l reigned. The Syrian emirs were assembled
at Aleppo to repel the invasion; they confided in the fame and
discipline of the mamelukes, in the temper of their swords and lances of
the purest steel of Damascus, in the strength of their walled cities,
and in the populousness of sixty thousand villages; and instead of
sustaining a siege, they threw open their gates and arrayed their forces
in the plain. But these forces were not cemented by virtue and union,
and some powerful emirs had been seduced to desert or betray their more
loyal companions. Timur's front was covered with a line of Indian
elephants, whose turrets were filled with archers and Greek fire; the
rapid evolutions of his cavalry completed the dismay and disorder; the
Syrian crowds fell back on each other; many thousands were stifled or
slaughtered in the entrance of the great street; the Mongols entered
with the fugitives; and after a short defence the impregnable citadel of
Aleppo was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants
and captives, Timur distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he
invited to the dangerous honor of a personal conference. The Mongol
Prince was a zealous Mussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him
to revere the memory of Ali and Hasan; and he had imbibed a deep
prejudice against the Syrians as the enemies of the son of the daughter
of the apostle of God. To these doctors he proposed a captious question,
which the casuists of Samarkand and Herat were incapable of resolving.
"Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side or on that
of my enemies?" But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity of
one of the cadis of Aleppo, who replied, in the words of Mahomet
himself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr; and
that the Moslems of either party who fight only for the glory of God may
deserve that sacred appellation. The true succession of the caliphs was
a controversy of a still more delicate nature; and the frankness of a
doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the Emperor to exclaim:
"Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a
tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the Prophet." A prudent
explanation restored his tranquillity, and he passed to a more familiar
topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadi. "Fifty
years." "It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here,"
continued Timur, "a poor, lame, decrepit m