ndertaken, and would
speedily achieve, a regular and permanent conquest. From the provinces
of Europe and Asia, fourscore thousand soldiers were transported by sea
and land to Antioch and Caesarea: the light troops of the army consisted
of sixty thousand Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the
banner of Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the
van; and it was a maxim of the Greeks, that for the purpose of cutting
diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius withheld his person
from the dangers of the field; but his presumption, or perhaps his
despondency, suggested a peremptory order, that the fate of the province
and the war should be decided by a single battle. The Syrians were
attached to the standard of Rome and of the cross: but the noble, the
citizen, the peasant, were exasperated by the injustice and cruelty of
a licentious host, who oppressed them as subjects, and despised them
as strangers and aliens. [73] A report of these mighty preparations was
conveyed to the Saracens in their camp of Emesa, and the chiefs, though
resolved to fight, assembled a council: the faith of Abu Obeidah would
have expected on the same spot the glory of martyrdom; the wisdom
of Caled advised an honorable retreat to the skirts of Palestine and
Arabia, where they might await the succors of their friends, and the
attack of the unbelievers. A speedy messenger soon returned from the
throne of Medina, with the blessings of Omar and Ali, the prayers of the
widows of the prophet, and a reenforcement of eight thousand Moslems. In
their way they overturned a detachment of Greeks, and when they
joined at Yermuk the camp of their brethren, they found the pleasing
intelligence, that Caled had already defeated and scattered the
Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. In the neighborhood of Bosra,
the springs of Mount Hermon descend in a torrent to the plain of
Decapolis, or ten cities; and the Hieromax, a name which has been
corrupted to Yermuk, is lost, after a short course, in the Lake of
Tiberias. [74] The banks of this obscure stream were illustrated by a
long and bloody encounter. [7411] On this momentous occasion, the public
voice, and the modesty of Abu Obeidah, restored the command to the most
deserving of the Moslems. Caled assumed his station in the front, his
colleague was posted in the rear, that the disorder of the fugitive
might be checked by his venerable aspect, and the sight of the yellow
banner whi