Chapter XV: The Moslem Domination in Sicily (2)

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.

The capture of Palermo, after a siege of only five months, reflected great distinction on the Norman arms. Every circumstance conspired to facilitate their triumph. Although the entire force of the besiegers could not have exceeded ten thousand, they were all veterans, whose courage had been tested in many a campaign and foray. The Saracen capital had long been distracted by faction, by religious schism, by civil war. Its population had been greatly diminished from these causes, and even the imminent danger of conquest failed to reconcile the partisans of the hostile sects and tribes, who cared less for the prosperity of their country than for the maintenance of their doctrines and the prosecution of their hereditary enmities. The most important auxiliaries of the invaders, however, were the Christian tributaries. Harassed by the persecution of successive usurpers, insecure in person and property, subject to the capricious tyranny of a despotism which, without warning, not infrequently consigned their bodies to the dungeon and their daughters to the seraglio, these unfortunate vassals were prepared to further any undertaking which might deliver them from the intolerable oppression under which they groaned.

The progress of the Normans was henceforth unimpeded by organized resistance. Trapani, Taormina, Syracuse, were carried by storm. Castrogiovanni was surrendered by its governor, who apostatized to the Christian faith. In 1091 the cities of Butera and Noto, the last possessions of the Moslems in the island, were transferred by peaceful negotiation to the Normans, who now became the masters of Sicily. Coincident with the extensive territorial acquisitions resulting from the conquest, the feudal system was instituted, and fiefs were bestowed on those officers of the invading army whose services merited such a recompense and whose fidelity could be depended upon by the lords of the house of De Hauteville who assumed the suzerainty. The Moors, assured of the possession of their rights, passed quietly from anarchy and riot to the restraints and subordination of feudal dependence. With greater facility than would have been conjectured from their customs and antecedents, they adapted themselves to the unfamiliar conditions by which they were surrounded. As had been the case with the Greeks, they intermarried with their conquerors. They served with gallantry and distinction in the Norman armies. Their mercenaries, under the leadership of Christian nobles, were regarded with greater dread than when, under their own commanders, they had menaced the existence of the Papacy and the security of Rome. In many ways their superior civilization made its influence felt in the life and habits of the semi-barbarians of the West. The manners of the latter became more polished, their intercourse with equals less offensively rude, their treatment of inferiors less tyrannical and cruel. The Arab physician, who, with the Jew, monopolized the medical learning of his time, enjoyed the confidence and respect of the Norman princes. The Arab statesman and financier both stood high in their favor, and received the most substantial and flattering marks of their esteem. The luxurious customs of the Moors--permitted by their creed but forbidden by the strict morality of Christian discipline--commended themselves with peculiar zest to the lax principles and unrestrained passions of the Norman chivalry. The latter practised polygamy upon a scale fully as extensive as that of their infidel predecessors, established harems, and maintained troops of eunuchs. Beautiful concubines, arrayed, some in Christian, others in Moorish garb, and attended by trains of female slaves whose charms rivalled those of their mistresses, sauntered daily through the delightful promenades of Syracuse and Palermo. In vain the anathemas of the Holy See were launched against the nominal champions of the Faith who, with Oriental sensuality and magnificence, held their courts in the Sicilian capitals. The corruption of the Vatican was too familiar to all who had served in the campaigns of Italy for the denunciation of the Pope to arouse any other feelings than those of ridicule and contempt. Even the clergy became infected through the contagious example of their temporal rulers; the amiable vices so reprobated by the Holy Father were scarcely concealed by the inferior ecclesiastics, while the episcopal palaces of the larger cities exhibited scenes more appropriate to the secret precincts of a Moorish harem than to the homes of the most exalted dignitaries of the Sicilian Church. During the Saracen occupation of Sicily the country was probably more thickly populated and was certainly subject to a more thorough system of tillage than it had been while under the control of any other nation. It contained eighteen cities and hundreds of towns, villages, and hamlets. In all there were more than a thousand centres of population throughout the island, which did not include the smaller settlements. The tireless industry of the Moor developed to the highest degree its wonderful natural resources. Almost every grain and fruit known to the agriculturist flourished on the slopes of the gentle eminences which lined its coast or in the fertile depths of the sheltered valleys. Its mountain sides were covered with forests of chestnut, pine, and cedar, invaluable for ship-building purposes. The papyrus, identical with the famous plant of Egypt, and found nowhere else in Europe, grew wild in its marshes. The level lands of the South were occupied by endless groves of palms and oranges. Cotton, sugar-cane, and flax were cultivated with great success. Olives constituted one of the staple crops of the country. The culture of silk was introduced into Sicily some years before it became known to the Moors of Spain, and extensive plantations of mulberries were maintained for the sustenance of that useful insect whose industry, in every country propitious to its growth, has been forced to contribute to the luxury and vanity of man. The products of the Sicilian wine-press were famous among the bacchanalian poets of the court of Palermo, who had long since forgotten the prohibitory mandate of the Prophet. The most improved methods of cultivation, tested by the experience of ages, were adopted to aid the fertility of the soil and the mildness of the climate. The irrigating system in use was modelled after those of Persia and Egypt. The supply of water seems to have been abundant and of the purest quality, but, through the ignorance of succeeding generations, which destroyed the forests, extensive tracts, once verdant as a garden and traversed by navigable streams, have been changed into arid plains barren of all vegetation and seamed with dry and rocky ravines.