Koran, to threaten the inattentive despot
with the judgment of God and posterity. His court was adorned with
luxury and science; but, in a reign of three-and-twenty years, Harun
repeatedly visited his provinces from Chorasan to Egypt; nine times
he performed the pilgrimage of Mecca; eight times he invaded the
territories of the Romans; and as often as they declined the payment of
the tribute, they were taught to feel that a month of depredation was
more costly than a year of submission. But when the unnatural mother
of Constantine was deposed and banished, her successor, Nicephorus,
resolved to obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle
of the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the game
of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece. "The queen (he
spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and herself as a pawn. That
pusillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, the double of which she
ought to have exacted from the Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits
of your injustice, or abide the determination of the sword." At these
words the ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the
throne. The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his cimeter,
_samsamah_, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he cut asunder the
feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or endangering the
temper, of his blade. He then dictated an epistle of tremendous brevity:
"In the name of the most merciful God, Harun al Rashid, commander of the
faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog. I have read thy letter, O thou
son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold, my
reply." It was written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of
Phrygia; and the warlike celerity of the Arabs could only be checked
by the arts of deceit and the show of repentance. The triumphant caliph
retired, after the fatigues of the campaign, to his favorite palace of
Racca on the Euphrates: but the distance of five hundred miles, and the
inclemency of the season, encouraged his adversary to violate the peace.
Nicephorus was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander
of the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of
Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and war were exhausted; and
the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field of battle
overspread with forty thousand of his subjects. Yet the emperor was
ashamed of submission, and the c