, in the depth of winter, had climbed
the snowy mountains of Libanus, and who were speedily followed by the
victorious squadrons of Caled himself. From the north and south the
troops of Antioch and Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their
banners were joined under the walls of the Phoenician cities: Tripoli
and Tyre were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered
without distrust the captive harbors, brought a seasonable supply of
arms and provisions to the camp of the Saracens. Their labors were
terminated by the unexpected surrender of Caesarea: the Roman prince had
embarked in the night; [89] and the defenceless citizens solicited their
pardon with an offering of two hundred thousand pieces of gold.
The remainder of the province, Ramlah, Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or
Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea,
Hierapolis, no longer presumed to dispute the will of the conqueror; and
Syria bowed under the sceptre of the caliphs seven hundred years after
Pompey had despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings. [90]

[Footnote 88: See Ockley, (vol. i. p. 308, 312,) who laughs at the
credulity of his author. When Heraclius bade farewell to Syria, Vale
Syria et ultimum vale, he prophesied that the Romans should never
reenter the province till the birth of an inauspicious child, the future
scourge of the empire. Abulfeda, p. 68. I am perfectly ignorant of the
mystic sense, or nonsense, of this prediction.]

[Footnote 89: In the loose and obscure chronology of the times, I am
guided by an authentic record, (in the book of ceremonies of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus,) which certifies that, June 4, A.D. 638, the emperor
crowned his younger son Heraclius, in the presence of his eldest,
Constantine, and in the palace of Constantinople; that January 1, A.D.
639, the royal procession visited the great church, and on the 4th of
the same month, the hippodrome.]

[Footnote 90: Sixty-five years before Christ, Syria Pontusque monumenta
sunt Cn. Pompeii virtutis, (Vell. Patercul. ii. 38,) rather of his
fortune and power: he adjudged Syria to be a Roman province, and the
last of the Seleucides were incapable of drawing a sword in the defence
of their patrimony (see the original texts collected by Usher, Annal. p.
420)]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.--Part V.

The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many thousands
of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and the c