ph. The Arabian
squadrons issued from the harbors of Palermo, Biserta, and Tunis; a
hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and Campania were attacked and
pillaged; nor could the suburbs of Rome be defended by the name of the
Caesars and apostles. Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have
fallen an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet.
But the caliphs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the
Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of
Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion
was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads. [85]

[Footnote 82: Theophanes, l. ii. p. 51. This history of the loss of
Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. vii.
p. 719, 721, &c.) has added some circumstances from the Italian
chronicles.]

[Footnote 83: The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede would
adapt itself much better to this epoch, than to the date (A.D. 1005)
which Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently reproach the poet
for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit of modern knights and
ancient republicans.]

[Footnote 84: The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is transcribed
and illustrated by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 719, &c.) Constantine
Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil, c. 69, 70, p. 190-192) mentions the
loss of Syracuse and the triumph of the demons.]

[Footnote 85: The extracts from the Arabic histories of Sicily are given
in Abulfeda, (Annal' Moslem. p. 271-273,) and in the first volume of
Muratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns,
tom. i. p. 363, 364) has added some important facts.]

In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn
and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens from the African coast
presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to approach a city which
even yet, in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the
Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling
people; but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left
exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and of the Ostian way. Their
invisible sanctity had protected them against the Goths, the Vandals,
and the Lombards; but the Arabs disdained both the gospel and the
legend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the
precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly
offerings; a silver alt