eir own. The veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the defence
of Africa: the conquests of an age were lost in a single day; and the
Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired to the confines of
Egypt, and expected, five years, the promised succours of the caliph.
After the retreat of the Saracens, the victorious prophetess assembled
the Moorish chiefs, and recommended a measure of strange and savage
policy. "Our cities," said she, "and the gold and silver which they
contain, perpetually attract the arms of the Arabs. These vile metals
are not the objects of OUR ambition; we content ourselves with the
simple productions of the earth. Let us destroy these cities; let us
bury in their ruins those pernicious treasures; and when the avarice of
our foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps they will cease to
disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people." The proposal was accepted
with unanimous applause. From Tangier to Tripoli the buildings, or at
least the fortifications, were demolished, the fruit-trees were cut
down, the means of subsistence were extirpated, a fertile and populous
garden was changed into a desert, and the historians of a more
recent period could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity and
devastation of their ancestors.

[Footnote 159: This commander is styled by Nicephorus, -------- a vague
though not improper definition of the caliph. Theophanes introduces the
strange appellation of ----------, which his interpreter Goar explains
by Vizir Azem. They may approach the truth, in assigning the active
part to the minister, rather than the prince; but they forget that the
Ommiades had only a kaleb, or secretary, and that the office of
Vizir was not revived or instituted till the 132d year of the Hegira
(d'Herbelot, 912).]

[Footnote 160: According to Solinus (1.27, p. 36, edit. Salmas), the
Carthage of Dido stood either 677 or 737 years; a various reading,
which proceeds from the difference of MSS. or editions (Salmas, Plinian.
Exercit tom i. p. 228) The former of these accounts, which gives 823
years before Christ, is more consistent with the well-weighed testimony
of Velleius Paterculus: but the latter is preferred by our chronologists
(Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 398,) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and
Syrian annals.]

[Footnote 161: Leo African. fo1. 71, verso; 72, recto. Marmol, tom. ii.
p.445-447. Shaw, p.80.]

[Footnote 162: The history of the word Barbar may be classed und