Volume 2 — CHAPTER XV THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SICILY 827–1072

Classic Souvenirs of Sicily—Its Great Natural Advantages—It becomes the Stronghold of the Papacy—Invasion of the Arabs—They besiege Syracuse—Strength of that City—Failure of the Enterprise—Capture of Palermo—Rapid Progress of the Moslems—Condition of Italy—Arab Alliance with Naples—Messina taken—Betrayal of Castrogiovanni—Rout of the Greeks near Syracuse—Feuds of the Conquerors—Their Successes in Italy—Second Siege of Syracuse—The City is stormed and destroyed by Ibn-Mohammed—Peril of Rome—Appearance of the Normans in the South of Europe—They invade Sicily—Siege of Palermo—Subjection of the Island—Influence of the Moslems over their Conquerors—General Condition of Sicily—Its Civilization—Palermo and its Environs—Science, Art, and Literature—The Great Work of Edrisi—Arab Occupation of Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta.

The island of Sicily, by reason of its geographical position, its extraordinary fertility, and its commercial advantages, was one of the most renowned and coveted domains of the ancient world. Its situation, near the centre of the Mediterranean, afforded rare facilities for participation in the trade and enjoyment of the culture of those polished nations whose shores were washed by that famous sea. Its soil yielded, with insignificant labor, the choicest products of both the temperate and the torrid zones. Its coast was provided with numerous and commodious harbors. That of Messina permitted vessels of the heaviest tonnage to discharge their cargoes in security at her quays. Those of Syracuse and Palermo were double, for the use of men-of-war and merchantmen, as were the port of Tyre and the Kothon of Carthage. The Phœnicians, at a period far anterior to any mentioned in history, had established and maintained important trading stations at points subsequently marked by the erection of vast and flourishing cities. Doric and Ionic colonists, in their turn, carried thither the elegant luxury and fastidious tastes which distinguished the finished civilization of antiquity. This mysterious island, where were manifested some of the most appalling and inexplicable phenomena of nature, was the home of frightful monsters, the scene of dire enchantments, the inspiration of Homeric fable and mythological legend. Here was the haunt of the dreaded Cyclops. A short distance from its shores were practised the infernal arts of the beauteous but vindictive Circe. Here passed the Argonauts on their triumphant return from Colchis. To the Greek succeeded the Carthaginian, who might assert, with no little show of justice, a claim to the inheritance of his Phœnician ancestors. Next came the mighty and resistless supremacy of Rome. Sicily was one of the first, as it was among the richest, of the provinces early acquired by her arms. It long shared with Egypt the honorable distinction of being one of the granaries of Italy. The great resources of the island in the days of the Republic are indicated by the value of the spoils appropriated by the avarice of a rapacious governor. The corrupt accumulations of Verres, during the course of his magistracy, amounted to forty million sesterces. Besides the money of which he plundered the unfortunate dependents of the Republic are enumerated statues, paintings, bronzes, utensils sacred to the service of the gods, the ornaments of the altars, the costly offerings with which the affectionate gratitude of the pious and the opulent had enriched her magnificent temples. In intellectual advancement Sicily kept well abreast of her enlightened neighbors. The choicest works of the Attic and of the Roman muse were read with delight by the polished society of her cities. The masterpieces of Aristophanes and Terence were enacted with applause in her spacious theatres, resplendent with many colored marbles and decorations of beaten gold. The intimate social and commercial relations maintained with the cities of Magna Græcia aided, in no inconsiderable degree, the development of Sicilian civilization. The citizens of Messina and Palermo could perhaps claim a common origin with the refined inhabitants of Crotona and Tarentum.

Thus had Sicily, by her amalgamation of widely different races and through her political affiliations, inherited all the noblest traditions of antiquity, all the maxims of Oriental philosophy, of Grecian culture, of Phœnician enterprise, and of Roman power. With her history are associated the names of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, of Pyrrhus and Marcellus, of Dionysius and Archimedes. But long before the period of Byzantine degeneracy so fatal to the Empire, her prosperity had greatly declined. Even in the time of the Cæsars the evils of a venal and rapacious administration had been felt in the imposition of onerous taxes, and the consequent and inevitable decay of agriculture. Insurrections were common, and characterized by all the atrocities of anarchy. The harvests were wantonly destroyed. The villas of the Roman nobles, whose extensive domains embraced the larger portion of the arable land, were given to the flames. Bands of robbers roamed at will through the deserted settlements. The cities were not infrequently stormed and plundered. The tillage of the soil was no longer safe or profitable. Extensive tracts of territory, whose extraordinary and varied productiveness had formerly astonished the stranger, were abandoned to pasturage, an unfailing sign of national decadence. The care of the flocks was committed to slaves, whose savage aspect and brutal habits proclaimed their barbarian lineage. Clothed in skins and armed with rude weapons, they were a menace alike to the industrious citizen and the belated wayfarer. No wages or sustenance was bestowed upon these outlaws, who were expected and encouraged to supply by acts of violence the necessaries denied by the neglect and parsimony of their masters. Others, whose ferocious temper and habitual insubordination demanded restraint, labored from early dawn in fetters, and were confined in filthy dungeons during the night. The most shocking crimes were perpetrated with impunity. The spoils which had escaped the robber could not be rescued from the vigilant perquisitions of the farmer of the revenue. The tax upon grain amounted to twenty-five per cent., and the impositions upon articles of commerce and the scanty manufactures which had survived the general destruction of trade and the mechanical arts were apportioned in a corresponding ratio, and were collected with uncompromising severity. With the prevalent insecurity of person and property, maritime enterprise was checked, and the fleets of foreign merchantmen which had once crowded the seaports of the island disappeared. The weak and corrupt government of Constantinople, dominated by eunuchs and disgraced by the political intrigues of ecclesiastics and women, was powerless to correct the disorders of a distant and almost unknown province. Theological disputes and the pleasures of the circus engrossed the attention of the successors of the martial Constantine, whose authority, disputed at home, was often scarcely acknowledged in their insular possessions. The exaggerated perils of the strait, aided perhaps by a knowledge of the impoverished condition of the country, may have deterred the victorious barbarians from any prolonged occupation of Sicily. While they overran the country at different times, they left no traces of their sojourn,—neither colonies, institutions, racial impressions, nor physical peculiarities. But this comparative exemption from the common ruin seems to have been productive of no substantial benefit. The spirit of the people was not adapted either to the requirements of self-government or to the imperious demands of vassalage. They were at once turbulent, rebellious, servile. In the character of the Sicilian of the ninth century, as in that of the Calabrian of modern times, every evil instinct was predominant. The seditious spirit of the peasantry, aided by their proverbial inconstancy, was one of the principal causes which prevented the consolidation of the Mohammedan power.

From being the seat of Grecian civilization, the granary of Rome, the theatre of barbarian license, Sicily had become the nursery of the Papacy. It furnished bold and zealous defenders of the chair of St. Peter. Its opportune contributions replenished the exhausted treasury of the Vatican. There the genius of St. Gregory first laid the foundations of the temporal power of the Holy See. There was situated the richest portion of the possessions of the Roman hierarchy. There were matured political measures which were destined to exercise for generations the talents of the ablest statesmen of Europe. At an early period the popes acquired an important following among the peasantry of the island. The ignorance of the populace, and the eagerness with which it received impressions of the supernatural; the associations derived from the legends of antiquity, many of which, with political foresight, had been bodily appropriated by the Fathers of the Church; the absolution promised, without reserve, for the most heinous offences, had allured thousands upon thousands of proselytes to the gorgeous altars of Rome. The institution of the monastic orders and the vast number of idlers increased tenfold the burdens of an oppressed and impoverished country. It was said that the Benedictines alone possessed nearly half of the island. Convents surrounded with beautiful gardens and supplied with all the requirements of luxury arose on every side. The mountain-caves swarmed with hermits. The miracles performed by holy men and women surpassed in wonder and mystery the achievements of mythological heroes,—the conquerors of Cyclops, the captors of dragons. Martyrs underwent the most exquisite tortures with unshaken constancy. In no other province which recognized the predominance of the Papacy was there greater reverence for ecclesiastical tradition; and, as a legitimate consequence, in no other was prevalent a more marked degree of ignorance in the masses, or a more habitual defiance of the laws of morality and justice by those indebted for their superiority to the influence of the Church. The number of slaves owned by the Holy See and employed upon its estates was enormous. The greater part of its wealth was computed to be derived from their labor and from the traffic in their children. The arts of the confessor secured from the wealthy penitent immense estates and valuable legacies, the reluctant tribute of terror and remorse. These possessions, once in the iron grasp of the sacerdotal order, a master endowed with legal immortality, were never relinquished. The oblations of grateful convalescents enriched the treasuries of chapel and cathedral. Pilgrims flocked in great numbers to those shrines which enjoyed an extensive reputation for sanctity, and whose relics were believed to possess unfailing virtues for the cure of the sick and the relief of the afflicted. A profitable trade was supported at the expense of the superstitious credulity of these devout strangers. Well aware of its importance as an adjunct to their temporal power, and taking advantage of the relations of its parishioners with the Byzantine court, the early bishops of Rome extended every aid to the Sicilian branch of the Catholic hierarchy. It enjoyed peculiar privileges. It was exempted from vexatious impositions. Its legates were received with distinguished courtesy by the papal court. Gregory founded from his private purse seven monasteries in the island. Adrian frequently referred to it as the citadel of the Italian clergy. No portion of the patrimony of St. Peter could boast a priesthood more opulent, more arrogant, more powerful, more corrupt.

At the time of the Moorish invasion Sicily had become thoroughly Byzantine. The glorious traditions of the Greek occupation were forgotten. In Messina alone the style of architecture, the physical characteristics of the people, the comparative purity of language, revealed significant traces of the influence of the most polished nation of antiquity. In no other province subject to Rome had the brutal doctrine of force, the basis of both republican and imperial power, been so sedulously inculcated and applied. The harvests of Sicily aided largely to sustain the idle population of the metropolis of the world. Its commerce and its revenues furnished inexhaustible resources to the venality and peculations of the proconsul. The Roman aristocracy had there its most sumptuous villas, its largest and most productive estates, its most numerous bodies of retainers. It was not unusual for a patrician in the days of the Empire to own twenty thousand slaves.

Byzantine degeneracy had not failed to cast its blight over this, one of the fairest possessions of the emperors of the East. After the reign of Justinian, no attempt was made by the exhausted state, scarcely able to defend its capital, to send colonists to the island. The debased populace, the refuse of a score of nations, ignorant of the very name of patriotism, destitute of every principle of honor or virtue, sank each day still lower in the scale of humanity.

The condition of Italy was even worse. The Lombards had conquered all of that peninsula except the Exarchate of Ravenna. To their dominion had succeeded the contentions of a multitude of insignificant principalities, inflamed with mutual and irreconcilable hostility, united in nothing except jealousy of the papal power. The incredible perfidy and fraud which afterwards became the peculiar attributes of the Italian political system—whose maxims, elaborated by Machiavelli, have excited the wonder and contempt of succeeding ages—had then their origin. The entire country was the scene of perpetual discord, treachery, and intrigue. In the latter the Pope, urged by necessity and inclination alike, bore no insignificant share. The prevalence of such conditions came within a hair’s-breadth of changing, perhaps forever, the political complexion of Europe and the sphere of Christian influence. The feuds of petty rulers were aggravated rather than reconciled in the presence of the common danger. The general anarchy was eminently favorable to foreign conquest. The Lombard princes solicited the aid of the Saracens. The latter profited by every occasion of dissension and enmity. They enlisted with equal facility and disloyalty under the banners of every faction. Twice they ravaged the environs of Rome. At different times they were in the pay of the Holy See. A series of fortunate accidents alone prevented the enthronement of an Arab emir in the Vatican and the transformation of St. Peter’s into a Mohammedan mosque.

The vicinity of Sicily to the main-land of Africa had early suggested to the Saracens the conquest of that island. In the seventh century it had been visited by marauding expeditions from Egypt. Syracuse was stormed in 669, and the treasures of the Roman churches, placed there for security from barbarian attack, were borne away to Alexandria. Before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, and even while the Berber tribes still threatened the security of his outposts, the enterprising Musa—as has already been recounted in these pages—had despatched his son Abdallah upon a predatory expedition among the islands of the Mediterranean. In Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, and Sicily a large quantity of plunder was obtained and carried off by these adventurous freebooters. Other expeditions from time to time, and with varying success for the space of more than a century, followed the example of that organized by Musa. Despite these inroads, amicable relations subsisted, for the most part, between the Byzantine governors of Sicily and the Aghlabite princes of Africa. They despatched embassies, made protestations of mutual attachment, negotiated treaties, exchanged presents. But under all these plausible appearances of peace and friendship there lurked, on the one side, the deadly hatred and ambitious hopes of the fanatic whose creed was sustained by arms, and, on the other, an indefinable dread of inevitable calamity which could not long be averted.

A strong resemblance exists between the historical legends from which are derived our information concerning the Saracen occupations of Spain and Sicily. In both cases a real or pretended injury to female innocence is said to have been the indirect cause of the invasion of the Moslems. In the army of the Byzantine emperor stationed in Sicily was one Euphemius, an officer of high rank, eminent talents, and unquestioned courage, who, having become enamored of a nun, invaded the sanctity of the cloister, carried off the recluse, and, despite her remonstrances, made her his wife. This act of sacrilege, while far from being without precedent in the lawless condition of society under the lax and cruel administration of the Greek emperors, was not in this instance committed by a personage of sufficient authority to enable him to escape the consequences of his rashness. The relatives of the damsel appealed for redress to the Byzantine court, the demand was heeded, and a mandate was despatched by the Emperor to the governor of Sicily to deprive the daring ravisher of his nose, the penalty prescribed by the sanguinary code of Greek jurisprudence for the offence. Euphemius, having learned of the punishment with which he was threatened and relying on his popularity, endeavored to frustrate the execution of the sentence by exciting an insurrection. The enterprise failed through the cowardice and treachery of some of the leading conspirators, and the baffled rebel was compelled to seek refuge among the Saracens of Africa. The reigning sovereign of the Aghlabite dynasty, whose seat of government was at Kairoan, was Ziadet-Allah, a prince of warlike tastes, implacable ferocity, and licentious manners. No sooner had he landed than Euphemius sent messages to the African Sultan, imploring his assistance, and promising that in case it was afforded Sicily should be erected into an Aghlabite principality, evidenced by the payment of tribute and the acknowledgment of supremacy. The offer was tempting to the cupidity and ambition of the Moslem ruler, and the powerful following of the fugitive made its accomplishment apparently a matter of little difficulty. In the mean time, however, envoys had arrived from the Sicilian government charged to remonstrate, in the name of the Emperor, against this encouragement of rebellion and violation of neutrality by a friendly power. Thus harassed by the arguments of the rival emissaries, and weighing the political advantages which might result from the observation of the faith of treaties on the one hand, and from the acquisition of valuable territory and the extension of the spiritual domain of Islam on the other, Ziadet-Allah remained for a long time undecided. In the time of the early khalifs the material benefits accruing from warfare with the infidel—a duty enjoined upon every Moslem—would hardly have been subordinated to a mere question of casuistry. But the condition of the provinces subject to the Aghlabite dynasty, whose throne had recently been shaken by a religious revolution, rendered the cordial acquiescence and co-operation of the discordant elements of African society indispensably requisite in a measure of national moment. The chieftains and nobles were convoked in solemn assembly. The avarice of the soldier, the fanaticism of the dervish, the aspirations of the commander were stimulated by every device of intrigue and by every resource of oratory. The scruples of the conscientious were overcome by quotations from the Koran inculcating the obligation of unremitting hostility to the infidel. A plausible pretext for breaking the treaty was found in the fact that one of its main provisions had already been evaded by the Greeks themselves, who had neglected to liberate certain Moslems who had fallen into their hands. The arguments of those who favored hostilities finally prevailed. The opposition—which had been organized from purely interested motives—disappeared; the assembly, controlled by the skilful arts of the representatives of the government animated by enthusiastic zeal for conquest, declared for immediate action, and the sounds of preparation were soon heard in the city of Susa, whose harbor had been made the rendezvous of the expedition. The supreme command was intrusted to Asad-Ibn-Forat, Kadi of Tunis, a personage more renowned as a jurist and a theologian than as a master of the art of war, and who, like Musa, had already passed the ordinary limit of manly vigor and military ambition. A great force was mustered for the enterprise from every part of Northern Africa. The wild Berbers, whose faith was weak and vacillating except when revived by the prospect of booty, assembled in vast numbers. A fleet of a hundred vessels, exclusive of the squadron of the rebels, was equipped, and sailed from Susa on the thirteenth of June, 827. Three days afterwards the army disembarked at Mazara, which city was at once surrendered by the partisans of Euphemius, who outnumbered the garrison. The imperial army soon appeared, and a bloody engagement took place, in which the great numerical superiority of the Sicilians availed nothing against the desperate valor of the invaders, well aware that there was no refuge for them in case of defeat. The shouts of the Christians mingled with the chants of the soldiers of Islam as they repeated, according to custom, the verses of the Koran; the shock of the Arab cavalry was irresistible, and, their lines once broken, the Sicilians were routed on every side and dispersed in headlong flight. The Moslem victory was complete. The booty was enormous, not the least of it being the slaves who were sent in ship-loads to Africa. Such was the distrust of their allies, that Euphemius and his followers, although constituting a body respectable in numbers, were not permitted to take part in the battle. Neither the remembrance of personal indignity and disappointed ambition, nor the thirst for vengeance cherished by the exiles, was sufficient to remove from the mind of the Moslem general the feeling of suspicion which he entertained for their professions, and the contempt with which he regarded the proverbial duplicity of the Byzantine character.

A garrison having been stationed at Mazara, the Moslems marched on Syracuse. This city, although it had lost much of its former wealth and splendor, was still one of the most important seaports of the Mediterranean. Its ancient circumference of one hundred and eighty stadii—eleven and a half miles—was practically the same as when described by Strabo. A triple line of defences still encompassed it. Almost surrounded by the sea, it possessed two harbors—or rather basins—which afforded not only a safe anchorage for merchant vessels, but excellent means of protection in time of war. As at Carthage, these artificial harbors were supplied with well-appointed dock-yards and arsenals, and constituted the stronghold of the naval power of Sicily. The reverses of fortune it had experienced had not entirely deprived Syracuse of its superb monuments of antiquity. Many of the palaces which antedated the Roman occupation had been preserved. The fortifications which had repelled so many invaders were standing. At every turn the eye was delighted with the view of elegant porticoes and arches, towering columns, vast amphitheatres. In the suburbs were scattered the villas of the nobility, built upon the sites once occupied by the winter homes of those Roman patricians whose extortions had impoverished the island, and whose wealth had enabled them to command the services of the ministers of dissipation and luxury from every quarter of the globe. Strong in its natural situation, the city had been rendered doubly formidable by the skill of the military engineer. Its walls were lofty and of great thickness. Upon the side of the sea the aid of a powerful navy was indispensable to an attacking enemy. Aware of the great strategic value of the place, the imperial government had exercised unusual care in the preservation and repair of its defences. The only obstacle to a successful resistance was the extent of the fortifications, which required a garrison of many thousand soldiers to man them properly. The habitual carelessness and imaginary security of her pleasure-loving citizens had left Syracuse totally unprepared for a siege. At the approach of the Moslems, every expedient was adopted to remedy this culpable neglect. Supplies were hastily collected from the villages and fertile lands in the neighborhood. The precious vessels and furniture of the churches and religious houses were carried into the citadel. From the trembling artisans and laborers, who, with their families, had fled in haste to the city to escape the lances of the Berber cavalry, already scouting in the neighborhood, a numerous but inefficient militia was organized. In order to gain time, the progress of the Moslems was stayed by unprofitable negotiations, and a large sum of money was offered as a condition of their leaving the city unmolested. Euphemius, true to the base instincts of his race, and apparently eager to secure an ignominious distinction among his unprincipled countrymen by the commission of a double treason, secretly exhorted the garrison to a vigorous defence by promises of assistance and by the inculcation of patriotic maxims. The pretexts prompted by Byzantine perfidy could not long impose upon the wily and penetrating Ibn-Forat. His spies revealed the plans of the enemy; the Moslem army broke camp; and a few days afterwards the invaders appeared before the walls.

Notwithstanding their extensive preparations for the campaign, the Saracens were unprovided with the military appliances necessary to make the siege successful. Their engineers had not yet attained that superiority in their profession which subsequently enabled them to rank with the best soldiers of the age. Their great victories had been won, for the most part, by the activity of their operations, and by their intrepid behavior in the face of an enemy rather than by endurance and discipline. The transports were inadequate to an attack by water, which required the services of a fleet of well-built and well-protected galleys. In addition to these disadvantages, the force of Ibn-Forat had been reduced by the establishment of garrisons, by the casualties of battle, by disease, by desertion. A large detachment was constantly detailed to guard the prisoners and the spoil. Entire companies of Berbers, weary of the monotony and restraints of the camp, had abandoned the army after the battle, to indulge in their favorite pastimes of rapine and massacre. Thus hampered, a partial and ineffectual blockade was all that the Moorish general could hope to accomplish. He therefore threw up intrenchments and despatched a messenger to Africa for reinforcements.

It was not long before a more formidable enemy than the Byzantines attacked the camp of the besiegers. The country had been completely stripped of provisions by the foraging parties of both armies. Such supplies as had been overlooked by the Sicilians were wasted or destroyed by the Moors, who began to experience the effects of their improvidence in the sufferings of starvation. The soldiers devoured their horses. But these were not sufficiently numerous to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and the famishing Moslems were driven to the use of unwholesome plants and herbs. A mutiny broke out, which was at once suppressed by the iron will of the undaunted commander, who threatened, in case the mutineers did not return to their duty, to burn his ships. At length reinforcements and an abundant supply of provisions appeared in the camp, and, the spirits of the soldiery having revived, the lines were drawn still closer around the beleaguered city.

The latter had been strengthened by an army of Venetians under the Doge, Justinian Participazus, who had been ordered by the Emperor, Michael the Stammerer, to drive the Moslems from Syracuse. The task, however, proved too arduous for the dignitary, who seems to have been endowed with more conceit than military ability. While their communications by sea were not intercepted, the people of Syracuse were in no danger of famine, but on the land side the city was completely invested. The country was gradually occupied by the Saracens; a large force commanded by the governor of Palermo was decoyed into an ambush and cut to pieces; the prestige of victory tempted many subjects of the Emperor to renounce their allegiance and their faith for the code of Mohammed; and, although no impression had yet been made on the stupendous fortifications, the advantages of the war seemed to be entirely on the side of the Moslems. Disheartened by their enforced inactivity, and harassed by the clamors of the peasantry, who had witnessed from the ramparts the spoliation and ruin of their homes, the Sicilian authorities made overtures for peace, which were disdainfully refused.

But fortune, which had hitherto favored the invader, now deserted his standard. A pestilence, the result of exposure and unwholesome food, decimated the besiegers. Among the first to succumb was the veteran general, whose martial spirit and indomitable energy had been the soul of the enterprise. With him perished the only hand capable of restraining and utilizing the unruly elements which composed the Saracen army. Insubordination and tumult immediately arose. Amidst the confusion, the hostages and the commanders of fortresses and towns subdued by the Moslem arms who were detained as prisoners escaped. Information was at once spread throughout the island of the loss sustained by the enemy and of the demoralized condition of his camp. Confidence and order were not restored by the announcement that Mohammed-Ibn-al-Gewari had, by the suffrages of the soldiery, been raised to the dignity of lieutenant of the Sultan, when it was disclosed that his promotion had been brought about by the enemies of the sovereign; his chief title to their favor being subserviency to a faction whose overthrow had been mainly effected by the courage and address of the deceased commander. The favorable auspices under which the operations of the Moslems had hitherto been conducted no longer encouraged them with the prospect of success. Disease in its most appalling form, aggravated by neglect of the simplest sanitary precautions, stalked through their encampment. In addition to these misfortunes, the kingdom of Ziadet-Allah was harassed by the incursion of a band of Tuscan adventurers, who defeated the Sultan’s troops in a series of encounters and carried their victorious standards almost to the gates of Kairoan. Under these discouraging circumstances it was determined to raise the siege. The troops and baggage were embarked; but just as the fleet was ready to sail, a great squadron, sent by the Emperor to relieve the city, closed the entrance to the harbor. The Moorish army was hastily landed, the supplies and camp equipage were thrown into the sea, and the ships set on fire to avoid their seizure by the enemy. The sick were abandoned to their fate, and the disheartened soldiery, almost without provisions or the means of shelter, took refuge in the mountains, a day’s journey from the scene of their privations and discomfiture. Thus ended the first siege of Syracuse, whose immunity from capture was due more to the strength of its walls and the deficiency of its besiegers in military engines than to the resolution and intrepidity of its defenders. Half a century was to elapse before the cry of the muezzin would be heard from the tower of the cathedral, or the tramp of the Arab squadrons resound through the streets which had witnessed the exploits of Pyrrhus, Agathocles, and Marcellus.

In the elevated and salubrious region where stood the city of Mineo, to which they were led by Euphemius, the Saracens speedily found relief. The plague disappeared. Foraging parties were sent out, which returned with an abundance of supplies. The strength and courage of the despairing Moslems were restored; several fortified places fell into the hands of their flying squadrons, and, finally, they felt themselves strong enough to attempt an enterprise of the greatest importance. Near the interior of the island stood the fortress of Castrogiovanni,—the Castrum-Ennæ of antiquity. It was built upon a rock rising high above a table-land, whose surface, broken and rugged from the effects of volcanic action, resembled in its sharp and undulating ridges the billows of a stormy sea. Upon the summit of the rock once stood a temple dedicated to the worship of the goddess Ceres, the favorite deity of the pagan Sicilians. Every resource of engineering skill had been brought to bear to insure the impregnability of this formidable citadel. Numerous springs supplied the inhabitants with fresh water. With its natural advantages for defence, supplemented thus with all the artifices of human ingenuity, the siege of Castrogiovanni might well have deterred the boldest captain. But, undismayed by their unfortunate experience at Syracuse, the Moslems intrenched themselves before this stronghold. A sally of the Byzantine garrison was repulsed with great carnage. Communication with the surrounding country was cut off. In order publicly to announce the permanence of their occupancy, substantial barracks were raised for the troops, and money bearing the name and device of the Aghlabite dynasty was coined from silver reserved from the share of royal spoil. Once more the Saracens were called upon to pay the last honors to their general, and the army chose as its commander, Zobeir-Ibn-Ghauth. The latter proved no match for the active Theodotus, governor of Castrogiovanni, who craftily intercepted and cut to pieces a foraging detachment, and soon afterwards defeated the Moslems in a pitched battle in which they lost a thousand men. The siege was raised; the invaders retreated in confusion to Mineo; the inhabitants of the smaller fortresses, which the Moslems had occupied on their route, rebelled and massacred the garrisons; the sight of a turbaned horseman was sufficient to infuriate the peasantry of an entire province; and after two years of frightful privation and incessant conflict, the Moslems saw themselves restricted to the isolated fortified towns of Mineo and Mazara, which they themselves had taken without difficulty, and of whose possession they were scarcely sure for a single day in the face of a vindictive and determined enemy.

While the affairs of the invaders had grown desperate, and the speedy abandonment of the island seemed inevitable, fortune, with her proverbial fickleness, once more smiled upon them. A fleet manned by Spanish adventurers and commanded by an experienced officer, Asbagh-Ibn-Wikil, landed supplies and troops which strengthened the position of the despairing Saracens. The Greek emperor, Michael the Stammerer, died, and was succeeded by the weak and cruel Theophilus, who, amidst the pleasures of the Byzantine capital and the indulgence of his savage and perfidious instincts, had neither time nor treasure to devote to the recovery of the most important island of his dominions. The Venetian squadron in the pay of the Emperor, left without co-operation with the land forces, seeing little prospect of victory and still less of plunder, sailed ingloriously away, abandoning the decimated Byzantine army to the tender mercies of the Moorish pirates, who landing on all sides again swarmed over the island.

The civil commotions which had for a time seriously menaced the power of Ziadet-Allah having been quelled, he now felt himself at liberty to afford substantial aid to his subjects in Sicily. An imposing fleet of three hundred ships, transporting an army of twenty thousand men, sailed in the year 830 from the harbors of Africa. A force including such a great variety of nationalities had rarely assembled under the banner of any leader. Every tribe of Berbers and Arabs, from the Nile to the Atlantic, was represented in this motley and turbulent host. Yemenite exiles, refugees from Persia, renegade Greeks, and Spanish Moors of every faction which, in turn, had desolated the most enchanting and fertile provinces of the Peninsula, hastened to enlist in the invading army. The politic Ziadet-Allah offered with success tempting inducements to the enrolment of the Tunisian rebels who had recently disputed his authority; convinced that few of those dangerous subjects who could be prevailed upon to face the pestilential climate of the Sicilian coast and the weapons of the Byzantine veterans would ever return to vex the tranquillity of his empire. This expedition also was placed under the command of Asbagh-Ibn-Wikil, whose former attempt, already mentioned, had been merely in the nature of a reconnoissance. The invading army, despite its formidable appearance, failed to realize the expectations which had been raised by its numbers and its boasted valor. Without discipline, and wholly bent on plunder, its force was consumed in mutinous tumults and predatory excursions. The country, already devastated by the roving squadrons of both nations, was now compelled to sustain another oppressive visitation by robbers more pitiless and more insatiable than their predecessors. Still the enterprise of Asbagh was not entirely fruitless. Theodotus, the Byzantine general, was defeated and slain under the walls of Mineo, and the strong town of Ghalulia was taken by storm. But here the plague broke out in the Moslem camp. Asbagh and his principal officers perished; the deaths increased so rapidly that a retreat was resolved upon, and the Saracens, after sustaining considerable loss at the hands of the enemy, embarked in disorder and returned, a portion to Africa, but the majority to Spain.

Meanwhile a great blow had been struck by a detachment of Asbagh’s army acting, as it seems, independently of his orders. A division of Africans appeared suddenly before Palermo. The siege, which lasted a year, was pushed with an energy and a perseverance hitherto unprecedented in the military operations of the impetuous but easily disheartened Moslems. The defeat of the Greeks before Mineo deprived the garrison of all hope of relief from that quarter. The Emperor, with characteristic negligence, afforded but slight and ineffectual aid. Abandoned to their fate, the soldiery, reinforced by the public-spirited citizens, conducted an heroic but unavailing defence. In addition to the inevitable casualties of war, their ranks were reduced by hunger and the plague. From seventy thousand their numbers fell to three thousand within twelve months,—an almost incredible mortality. It was not in the power of human endurance to longer support such sufferings and privations. The governor negotiated an honorable capitulation, and the remnant of the garrison was permitted to depart without hinderance, retaining their arms and effects. The slaves of the Byzantine patricians experienced a change of masters, and the most famous insular emporium of the Mediterranean, whose traditions dated to the highest antiquity, whose history was inseparably interwoven with the stirring events of the fierce struggle of Rome and Carthage for the supremacy of the world, whose magnificence and sensuality were proverbial among the polished voluptuaries of Italy and the Orient, passed into the hands of the Saracen, to be raised under his auspices to a still higher degree of commercial greatness and material prosperity.

With the excellent base of operations afforded by the capture of Palermo, the affairs of the Moslems assumed a more promising aspect. No longer were they confined to the insufficient and precarious shelter of isolated castles and insignificant hamlets. The naval advantages of the city, whose harbor had been improved and enlarged by the labor of many successive nations, were incalculable. Easy and rapid communication was now possible with the ports of Africa. Supplies and reinforcements could be introduced into any part of the island in defiance of the utmost exertions of the naval power of Constantinople. The fertile territory included in this new conquest was capable, even under an imperfect and negligent system of cultivation, of furnishing support to a numerous army. Nor was the prestige attaching to the name of Palermo the least of the manifold benefits resulting from its possession. No city was better known throughout the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It was founded by the Phœnicians. It had been one of the most frequented marts of antiquity. Tyre, Carthage, Athens, Rome, Constantinople, had in turn been enriched by its commerce, and had contaminated it with their vices. In natural advantages, in facility of intercourse with distant countries, in the possession of a trade established long before any mentioned in the earliest historical records, in the boundless agricultural possibilities of its adjacent territory, in the convenience and excellence of its port as a naval station, Palermo could vie with even the greatest commercial centres of the ancient or the medieval world. For the power which could take and hold such a city, the subjugation of Sicily was but a question of time.

The serious results of its occupation soon became apparent even to the inefficient and corrupt government of the Bosphorus. The depopulation of the city, where streets of palaces and rows of elegant suburban villas awaited the claim of the military adventurer, allured from every settlement of Northern Africa swarms of ferocious and intrepid soldiers of fortune. From a Christian community, Palermo was, as if by magic, metamorphosed into a colony of Islam. The cathedral became a Djalma; the churches were transformed into mosques. In accordance with Moorish custom, separate quarters were assigned to the votaries of different religions, and set apart for the maintenance of various branches of traffic. The entire city assumed an Oriental aspect. Flowing robes and lofty turbans took the place of the ungraceful Byzantine and Italian costumes. The veiled ladies of the harems, attended by gorgeously attired eunuchs, glided silently through the streets or peered coquettishly through projecting lattices at the passing stranger. The beasts of burden peculiar to the East, trooping along like the march of a caravan, became too common to excite the attention of the curious multitude. Everywhere appeared canals, aqueducts, fountains. The vegetation recalled to the traveller the date plantations and oleander groves of the Nile and the Euphrates. The villas of the military chieftain and the opulent merchant were counterparts of the exquisite palaces of Seville and Damascus. The genius of Arab civilization found nowhere a more favorable field for its exercise than at Palermo. Within a few months after its capture scarcely anything remained to suggest that the city had not always been Mohammedan. Every circumstance of time and locality was propitious to the foundation of a new and powerful Moslem state which, in subsequent times, was fated to influence the destiny and to form the civilization of some of the greatest monarchies of Christendom.

The factious character of the troops composing the victorious army was disclosed as soon as Palermo had fallen into their hands. A division of Spanish Moors which had been prominent in the attack upon the city claimed the conquest for the Ommeyades. But the superior numbers of the Africans, as well as the fact that the expedition had been equipped at the expense of the Sultan of Kairoan, soon disposed of this demand, and Ziadet-Allah appointed his cousin, Abu-Fihr-Mohammed, as his representative in Sicily. The Moslems, now secure of a refuge in case of disaster and constantly receiving reinforcements, began to make rapid progress in the subjection of the island. Their foraging parties infested every accessible portion of the country, and carried their ravages to the gates of Taormina on the eastern coast. The general success attending their arms was, however, clouded by the assassination of Abu-Fihr, whose murderers found an asylum with the enemy. His successor, Fadl-Ibn-Yakub, defeated the Greeks in a pitched battle; but the victory was rendered unprofitable by the incessant contentions of the hostile parties which infested every portion of the military and naval service of the Saracens. The unfavorable condition of affairs having been reported to Ziadet-Allah, he sent Abu-al-Aghlab, the brother of Abu-Fihr, to assume the supreme command. Under the direction of this wise prince, whose talents speedily reconciled the disputes and suppressed the insolence of the soldiery, the conquest was prosecuted with renewed energy. He equipped a squadron of vessels provided with projectiles of Greek fire, the most formidable weapon of the age, and by its means soon became the master of the coast. The neighboring islands which had hitherto escaped the calamities with which Sicily had been visited were laid waste. Corleone, Platani, Marineo, and many smaller towns were taken. The garrisons of the cities still held by the Christians were so intimidated that they feared to venture beyond their walls. At the end of the year 840 one-third of the island was in the possession of the Arabs; their occupancy had lost its original character of a desultory inroad, and now began to assume the appearance of a permanent settlement; a truce, welcomed if not actually solicited by the fears of the Greeks, imparted an assurance of at least temporary security to the inhabitants, while an increasing trade with Egypt, Africa, and Spain assured the commercial fortunes of the new colony, whose power and prestige had already advanced to such a height that its alliance was eagerly sought by its natural enemies on the other side of the Strait of Messina.

With the death of Charlemagne, the Papacy, deprived of its protector, was compelled to rely for the enforcement of its edicts upon the celestial power from which its traditions derived both their origin and their authority. Its divine claims to the obedience and reverence of mankind had, however, little weight with the fierce nobles of the age, when those pretensions were not sustained by armed force. At that time the princes of Beneventum, descendants of the Lombards, ruled the greater portion of Southern Italy. The little republics of Naples, Gaeta, Sorrento, and Amalfi, whose independence was a political anomaly in an era of feudal servitude, presented an unexpected and formidable barrier to the ambitious designs of the Lombard barons. Aware of the ultimate result of the struggle if fought unaided, and seeing no opportunity of obtaining assistance from the monarchs of Christendom, the despairing citizens of Naples applied to the Sicilian Moslems. The alliance then concluded endured for fifty years, in defiance of the proclamations of crusades, of the anathemas of the Church, and of the campaigns inaugurated under its auspices, and on more than one memorable occasion seriously menaced the perpetuity of the conditions which prevailed in the political and religious society of Europe.

The Emir, Abu-al-Aghlab, lost no time in despatching a fleet to assist the Neapolitans, already besieged by the Lombard prince, Sicardus. The city was relieved, and the besiegers so taken at a disadvantage that they were compelled to negotiate a truce with the republic, and to release without ransom the prisoners whom they had captured. Scarcely a year elapsed before the Neapolitans were called upon to enlist their services in an enterprise of not inferior importance. A Moslem squadron descended without warning upon Messina. Naples responded with alacrity to the summons of her new allies; and while the attention of the garrison was distracted by a furious attack by the combined fleets, a picked detachment scaled the walls from the rear, and almost without bloodshed another of the great Sicilian capitals was added to the rapidly increasing Moorish empire. Encouraged by their victory, the Saracens redoubled their efforts to extend and consolidate their dominion. Their annals have preserved for us the names and the memory of many flourishing cities, among them, Alimena, Lentini, and Butera, whose prosperity had survived the pernicious effects of Roman oppression and Byzantine neglect, whose capture was an important factor in the conquest, but whose history and location are now more or less involved in obscurity.

About this time the veteran Emir, Abu-al-Aghlab, died, full of years and glory. The populace of Palermo, elated by success, and desirous to assert, upon every occasion, their independent and seditious spirit, without notice to the court of Kairoan, chose by acclamation, as governor of the colony, Abbas-Ibn-Fadl, a captain noted for the determination of his character and the ferocity of his manners. Under his administration the war was prosecuted more vigorously than ever. The fields of the industrious peasant, however remote, were never secure from the destructive visits of the Arab freebooter. Such Christian settlements as were sufficiently wealthy were permitted to retain their lands upon payment of a tribute usually largely in excess of that prescribed by Mohammedan law, and which was but a doubtful guaranty of safety when the caprice of the conqueror suggested an increase of his already rapacious and extravagant demands. The requirements of a population constantly engaged in warfare necessitated the employment of a large number of slaves in the cultivation of the soil. These were obtained not only from captives taken in battle, but as a portion of the tribute wrung from the cowardly Greeks, who did not hesitate to sacrifice their retainers, and even their kinsmen, for the enjoyment of a temporary security. The Moors, conscious of the helplessness of their infidel tributaries, whom they considered as already vanquished and indebted for even existence to their own moderation, often refused offerings of gold and precious commodities, and exacted instead the delivery of a prescribed number of human cattle, whose lives were speedily extinguished by the severe labor to which they were subjected in the pestilential atmosphere of the coast and of the marshy valleys of the interior, where the culture of rice was conducted with great profit and with a flagrant disregard of the mortality it occasioned.

An incident, trivial in itself, but, in the event, most important, now occurred to further exalt the reputation of the Moslem arms. A Greek of high rank was seized by a scouting party of Saracens in the environs of Castrogiovanni. The prisoner, conducted to Palermo, and found to be incapable of manual labor and without means to procure the heavy ransom demanded, was condemned to death by the merciless governor, whose practical but cruel policy did not encourage the maintenance of useless captives. As he was being led away by the executioner, the Greek patrician implored with passionate entreaties the clemency of the Emir, promising him the possession of Castrogiovanni if his life were spared. Abbas listened with eagerness to a proposal so congenial to his adventurous and ambitious spirit. A detachment of a thousand horsemen and seven hundred foot, selected for their prowess, was assembled with all diligence and secrecy, and, guided by the renegade and commanded by the Emir in person, departed in silence from Palermo by night, and proceeded to its destination by unfrequented roads and the dangerous paths of mountain solitudes. Arriving without molestation in the vicinity of the city, the Arab general placed all of his cavalry and a portion of his infantry in ambush on the south, where the approach was the least difficult, and the groves of the suburban residences occupied by the wealthier inhabitants afforded excellent facilities for concealment. A chosen band of warriors, directed by the Byzantine traitor, ascended with infinite trouble the precipitous face of the rock on the north side of the citadel, and at the foot of the wall awaited with impatience the first rays of the sun. With the approach of dawn, the vigilance of the sentinels was relaxed, for the impregnable character of the fortress seemed of itself sufficient protection in the glare of open day, and, forgetting that vigilance is one of the first duties of a soldier, the guards sought repose after the fatigues of the night. No sooner had they disappeared from the ramparts, when the Moslems, in single file, introduced themselves into the citadel by means of an aqueduct which passed under the wall. The few stragglers abroad at that early hour were cut down; the gates were thrown open, and, amidst the clash of arms and the war-cry of the Moslems, the main body of the detachment, headed by the Emir, dashed into the city. The lustre of the triumph was sadly tarnished by the atrocities with which it was accompanied. The garrison was deliberately butchered. Not a single soldier escaped. The women and children were condemned to slavery. Within the walls of Castrogiovanni, as a place of absolute security, were collected the most distinguished and opulent of the Christian inhabitants, with the bulk of the remaining treasure of the island. The priesthood had stored here the wealth amassed by the fears and the generosity of the superstitious and devout populace during many centuries. All became the prey of the conqueror. The value of the booty was immense. Hardly a patrician family could be found in all Sicily which did not mourn the captivity of some relative or friend. The children of nobles who traced their genealogy to the most brilliant epoch of Roman grandeur were ruthlessly consigned to the guard-rooms and the harems of Moorish captains. The loss of Castrogiovanni was the greatest calamity which had befallen the Sicilians since the Saracens first landed on the island. The customary changes instituted by the latter on the capture of a city were perfected without delay, the churches were purified and turned into mosques, the estates of the vanquished were partitioned among the principal officers, the tribute of the surviving citizens was regulated, the slaves were apportioned among their new masters, and the plunder was classified and divided according to the regulations of Islam. The boundless exultation of the victors led them to set apart, in addition to the usual fifth of the spoil due to the Sultan, a portion of the richest booty and a number of the most beautiful captives for the Khalif of Bagdad, whose supremacy was not acknowledged by the Moorish princes of the West. Thus in the hour of triumph these sanguinary fanatics, many of whom recognized no law but that of force, and no faith save the idolatrous worship proscribed by the Koran, could forget the national hatred engendered by generations of hostility and the acrimony of religious controversy, in their magnanimous desire to honor the Successor of the Prophet, the most exalted potentate of the Mohammedan world.

The political results that followed the surprise of Castrogiovanni were not less weighty than the physical advantages which enured to the victorious Saracens. The military prestige of the latter was immensely increased. While the Christians held the fortress it was confidently believed that no enemy could take it. The flower of the Moslem army had already retired in disgrace from before its walls. It was the bulwark of imperial power, the refuge of the Church, the asylum of the timid. Its possession was a guaranty that the hated invader could never extend his dominion over the island; the pledge that the ceremonies of his blasphemous ritual would never pollute the holy precincts of its temples. Relics, whose miraculous virtues were attested by the votive offerings of the pious of many generations, were exhibited upon its shrines. And now that this stronghold had fallen, men lost confidence in the protecting power of Heaven, as they had already done in the efficacy of human weapons. The unfortunate garrison had paid for its negligence with death. The sacred mementos of the saints had been discredited. To a feeling of apathy, however, soon succeeded a desire for vengeance. Even the idle and licentious court of Constantinople was stirred to action, and a fleet of three hundred sail was despatched from the Bosphorus to retrieve the disaster and to re-establish the imperial authority. Landing at Syracuse, the Greeks advanced along the coast accompanied by the fleet. The Emir, advised of their movements, fell upon them unexpectedly; the astonished and ill-disciplined soldiers of the East were unable to withstand the furious attack of the Arabs, and in the rout which followed the savage victors indulged to satiety their thirst for carnage. No prisoners were taken. The terrified Greeks, huddled together in disorder, were massacred without pity. Hundreds were drowned in an ineffectual attempt to reach the fleet by swimming. The intrepid Moslems, with the aid of boats obtained from Palermo, captured a hundred vessels from the enemy; their crews being driven into the water at the edge of the scimetar. Undaunted by this catastrophe, a second expedition was organized for the reconquest of the island; the imperial army was increased by a considerable number of Sicilians, and the combined forces marched upon Palermo. Again the wily Abbas, by the celerity of his movements and the bravery of his troops, disconcerted the plans of the enemy. After a furious battle near Cefalu, the advantage of the day remained with the Saracens; the Greeks were compelled to retreat, and the Emir, enraged by the obstinate resistance he had encountered, retaliated by carrying fire and sword to the gates of Syracuse.

Soon after his return from this expedition, Abbas became ill and died, and his remains, committed to the grave by his sorrowing followers, were, after the departure of the latter, dug up by the Greeks, insulted by every device of impotent malice which hatred and fear could suggest, and finally consumed by fire; the only means of revenge available to his pusillanimous adversaries, who had so frequently experienced the vindictiveness of his temper and the power of his arms. During the eleven years of his administration, the Christians were subjected to continuous warfare. Like the Great Al-Mansur, he understood perfectly the advantages of allowing an enemy no time to replenish his treasury or to recruit his strength. By the efforts of his military genius the boundaries of the imperial domain had been annually contracted, until little territory acknowledged the supremacy of Constantinople except that in the immediate vicinity of Syracuse. His political sagacity suggested the alliance with the disaffected states of Italy, and the establishment of Moslem settlements on the main-land as a basis of future military operations and a perpetual menace to both the imperial and the papal courts.

The death of the Emir Abbas was the signal of discord and contention in every Saracen community in Sicily. The tribal prejudices of the different factions which had been temporarily repressed by the iron will of the deceased governor now manifested themselves with greater violence than ever. The Berbers, the Yemenites, and the Ismailians arrayed themselves against one another in a bitter triangular contest. Assassination became of every-day occurrence. The property of citizens was not secure from the rapacious and insubordinate soldiery even within the walls of castles. With the commission of every fresh outrage, the animosity of the rival factions was inflamed and intensified. Towns and districts became mutually and vindictively hostile. As was the case in all the countries governed by the Mohammedan polity, whose regulations were incapable of controlling the antagonistic elements which from the very foundation of a state threatened its dismemberment, the Sicilian colony disclosed the same symptoms of ruin, and began to exhibit a tendency to disintegration even before the sovereignty of the Moslems had been fully established over the island.

A monarch of far different temper from his predecessors was now seated upon the throne of the Cæsars. The career of Basil, the Macedonian, whose statesmanlike qualities and inflexible resolution had reformed the administration of the Empire, had suppressed the abuses of the Church, and had challenged the respect of the barbarians, seemed to indicate an adversary far more to be feared than the two Michaels,—the “Stammerer” and the “Drunkard,”—under whose disgraceful reigns the successes of the Moslems had been principally obtained.

Before this epoch the Christians of Sicily, notwithstanding the prejudices of race and religious belief, and the grievous injuries they had sustained at the hands of their enemies, had begun to observe with increasing favor the equitable government of the Moslems as compared with the capricious and extortionate exactions of the officials of the Empire. The condition of the tributaries under Mussulman dominion, while unquestionably less favorable than that of their co-religionists in almost any other Mohammedan country, was still worthy of envy by the subjects of the Byzantine Emperor. Their tax was certain and fixed by law. They enjoyed, unmolested by persecution, the practice of their faith and the observance of their social customs, so far as they did not interfere with those peculiar to their rulers. Their own magistrates dispensed justice in ordinary causes according to the forms of legal procedure to which they had always been accustomed. The frequent impositions of the court of Constantinople were far more onerous than the tribute demanded at a defined period by the collectors of the Moorish treasury. All things considered, there is little doubt that, had it not been for the pernicious example of anarchy afforded by hostile factions at the death of every emir, the remaining portion of the island would have voluntarily submitted within a few years to the authority of Islam. The excesses of the ferocious partisans, who, during the interregnum preceding the election of every new governor, plundered friend and foe alike, deterred the timid Christians from seeking a change of masters, and the accession of the Emperor Basil confirmed them in their allegiance. The first effort of the new sovereign was to raise the aspirations of the tributaries to independence. Conspiracies were formed. A considerable part of the territory held by the Moslems, visited by the emissaries of the Emperor, and encouraged by the disturbances following the death of Abbas, revolted. The insurrection was quelled, but the misconduct of the captains appointed by the new governor, Khafagia-Ibn-Sofian, brought disgrace and disaster upon the Saracen arms. The Emir himself was repulsed before Syracuse, which had been reinforced and greatly strengthened by the Emperor, who recognized it as the key of the imperial power in Sicily. Not long afterwards this misfortune was retrieved by a great victory gained over the imperial forces under the walls of that city, in which the army of the Greeks was almost annihilated, and the Moslems, laden with the rich spoil of the East, returned in triumph to Palermo. In the year 869 Khafagia lost his life in an ineffectual attempt to capture Syracuse by storm. The next year his son Mohammed, who succeeded him, was assassinated by his own slaves.

The repeated reverses sustained by the Greeks had impaired confidence in their leaders, whose incompetency was more responsible for the defeats of the imperial army than the want of discipline which was so conspicuous among the rank and file. Although the progress of the Moslems was slow, it was certain. Their losses were easily repaired, their impetuosity was rather stimulated than checked by misfortune, and in every respect their recuperative power proved itself superior to that of their enemies. The territory of Sicily, although far from subdued, seemed too limited for their daring ambition. Passing the Strait of Messina they swept the ancient province of Magna-Græcia with destruction. They conquered Apulia and Calabria. They ravaged the duchy of Spoleto. They surprised Ancona. They seized Beneventum, Brindisi, Tarentum, Bari. They occupied the promontory of Misenum, under the very walls of Naples. They established themselves on the coast of Dalmatia. They sacked and burned the ancient city of Capua. They founded the colony of Garigliano, a constant menace to the Papal States, and long the scourge of the Christian principalities of Italy. Independent settlements, composed of soldiers of fortune who had become familiarized with their pitiless calling in the civil wars of Spain and Africa, were founded throughout the south of the Italian Peninsula. The captains of these outlaws assumed the titles of sovereignty, robbed and massacred the Christian peasants, and acquired for the name of Moslem a terror and an execration not inferior to that which distinguished the powers of darkness. Neapolitan pilots guided their corsairs along the shores of the Adriatic. The squadrons of the Sultan of Africa routed the Venetians in several naval encounters, landed forces at the mouth of the Po, drove the commerce of the Italian republics from the sea, and pushed their incursions as far as the confines of Istria. They penetrated to the gates of Rome, destroyed the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, which were situated outside the walls, and insulted the dignity of the Holy See by horrible acts of sacrilege. The relics of the Saints were subjected to unspeakable insult. Monks were slaughtered without mercy or driven away in crowds to toil in the Sicilian marshes. Nuns were seized to be exposed for sale in the slave-markets of Palermo and Kairoan. Had it not been that the Eternal City was too well fortified for an army unprovided with the military engines necessary for a siege to attack it with any prospect of success, the Mohammedan worship might have been introduced into the stronghold of Christianity. With the exception of the sack of Rome by the Constable of Bourbon in a subsequent age, the throne of the Papacy was never subjected to a more humiliating indignity. The constant dissensions of the semi-independent principalities of Italy aided in maintaining the foothold of the Saracens far more than their own valor or resources. Their colonies existed by the sufferance of their foes. The feudal barons, in most instances, detested their Christian neighbors—not infrequently connected with them by ties of blood as well as by the obligations of a common religious belief—far more than the blaspheming Moslems. In vain was the aid of the Emperor of Germany invoked; his plans were thwarted by the discord and treachery of his allies. The forces he despatched for the relief of the Italians were constantly at variance with the Byzantines, and armies, almost equal to the conquest of an empire, were fruitlessly employed in the quarrels of petty sovereigns, whose union was indispensable to the expulsion of a crafty and audacious enemy. The Pope, either through weakness or from motives of policy, seems to have generally kept aloof from this crusade, prosecuted in his behalf as the head of Christendom, as well as to assure the stability of his temporal power.

During the course of these events, Ibrahim-Ibn-Ahmed, a prince of rare administrative talents, of vast accomplishments, of boundless ambition, and of a character remarkable for barbarity even in an age of tyrants, had ascended the throne of Kairoan. Desirous of signalizing his accession by the successful prosecution of an enterprise which his predecessors had in vain attempted, he determined to capture Syracuse. A numerous army was raised. In accordance with the favorite policy of the sovereigns of Africa, special care was exercised that the malcontents who had manifested hostility towards the government should be enrolled in the expedition. When pecuniary inducements failed to tempt these disturbers of the peace, they were seized and forced to embark. The preparations were worthy of the importance and difficulties of the undertaking. The fleet consisted of the swiftest and largest vessels of the Moorish navy. The army was provided with the most formidable engines ever constructed by the Arabs for the siege of any city. The command was intrusted to Giafar-Ibn-Mohammed, the newly appointed Emir of Sicily, an officer of ability, experience, and courage.

It was fifty years since the Moslems had made their first attempt to wrest from the Byzantines this great city renowned from the earliest antiquity. Its conquest had been the cherished dream of many emirs, one after another of whom had retired in disgrace from before its walls. In every campaign, its suburbs, and the lands upon which its population were mainly dependent for subsistence, had been ravaged by squadrons of Moorish horsemen. The diminution of tribute consequent upon the failure and destruction of agricultural products, the massacre and enslavement of the cultivators of the soil, the stagnation of commerce, and the emigration of wealthy citizens, had induced the court of Constantinople—which viewed every question with an eye single to pecuniary advantage—to almost withdraw its support from the last remaining bulwark against the Moslem supremacy in Sicily. The number of inhabitants had been greatly diminished within a quarter of a century. The troops who still maintained the shadow of imperial power in the island were largely recruited from the martial youth of Syracuse. The pestilence, which had so often decimated the besiegers, had not spared the defenders of the city. Thousands had perished from this cause alone. These facts being considered, and the vast extent of its walls being remembered, it is probable that at no previous period of its history was Syracuse so ill qualified to sustain a siege.

The Byzantine commander, aware of his inability to defend the outer fortifications, within which stood the finest houses and the cathedral, withdrew to the inner line which traversed the isthmus separating the two basins of the harbor. So far as the number and importance of its buildings were concerned, the city was more than half taken when the Moslem army, without opposition, filed through the deserted gateways of the outer wall. Upon the narrow isthmus, measuring but little more than a hundred yards in width, the assembled forces of both armies contended furiously for the mastery. The Moorish engineers had invented catapults of improved construction and terrific power, which instead of projecting their missiles in a curve, as had hitherto been the case, hurled them directly against the walls with unheard-of velocity and accuracy of aim. Every expedient familiar to ancient warfare was adopted to drive the garrison to extremity. Mines were carried under the towers. Greek fire was thrown into every quarter of the city, to the dismay of the besieged, who found themselves continually threatened with destructive conflagrations. The Christians were compelled to the exertion of constant vigilance to repel the storming parties that mounted to the attack at all hours of the day and night. A fleet sent by the Emperor to raise the siege was dispersed by the Saracen galleys, which by this victory virtually acquired control of the Mediterranean. The double port was occupied by the enemy, the Greeks were driven from the northern side of the city into the citadel, and the walls which defended the harbor were demolished. The Syracusans were now abandoned to their own resources. Their valor, their endurance, and their loyalty were their sole reliance. No assistance could reach them from any quarter. Assailed by sea and land, they maintained an obstinate defence. With an improvidence characteristic of the Byzantine, no adequate supply of provisions had been collected. The rapid movements of the Moslems and their unexpected appearance had prevented any subsequent reparation of this inexcusable neglect. Despite the disadvantages under which they labored, the people of Syracuse sustained with honor the martial reputation of their city, famous for many a hard-fought contest. Famine destroyed many whom the weapons of the enemy had spared. The inhabitants were reduced to eat moss scraped from the walls, to devour hides and broken bones, even to feed upon the flesh of the slain. An ass’s head was valued at twenty gold byzants; a small measure of grain could not be obtained for less than one hundred and fifty. The use of unwholesome food soon produced a plague. Such was the mortality from this cause alone that one-quarter of the inhabitants perished in a month. Notwithstanding their knowledge of the inertness of the Byzantine government, and the rigid blockade of the Moslems, the Syracusans had not relinquished all hope of relief. The Emperor Basil had grievously disappointed the expectations which had been formed of his character, which had been derived from his early career as a soldier, and from his vigorous measures of reform on his accession to the imperial throne. His mind had proved incapable of withstanding the blighting ecclesiastical influence which pervaded the atmosphere of Constantinople. Of late, he had endeavored to expiate the errors and crimes of former years by a degrading subserviency to the sacerdotal order. He honored the priesthood with employments of the highest importance. Monks, some of them eunuchs of unsavory antecedents, became his advisers in affairs of state. He erected a hundred churches, many of them in honor of St. Michael, as the ineffectual atonement of a guilty conscience for the cruel treatment of his murdered sovereign. And now, while the Syracusans were striving, with undaunted courage, to uphold the dignity and power of the Empire in the only stronghold of Sicily which still resisted the encroachments of the infidel, this abject slave of superstition was employing his soldiers in the construction of a stately basilica, a penance enjoined by the exhortations of his ghostly counsellors.

As the spirits of the besieged fell day by day, and their ranks were thinned by casualty, famine, and disease, the efforts of the Moslems became more determined than ever. The massive walls of the citadel gradually crumbled under the incessant discharges from ballistas and catapults directed against such a limited extent of their circumference. The great tower which defended the larger harbor, undermined, and battered for months by the military engines, was finally precipitated into the water, carrying with it a part of the contiguous defences. This event, long expected by the besiegers, was the signal for a furious assault. Urged on by every consideration of ambition, zeal, avarice, and revenge, the Saracens entered the breach with an impetuosity that threatened to bear down all opposition. But they were met with a determination equal to their own. The garrison, though weakened by privation and fatigue, sustained the struggle with the energy of despair. The inhabitants, all told, scarcely reached the number of twenty thousand. Each one, however, contributed his or her part towards the defence of home and religion; the priests, attired in their sacred vestments, animated the soldiery by their prayers and benedictions, the women cared tenderly for the wounded and the dying. For twenty days and nights the valor of the Syracusans held their assailants at bay. A rampart of corpses, rising for many feet upon the ruins of the demolished wall, afforded a ghastly bulwark for the protection of the besieged, while it poisoned the air far and wide with its horrible effluvium. The combat was hand to hand. No missile weapons were used. The issue could not be doubtful, and yet the Christians never for an instant entertained a thought of surrender. At length the Moslems withdrew, the din of battle ceased, and the governor, without distrusting the intentions of his wily enemy, leaving a small detachment to keep watch, retired with the main body of his forces for a moment’s rest. All at once every engine in the Saracen camp sent forth its deadly projectiles, and from ruined houses, fallen rampart, and shattered wall, the besiegers, at the stirring sound of atabal and trumpet, again rushed forward into the breach. The success of the stratagem was complete. The slender guard to which the careless confidence of the governor had committed the destinies of the devoted city was cut to pieces in an instant. The garrison, massing its forces in the streets, endeavored in vain to stem the furious torrent. The frightened inhabitants sought the sanctuary of the churches only to be butchered at the altar. Exasperated beyond measure by the resistance of a people who, even in the face of death, disdained to yield, the fierce assailants greedily satiated their thirst for blood. The archbishop and three of his ecclesiastical subordinates, seized in the cathedral, were spared on condition of revealing the place where were deposited the sacred vessels used in the ceremonial of public worship. The heroic governor, whose name unfortunately no Christian or Arab writer has deemed worthy to be transmitted to posterity, threw himself with seventy nobles into a tower of the citadel, which was stormed and taken on the ensuing day. As was the custom in the Sicilian wars prosecuted by the Saracens, all men of mature age were put to the sword. Such of these as had escaped the weapons of the enemy during the assault were collected, imprisoned for a week, and then, huddled together in a narrow space, were inhumanly beaten and stoned to death. Some imprudent zealots, who courted martyrdom by reviling the name of Mohammed, were flayed alive. Four thousand captives were disposed of in a single day by this atrocious but effective method. The women and children, without exception, were condemned to slavery. Out of nearly fifteen thousand people, but a few hundred succeeded in evading the vigilant search of the Saracens, to carry into Christian lands the story of a defence seldom equalled for gallantry and endurance in the annals of warfare, and to publish to the astonished and indignant nations of Europe the criminal apathy and cowardice of the vaunted champion of Christendom, the weak and superstitious sovereign of the Eastern Empire. As Syracuse had long been the principal depository of the treasure of the island which had escaped the rapacity of former campaigns, as well as a place far famed for its commerce and the wealth of its citizens, great booty was secured by the conquerors. The Arab chroniclers relate that in no other capital ever subjected to the Moslems did such precious spoil fall into their hands. The ecclesiastic Theodosius, an eye-witness not disposed to exaggerate the success of his enemies, places its value at a million byzants, equal at the present time to more than twenty million dollars. The sacred vessels and utensils taken from the churches weighed five thousand pounds. Composed entirely of the precious metals, their value, intrinsically enormous, was greatly enhanced by their exquisite workmanship, which exhibited the skill of the most accomplished artisans of Constantinople. For some reason, for which at this lapse of time it is impossible to offer a plausible conjecture, the Moslems determined to utterly demolish the stronghold which had so long and so resolutely resisted their arms. As the battle had been confined to a comparatively limited area, the larger portion of the city was still uninjured. The outer walls, which enclosed the suburbs and the splendid mansions of the wealthy and the noble, were intact. Entire streets, while silent and deserted, presented no other evidence of the destructiveness of war. Rows of marble palaces still reared their majestic fronts along the avenues and squares which the opulent Syracusans had embellished with every resource of pomp and luxury. On all sides were elegant colonnades, amphitheatres, temples. In the public gardens the senses were delighted and refreshed by numerous parterres and fountains; in the forums, at every step, the observer was confronted with the speaking effigies of the famous heroes of antiquity. While devoted to the lucrative pursuits of commerce, the attention of the polished citizens of Syracuse had been by no means monopolized by practical occupations. They were generous patrons of literary and artistic genius. Their architects and their sculptors seem to have inherited no small proportion of Attic excellence. No Italian city which derived its civilization from Grecian colonists had preserved unimpaired to such a high degree the evidences of its noble origin. The elegant conceptions embodied in the works of the artists of Syracuse, the skill of their execution, the purity of taste they disclosed, the superiority of their materials, offered a marked contrast to the crude and barbaric efforts of Byzantine mediocrity.

There seemed no reason why this magnificent city should be doomed to annihilation. Its fortifications—whose prodigious strength had been demonstrated by a contest of half a century—could have been easily repaired. Its situation was delightful, its harbors capacious, its territory productive, its mercantile facilities unrivalled. Its abandoned habitations could without difficulty have afforded shelter to a population of a hundred thousand souls. The remembrance of its traditions, the prestige of its name, the glory of its capture, might well have induced the victors to preserve it as an enduring monument to their perseverance and valor. But no considerations of utility or sentiment influenced the ruthless determination of the Moorish commander. The order went forth that Syracuse must be utterly destroyed. An idea can be formed of the massive character of its structures by the statement that two months were required for their demolition. At length, when the walls had been dismantled, the houses razed, and the harbors choked with rubbish, the conquerors applied the torch, and the flames completed the ruin which rapine and vandalism had so successfully begun.

The prisoners and the spoil were despatched to Palermo under a strong guard of Africans. Six days and nights were required for the painful journey. Eager to arrive at their destination, the brutal soldiery refused to allow their captives a moment of rest, and the march was accomplished without a halt, except when the necessity of preparing food or the physical obstacles of the mountain pathways caused delay. At the approach of the melancholy procession the gates of the Moslem capital poured forth its thousands of turbaned spectators. The sight of the long train of captives, and of plunder such as had never before dazzled the eyes of the most experienced veteran, aroused the fervid enthusiasm of the multitude. Some displayed their joy by extravagant gestures and dances, but the majority, more decorous, chanted in unison appropriate passages from the Koran. Many of the captives, after unspeakable sufferings, perished in the subterranean dungeons of Palermo. Others obtained an infamous security by the public renunciation of their faith. The fall of Syracuse practically completes the Moslem conquest of Sicily. The degenerate monarch, who, through his inexcusable neglect, was responsible for the loss of the island, made no serious effort to recover it. A few insignificant towns, the principal of which was Taormina, indebted for their safety rather to the indifference of the Saracens than to their own impregnability, still remained faithful to the Emperor. The Byzantine standard—the emblem of rapacity, bigotry, and every political abuse—disappeared forever from those lofty ramparts where it had waved for so many centuries. Henceforth the prowess of the conquerors was to be principally exerted against each other. The annals of Sicily for many subsequent years are a tedious and unprofitable recital of conspiracies, assassinations, and civil commotions, of the ineffectual efforts of ambitious captains aspiring to independent sovereignty, of the rapid succession of emirs of sanguinary tastes and mediocre abilities, of defiance of and indecisive conflicts with the princes of Kairoan. History was repeating itself. The disorders which had disgraced the society of every Moslem country, when the apparent cohesion of races was dissolved by the defeat and expulsion of the common enemy, were now exhibited on a smaller scale, but with no less vindictiveness, upon the narrow theatre of Sicily. Elevation to the emirate, whether sanctioned or not by the confirmation and investiture of the African Sultan, had become a most perilous distinction. Tribes and factions pursued each other with relentless hatred. Not even in Spain were the glaring defects of the Moslem polity more conspicuous, or the vicious character of the components of the social organization more thoroughly revealed. The constant deportation of criminals and political malcontents by the Sultans of Africa, as a measure of prudence whose inexpediency was demonstrated in every new insurrection, was largely responsible for this general disorganization. It could not reasonably be supposed that these disturbers of public tranquillity, whose lives had been passed amidst the turmoil of religious and military revolution, would remain quiet under any government.

While the Moslem factions with varying success were wasting their energies in suicidal conflicts, the Christian communities, many of which were respectable in wealth and numbers, were enabled by sufferance to enjoy a temporary respite. The conclusion of the war had accomplished one most beneficial result, an interchange of captives. From the dark vaults of noisome dungeons; from the galley, with its scourge and its clanking fetters; from the rice-fields, reeking with miasmatic vapors; from the gilded antechambers of the harem; the prisoners, who had long since abandoned hope, were now led forth to be restored to home and kindred. The struggle which for more than half a century had engaged alike the attention of Christian and Moslem throughout the world was ended. Mankind now began to cast anxious glances towards the new Mohammedan state which formed a stepping-stone by which the hordes of Africa might once more enter Europe. The passage of the Strait of Messina offered fewer obstacles to an invader than that of the Strait of Gibraltar. From the confines of Calabria it was a march of only a few days to Rome, and it was not forgotten that the banners of Islam had once been seen before the walls of the Eternal City. Numerous colonies of Moslems, most of which seemed to threaten permanent occupancy, were established in Southern Italy; the Moorish navy had asserted its power in the Adriatic; an intimate alliance existed between the Republic of Naples and the emirs of Sicily. Not without cause therefore did Christendom regard with unconcealed apprehension the presence of such implacable foes in close proximity to her capital. No adequate means of defence existed to ward off the impending danger. The court of Constantinople had retired discomfited from the field. Italy was distracted by the quarrels of a multitude of insignificant principalities. The Papacy had not yet attained to that commanding position in the political system of Europe which it subsequently occupied, and its temporal power was confined to the agitation of the mob of the capital, whose passions, once aroused, it was not always able to control. The dream of Musa, who boasted that the unity of God would be proclaimed in the Church of St. Peter, seemed now far more easy of realization, when the Saracen armies were separated from Rome by only a narrow channel and a few hours’ march, than when the project first awoke the ambition of that daring general beyond the intervening mountain barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps.

The peace of the island having been finally assured after much bloodshed, the efforts of the emirs were directed to the extension of their empire in Italy. Political necessity rather than inclination had compelled the rulers of the Saracen settlements in Calabria and Apulia to recognize the superior jurisdiction of the governors of Sicily. The division of those regions between so many powers of different nationalities and forms of government—imperial, republican, theocratic—was the cause of mutual distrust and irreconcilable hatred. Each held aloof from alliance or even from intercourse with the others. Their very weakness was at first the guaranty of their safety. The Moslem, however, took advantage of this circumstance to attack his adversaries in detail. On one side he drove back the Byzantines, who had begun to threaten his settlements on the Gulf of Tarentum. On another, his cavalry swept away the flocks of the Roman Campagna. The republics, restrained by the faith of treaties, and the barons, who had more than once felt the keen edge of the Moorish scimetar, preserved a prudent neutrality. The country in the vicinity of the papal metropolis for a radius of many miles suffered from these inroads. Large districts were rendered uninhabitable. An important source of the food supply of Rome was destroyed. The fury of the Moslems was, as usual, chiefly aimed at the ecclesiastical establishments. Churches and convents were destroyed, the priests butchered, the nuns hurried away to the seraglio. The fugitives who sought an asylum at Rome crowded the streets and the religious houses, and taxed to the utmost the resources of monastic hospitality and benevolence. Within the walls of the Eternal City all was trepidation and despair. An attack was hourly apprehended, the sacred machinery of the church was put in motion to avert the impending calamity, and the result invested with new and profitable credit the performance of penance, the exhibition of relics, and the solemn processions, whose influence was presumed to have effected the deliverance of the Vicar of God.

It is not within the scope of this work to recount in detail the monotonous sequence of fruitless revolutions, changes of rulers, religious disputes, and inveterate animosities of sects and races which compose the history of Sicily under the Arabs. No magnificent dynasty like those of the Ommeyades at Cordova and the Abbasides at Bagdad arose in the island to promote the cause of learning and science, and to reflect imperishable lustre on the Moslem name. No great commander carried his victorious arms beyond the Apennines and the Alps. The maritime superiority acquired by the fleets of Palermo was lost in a day in the bay of Naples, and the Byzantine navy once more became supreme in the Mediterranean. No military exploit worthy of record has been preserved save the storming of Taormina, which still obeyed the Greek Emperor, in the beginning of the tenth century.

The cruelty with which the ascendency of each triumphant faction was celebrated familiarized the Sicilians with scenes of blood, and impressed itself indelibly upon the national character, while the innate love of rapine, common to Arab and Berber alike, still survives in the irrepressible brigandage of to-day. The greatest opportunity ever afforded the Moslems for the conquest and conversion of Europe was lost by the irresolution of the Sultans of Africa, and by the perpetual discord which exhausted the strength and dissipated the resources of Sicily. After acknowledgment in turn of the suzerainty of Aghlabite, Abbaside, and Fatimite princes, the mutual persecution of religious sects, and the long toleration of the feuds of antagonistic races, the Sicilian emirate finally attained to independence, based upon the law of hereditary succession. But this new political condition brought no peace to the unhappy island. Every captain of banditti, every ambitious courtier, considered himself eligible to a dignity which could claim in reality no better title than that given by the sword. The country was divided into numerous states agitated by petty jealousies and incapable of concerted action in an hour of national peril. The city of Syracuse, which had been partially rebuilt and, despite the unsettled affairs of the times, had once more become an important seaport, was in the year 1060 the capital of Ibn-Thimna, who exercised a nominal authority over the larger portion of the island. A domestic quarrel brought him in collision with Ibn-Hawwasci, the governor of Castrogiovanni; a battle was fought, the army of Ibn-Thimna was destroyed, and the conqueror succeeded to the dignity and the dominions of his vanquished rival. Consumed with hatred and regardless of consequences, Ibn-Thimna then solicited the aid of a band of adventurers whose prowess was widely renowned throughout Europe, and the exploits of whose ancestors in former ages had caused them to be considered the scourge of civilization and the implacable enemies of the human race.

In the Italian Peninsula, the Moslems long held the balance of power. Its most productive territory was for fourteen years a prey to the violence and rapacity of a few hundred Arab freebooters. The ministers of the Church were naturally the principal objects of their hostility and contempt. The priests were put to death after having been subjected to every indignity. The monks were tortured, enslaved, emasculated. The consecrated vessels of divine worship—whose hiding place was revealed by serfs exasperated by generations of oppression—were profaned with every refinement of blasphemy and sacrilege. Dogs and horses were enveloped in sacred vestments. The smoke of censers perfumed the air amidst the orgies of licentious banquets. From jewelled chalices were drunk toasts to the success of the Moslem armies. Upon the very altar was sacrificed the chastity of the spouses of Christ. During the ninth century, every ship bound for Italian ports was laid under contribution by the Arab corsairs. The dukes of Spoleto and Tuscany joined the Saracens of Tarentum in an impious league to deprive the Pontiff of his possessions and his power. The republics of Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, and Salerno formed a confederacy to the same end with the Emir of Sicily. Pope John VIII., abandoned by his vassals, for two years regularly paid tribute to the infidel, and the Holy See thus became virtually a dependency of the Moslem empire.

In the cosmopolitan cities of Palermo and Messina were grouped types of every race of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the most turbulent elements of medieval society, the most vicious products of the evils of servitude and the tyranny of caste; native Sicilians, degenerate Greeks, Lombard exiles; Negroes, Persians, and Jews; outlawed criminals, pariahs, refugees, apostates, and banditti. Here personal feuds and tribal hatred were prosecuted with every circumstance of perfidiousness and ferocity. Here Arab and Berber renewed the quarrel begun a century before in Mauritania, which in the end involved in ruin both the Ommeyade dynasty and the Sicilian Emirate. Here was nourished the spirit of discord which proved fatal to Moslem supremacy and called in the Normans, as in former times the dissensions of the Lombard principalities had invited the Saracen invasion of Italy. The rule of the Byzantine had been feeble, inert, and quiescent; moulded by the incompetency of a cowardly government and the fears of a degraded people. That of the Arab, on the other hand, was restless, energetic, ambitious, aggressive. His versatility and his enterprise were unfortunately largely neutralized by the character of the elements with which he had to deal. As proved by the event, a formidable state may be founded, but cannot be perpetuated, by a coalition of outcasts. It is not from such sources that are derived the greatness, the glory, the security of empires.

The Normans of the eleventh century had, by the intercourse of several generations of warriors with the polished nations of the Mediterranean, acquired a knowledge of the laws of humanity and the usages of social life unheard of among their barbarian forefathers, who had defied the perils of the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay in diminutive vessels of skins and osier, and carried dismay among the populous cities and rich settlements of the Seine and the Guadalquivir. Tempted by the charms of soil and climate enjoyed by that province of Northern France which still retains their name and the memory of their valor, these daring pirates exchanged without hesitation the dangers of a predatory existence upon the seas for the less exciting but more profitable employments of a sedentary life. With the abandonment of country was at the same time associated a renunciation of religion. The Pagan ceremonies and savage customs attending the worship of Woden were discarded for the imposing forms and benign precepts of Christianity. These significant events did not, however, produce any material alteration in the tastes, the character, or the aspirations of the great body of the Norman youth. The theatre of action alone was changed. In a moral point of view, no appreciable distinction exists between a pirate and a soldier of fortune. The Norman man-at-arms retained all the marauding instincts of his race, modified to some extent by the civilization with which he was occasionally brought in contact through his casual association with the accomplished inhabitants of Moorish Spain and the shrewd and adventurous traders of the Byzantine Empire. He had inherited the lofty stature of his ancestors, their enormous strength and powers of endurance, their contempt of danger, their barbarity in the treatment of a vanquished foe. Attracted to Italy by the accounts of pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, the Normans first appear in the history of that country as the mercenaries of those principalities whose close proximity to each other kept them in a condition of perpetual hostility. The intrepidity and military experience of the strangers were soon recognized as commodities of great value by the rulers of such states as Capua, Beneventum, and Salerno. From a subordinate position, their audacity and their courage soon raised them to a political equality with their former masters. They acquired territorial possessions, built castles, and plundered their neighbors with equal profit and even greater facility than did the Lombard barons, themselves descended from a race of freebooters. They figured alternately as the allies and the adversaries of both Greeks and Moslems, as the dictates of prudence or the prospect of gain suggested. Before the middle of the eleventh century they had become an important factor in the politics of the Italian Peninsula, where their ambition caused their friendship and their enmity to be regarded with almost equal fear and suspicion. Of all the Norman knights who had been induced by the hope of fame and fortune to cast their lot in Southern Italy, none ranked so high for chivalrous grace and martial prowess as the six members of the noble house of De Hauteville. Without resources save their weapons and their valor, they soon attained to high distinction in those communities of adventurers whose existence depended on the sword. They cemented their power by matrimonial alliances with the daughters of local chieftains of large possessions and distinguished lineage; in more than one instance at the expense of conjugal attachments contracted years before during the affectionate enthusiasm of youth. Their influence soon became paramount in the councils of the Christians, as their pennons were ever foremost in the line of battle. The youngest of these bold champions was called Roger, a name destined to great and enduring renown in the crusading wars of Europe and Asia.

Encouraged by the dissensions of the Moors, certain citizens of Messina, whose vicinity to the main-land afforded its inhabitants frequent opportunities of communication with the Italian princes, formed the design of inviting the Normans to undertake the conquest of the island. Their plans had hardly been unfolded to Count Roger, when Ibn-Thimna, the fugitive Emir, sought his aid, with the fallacious hope that the efforts of the Christians might contribute to his restoration to the throne. The attempt was resolved upon; the assistance of Robert, Duke of Calabria, was secured, and, in the spring of 1061, Roger, with a small detachment of soldiers, crossed the Strait by night, and at daybreak, through the timely assistance of the conspirators, was introduced into the fortifications of Messina. The enterprise so auspiciously begun was prosecuted with the most flattering prospects of ultimate success. Robert was soon enabled to strengthen the garrison of Messina with a considerable force; many Christian settlements revolted, others secretly sent assurances of sympathy and co-operation; the predatory expeditions of the adventurers returned with valuable spoil, and, finally, a decisive victory obtained near Castrogiovanni placed the affairs of the invaders on a substantial footing and acquainted the Moslems with the formidable character of the enemy. The success of the Normans was rapid and decisive. Trani was delivered up by its inhabitants, weary of Moslem oppression and anarchy. Bari was taken after an obstinate defence. The Saracens now experienced in their turn the evils with which they had visited the unhappy Sicilians in the early times of the conquest. Their harvests were swept away. Their vineyards were uprooted. The peasant feared to venture beyond the walls of fortified places, and was hardly secure anywhere, for in every city Greek conspirators maintained secret and treasonable communication with the enemy. No hamlet, however sequestered, was exempt from the rapacity of the Norman freebooter, who pushed his incursions to the very environs of Palermo. In 1071 the siege of that city was undertaken. The forces of the invaders, which had received accessions from almost every country of Europe, were sufficiently numerous to invest the Moslem capital by land and sea. The stubborn resistance maintained by the garrison might have disheartened the assailants had it not been for the treachery of Christian soldiers serving under the Saracen banner. Notice was conveyed to the besiegers that a weak point existed in a certain part of the citadel. To divert the attention of the Moslems, the city was assailed on the eastern side as well as from the harbor, while the Duke, at the head of a picked body of men, scaled with little opposition the western walls of the citadel, which had been indicated as the vulnerable point by the traitors in the Moorish service. Astounded by the sudden appearance of the enemy in their rear, the Moors retired in disorder to the suburbs, and the next day surrendered under honorable conditions which guaranteed enjoyment of their laws and their religion.