aliph was resolved on victory. One
hundred and thirty-five thousand regular soldiers received pay, and were
inscribed in the military roll; and above three hundred thousand
persons of every denomination marched under the black standard of the
Abbassides. They swept the surface of Asia Minor far beyond Tyana and
Ancyra, and invested the Pontic Heraclea, once a flourishing state, now
a paltry town; at that time capable of sustaining, in her antique walls,
a month's siege against the forces of the East. The ruin was complete,
the spoil was ample; but if Harun had been conversant with Grecian
story, he would have regretted the statue of Hercules, whose attributes,
the club, the bow, the quiver, and the lion's hide, were sculptured in
massy gold. The progress of desolation by sea and land, from the Euxine
to the Isle of Cyprus, compelled the emperor Nicephorus to retract his
haughty defiance. In the new treaty, the ruins of Heraclea were left
forever as a lesson and a trophy; and the coin of the tribute was marked
with the image and superscription of Harun and his three sons. Yet this
plurality of lords might contribute to remove the dishonor of the Roman
name. After the death of their father, the heirs of the caliph were
involved in civil discord, and the conqueror, the liberal Almamon,
was sufficiently engaged in the restoration of domestic peace and the
introduction of foreign science.

Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.--Part IV.

Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the Stammerer at
Constantinople, the islands of Crete and Sicily were subdued by the
Arabs. The former of these conquests is disdained by their own writers,
who were ignorant of the fame of Jupiter and Minos, but it has not been
overlooked by the Byzantine historians, who now begin to cast a
clearer light on the affairs of their own times. A band of Andalusian
volunteers, discontented with the climate or government of Spain,
explored the adventures of the sea; but as they sailed in no more than
ten or twenty galleys, their warfare must be branded with the name of
piracy. As the subjects and sectaries of the _white_ party, they might
lawfully invade the dominions of the _black_ caliphs. A rebellious
faction introduced them into Alexandria; they cut in pieces both friends
and foes, pillaged the churches and the moschs, sold above six thousand
Christian captives, and maintained their station in the capital of
Egypt, till they were oppr