acrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. The classic names
of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for a moment in the list of
conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the paradise of Damascus,
and accepted the ransom of a submissive people; and the torrent was
only stopped by the impregnable fortress of Tripoli, on the sea-coast of
Phnicia. Since the days of Heraclius, the Euphrates, below the passage
of Mount Taurus, had been impervious, and almost invisible, to the
Greeks. The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces;
and the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the once
famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, and Nisibis, the
ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood of the Tigris. His
ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping the virgin treasures
of Ecbatana, a well-known name, under which the Byzantine writer has
concealed the capital of the Abbassides. The consternation of the
fugitives had already diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied
riches of Bagdad had already been dissipated by the avarice and
prodigality of domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the
stern demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to
provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied, that
his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn from his hands,
and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which he was unable to
support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture of the palace was sold;
and the paltry price of forty thousand pieces of gold was instantly
consumed in private luxury. But the apprehensions of Bagdad were
relieved by the retreat of the Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the
desert of Mesopotamia; and the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden
with Oriental spoils, returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his
triumph, the silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and
silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by this
transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the fugitive
princes returned to their capitals; the subjects disclaimed their
involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems again purified their
temples, and overturned the idols of the saints and martyrs; the
Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a Saracen to an orthodox master; and
the numbers and spirit of the Melchites were inadequate to the support
of the church and state. Of these extensive conquests, Ant