part of men, a precaution
which was to be rendered vain by the perfidy of Amim.

It was in the beginning of the following year, at the very moment when
the Barmecides thought their position most secure, that Harun brought
sudden ruin upon them. The causes of their disgrace have been
differently stated by the annalists (see BARMECIDES). The principal
cause appears to have been that they abused the sovereign power which
they exercised. Not a few were jealous of their greatness and sought for
opportunities of instilling distrust against them into the mind of
Harun, and of making him feel that he was caliph only in name. The
secret dissatisfaction thus aroused was increased, according to some
apparently well-informed authorities, by the releasing of the Alid Yahya
b. Abdallah, already mentioned. Finally Harun resolved on their
destruction, and Ja'far b. Yahya, who had just taken leave of him after
a day's hunting, was arrested, taken to the castle of Harun, and
beheaded. The following day, his father Yahya, his brother Fadl, and all
the other Barmecides were arrested and imprisoned; all their property
was confiscated. The only Barmecide who remained unmolested with his
family was Mahommed the brother of Yahya, who had been the chamberlain
of the caliph till 795, when Fadl b. Rabi' got his place. This latter
had henceforward the greatest influence at court.

In the same year a revolution at Constantinople overthrew the empress
Irene. The new emperor Nicephorus, thinking himself strong enough to
refuse the payment of tribute, wrote an insulting letter to Harun, who
contented himself with replying: "Thou shall not hear, but see, my
answer." He entered Asia Minor and took Heraclea, plundering and burning
along his whole line of march, till Nicephorus, in alarm, sued for
peace. Scarcely had the caliph returned into winter quarters when
Nicephorus broke the treaty. When the news came to Rakka, where Harun
was residing, not one of the ministers ventured to tell him, until at
last a poet introduced it in a poem which pleased the monarch.
Notwithstanding the rigour of the season, Harun retraced his steps, and
Nicephorus was compelled to observe his engagements. In 805 the first
great ransoming of Moslem prisoners took place on the banks of the
little river Lamus in Cilicia. But Nicephorus, profiting by serious
disturbances in Khorasan, broke the treaty again, and overran the
country as far as Anazarba and Kanisat as-sauda ("the bl