etails of this battle beyond the fact
that the Greek fire struck such terror by its destructive effect that
the Saracens were utterly defeated. This unexpected blow completed
the growing demoralization of the besiegers. The army returned
to the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, and the survivors of the
fleet turned homewards. Constantine followed up his victory with
splendid energy. He landed troops on the Asiatic shore, pursued
the retreating Arabs and drove the shattered remnant of their army
back into Syria. The fleet was overtaken by a storm in the AEgean and
suffered heavily. Before the ships could reassemble, the Christians
were upon them and almost nothing was left of the great Saracen
armada. Thus the second great assault on Constantinople was shattered
by the most staggering disaster that had ever befallen the cause
of Islam.

The Christian empire once more stood supreme, and that supremacy
was attested by the terms of peace which the defeated Muaviah was
glad to accept. There was to be a truce of thirty years, during
which the Christian emperor was to receive an annual tribute of
3000 pounds of gold, fifty Arab horses and fifty slaves.

It is unfortunate that there was no Herodotus to tell the details
of this victory, for it was tremendously important to European
civilization. Western Europe was then a welter of barbarism and
anarchy, and if Constantinople had fallen, in all probability the
last vestige of Roman civilization would have been destroyed. Moreover,
the battle is of special interest from a tactical point of view
because it was won by a new device, Greek fire, which was the most
destructive naval weapon up to the time when gunpowder and artillery
took its place. Indeed this substance may be said to have saved
Christian civilization for several centuries, for the secret of
its composition was carefully preserved at Constantinople and the
Arabs never recovered from their fear of it.

The victory did not, however, mark the crisis of the struggle.
In the half century that followed, Constantinople suffered from
weak or imbecile emperors while the Caliphate gained ground under
able rulers and generals. In the first fifteen years of the eighth
century the Saracens reached the climax of their power. Under a
great general, Muza, they conquered Spain and spread into southern
France. It was he who conceived the grandiose plan of conquering
Christendom by a simultaneous attack from the west and from the
east