and seniority of the
soldiers of Omar. Under his reign, and that of his predecessor, the
conquerors of the East were the trusty servants of God and the people; the
mass of the public treasure was consecrated to the expenses of peace and
war; a prudent mixture of justice and bounty maintained the discipline of
the Saracens, and they united, by a rare felicity, the despatch and execution
of despotism with the equal and frugal maxims of a republican government.

The heroic courage of Ali, 7 the consummate prudence of Moawiyah, 8
excited the emulation of their subjects; and the talents which had been
exercised in the school of civil discord were more usefully applied to
propagate the faith and dominion of the prophet. In the sloth and vanity of
the palace of Damascus, the succeeding princes of the house of Ommiyah
were alike destitute of the qualifications of statesmen and of saints. 9 Yet
the spoils of unknown nations were continually laid at the foot of their
throne, and the uniform ascent of the Arabian greatness must be ascribed to
the spirit of the nation rather than the abilities of their chiefs. A large
deduction must be allowed for the weakness of their enemies. The birth of
Mahomet was fortunately placed in the most degenerate and disorderly
period of the Persians, the Romans, and the Barbarians of Europe: the
empires of Trajan, or even of Constantine or Charlemagne, would have
repelled the assault of the naked Saracens, and the torrent of fanaticism
might have been obscurely lost in the sands of Arabia.
311 (return)
[ In Arabic, “successors.” V. Hammer Geschichte der Assas.
p. 14—M.]
4 (return)
[ His reign in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 251. Elmacin, p. 18.
Abulpharagius, p. 108. Abulfeda, p. 60. D’Herbelot, p. 58.]
5 (return)
[ His reign in Eutychius, p. 264. Elmacin, p. 24.
Abulpharagius, p. 110. Abulfeda, p. 66. D’Herbelot, p. 686.]
6 (return)
[ His reign in Eutychius, p. 323. Elmacin, p. 36.
Abulpharagius, p. 115. Abulfeda, p. 75. D’Herbelot, p. 695.]
7 (return)
[ His reign in Eutychius, p. 343. Elmacin, p. 51.
Abulpharagius, p. 117. Abulfeda, p. 83. D’Herbelot, p. 89.]
8 (return)
[ His reign in Eutychius, p. 344. Elmacin, p. 54.
Abulpharagius, p. 123. Abulfeda, p. 101. D’Herbelot, p.
586.]
9 (return)
[ Their reigns in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 360-395. Elmacin, p.
59-108. Abulpharagius, Dynast. ix. p. 124-139. Abulfeda, p.
111-141. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 691, and the
particular articles of the Ommiades.]
In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim of the
senate to confine their councils and legions to a single war, and completely
to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the hostilities of a second.

These timid maxims of policy were disdained by the magnanimity or
enthusiasm of the Arabian caliphs. With the same vigor and success they
invaded the successors of Augustus and those of Artaxerxes; and the rival
monarchies at the same instant became the prey of an enemy whom they
had been so long accustomed to despise. In the ten years of the
administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his obedience thirty-six
thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand churches or temples of
the unbelievers, and edified fourteen hundred moschs for the exercise of the
religion of Mahomet. One hundred years after his flight from Mecca, the
arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic
Ocean, over the various and distant provinces, which may be comprised
under the names of, I. Persia; II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and, V. Spain.
Under this general division, I shall proceed to unfold these memorable
transactions; despatching with brevity the remote and less interesting
conquests of the East, and reserving a fuller narrative for those domestic
countries which had been included within the pale of the Roman empire.
Yet I must excuse my own defects by a just complaint of the blindness and
insufficiency of my guides. The Greeks, so loquacious in controversy, have
not been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of their enemies. 10 After a
century of ignorance, the first annals of the Mussulmans were collected in a
great measure from the voice of tradition. 11 Among the numerous
productions of Arabic and Persian literature, 12 our interpreters have
selected the imperfect sketches of a more recent age. 13 The art and genius
of history have ever been unknown to the Asiatics; 14 they are ignorant of
the laws of criticism; and our monkish chronicle of the same period may be
compared to their most popular works, which are never vivified by the spirit
of philosophy and freedom.
The Oriental library of a Frenchman 15 would instruct the most learned
mufti of the East; and perhaps the Arabs might not find in a single historian
so clear and comprehensive a narrative of their own exploits as that which
will be deduced in the ensuing sheets.
10 (return)
[ For the viith and viiith century, we have scarcely any
original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the
chronicles of Theophanes (Theophanis Confessoris
Chronographia, Gr. et Lat. cum notis Jacobi Goar. Paris,
1665, in folio) and the Abridgment of Nicephorus,
(Nicephori Patriarchae C. P. Breviarium Historicum, Gr. et
Lat. Paris, 1648, in folio,) who both lived in the beginning of

the ixth century, (see Hanckius de Scriptor. Byzant. p. 200-
246.) Their contemporary, Photius, does not seem to be more
opulent. After praising the style of Nicephorus, he adds, and
only complains of his extreme brevity, (Phot. Bibliot. Cod.
lxvi. p. 100.) Some additions may be gleaned from the more
recent histories of Cedrenus and Zonaras of the xiith
century.]
11 (return)
[ Tabari, or Al Tabari, a native of Taborestan, a famous
Imam of Bagdad, and the Livy of the Arabians, finished his
general history in the year of the Hegira 302, (A.D. 914.) At
the request of his friends, he reduced a work of 30,000
sheets to a more reasonable size. But his Arabic original is
known only by the Persian and Turkish versions. The
Saracenic history of Ebn Amid, or Elmacin, is said to be an
abridgment of the great Tabari, (Ockley’s Hist. of the
Saracens, vol. ii. preface, p. xxxix. and list of authors,
D’Herbelot, p. 866, 870, 1014.)]
12 (return)
[ Besides the list of authors framed by Prideaux, (Life of
Mahomet, p. 179-189,) Ockley, (at the end of his second
volume,) and Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 525-
550,) we find in the Bibliotheque Orientale Tarikh, a
catalogue of two or three hundred histories or chronicles of
the East, of which not more than three or four are older than
Tabari. A lively sketch of Oriental literature is given by
Reiske, (in his Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifae librum
memorialem ad calcem Abulfedae Tabulae Syriae, Lipsiae,
1776;) but his project and the French version of Petit de la
Croix (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i. preface, p. xlv.) have
fallen to the ground.]
13 (return)
[ The particular historians and geographers will be
occasionally introduced. The four following titles represent
the Annals which have guided me in this general narrative.
1. Annales Eutychii, Patriarchoe Alexandrini, ab Edwardo
Pocockio, Oxon. 1656, 2 vols. in 4to. A pompous edition of
an indifferent author, translated by Pocock to gratify the
Presbyterian prejudices of his friend Selden. 2. Historia
Saracenica Georgii Elmacini, opera et studio Thomae
Erpenii, in 4to., Lugd. Batavorum, 1625. He is said to have
hastily translated a corrupt Ms., and his version is often
deficient in style and sense. 3. Historia compendiosa
Dynastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edwardo
Pocockio, in 4to., Oxon. 1663. More useful for the literary
than the civil history of the East. 4. Abulfedoe Annales
Moslemici ad Ann. Hegiroe ccccvi. a Jo. Jac. Reiske, in 4to.,
Lipsioe, 1754. The best of our chronicles, both for the
original and version, yet how far below the name of