ommanded the centre, and the vanguard
was given to his son Abbas, who, in the trial of the first adventures,
might succeed with the more glory, or fail with the least reproach. In
the revenge of his injury, the caliph prepared to retaliate a similar
affront. The father of Theophilus was a native of Amorium in Phrygia:
the original seat of the Imperial house had been adorned with privileges
and monuments; and, whatever might be the indifference of the people,
Constantinople itself was scarcely of more value in the eyes of the
sovereign and his court. The name of Amorium was inscribed on the
shields of the Saracens; and their three armies were again united
under the walls of the devoted city. It had been proposed by the wisest
counsellors, to evacuate Amorium, to remove the inhabitants, and to
abandon the empty structures to the vain resentment of the Barbarians.
The emperor embraced the more generous resolution of defending, in a
siege and battle, the country of his ancestors. When the armies drew
near, the front of the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more
closely planted with spears and javelins; but the event of the action
was not glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs were
broken, but it was by the swords of thirty thousand Persians, who had
obtained service and settlement in the Byzantine empire. The Greeks
were repulsed and vanquished, but it was by the arrows of the Turkish
cavalry; and had not their bowstrings been damped and relaxed by the
evening rain, very few of the Christians could have escaped with the
emperor from the field of battle. They breathed at Dorylaeum, at
the distance of three days; and Theophilus, reviewing his trembling
squadrons, forgave the common flight both of the prince and people.
After this discovery of his weakness, he vainly hoped to deprecate
the fate of Amorium: the inexorable caliph rejected with contempt his
prayers and promises; and detained the Roman ambassadors to be the
witnesses of his great revenge. They had nearly been the witnesses of
his shame. The vigorous assaults of fifty-five days were encountered by
a faithful governor, a veteran garrison, and a desperate people; and
the Saracens must have raised the siege, if a domestic traitor had not
pointed to the weakest part of the wall, a place which was decorated
with the statues of a lion and a bull. The vow of Motassem was
accomplished with unrelenting rigor: tired, rather than satiated,
with destruct