ion, he returned to his new palace of Samara, in the
neighborhood of Bagdad, while the _unfortunate_ Theophilus implored the
tardy and doubtful aid of his Western rival the emperor of the Franks.
Yet in the siege of Amorium about seventy thousand Moslems had perished:
their loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty thousand
Christians, and the sufferings of an equal number of captives, who
were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual necessity could
sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of prisoners: but in the
national and religious conflict of the two empires, peace was without
confidence, and war without mercy. Quarter was seldom given in the
field; those who escaped the edge of the sword were condemned to
hopeless servitude, or exquisite torture; and a Catholic emperor
relates, with visible satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of
Crete, who were flayed alive, or plunged into caldrons of boiling oil.
To a point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two
hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same caliph
descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve the distress
of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had tumbled into a
ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect with the most pleasure,
when he was summoned by the angel of death?

With Motassem, the eighth of the Abbassides, the glory of his family and
nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over
the East, and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria,
and Egypt, they insensibly lost the freeborn and martial virtues of the
desert. The courage of the South is the artificial fruit of discipline
and prejudice; the active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the
mercenary forces of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of the
North, of which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the
Turks who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the robust youths, either
taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the exercises of
the field, and the profession of the Mahometan faith. The Turkish guards
stood in arms round the throne of their benefactor, and their chiefs
usurped the dominion of the palace and the provinces. Motassem, the
first author of this dangerous example, introduced into the capital
above fifty thousand Turks: their licentious conduct provoked the public
indignation, and the quarrels of the soldiers and people induced the