MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

THE ARAB CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND THE LAST THIRTY YEARS OF THE ROMAN DOMINION

THE SECOND PART

CHAPTER IX. CRUSADE AGAINST PERSIA

The fortunes of Heraclius had now fallen so low that his Empire was almost bounded by the walls of his capital. On the westward or landward side of Constantinople hordes of Tartars or Huns and other barbarian tribes had roamed for years unchecked, and were prowling round the very gates of the city. On the east the Persian armies, which had conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, had advanced through Asia Minor sweeping all before them, and were in occupation of Chalcedon on the Asian shore of the Bosporus fronting Constantinople. The hopes which had shone on the accession of Heraclius were extinguished or clouded, as the masterful vigour which had won him the throne gave way, or rather seemed to give way, to apathy or despair. The first act of his reign was to send a humble message to Chosroes asking for peace, which was disdainfully refused.

When the tidings came that Egypt was lost to the Empire and the tribute of money and corn from that rich province cut off, with his exchequer and granaries empty and with ferocious enemies besieging or threatening his walls, which were guarded by an undisciplined and nerveless garrison, the Emperor seemed to resign all hope of deliverance. His meditated flight gives colour to the view that he felt unequal to the burden of the Empire; that all the heroic element in his character was overborne by the press of disasters; and that his moral strength was broken. It was certainly believed that he had resolved to fling off his crown and to return home to Africa: and his subjects might well recall the taunt of Phocas, ‘Are you the man to govern the Empire better?’ But there is some reason to think that Heraclius wished rather to shift the centre of government to Carthage, and there to prepare at leisure for the reconquest of his Asiatic dominions.

Whatever the truth may be, a vessel laden with treasures he wished to save had already sailed, bound for Carthage, and had reached the coast of Pentapolis, where it suffered shipwreck, when Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, having discovered the design of Heraclius, stood angrily between him and his purpose. By what power of speech or magnetism of will he prevailed, can only be conjectured: it is certain that he breathed a new purpose into the Emperor, and led him to take a solemn oath at the high altar in the Cathedral that he would be true to his trust, and that he would fight for the deliverance of his Empire from the enemies of the Cross.

Whether it was the eloquence of Sergius in preaching what was really the first great crusade, or the stirring power of the scene beneath the great dome of St. Sophia, or some new gleam of hope from the altered disposition of his foes, or all com­bined with a reaction from deep discouragement natural in a man whose strong power of brain was governed by a highly nervous temperament, it is beyond question that from this moment a most remarkable change was wrought in the Emperor. To the outer world at least he seemed to cast off like a slough all his weakness and indolence, resuming the character of a strong leader, and to show a kingship worthy of men’s allegiance. His whole mind was now given to collecting and organizing his resources for a war with Persia.

Nevertheless his counsels were guided by caution, and while he was preparing to fight, he resolved to ask terms of peace from the Persian general at Chalcedon, whom he visited in person. The Emperor was advised to send ambassadors to Chosroes, who was represented as certain to grant a favourable reply. Accordingly three distinguished envoys were dispatched with a letter, which is still extant, and with costly presents. The ambassadors duly delivered their message to the Great King, who did not refuse the precious gifts they offered: but his reply was stern and uncompromising. ‘Tell your master,’ he said, ‘that the Roman Empire belongs to me. Heraclius is a rebel and a slave: and I will grant no peace till he abandons the worship of the Crucified for the worship of the sun.’

The studied insolence of this answer gave the shock needed to rouse the deadened spirit of the Romans. It pointed afresh the religious aspect of the war, and fired at once the indignation and the enthusiasm of the people. The Emperor now found in them the material required for his new plans. While his ambassadors were on their way to the Persian court, Heraclius is said to have made peace for a while with his barbarian enemies and so cleared the landward side of the capital. Later we are told that he made an alliance with a Turkish tribe to the north of Persia, and promised his daughter Eudocia in marriage to their chief in part payment for a force of 40,000 cavalry—a compact voided by the death of the chieftain. Yet the evidence of peace in the west is very difficult to establish; because in 622 or 623 the Avars were still ravaging the country-side, and by an act of infamous treachery nearly succeeded in assassinating Heraclius and capturing Constantinople; and again in 626 an army of 30,000 Avars besieged the city acting in alliance with the Persians at Chalcedon, who were then commanded, as it seems, by the newly arrived Shah-Waraz. So that the peace with the Avars was neither real nor lasting. Heraclius probably estimated the treaty at its true value, and trusted rather to the strength of his walls and his galleys to secure Constantinople in his absence. But such was the warlike ardour of his people, that he soon enrolled and equipped a large army, which with allies ultimately numbered 120,000 men. His plan was first to find a training-ground where he could drill his levies into discipline and practise them in military movements and the use of arms, while vast supplies were being gathered and stored : and then, when his forces were ready for the field, to strike at the heart of Persia. He resolved therefore to transport his army to the Bay of Issus at the north­east corner of the Mediterranean and to make Cilicia his base—a move of singular boldness which was rendered possible by the fact that his command of the sea was undisputed and his resources in shipping enormous.

This reveals at once the cardinal blunder of the Persians. Had they only followed up their early victories on land by learning to fight and conquer by sea, nothing could have saved the Empire. Fortunately for the history of Christian civilization the Persians were not a seafaring people, and at this juncture they totally failed to realize the need of commanding the sea in order to complete and to secure their conquests. Sebeos indeed relates that Chosroes, in sending his insolent letter to Heraclius, sent orders to his own troops to cross over to Byzantium, whereupon they equipped a large squadron and made every preparation for battle by sea. But when the Persian flotilla advanced, the Roman galleys fell upon it with such fury that the Persians were shamefully defeated with a loss of 4,000 men and all their ships, and were so dismayed that ‘they never again ventured upon this kind of undertaking.’ Consequently for not less than ten years they remained in idle occupation of their naval base at Chalcedon, and of the magnificent harbour of Alexandria, to say nothing of Syrian seaports and the more western ports in Libya and Pentapolis. At all these places they might have gathered and trained their fleets to sweep the Mediterranean: even at Alexandria alone such a navy might have been built and manned as would have given battle to the Roman armaments with every chance of victory. But the land-fighting Persians were blind to the value of sea-power: they failed to read the lesson which the Roman republic of old had been slow indeed to learn, but learned effectively in its wars with Carthage—the lesson which the Arabs were destined to grasp with rapid intelligence before the close of this seventh century. Consequently the Persian camps were chained to the coast: and so limited was their power of offence, that Heraclius before very long discovered his ability to disregard their presence. Even ten years after the capture of Chalcedon the Byzantine galleys rode the sea triumphant in the narrow strait between the Persian and the Hunnish armies.

Before starting on his expedition round Asia Minor, and in order to defray its cost, Heraclius borrowed all the immense treasures of gold and silver vessels which the churches could lend, to coin into money. It was a wasteful and deplorable method of replenishing the empty state exchequer, but perhaps no other was available. When all was ready, he made over the government to his son, with the Patriarch Sergius and the patrician Bonus as guardians. Then shod in black he entered the great Cathedral, and falling prostrate prayed for the divine blessing upon his undertaking. George of Pisidia, deacon and sacristan of the Cathedral, witnessed the Emperor’s devotions and remarked, ‘May you dye red in the blood of your enemies the sandals now black on your feet’—a pious wish which may more easily be pardoned in the poet laureate than in the chaplain of the expedition : for George seems to have accompanied it in both characters. It was on Easter Monday, 622 , that Heraclius weighed anchor from the capital, and sailed southward. The armada, after weathering a storm in which Heraclius displayed at once the coolness of a commander and the hardihood of a common sailor, ploughed on its way and made a prosperous voyage, to its destination. The force landed and camped at Issus, and seized the pass of Pylae on the frontier between Cilicia and Syria.

It is no part of the writer’s purpose to follow in detail the six years’ war which Heraclius now waged against the Persian Empire. From the first his arms were victorious. Out of the very unpromising material of which his army was composed he forged a weapon of the finest temper, which he wielded with consummate skill to break down the power of his enemies. His athletic strength and prowess in single combat, his enthusiasm, his burning faith in his mission as champion of the Cross, his readiness to share all hardships with his men, his personal ascendency and power of discipline, the rapidity and brilliancy of his tactics, and his coolness in meeting new combinations—all these qualities which he now revealed made. him an ideal leader of men and secured him an unparalleled succession of triumphs.

The expedition to Cilicia drove a wedge into the very centre of the vast territory between the Nile and the Bosporus now controlled by the Persians. In the following year a second expedition to Trebizond drove in another wedge to meet it from the northern side of Asia Minor. The pressure thus exerted was enormous; and, as blow followed blow, the Persians were forced to recall their armies from Alexandria and from Chalcedon. It is not clear in what year either event happened; but historians agree in making the occupation of both towns begin and end nearly simultaneously, and they differ little regarding the period of occupation, which in each case is estimated at ten and twelve years by different authorities. We shall not be far wrong in dating the withdrawal of the Persians from the Bosporus and the Nile early in the year 627 a. d.

The crowning achievement of the war—the capture by Heraclius of Dastagerd, some eighty miles to the north of Madain or Ctesiphon—took place in February, 628. On the 24th of that month Chosroes fled ignominiously, but was caught and thrown into prison, where after suffering indignity and torture at the hands of his successor Siroes, he was put to death a few days later. Chosroes’ palace was burnt to the ground, and all its magnificent and costly treasures that could not be removed perished in the flames. Multitudes of captives from Syria and from Egypt were released, the Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem among them; the reliquary enclosing the Holy Rood was brought uninjured and delivered into the hands of Heraclius; and the war was  ended by a formal treaty of peace between the Roman Empire and Persia. The great crusade was accomplished by one of the most romantic triumphs in history.

It was on Whit Sunday, May 15, in the same year, that the Emperors dispatches announcing the victorious termination of the war were read from the great ambon in the Cathedral of St. Sophia—an incident which seems to have strongly impressed the imagination of contemporary writers, and which was doubtless accompanied by all the state and pomp of wonted use in that great building on a glorious occasion.

But the Emperor was still detained for some time in the east by the work of pacification. When, however, the remaining Persian garrisons in Syria and Asia Minor had been withdrawn tinder safe-conduct, and the Patriarch Zacharias had been restored to his seat in Jerusalem, then Heraclius turned homeward after six years of strife and entered Constantinople in triumph, bearing with him the Holy Rood which he had rescued from the heathen.

CHAPTER X. THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS

In the following year, 629, the Emperor set forth in the early spring on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the purpose of restoring to its place the Cross, which meanwhile had rested in St. Sophia. Two incidents are recorded of the journey.

According to some writers it was about this time that at Emesa (or Edessa) envoys from Mohammed arrived, bearing letters which invited Heraclius to adopt the religion of Islam. This episode, however, seems to belong to an earlier date, before the death of the Great King. The other event is as follows. When the Emperor reached Tiberias, the Jews sent a deputation with costly gifts to ask for a pledge of security. They remembered their own deeds against the Christians, and feared the Emperor’s vengeance. But he generously gave them the promise of protec­tion, and the Jews were prudent enough to obtain his bond in writing.

The journey was resumed, and at length the Holy City was seen in the distance. It is easy to picture the glittering cavalcade—the flashing steel¹ and fluttering pennons of the horsemen, the bowmen and spearmen with shield and quiver and lance, and in the midst the Emperor and his staff, one blaze of gold and colour. As Heraclius drew near, he was met by a great procession of clergy and monks under Modestus, bearing gospels and tapers and censers—the customary ritual—and followed by a great multitude of the inhabitants. So accompanied he passed to the Golden Gate on the eastern side of the city, where the Patriarch Zacharias was waiting. But after an act of homage the Patriarch rebuked his ruler for the splendour of his garb, and bade him lay aside his purple and gold, that he might approach the holy places with fitting humility: and the victorious Emperor marched on in the guise of a penitent pilgrim. On every side he saw signs of the ruin wrought fourteen years before by the Persians; but he thanked Modestus for the great work of restoration which he had done, especially at the churches of the Resurrection, of the Skull, and of Constantine. Then followed the grand ceremonial known as the Exaltation of the Cross, the memory of which is still celebrated by Eastern and Western Churches alike on September 14.

Legend has it that the Holy Rood, which was enshrined in a reliquary studded with jewels, had never been profaned by heathen eyes during the period of its captivity with the Persians: that even Chosroes had never dared to turn the key or to open the sacred treasure. It is extremely probable that the Rood was saved from destruction, partly owing to the superstitious reverence with which the heathen King regarded it, but partly also owing to the intrinsic value of the gold and precious stones enclosing it, Chosroes being a great collector of works of art. But however that may be, the relic was restored to the Cathedral church of the Resurrection, and there placed on the altar with solemn rites of great magni­ficence.

It is not fanciful to see in this triumphant restora­tion of the Cross the dramatic climax of the Emperor’s career. He was now at the zenith of his power and his fame, and may well have felt that his mission was accomplished. During ten years of failure and shame he had sunk under that strange besetting weakness of will which had bowed his Empire to the dust, which had suffered province after province to crumble away at the touch of barbarian armies, till nothing was left but the walls of his capital and the narrow strip of sea that sundered the beleaguering hosts of his enemies. Then rising like a dreamer from sleep he had astonished the world by an exhibi­tion of iron purpose and strength, of glowing enthusiasm, of consummate strategy, of swiftness in decision and commanding power over men—qualities which marked him as by far the greatest captain of his age. The armies created and led by his genius had conquered the conquering Persians and freed his empire of their yoke from the Bosporus to the Araxes, from the Araxes to the Jordan, and from the Jordan to the Nile. Above all he had saved Christ­endom from the imminent danger of being swamped by a heathen religion; he had rescued from a pagan king the most precious symbol of the Christian truth; and now the restitution of the Cross to its shrine in the Holy City sealed in him the union of imperial conqueror and victorious defender of the faith. He had delivered the Roman Empire and delivered Christendom from the very edge of destruction.

But from this moment both his fortune and his character wavered and began to decline. His first political act was one of fierce reprisal against the Jews. People and priests in Jerusalem vied with each other in denouncing that race to the Emperor, and in charging them with more guilt than the Persians for the slaughter of the Christians and the demolition and burning of the churches. The charge was probably true, or near the truth; it was not for nothing that the Jews had taken the Emperor’s bond of indemnity, and it is clear that they felt at this time a far more bitter hostility against the Christians than against their heathen neighbours. Heraclius, however, was loth to depart from his plighted word. He was reminded that he had given the pledge in ignorance of the facts; that he was not bound by a promise cozened out of him by fraud; that, had he known how the Jews smote the Christians with fire and sword, he must have dealt very sternly with them; and so forth. The clamour or the casuistry, or both, prevailed. An edict was issued by which the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem and forbidden to come again within three miles of its walls. But banishment was the lightest punishment they suffered; for Heraclius seems to have sanctioned the full measure of vengeance which the Christians demanded, and something like a general massacre followed. But in order to soothe the Emperor’s conscience and their own, the Patriarch and bishops sent letters to every city ordering the institution of a week’s fast for ever. That institution still remains, and to this day the first week of Lent with the Copts is called ‘The Fast of Heraclius.’ It may be taken that the Copts joined in the massacre, having their own scores to settle with the Jews from the time of the Persian capture of Alexandria.

The Emperor seems to have spent the winter in Jerusalem; indeed from the date at which the fast is kept, it may be argued that the massacre of the Jews took place early in the following year, 630. It was during this winter that the Patriarch Zacharias died, and Modestus, by the voice of King and people alike, was placed on the patriarchal throne.

It is not clear which of the two pontiffs was responsible for the massacre which sullied the fame of Heraclius; doubtless both men consented to it; but, when the Emperor turned northward again, he took Modestus with him to aid in the resettlement of Church matters consequent upon the recovery of Syria, and in the transfer to the orthodox party of those churches which Chosroes had made over to Monophysites or Nestorians. The Patriarch was required too to aid in formulating that plan of religious union between the warring sects of the Empire which had long been among the Emperor’s most cherished dreams, and which now seemed feasible to the victorious champion of Christendom.

But Modestus died in the winter of 630-631, after a reign of only nine months, and Heraclius failing to find a bishop whose mind would mirror his own Church policy left the patriarchal throne of Jerusalem vacant. But he was not to be shaken from his purpose of reconciling the Jacobite and Melkite, the dissentient and orthodox parties in the Church. Sergius of Constantinople brought to the cause the zeal and power for which his name was famous. He was a Syrian by birth, and with him originated the formula of com­promise adopted by Heraclius, whereby it was settled to dismiss the question whether our Lord’s nature was single or twofold, but to pronounce positively that there was but one will or operation. As long ago as 623, when the Emperor was in Armenia, he had come to terms with Paulus, so that the union of the State Church with the Armenian Church was accomplished : and four years later in a visit to the Lazians he gained over Cyrus, the Nestorian bishop of Phasis, to the new doctrine. He now offered the primacy of Antioch to Athanasius on condition of his recognizing the Council of Chalcedon with the Monothelite interpretation. The three prelates seem to have met in council with the Emperor at Hierapolis, and the result of their debates was complete agreement upon the terms of the compromise, which it was hoped would bring peace to the Church and heal her deep divisions.

This agreement was probably reached in the early part of the year 631, and was immediately followed by the appointment of Cyrus to the primacy of Alexandria, with instructions to draw the Coptic and Melkite Churches together in the happy union devised by the wisdom of the imperial council. So far the plan of the Emperor had prospered almost beyond expectation. The dispatches which reached him from Egypt were at first encouraging. Cyrus gave glowing reports of his progress, and it seemed as if Heraclius, after recovering and reuniting the Empire which the Persians had torn from his grasp and shattered, was about to fulfil the dream of his life. In battle he had won glory enough, by conquering the heathen and saving Christendom ; it would be a greater glory to bring peace and good­will to the Church, to vanquish its dissensions, and join its members in a single brotherhood owning a single faith. The symbol of the recovered Cross was before his eyes; nor is it to be wondered at if above it he read that legend which had shone in the vision of his great predecessor, “with this sign you will conquer". By the Cross he had conquered in war, and the Cross was to be the inspiration of his statecraft in peace.

CHAPTER XI. THE RISE OF MOHAMMED

History is full of dramatic ironies; but in few periods are they more abounding or more striking than in the reign of Heraclius. Almost at the moment when Heraclius began his career as Emperor, the great rival of his life . and work, Mohammed, began his career as Prophet, in the year 610. Each of these two great men went through a period of discouragement and danger which lasted for twelve years, and each emerged from the fire of adversity with a spirit tempered to great purpose. It was in 622 that Heraclius started on his expedition to Cilicia, where he struck the first blow for the rescue of the Holy Rood and the recovery of his Empire from the Persians. In 622 Mohammed by his flight from Mecca to Medina virtually opened his war for the rescue of the great shrine of the Kabah and for the conquest of Arabia: so that from that point dates the Mohammedan era for all time.

Nor do the coincidences end here. From 622 onwards both King and Prophet advanced in a career of victory almost unchequered for the space of six years. With eager eyes Mohammed watched the long eventful combat between Rome and Persia. He had deplored the earlier success of the Persian arms in 614 and 615, as the success of an idolatrous over a believing nation: but when the tide of war so strangely changed, and Heraclius in six years of furious struggle overthrew the might of Persia, then Mohammed, fired with new dreams of dominion, rejoiced to see victor and vanquished both drained of strength, and read in the issue the finger of God preparing the way for the power of Islam. So that the moment of Heraclius’ greatest glory may well have been also the moment of Mohammed’s greatest encouragement.

Even before that the Prophet had felt himself strong enough to challenge the submission of the rulers of the world to his new religion. In the course of 627, Mohammed caused letters to be written, and he sealed them in Eastern fashion with a seal on which was written ‘Muhammad the Apostle of God.’ All contained the same claim of allegiance to Islim and to the Arabian Prophet as Vicegerent of the Most High. These letters were sent to the princes of Yaman, of Uman, of Yamamah, and of Bahrain; to Al Harith, prince of the Saracens on the borders of Syria; to George, wrongly called the Mukaukas, governor of Alexandria and Viceroy of Egypt; to the Negus of Abyssinia; to Chosroes, King of Persia ; and to Heraclius, Emperor of the Romans.

Of the princes of Arabia two sent fair answers, viz. the rulers of YamAmah and Bahrain, and they professed their conversion. From Yaman and Uman came rough replies, which Mohammed received with curses; while a polite but worthless acquiescence came from the King of Abyssinia: and it may be remarked that, of all the dominions whose allegiance Mohammed demanded, Abyssinia today remains the one power which has never bowed the knee to Islam. The governor of Egypt promised to consider the message, and treated the envoy, Hatib, with all honour; he sent back with his reply some valuable presents, which included two Coptic maidens, Mary and Shirin, the mule Duldul—absurdly said to be the first mule seen in Arabia—the ass Nafur, and a bag of money. Mary adopted Islam, and became a great favourite with Mohammed, but she died in 636, and so never saw the enslavement of her country.

The Persian King’s answer was given in quite another temper. He tore the Prophet’s letter to pieces in angry scorn, and wrote orders to Badhan, the Persian governor of the province of Hamyar, to send him the head of the impudent impostor. “So shall God rend his kingdom,” said Mohammed when he heard how Chosroes had dealt with his letter—a forecast or a curse which had not long to tarry for fulfilment.

And what of Heraclius? While fresh from the ovations of the capital which had greeted the close of his conquests in Asia, as he was making his way in one long triumph through Syria and bearing the Holy Rood back to the Holy City, did any thought or remembrance cross his mind of the time when those wild horsemen dashed up to his encampment and their leader Dahiah ibn Khalifah delivered Mohammed’s letter? The Emperor must have heard what manner of answer the Persian King had sent: perhaps also he had heard of the murder at Muta: but his own reply had been courteous enough—so courteous that the Arab writers embroider upon it the ridiculous story that Heraclius yielded  obedience to Islam. Nothing was further from his thoughts; nor was there the slightest reason why the master of so many war-hardened legions should take seriously the extravagant pretensions of an unknown Arabian chieftain.

So Heraclius passed on his way unheeding, or at least untroubled. But while the great procession was winding from the Golden Gate up to the church on Calvary for the festival of the Uplifting of the recovered Cross, while all Jerusalem was crying and sobbing with an emotion which broke down even the singers quiring their triumphal hymns at that same time a band of 3,000 horsemen sent by Mohammed was crossing the desert to Muta, to avenge the murder of his messenger, and to begin that war with the Roman Empire which ended only in 1453, when Constantinople fell before Islam, and the name of the Arabian dreamer was blazoned, where it still stands, on the walls of the great Cathedral of St. Sophia. It was not far from Muta that the Saracen army under Zaid was attacked by the imperial forces, and so severely handled that, after most of the officers had fallen, it was only saved from total destruction by the marvellous dexterity and prowess of Khalid, called henceforth the ‘Sword of God.’ The remnant made their way back in dejection to Medina : but they found Mohammed undismayed. Before October closed, he put Amr ibn al Asi at the head of a small force to patrol the Syrian border, and deferred the more serious conflict till he had established his power over Arabia. The conquest of Mecca soon followed and the victory of Hunain—events which made the name of Mohammed ring through the remotest deserts of Arabia.

Filled now with dreams of empire and blinded by his enthusiasm to every hindrance, he planned and openly proclaimed an expedition for the conquest of Palestine. But his project was received with a misgiving which showed that the faith of many of his converts was not proof against the fame of Heraclius. Instead of the 100,000 well-equipped men whom he wanted, he found that, without the hypocrites and malingerers, he could only muster a miscellaneous force of 30,000. With that number he advanced to Tabuk, about half-way to Muta. There he spent ten days doing nothing. Probably the reports of his scouts deterred him from advancing further north, or he was forced to return by want of food or water. Certain it is that he went back to Medina, and spent a year in organizing an army fit to take the field. From Tabuk, however, various treaties were made with local chieftains, and Khalid with a band of 400 horse surprised and captured the Christian chief of Dumah, who had to surrender his oasis, his town and castle, nearly three thousand camels, four hundred suits of mail armour, and finally his religion.

On the whole the failure of Tabuk scarcely retarded the progress of Islam. With very few exceptions, the princes of Arabia now threw in their lot with Mohammed, and the ‘ year of deputations ’ practically saw the whole country united under a single man, whom all from motives of conviction or of policy agreed to regard as their sovereign king, their infallible-general in war, and their God-sent prophet in religion. In the spring of 632 Mohammed accomplished his last pilgrimage to Mecca, where amidst countless throngs of believers he solemnly consecrated to Islam the whilom idolatrous shrine of the Kabah, and established the ritual which still prevails. Two months later he sounded the trumpet for war against the Roman Empire, and gave the command of the expedition to Uscimah, the son of his slave Zaid, who had been killed in the battle of Muta. But. three days after the appointment of Uscimah, the Prophet sickened of a fever, which carried him swiftly to his grave.

By the death of Mohammed the cause of Islam was strengthened rather than weakened. For a moment it seemed to totter: but it was too firmly based to fall under any shock from within. Unlike the Emperor Heraclius, Mohammed died, if not at the summit of power, yet at a time when he had realized the dream of his life. He had no sense of failure to cloud his last moments, no feeling that he had outlived or tarnished his triumph. Indeed, had he possessed that gift of prophecy which he claimed, he might have known that the tremendous combina­tion of political and religious forces which he was bequeathing would almost avail in after-time to achieve the conquest of the world.

Arabia was virtually united before the death of the Prophet. The fall of Chosroes had broken the last link of Persian dominion in Yaman and the south, while Heraclius made no effort to define or assert the somewhat shadowy authority of his Empire in the north of the peninsula. There seems no doubt too that the Arabian Christians were almost all Monophysite, and that consequently they profoundly distrusted the Emperor’s statecraft, and were weak to resist the Empire’s enemies.

What little remained to be done towards binding Arabia under a single sovereignty was done by Abu Bakr, now chosen Caliph, i.e. khalifah, or suc­cessor to Mohammed. Within a single year he launched Usamah on a victorious expedition into Syria, and, by the aid of the fiery Khalid, crushed the rebellion of Musailama, the rival prophet who had sprung up in Yaman. The dying injunction of Mohammed was to drive every religion but Islam out of Arabia; and this seems to have been accomplished almost at once. All the Christian communities were swamped and extinguished, and all the art and culture and the learning which flourished among them perished.

There is no complete picture of the arts in Arabia at this time: but some idea of the splendour they attained may be formed from the descriptions of the cathedral at Sana', which the Muslims defiled and ruined. It was built by Abraha al Ashram, the vice­roy of the King of Abyssinia, somewhat later than the middle of the sixth century. So intense, we are told, was the King’s interest in the building and decoration of the fabric, that during the whole time he was living and sleeping in the church. In design the church was basilican. Lofty columns of precious marble divided the nave from the aisles. The spaces above the columns, the apse and the upper part of the walls, were adorned with magnificent mosaics in gold and colours, or embellished with paint­ings. The lower part of the walls was panelled, and the floor was paved with marble of many hues set  in tasteful harmony. The choir was divided off by a screen of ebony inlaid with ivory most beautifully carved, and gold and silver ornament was lavished all over the interior. The doors were overlaid with plates of gold studded with silver nails, and plates of silver studded with massive nails of gold ; while the doors leading to the three altars were wrought with large panels of gold set with precious stones. On every panel there stood in relief a jewelled cross of gold with a red jacinth in the centre, and round about the cross were flowers of open-work in gold with gems or enamel of many colours. Such was the glorious church which Justinian aided Abraha to build; St. Sophia itself was hardly a more richly embellished or a more glorious work of art.

Even a brief sketch like this may serve in some sort as a picture of the civilization which Mohammed found in Arabia. But the artistic spirit of Islam was as yet undeveloped, and it saw in all this wealth and beauty mere matter for plunder or for iconoclasm. At what precise date this and other Christian buildings were demolished, is uncertain. Wright thinks that few, if any, Christians were left in 632, and the buildings would hardly have been saved or turned into temples for IsUm, as was done in other times and places. The Christian religion and Christian religious monuments were levelled by the first waves of that Muslim fanaticism which was originally directed rather against Jews and idolaters. Doubtless the free use of pictures and frescoed figures in the Christian churches gave offence to the Muslims, and in some cases partially justified them in confounding Christian with heathen worship. However that may be, all Arabia now turned to the Kabah and obeyed the Koran. Whether Christian, Jew, or idolater by religion, whether Abyssinian or Persian, Negro or Arab by race, the people were now brought under one form of faith and worship, and one form of government.

The Saracen Empire thus founded was really a federal republic under the hegemony of Mecca. Abb Bakr and the other leaders saw, as Mohammed had seen, that the one thing needed to weld the body politic—to give it complete solidity arid cohesion— was foreign conquest. To the Arabs, as to the Jews of old, Palestine was the land of promise, flowing with milk and honey. The love of military adventure was in their blood; their brain was fired by the consciousness of a divine mission. Such a combination of motive has always proved formidable, and was now to prove wellnigh irresistible.

‘This is to acquaint you that I propose to send the true believers into Syria to take it out of the hands of the infidels. And I would have you know that fighting for religion is an act of obedience to God'. So ran Abu Bakr’s letter summoning the princes and chiefs of Arabia to muster their forces at Medina. A large army was quickly formed, and after some delay went forward under the generalship of Yazid ibn Abu Sauydn, with Amr ibn ali Ast in command of a division. It was a bold idea to  challenge the Roman and the Persian Empire at once to combat, but less daring than it seems. For just as it is a mistake to picture the people of Arabia as all idolaters before Mohammed, so it is a mistake to imagine them as a race apart, a race severed from the world by impassable deserts and living unknown, till the new force of Islam enabled their hosts to leap across the wilderness and burst upon the nations of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. The weakness of Byzantium and Persia, the quarrels and hatreds of Christendom, the flame of their own enthusiasm, their hopes of plunder in this life and dreams of delight in the next—all these were power­ful factors in the success of the Saracen invaders; but perhaps even more powerful than all other causes was the fact that they had closest racial affinities with a large part of the population they invaded. From time immemorial the borders of Syria and Persia, and the country east of those borders, had been overrun by Beduin Arabs, sometimes settled, sometimes nomadic, and moving for trade or war freely within the heart of both Empires. Some of the principal tribes were nominally subject to Heraclius, some to Chosroes; others were independent; and most of them were ready to throw their sword into either scale, as the interest of the moment demanded. Saracen scouts accompanied the armies of Heraclius. Yet almost the first of his victories in Asia Minor was, as George of Pisidia relates , won over a horde of ‘long-haired Saracens’ who were devastating the country. The Roman army at Muta is said to have been largely composed of Beduin troops; and on the other hand the conquest of Syria and of Egypt by Chosroes had been doubtless in some measure aided by troops of splendid irregular cavalry recruited from among the Saracens.

Here then was a vast amount of fighting material for the Muslim leaders akin to that of their own armies; to make it available they only required to set it ablaze with their own fanatical belief. At the very outset the task was not remarkably easy, since vast numbers of the Arabs professed Christianity. Many of these Christian Arabs fought to the last for the Empire and the Cross; others were not proof against the contagion of race; and while some threw off a faith which sat loosely upon them at best, some also observed a cautious neutrality, till they could safely range their forces on the winning side. Still the ties of race told largely in favour of the Muslims.

One more general remark may be pardoned. Among the causes of the Muslim success must be mentioned the strange despondency which seized the Christians—a despondency as marked as the enthusiasm of the Muslims. ‘While the Church was vexed by kings and godless priests,’ says Cedrenus, ‘there rose up Amalek of the desert to chastise us for our sins.’ Such are the words in which he records the rise of Islam; and brief as they are, they yet reveal a consciousness that Mohammed had a kind of divine mission—at least as the scourge of God—a conscious­ness which is betrayed very clearly by other Christian writers of this time, such as the Armenian Sebeos. Of course it is a common reflection with a defeated people that they have suffered for their sins, nor is the reflection always ill-founded in fact or in philosophy; but there seems in these writers a touch of more tragic sorrow, a sense that Christianity in dealing with the Arabs had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, that it could no longer claim a monopoly of divine guidance. It is easy to see how powerfully the cause of I slim was aided by sombre misgivings of this kind in the heart of Christian priests and warriors. Luke, the traitor of Aleppo, was taught by a priest that the Saracens were destined to conquer the country, and Basil, the traitor of Tyre, who owed his defection to the teaching of the monk Bahirah, had himself preached the gospel of Islam through the Empire. Though these and the like stories come mainly from Arab sources, and may be classed as legends, yet they have at least this much historical foundation, that they record among some of the Christians a certain fearful foreboding of the truth and the triumph of Islam.

CHAPTER XII. THE ARAB CONQUEST OF SYRIA

When Heraclius ended his sojourn in Jerusalem and bent his steps again northward through Palestine, he cannot have realized the danger from Islam. The figure of Mohammed was already towering over Arabia, and its colossal shadow had actually fallen on the edge of the Roman Empire; but the Emperor saw in it nothing but the menace of one of those border wars with wild desert tribes which were a normal condition of the frontier. For if he had divined the real nature of the peril, he could hardly have delayed to grapple with it: and if he had taken in time those measures which his genius might have designed, and for which his resources, though weakened, were still equal, he would very probably have crushed the Saracen power in its beginnings and have wiped out the name of Moham­med from the book of history.

But it was not to be. Duty seemed to call the Emperor away from the south, and his thoughts were preoccupied with the work of settling the frontier towns under the treaty with Persia, and of reorganizing the finance and the whole administration of the eastern provinces, which had been thrown out of joint by six years of war. Above all he was now about to carry out those plans for the religious union of Christendom which, as we have seen, had so long been maturing in his mind. He aimed at a union of compromise, not of compulsion. The wisdom of the leaders of the Church could devise the magic formula required: and then, when all the elements of heresy, discord, and difference were cast into the crucible and molten, and there emerged one simple form of faith, refined and purified and annealed against all schism, what a tremendous force would the new Christianity possess against the enemies of the Empire and the Cross!

On quitting Jerusalem the Emperor made straight for Mesopotamia. His route lay through Damascus, Emesa, Beroea, and Hierapolis to Edessa. Edessa was the home of his ancestors: it was the home of St. Ephrem, the father of the Syrian Church: and as the see of Jacobus Barudaeus, it was the very shrine of the Jacobite or Monophysite confession, which prevailed in the three hundred monasteries in the neighbourhood and in most parts of Armenia, Syria, and Egypt. Edessa also, from its geographical position between the Euphrates and the Tigris, its proximity to Armenia, Persia, and Syria, was a political centre of enormous import­ance. There could be no more fitting place for the work which the Emperor had now to accomplish.

The tangle of events at this period is most diffi­cult to unravel. A few threads are clear here in one chronicle; a few there in another; but so dis­connected that hardly the most patient labour can bring them into order. It was, however, at Hiera­polis, and in 631, that the Emperor launched his  project for the union of the Church, and made Atha­nasius Archbishop of Antioch and Cyrus Arch­bishop of Alexandria. The latter appointment was a ruinous miscalculation. We shall soon have to follow the journey of Cyrus to Egypt, and to see what shipwreck the Emperor’s project there suffered, as it encountered not only the resistance of the Melkite Sophronius and his followers, but also the opposition of nearly the whole Coptic priesthood and people. We shall see also how Cyrus, baffled in his hopes of peaceably converting the Egyptians to Monothelitism, issued a declaration of war against their Church, and madly strove to goad the Copts into changing their creed by persecution.

It was a similar failure in Syria which led to a similar persecution of the Syrian Christians. While Cyrus was undoing the work of Heraclius’ conquests and making smooth the way for Islam in Egypt, much the same process went on in Syria; although on the one hand Athanasius seems to have shown a forbearance and a tact totally wanting in Cyrus, and on the other hand the presence of the Emperor may have tended both to reduce friction and to repress dissension. But the evil results of the Emperor’s Church policy declared themselves unmistakably a little later. After a passionate but vain appeal to Cyrus at Alexandria, the able and learned Sophronius took ship to Constantinople for the purpose of pleading his cause before the Patriarch Sergius. Sergius, however—one of the most powerful prelates who ever swayed the destinies of the Eastern Church—was himself prime author of the Monothelite compromise: he could not disavow it, and all the astute and subtle refinement of his logic and the winning persuasiveness of his manner failed to move either the reason or the head of Sophronius, who betook himself sadly back to Syria.

It seems probable that Sophronius made his way at once to Heraclius in order to strive with him as he had striven with Cyrus and with Sergius. There is no specific record of such an interview: but it consists with what is known, and without it one can hardly explain the undoubted fact that Sophronius was now appointed by Heraclius to the archbishopric of Jerusalem, which had been left vacant since Modestus died on his journey northward with the Emperor. It is certain that Sophronius never wavered in his hostility to the compromise. Almost his first act as Patriarch was to call a council of the Church, at which he denounced in unsparing language the Emperor’s proposals and anathematized the Patriarchs who adopted them. In accepting the office he had doubtless hoped that the Emperor would renounce the Monothelite heresy and return to the orthodox religion, while the Emperor thought that the gift of a patriarchate would convert Sophronius, as it had converted Athanasius. Next to the appointment of Cyrus, Heraclius could hardly have made a more disastrous blunder: it is scarcely too much to say that it went nearly as far to cost him the loss of Palestine as did the appoint­ment of Cyrus to cost him the loss of Egypt.

It is easy to palliate these mistakes if one remem­bers the grandeur of the aim and the nobility of the motive which originally prompted them. But in Syria as in Egypt, the failure of the Emperor’s Church policy turned to a gloomy intolerance of opposition. It was but a step from this to persecution, and his masterful but embittered spirit knew no hesitation. ‘When our people complained to Heraclius,’ says Abdul Faraj, ‘he gave no answer. Therefore the God of vengeance delivered us out of the hands of the Romans by means of the Arabs. Then although our churches were not restored to us, since under Arab rule each Christian community retained its actual possessions, still it profited us not a little to be saved from the cruelty of the Romans and their bitter hatred against us.’ It is melancholy reading, this welcome by Christians of Arab rule as a providential delivery from the rule of their fellow Christians; but it shows with fatal clearness how impossible was the Emperor’s scheme for Church union, and how surely it led to his ruin.

There remains the third capital blunder, which has been already mentioned—the massacre of the Jews. It was the first in chronological order, and the first to bear baleful fruit. Shortly after the triumphal Exaltation of the Cross at Jerusalem, when the order went forth to banish or slay the Jews, all who had warning in time fled into the desert beyond Jordan, there to tarry a change of fortune. As they waited and watched, their hearts burning for revenge, at length they saw the advanc­ing banners of Islam, and they welcomed the hosts that came as enemies of the Roman Empire.

While clouds were thus gathering thickly on the horizon, the fame of Heraclius’ achievements had spread over the known world, and princes from the farthest East and the farthest West—from India and from France—sent envoys with costly jewels and tributes of admiration. But the Emperor was soon reminded of the mockery of his destiny. For almost at the very time when he was receiving these marks of worldwide homage, the Saracens were thundering at the gates of Assyria, and his own son Athalaric and his nephew Theodore were plotting with some Armenians to dethrone and murder him. The plot was denounced by one of the conspirators, and all the guilty had their noses and right hands cut off, except the aspet, who had refused to agree to the assassination and was rewarded by a merciful sentence of exile.

It seems to have been after this event, and after the sojourn of Heraclius at Edessa, that the Jews held a gathering in the town at which, according to Sebeos, all the twelve tribes were represented. Finding the place denuded of troops, as the Persian garrison had withdrawn and had not been replaced by the Romans, the Jews closed the gates, strengthened the defences, and defied the Emperor’s forces. Heraclius laid siege to the town, which quickly capitulated: he granted easy terms, and told the Jews to return peaceably to their own places. In­stead of obeying, they went into the desert and joined the armies of Islam, to which they acted as guides through the country. This must have been about the year 634, when already the Saracens under Khalid were overrunning Persia.

The result of this alliance between the Jews and the Arabs was a demand upon Heraclius to give back the promised land to the children of Abraham: else they would claim their inheritance with usury. There could be but one answer to such a summons, and war began. The defeat of the Romans under Theodore at Gabatha was followed by the more serious disaster of  Yermouk, Sept. 1, 634. In the previous July Abu Bakr had died and was succeeded by Omar as Caliph. Bosrah had already fallen. Damascus, the ancient capital of Syria, was beleaguered by Khalid, and was finally surrendered by the Prefect Mansur under a treaty which secured the life and property of the inhabitants, and their undisturbed possession of the churches in the city. This was in 635: and all the patriarchs and bishops in all the world smote Mansur with anathema, because he helped the Muslims. Before the city fell, Heraclius sent a large army under his brother Theodore, whose superior forces fought a desperate battle with Khalid. The result long hung in doubt, but victory swayed at last to the Muslims, and the rout of the Byzantine legions was complete. Heraclius received the news at Antioch, and felt that all was over. God has abandoned the cause of the Empire: the victor of the Persian heathen was vanquished by the unbelieving Saracens. The thought was rendered the more bitter, because he was conscious of the guilt he had incurred by his marriage with his niece Martina. He was conscious too of already breaking health of body. On no other theory can his inaction be explained. The man who was foremost in every fight where his personal courage was needed, and master of every movement on the battlefield—the man who six years ago would have met Khalid ‘the Sword of God’ on equal terms in duel, and whose genius as a tactician would have baffled and crushed the raw valour of the Arab chieftains, never once led an army in the field against them. His hand and his brain alike were paralysed. In the great assembly which he called in the Cathedral at Antioch, when he asked for counsel, there stood up a greybeard who said, The Romans now are suffering for their disobedience to the Gospel, for their quarrels and dissensions, their usury and violence: they must pay the price of their sins.’ It was enough : the Emperor felt that with body, mind, and fortune failing his presence was useless, and in Sept. 636 he took ship for Constantinople.

 ‘Farewell, a long farewell to Syria!’ There is infinite pathos in the well-known words of the Em­peror: they are charged with the feeling that his career with all its splendour and triumph is closing in shame—that he is bidding farewell to his greatness. One thinks of the agony of Napoleon, as from the deck of the Bellerophon he gazed his last on France Indeed the decline of physical and military vigour in the two great generals has many points of resemblance. But Napoleon after all was king and commander at the very last of his battles; whereas Heraclius had spent his strength in the futile struggle to unite the Church. He was unable to rally or guide the remaining forces of the Empire in the hour of supreme danger. During three years of crisis his hopes had decayed and his activities had withered. He had suffered the power of Islam to grow unchecked, till it overshadowed his dominion.

Most of the historians, following or misconstruing the Greek writers, represent Heraclius as suddenly bounding out of this torpor and making a frantic journey to Jerusalem to save the Holy Rood from the hands of the enemy. There is no warrant for this journey beyond the statement that Heraclius took the Cross with him to Constantinople. Unquestionably he did: but he did not travel to Jerusalem to fetch it. The loose and open phrases of Cedrenus and the like cannot stand for a moment against the precise and clear story of Sebeos. He tells how after the battle of Yermouk the Arabs crossed the Jordan, and the terror of them fell upon all the inhabitants of that country, so that they gave in their submission : and he adds, ‘In that night,’ i.e. the night after the news of the Saracen advance came, ‘the people of Jerusalem saved the Cross of the Lord, and all the vessels of the churches, and bringing them to the sea-coast they sent them on board ship to the court at Constantinople.’ Not a word about Heraclius in this: but the vessel with the sacred treasures doubtless coasted northward and joined the Emperor either at some port on his homeward journey, if he travelled home by sea, or at his palace at Hieria near Chalcedon, where he stayed for some time in a state of pitiful derangement. Thence ultimately he bore the Rood once again to the Cathedral of St. Sophia. It had been hailed with triumph as the talisman of his prosperity: it was now received in gloom as the symbol and seal of his adversity. Surely of all the ironies that haunt the career of Heraclius none are more pointed or more bitter than this.

So far then from the Cross being torn from the hands of Sophronius, its lawful owner, it is clear that the Patriarch himself sent away all the treasures of the Church, and resigned them to the Emperor’s keeping. It was the only way to save them. His enemy Cyrus was still at Alexandria; besides, it was not long since Egypt had fallen into the hands of the Persians, and there was at least risk of a Saracen conquest. But all the storms of the late wars had beaten in vain upon Constantinople: it was the inviolate city, as well as the metropolis of the Empire.

But this act of loyalty to Heraclius, if loyalty it were, proved the last in the life of Sophronius. Jerusalem was now beleaguered by Khalid, who was joined in a few days by Abu Ubaidah. The place had been well provisioned, and the bulwarks had been rebuilt and strengthened since the Persian occupation; so that the Arabs, who had no skill in siege warfare and no siege engines, prowled round the walls for months, exchanging volleys of arrows and repelling sallies of the garrison, but making no substantial progress. It had taken the Persian general but eighteen days to force an entrance : now even the fiery Khalid chafed in helpless wrath under the cliffs and towers of Jerusalem. Authorities differ as regards the length of the siege. It seems to have lasted all through the winter of 636-7, and probably longer : but there is no doubt of the issue. The Saracens were quite unable to take the town by storm, while the defenders failed no less to break the leaguer. From the Roman armies there came no hope of help—only stories of ever fresh disaster —and the same despondency which had seized the Emperor now fell upon the inhabitants of the Holy City.

Under these circumstances, and probably under pressure of imminent famine, the aged Patriarch Sophronius parleyed with the Arab leaders from the walls, and finally agreed to surrender, if Omar would come in person to settle the capitulation. It is needless here to repeat the well-known story of Omar’s arrival on his camel; how by his uncouth mien, his coarse fare, and his shabby raiment the Caliph shocked Roman refinement; how he set his seal to the treaty, and forthwith visited the Holy Places in company with Sophronius; and how the Patriarch said aside to his attendants in Greek, ‘Truly this is that abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.’ It is the last recorded remark of the ‘ honey-tongued defender of the faith’: for the second time in his latter years he had witnessed the captivity of Zion, and the bitterness of this second captivity quickly ended his life.

CHAPTER XIII. THE GREAT PERSECUTION OF THE COPTS BY CYRUS

We have now followed the Emperor from the day of his triumph in Jerusalem, when he. reached the summit of his victorious splendour, to the day of his farewell at Antioch, when the great conqueror sank, with brain and nerve past action, in the depths of failure and gloom: we have seen how from a little cloud on the southern borders of Palestine there slowly arose, like the form of a jinn in Arab romance, the giant figure of Mohammed, and how the ever-growing Muslim power grappled and wrestled with the Roman Empire in Syria, till it overthrew it and captured first Damascus and then the Holy City: and we have touched lightly on some of the causes which worked together to produce these world astonishing changes.

Brief as the survey has been, and needful for the right understanding of the great drama in which Egypt played a large part, it has still taken us away too long from the Nile valley. It is therefore full time to return and to trace there the course of events from the beginning of the six years’ war, which ended in the death of Chosroes. Unfortunately the records for this period are few and far from luminous: one has to grope through it as best one may by the feeble light they furnish.

One of the few monasteries in the neighbourhood of Alexandria which escaped destruction in the first storm of the Persian invasion was Dair Kibrius, which nestled amidst its palm-groves close to the shore north-eastward of the city and of the buildings which were plundered. It was here that a young man called Benjamin, the scion of a wealthy Coptic family and a native of Farshut in the province of Buhairah, came and received the monastic habit from the aged superior Theonas. His education was aided by great natural talent, and in no long time he outstripped his teachers both in piety and in learning. It was his wont often to spend the night in prayer within the convent church; and legend tells that once, as he watched, there came to his ears a voice declaring that he was destined to be the Shepherd of the flock of Christ. Theonas, on hearing the story, told him to beware of the wiles of Satan, naively adding that such a thing had never happened either to himself or to any of the brethren during all the fifty years he had lived at Dair Kibrius. Nevertheless he went with Benjamin to Alexandria, and there brought him before the Coptic Patriarch, Andronicus, who was so struck with Benjamin’s ability and strength of character, that he kept him in the city, while Theonas was sent back alone to his monastery. Benjamin was in due course ordained to the priesthood, and, remaining by the Patriarch, won his fullest confidence, and ‘aided him in the affairs of the Church and the administration of the whole patriarchate.’

It was about Christmastide, a.d. 621, that Benjamin first entered Dair Kibrius; and he had not been many months in the service of Andronicus, when the Patriarch died, after nominating Benjamin as his successor. Benjamin at this time is described as a young man, and was probably some thirty-five years old, but the pallium was duly placed on his shoulders in St. Mark’s Cathedral.

We have already seen that, although Andronicus was not driven from office by the Persian conquest, the Melkite Patriarch, John the Almoner, fled before it to die in Cyprus. The successor of John in the Melkite chair was George: but the Byzantine power had been rooted out of Egypt, and there is little to show that even the nominal appointment of George took place before 621. Still less can it be shown at what date George’s appointment was made effective by residence in Alexandria. It is even questioned whether he ever set foot in the country. From neither the Persians nor the Copts could he hope for any welcome, nor would his coming have served much purpose until the return of the Byzantine garrisons established again the Church and the Empire in Egypt. The Persians under the pressure of Heraclius’ victories evacuated the country early in the year 627 ; and just as there is record of the existence of a civil ruler of Egypt in the interval between that date and the advent of Cyrus as governor, so it may be that George the Patriarch entered Alexandria in 627, and there remained until, as John of Nikiou seems to imply, he was superseded by the same Cyrus as Patriarch. But it is more probable that George’s arrival took place rather later. The conclusion of peace with Persia in 628 gradually released some of the Roman forces, but only gradually: and the Roman military reoccupation of Egypt can hardly have been accomplished much before 629. If George did not arrive in Alexandria till that year, and his office determined, whether by death or by supersession, a year or two later, it is easy to understand why his position in the records of the Church is so vague and shadowy.

When Andronicus, the Coptic Archbishop, passed away at the end of 622 or the beginning of 623, the Persian dominion in Egypt was not even menaced by any revival of the Roman power under Heraclius. There is little question that before his death the Patriarch heard news of the Emperor’s first expedi­tion, which voyaged by Rhodes to Cilicia; very pos­sibly too the gossip of Alexandria was enlivened by rumours brought by Arab caravans concerning the rising prophet of Mecca; but not the wildest dreamer could have imagined that within a period of twenty years to come the Persians would be driven out of Egypt again by the Romans, and that the restored Roman power would be extinguished and closed for ever by the rude legions of Mohammed.

Benjamin’s election as Patriarch was a popular one: indeed, whatever doubt may be felt regarding the wisdom of Benjamin’s after-policy, it cannot be denied that he won the love and veneration of his people, and retained them unimpaired through all the vicissitudes of the most eventful primacy in the Coptic history. But he made no weak concessions to laxity of faith or morals. From the first he set himself sternly to rebuke the careless lives of many among his clergy, and to check the abuses which had grown up in many places where the bishops had lost all control in the tumult of war. He had been on a visit to Babylon before his consecration, and now wrote a pastoral letter to all the bishops, in which he said: ‘During my stay at Hulwan and Babylon I saw a number of forward men, both priests and deacons; my soul abhors their works. I write this letter to all the bishops bidding them hold an inquiry once a month concerning every one of the clergy who had been ordained for less than ten years.’ This letter made it clear that he was Archbishop, says the chronicle, and he made it clearer still by excommu­nicating several clergy in this diocese of Babylon. The letter was followed by a visitation, in the course of which it is recorded that from Babylon he went on foot, ‘accompanied by Abba Mina, bishop of the Castle of Babylon, and Pilihiu, bishop of Hulwan, and a great crowd,’ to bring to account a notorious offender, on whose house he called down fire from heaven. But wherever he passed, the people flocked to receive his benediction.

So chastening and chastising the Church, the Archbishop made his power felt all over Egypt. Unquestionably he did much to restore the unity of the Coptic Church and to bring it back to that settled and organized government which had been disturbed, if not shattered, by the political troubles of the time. For four or five years Benjamin lived peaceably under Persian rule in Alexandria. There he first saw Shahin recalled to retrieve, if possible, the falling fortunes of Chosroes; then, as Heraclius pre­vailed, he saw the departure of the Persian armies. With what eyes, we wonder, did the Patriarch watch the spearmen and bowmen of the unbelievers march out of the eastern gate of the Great City? And what were his thoughts as he pondered on the coming return of the Romans?

Most of the Persian garrisons in Egypt were probably withdrawn early in 627, while some few detached posts may have been held as late as 628 and evacuated under the terms of the treaty with Heraclius. Then at least it was that the Egyptian prisoners from Dastagerd and other cities of Asia came back to their country; and it was probably in the winter 628-9 that Heraclius, after his triumph at Constantinople, sent an army by sea to reoccupy Egypt and to restore the Roman Empire from Palestine to Pentapolis.

Admirable as were Heraclius’ motives in raising Cyrus, bishop of Phasis in the Caucasus, to the arch­bishopric of Alexandria, his act was nevertheless a blunder, and that of the most tragic kind. The whole Christian world had been strangely drawn together as they watched with breathless interest the amazing developments of Heraclius’ crusade against Persia. When the infidels were vanquished, when Jerusalem was delivered, and when the Cross was exalted, Copts and Melkites alike had gloried in a common triumph; they rejoiced together also in the  vengeance wrought upon the Jews, and shared alike the penance enjoined in expiation of the sin. It was therefore the golden moment—the tide which taken at the flood might have led to a real and lasting union. This Heraclius saw: he knew too the blind devotion of the age to shibboleths and phrases: but he refused to see that his magic compromise of doctrine might fail to charm the Church in Egypt, or that, if it failed, the very worst way to bring about union was to thrust his message by sheer force down the gorge of those to whom its first savour was bitter. This, however, was the alternative which was offered in Egypt as in Syria. It was part of the philosophy of that age that religious belief could be and should be moulded by state decrees. In this the Emperor was not ahead of his time, and he resolved that by fair means or by foul the formula of his three Archbishops should be made to prevail against all other forms of belief with which it conflicted.

Still, even under that resolve, he courted disaster in making choice of Cyrus. For this was the evil genius who not only wrecked the Emperor’s hopes of religious union in Egypt, but who after making himself a name of terror and loathing to the Copts for ten years, after stamping out to the best of his power the Coptic belief by persecution, made Coptic allegiance to Roman rule impossible; the tyrant who misgoverned the country into hailed of the Empire, and so prepared the way for the Arab conquest; and the traitor who at the critical moment delivered it over by surrender to the enemy. This was the man of evil fame, known afterwards in Egyptian history as Al Mukaukas—that mysterious ruler the riddle of whose name and nation have hitherto confused and baffled historians, but whose identity with Cyrus is now absolutely certain.

Benjamin seems never to have been consulted upon the feelings of the Copts and the prospects of the experiment in Egypt. It was a fatal omission; for from its very birth the Emperor’s plan, so far as Egypt was concerned, was doomed to failure. The landing of Cyrus in Alexandria, which took place in the autumn of 631, was the signal for the flight of the Coptic Patriarch. Legend avers that Benjamin was warned by an angel in a dream to fly from the wrath to come; and the story proves at least that whether he knew or did not know the precise nature of the overtures which Cyrus was bringing, he resolved in advance to reject them, and that he foresaw the consequences. The coming of Cyrus was in fact taken as a declaration of war against the Coptic faith. Ere leaving his post, Benjamin set the Church in order, and called an assembly of priests and laymen, at which he delivered an address ‘ charging them to hold fast the faith till death.’ He also wrote an encyclical to all his bishops, bidding them flee into the mountains and the deserts and hide themselves till the anger of the Lord was overpast; for grievous troubles were coming upon the land, and for the space of ten years they must suffer persecution; then it would be over.

Such was the tenour of the letter. When he had sent it, the Patriarch took his departure from Alexandria by stealth under cover of night with only two companions. Leaving the city by the western gate he passed on foot to the town of Mareotis, and thence to Al Muna, an oasis city which lay at the intersection of the ways from Alexandria to Wadi ’n Natrun and from Tarranah to Barca. It must have been at this time a town of great splendour; for even centuries later the traveller roaming across wastes of sand was amazed at the magnificent churches and buildings which broke upon his view. Here the Patriarch doubtless worshipped at the great church of St. Menas, and after a short rest pushed on to the mountain called Barnuj. He was now close to the Natrun monasteries, but he found them nearly deserted: they had never recovered from the ravages which they had suffered some thirty years before and the Beduin refused to allow any large resettlement or rebuilding of the churches. Here then was no place for the Patriarch; he was still too near the capital to feel secure, too remote from his people to help them. He therefore passed on towards the Pyramids, and by the edge of the desert, to Upper Egypt, till he reached the town of Kus; and not far from Kus he took shelter in a little monastery in the desert, which for centuries later remained famous as his place of refuge.

This flight of Benjamin practically coincided with the arrival of Cyrus in Alexandria, and there is not a word in any record to suggest that Cyrus made the slightest effort to come to an understanding with the Coptic Patriarch. His very presence seems to have scattered the Coptic clergy in terror. Enthroned as imperial Patriarch of Alexandria, he was also armed with the civil power as Viceroy of Egypt. It was doubtless this union of the two highest offices which made Benjamin’s position untenable; it certainly clothed Cyrus with almost despotic authority. Professing, however, to have come on a mission of peace, Cyrus expounded the ingenious Monothelite formula, by which the Emperor hoped to heal the breach of Chalcedon. He had to win over both the Melkite and the Coptic communion; but from the first the proposed compromise seems to have been ill stated, ill understood, and ill received. To many of the Melkites it seemed sheer surrender of Chalcedon; while such of the Copts as heard the proposal urged also that by admitting one will and one operation the doctrine admitted one nature—that in fact Cyrus had come over to the Monophysites.

To remove these misunderstandings, Cyrus held a formal synod or council at Alexandria, at which the matter was set forth for discussion and debate. It was here that our friend Sophronius, who was again in Egypt, led the Melkite opposition, and strove by the most earnest entreaty as well as the strongest argument to turn Cyrus aside from his purpose. Cyrus is said to have replied kindly and to have referred Sophronius to the Primate Sergius at Constantinople for the settlement of his scruples: but he was quite unshaken, and the result of the council was to confirm the compromise and to smite with nine anathemas those who rejected it. In all this Cyrus seems to have shown very little of that tact and sympathy which were essential in the bearer of the Emperor’s Eirenicon. He met resistance by sheer force of will and weight of authority, whereas only the most delicate adroitness could hope to deal successfully, with the thorny problems of the Church in Egypt. Blame, however, may lie on both sides. If Cyrus was overbearing, the Copts might be held blind and intractable, if it were clear that the terms of the offer were ever fairly put before them. To the common lay intelligence there would seem to be little remaining difference between Monophysite and Monothelite: and though it is right to remember that even now divisions between Christians are often equally bitter and equally baseless, yet it would be true that in scorn­ing this offer of union the Coptic Church made a mistake which cost it untold suffering.

Others may hold that the compromise was un­sound and impossible. But whatever judgement may be passed on the proposal made by the Emperor Heraclius and the three Eastern Patriarchs, and in whatever form it reached the Copts, rightly or wrongly they received it with the deepest hostility: they resented the thought of changing one iota in their shibboleth as treason to their faith and to their religious independence. It was this last point in which their passion centred. National independence they had never known, and such an ideal can scarcely have entered into their dreams; but for religious independence they had struggled and fought inces­santly ever since the Council of Chalcedon. That ideal they cherished at all times in their hearts, and for it they were prepared to sacrifice all else what­soever. In this lies the key to all their history.

When Cyrus found that neither cajolery nor malediction availed to win over the Copts, he used stronger measures, to which it cannot be denied that Heraclius was a party. But the Emperor at a later period made one more effort for union. As the doctrine of one will and one operation was rejected, Sergius suggested that while one will alone should be recognized, the question whether its operation were single or twofold should be waived and discussion forbidden: and he secured the assent of the Roman Pope Honorius to this solution, or rather evasion, of the problem. It was embodied in a formal edict or Ecthesis, and issued to the Eastern world as a binding ordinance. John, general of militia, was charged by Sergius to take a copy to Cyrus, and with it he took a rood or cross of great sanctity as a present. But the effect of the famous Ecthesis was only to rouse further opposition. The Emperor, who had thought either to muzzle or to convert Sophronius by raising him to the see of Jerusalem, discovered in him an unrelenting foe to his policy: while to the Copts the later edition of the new doctrine had, if anything, an even worse savour than the earlier.

It is, however, extremely doubtful whether the Ecthesis, or even the original Eirenicon, ever reached the Copts beyond the gates of Alexandria. For perhaps the most melancholy and pathetic feature of the whole story is this—that Coptic annals betray no gleam of consciousness that any Eirenicon was ever offered at all. All through the Great Perse­cution it is the doctrine of Chalcedon pure and simple—'the tome of Leo’—that is offered, with stripes or death as the alternative; and this is the conviction burnt into the mind of all Coptic historians and graven in all their records. It would seem therefore as if Cyrus, conscious at once of the failure of his mission, and resolved at all costs to drive the Copts within the pale of the established Church, troubled little thereafter about the refine­ments of the Emperor’s theology, and merely set out the plain alternatives—union or persecution.

For the whole country was now at the mercy of Cyrus, the Mukaukas. Not merely did the shining streets of Alexandria ring again to the tramp of legions from Byzantium, while its long line of walls and its towers were once more held by Roman guards and mounted with Roman engines of war: but Pelusium, commanding the route from Palestine to Egypt; the chief towns of the Delta, like Athrib and Nikiou; and the great fortress of Babylon near Memphis, were garrisoned in the same manner. Thence the network of Roman dominion was woven again over the Fay fl m and the valley of the Nile southward to the frontier town of Syene below the cataract. All the Roman forces were at the call of Cyrus to do his bidding. Against the reoccupation the Copts were of course quite passive; but little cause as they had to love the Persians, they soon found that their new rulers would leave them small reason to rejoice in the change. Chastisement with whips was to be followed by chastisement with scorpions. For under the Persians, as soon as the conquerors had established a settled government, the Copts had at least been allowed to practise their own form of religion: and this was the precious privilege which Cyrus, the Mukaukas, resolved to wrest from them.

So the Great Persecution began. All the authorities are agreed that it lasted for a period of ten years, in other words that it virtually coincided with the term of Cyrus’ patriarchate. The synod at Alexandria probably was held in October, 631, and the persecution commenced a month or two later. Of its fierceness there can be no question. ‘These were the years,’ says Severus, ‘during which Heraclius and Al Mukaukas were ruling over Egypt: and through the severity of the persecution and the oppression and the chastisements which Heraclius inflicted on the orthodox, in order to force them to adopt the faith of Chalcedon, an innumerable multitude were led astray—some by tortures, some by promise of honours, some by persuasion and guile.’ The biography of the Coptic Patriarch Isaac, which was written about 695, represents Isaac in his young days as meeting with a priest named Joseph, who had been haled before the tribunal of Cyrus, and had been beaten with many stripes for his confession of the faith. Benjamin’s own brother, Menas, was tortured and drowned. First of all lighted torches were held against him and he was burnt ‘till the fat dropped down from both his sides on the ground’: then as he still was unshaken in his confession, his teeth were pulled out: next he was placed in a sack filled with sand, and taken out to a distance of seven bowshots from the shore. Three times he was offered his life, if he would acknowledge the Council of Chalcedon: three times he refused: and then he was sunk in the sea. ‘Yet it was not they who were victorious over Menas, that champion of the faith, but Menas who by Christian patience overcame them,’ says the biographer of Benjamin.

 Another, document—the life of Samuel of Kalamun—the original of which was certainly con­temporary with Cyrus, shows so clearly the part which Cyrus himself took in the persecution, that one may be pardoned for quoting it at some length. The story tells how the Archbishop on coming to the monastery found it deserted except for the steward, who was scourged and questioned. The steward then said, ‘Samuel the ascetic held much discourse with the monks, calling you a blasphemer, a Chalcedonian Jew, an atheist, a man unworthy to celebrate the liturgy, unworthy of all communion: and the monks hearing this fled before your visit.’ At these words the impious blasphemer fell into a furious passion, and biting his lips he cursed the steward, the monastery, and the monks, and departed another way, ‘nor has he returned to this day,’ adds the chronicle. Then the brethren came in peace to the convent. But as for the Kaukhios (Mukaukas), the Pseud-Archbishop, he came to the city of Piom (Fayum), cherishing wrath in his heart. There he summoned his minions and ordered them to bring the holy Abba Samuel, his hands tied behind his back and an iron collar about his neck—pushing him on like a thief. So they came to the convent where he abode and took him.

Samuel went rejoicing in the Lord and saying, ‘Please God, it will be given me this day to shed my blood for the name of Christ.’ Therefore he reviled the name of the Mukaukas with boldness, and was led before him by the soldiers. When the Mukaukas saw the man of God, he ordered the soldiers to smite him, till his blood ran like water. Then he said to him, ‘ Samuel, you wicked ascetic, who is he that made you abbot of the monastery, and bade you teach the monks to curse me and my faith?’ Holy Abba Samuel answered, ‘It is good to obey God and His holy Archbishop Benjamin rather than obey you and your devilish doctrine, O son of Satan, Antichrist, Beguiler.’ Cyrus bade the soldiers to smite him on the mouth, saying, ‘Your spirit is kindled, Samuel, because the monks glorify you as an ascetic: but I will teach you what it is to speak evil of dignities, since you render me not the honour which is my due as Archbishop and my due as Controller of the Revenues of the land of Egypt.’ Samuel replied, ‘Satan also was controller, having angels under him : but his pride and unbelief estranged him from the glory of God. So with you also, O Chalcedonian Deceiver, your faith is defiled and you are more accursed than the devil and his angels.’ On hearing this, the Mukaukas was filled with fury against the saint, and signed to the soldiers to strike him dead. In a word the blasphemer essayed to slay the saint, but the ruler of the city of Piom delivered him out of his hands. When Cyrus saw that Samuel had escaped, he ordered him to be driven away from the mountain Neklone.

The Ethiopic version of the life of Abba Samuel is of much the same tenour. It recounts the visit of one Maximianus at the head of 200 soldiers to Samuel’s monastery in the desert and the presentation to him of a document for his subscription to the faith of Chalcedon Samuel tore it in pieces and flung it out of the door of the church, exclaiming, ‘We have no Archbishop but Benjamin: cursed be the blas­phemous document of the Roman Emperor; cursed be the Council of Chalcedon, and all who believe therein.’ Samuel was beaten and left for dead, but he recovered and made his way to Kalamun, where the same defiance of Cyrus is recorded and its result.

When these things were done in the desert, one may imagine the fate of the Copts in the Delta and the Nile valley. Stripes, torture, imprisonment and death were the portion of those who resisted Cyrus and refused to abandon their belief. Melkite bishops were appointed to every city in Egypt up to Ansin,  while the Coptic clergy were put to death or scattered abroad in various hiding-places. The search after Benjamin was keen and unrelenting; but he was never discovered. Severus says that he moved about from one fortified convent to another, while the life of Shanudah seems to assign him a refuge in the great monastery of Anba Shanudah, better known as the White Monastery; and this story again differs from the tradition which places his retreat near Kus in the desert Probably the White Monastery, in spite of the tremendous strength of its walls, was too near the Nile to shelter Benjamin for long, while in the mountains of the desert by Kus, with their endless caves and rock-cut churches, he could rest safe and unmolested.

But of those who failed to escape, it is small wonder that a great multitude gave in their sub­mission to Cyrus. It was a reign of terror, and though the spirit of the Copts was unbroken, a whole population could not turn martyrs. Some of the bishops too went over to the enemy, such as Cyrus, bishop of Nikiou, and Victor, bishop of the Fayum—examples which must have been contagious. Many of the people, however, who were unable to fly to the deserts and unwilling to renounce their faith, contrived to maintain secret observances. Even in Alexandria itself, during all the ten years of the persecution, there remained a remnant of the Coptic communion, though bereft of ministers. There was, however, one priest, a native of Mareotis named Agatho, who daily risked his life in the cause. Disguising himself as a carpenter, he used to go about the city by day carrying a bag of tools on his back; while at night he administered the rites of the Church to his Coptic brethren. It was this Agatho who subsequently became Benjamin’s great friend and successor in the patriarchate.

The monastery of Matra, called As Sukuniah, is recorded to have resisted Cyrus successfully. It was either in or near Alexandria, and the reason given for its remaining scatheless is that all the monks were pure-bred Egyptians, with no single foreigner among them.

Boundless as was the patience of the Egyptians, they seem to have made one effort to throw off the yoke of Cyrus. Exasperated by his lawless plunder of their precious vessels, as well as by the stripes and imprisonments they suffered, the sect of Gaianites assembled in the church at Dafashir near Mareotis, and formed a plot against the life of their oppressor. But a Roman officer named Eudocianus, brother of Domentianus and one of the most relentless enemies of the Copts, heard of the meeting and sent soldiers with instant orders to shoot down the conspirators. Some were killed outright, others wounded by the arrows, and others again had their hands cut off without the semblance of trial. So the conspiracy was crushed, and Cyrus was delivered from danger.

These various anecdotes show in the clearest light the severity of the persecution. It may seem incredible that it could have lasted for ten years, yet nothing is more certain. ‘Even after the death of Heraclius,’ says John of Nikidu, ‘when Cyrus came back to Egypt’ (i.e. in 641 after his exile or absence), ‘far from abandoning his rage against the flock of God or ceasing to persecute it, he added violence to violence.’ And similar language is used by Severu : ‘Heraclius was like a ravening wolf, devouring the flock and yet never satiated, and that flock was the blessed community of the Theodosians.’ But as usual persecution strengthened, in those who were strong enough to resist it, the form of belief it was meant to crush. The Coptic Church was smitten and torn asunder, but it never yielded. The great majority of the people stood fast and staunch in their faith. But the iron had entered into their soul. Through the sullen gloom of those ten years the canker worked in their wounds; and with the final embitterment of their hatred for the Byzantine Church and Byzantine government all hope of peace and reconcilement passed away for ever.

In this frame of mind, what did the Egyptians feel with regard to that great movement which had sprung from Arabia and was already shaking the cities of Syria? To their honour, be it said, that there is not the slightest reason to think that they looked upon it with sympathy: yet when they heard that even the Muslims granted a measure of toleration to the Christians, the thought may have risen in their hearts that subjection to the Muslims would make life less unbearable, that the yoke of Mohammed would be lighter than the yoke of the most Christian Emperor Heraclius. That they abhorred the religion of Islam is proved by every page of their history: but during those ten years of hopeless misery the sword of Cyrus had cut through wellnigh the last thread which bound their allegiance to the Roman Empire; and they regarded the advent of the Muslims as a plague sent by divine vengeance upon their persecutors.

To such a pass had misgovernment brought the finest province in the Emperor’s dominions. How far in all this evil work the Mukaukas had obeyed, how far he had betrayed, the orders of his master, is hard to discover. It is clear that the original plan of Heraclius was shaped by a noble purpose. It was a grand ideal to give that peace and rest to the Church which he had given to the State : but he failed to realize the tenacious strength of religious opinion—that it beat through the remotest nerves and fibres of the body politic, and that to remove it by violence would be fatal. His choice of instruments, too, was most unhappy. His peace-maker in Egypt changed at once into a tyrant, and his message of peace was either never delivered or never heard. That he sanctioned the persecution can hardly be doubted, though it may be questioned whether he sanctioned it save as a last resort; whereas with Cyrus it was the first and only resort. It was in any case the scheme of a visionary to root out sectarian hatred by an edict. The Emperor had hoped by his magic phrase to conjure to rest the angry billows of religious controversy: but then, when he found that he had only raised a furious storm, unable to brook failure, untaught to trust in time and toleration, he condescended, both in Syria and in Egypt, to strive for the end of peace by the method of religious war. In both countries he thus opened the way for the advancing armies of Islam.

CHAPTER XIV. ARAB ADVANCE ON EGYPT

After the surrender of Jerusalem by the aged Patriarch Sophronius, it seems that both the Caliph Omar and his general 'Amr ibn al 'Asi turned their steps northward. ‘Amr at least was sent to take part in the siege of Caesarea, while Omar fixed his headquarters at Damascus. It was probably at Jerusalem that ‘Amr unfolded his plan for the invasion of Egypt: but the time was not then judged propitious. When, however, fortune still shone on the Muslim arms, and the Syrian campaign was more nearly over, ‘Amr renewed his proposal to Omar, pointing out the ease with which Egypt could be conquered and the vastness of the prize. There was no country in the world, he said, at once so wealthy and so defenceless. He also reminded Omar that Aretion, the Roman governor of Jerusa­lem, who had escaped before the capitulation and fled to Egypt, was there rallying the imperial forces, and that no more time should be lost in striking: moreover, the possession of Egypt would greatly strengthen the power of the Muslims. This conference between the two leaders took place at Al Jabiah, near Damascus, in the autumn of the year 639 a.d., while the siege of Caesarea was still proceeding.

Omar saw that the conquest of Egypt was desirable, but thought that ’Amr underrated the difficulties of it, since he was unable to weaken the forces in Syria by detaching an army strong enough for the purpose. When 'Amr offered to start with a force of 3,500 or 4,000 men, the Commander of the Faithful in wavering mood could only promise to think it over; and 'Amr returned to Caesarea, where Constantine, son of Heraclius, was now in command of the city. There, however, a letter from Omar followed him, borne by Sharikh ibn Ahdab. It sanctioned the plan for the invasion of Egypt, but ordered 'Amr to keep it secret and to lead his force southward by easy stages. Amr accordingly departed at dead of night, and marched his little army of horsemen without incident towards the borderland of Palestine and Egypt. He had already reached Rafah, one stage from the Egyptian Al 'Arish, when messengers spurred in hot haste into his camp bearing dispatches from the Caliph.

'Amr shrewdly guessed their tenour. Omar’s doubts and hesitations had prevailed, and led him to repent his decision. The Caliph had spoken to Othman about the perils of the enterprise, and Othman not only thought the hazard very great, but reminded Omar that the rash and adventurous character of 'Amr was certain to hurry him into disaster. Omar therefore was seriously disquieted, and resolved if possible to recall the expedition: but he felt that if 'Amr’s force were already in Egypt, it would be a confession of weakness and a dishonour to the Muslim name to retreat before the enemy. The dispatch accordingly ordered 'Amr to return, if he was still in Palestine, while if he were in Egypt, he must go forward. In that case Omar would pray for his victory, and would send reinforcements. But 'Amr had put his hand to the plough, and was not the man to turn back. He knew that the letter boded no good to his project, and he refused to receive it until he had crossed the torrent-bed, which perhaps marked the frontier, and reached the little valley of 'Arish. There he read it, and asked ‘Is this place in Syria or in Egypt?’ and when the answer was ‘In Egypt,’ he read the dispatch aloud before his officers and said, ‘The army will advance in accordance with the Caliph’s orders.’

'Amr no doubt got the answer he wanted, but it is curious to remark that, although 'Arish or Rhinocolura was generally regarded as within the Egyptian frontier, the matter was not free from doubt. It is clear, however, that the town, although fortified, was not held by a Roman garrison. Yet even as late as the thirteenth century might be seen the ruins of two splendid ancient churches and the remains of the city wall along the sea-front, while the finest marbles and the largest columns at that time found in Cairo were strangely said to have come from Arish. From this point too, according to some authorities, started the Great Wall of Egypt, which ran across to Kulzum or Suez, and thence up the eastern bank of the Nile as far as the First Cataract. This wall, attributed to Sesostris, but called by the Arabs the ‘Wall of the Old Woman,’ had long been broken down, so that it offered no hindrance to the movement of an army even in the seventh century, though frag­ments of its ruins may be seen at Jabal at Tair and other places in Egypt today.

It was on the12 December, 639 a.d., that 'Amr’s little force celebrated the Muslim Day of Sacrifice, or Feast of Offerings, or Feast of Pilgrims, as it was variously called. The rite was not without solemnity for this band of desert warriors, who were setting out to conquer the land of the Pharaohs, leagued as they were by ties of clanship and devotion to the great chieftain who led them. Most of 'Amr’s following belonged to the tribe of Akk, although Al Kindi says that one third were of the tribe of Ghauk, and Ibn Dukmak gives a list of Roman converts to Islam from Syria, who were in the Arab army. He also mentions Persian converts from the region of Yaman as taking part in the conquest, though these were more probably enrolled among the reinforcements which the Caliph sent later to Egypt

And what of 'Amr himself? The chronicles give many of his sayings, and a good deal of information about his character; and in a history of the conquest of Egypt it cannot be out of place to furnish some sketch of the conqueror. 'Amr ibn al 'Asi was somewhere about 45 years old at the time of the invasion of Egypt. Short in stature, though strongly built, his athletic and hardy frame excelled in those feats of horsemanship and swordsmanship which Western chivalry has learned to link with the name of Saracen. That he was broad-shouldered and broad-chested; that he had dark piercing eyes, quickly kindling to anger or humour, heavy eyebrows, and a large mouth; that his face, though powerful, was without sternness—wore indeed a pleasant and cheerful expression; that he used a black cosmetic for dyeing his beard: these are almost all the details of his outer appearance which have come down in history. The statement that he stammered is probably erroneous. It is true that Abu ’l Mahasin records this as 'Amr’s one defect of body. On the other hand, it is known that 'Amr was remarkable for the quickness and wit of his repartees, as well as for his sustained eloquence; and the idea that he stammered seems founded on a misunderstanding. For it is related that Omar once hearing a man stammer remarked, ‘I declare that the maker of this man and the maker of 'Amr are one’; which meant, not that ‘Amr was given to stammering, but that God made the speechless and the most eloquent alike: just as 'Amr himself on one occasion, when provoked by a shallow fellow, smothered his scorn in the remark, ‘He too is God’s creature.’ But the story has been misconstrued by some Arab writers, and taken to prove that 'Amr also stammered. Such a construction would make Omar’s saying both rude and pointless, and it would seem to clash with the fact of 'Amr’s eminence as well as that of his eloquence. For it is hardly conceivable that, if 'Amr had suffered from this defect, he would have been singled out from the beginning by Mohammed as a capable leader, or could ever have become a great commander. It may be added also that 'Amr acted as imam, or leader of prayer, to the end of his days, and that Muslim law expressly forbids any one to take that office who stammers. The story there­fore that 'Amr had this defect is quite unworthy of belief.

For the rest, there are many sayings and stories which illustrate his life and character. He was of the tribe of the Kuraish, and his genealogy is known to tradition. His conversion to Islam took place in a. h. 7 or 8, and there are one or two anecdotes bearing upon it. He was once asked, ‘What delayed your conversion so long, in spite of your intelligence?’ and he answered that he was overawed by the authority of his betters, but that as he grew older and more independent, reflection taught him to slacken in his opposition to the Prophet. When the Kuraish sent one of their number to question him, 'Amr asked his questioner whether the Arabs held the true religion, or the Persians, or the Romans? On being told ‘The Arabs,’ he said ‘Are we or they the wealthier? ’ ‘They are.’  ‘Then,’ he said, ‘what advantage have we over Persians and Romans, if there is no life to come, since in this life they have all the advantage over us?’ 'Amr went on to say that he became convinced of the truth of Mohammed’s doctrine of a resurrection and of rewards and punishments after death, and so he resolved to give up what was false in the old Arab religion. Some say that 'Amr was in Abyssinia at the time of his con­version, which was brought about by Jafar ibn Abi Tliab.

Another story is that 'Amr said to Mohammed, ‘O Apostle of God, I will acknowledge thee, if thou wilt forgive the sins of my past life,’ and that Mohammed answered, ‘Verily the profession of Islam and the sharing of the Flight cancel all the past.’ 'Amr was so grateful for this free pardon that he could not take his eyes off the Prophet’s face. ‘Fore God,’ he exclaimed, ‘I could not take my fill of gazing upon him, nor regard his countenance as long as I desired, without making him ashamed.’

Mohammed’s opinion of'Amr was a high one. He praised him as the best Muslim and the most trust­worthy of men. He called 'Amr ‘one of the good men of the Kuraish,’ and highly esteemed him ‘ for his knowledge and valour.’ 'Amr had a half-brother named Hisheim, who was slain at the battle of Yermouk. When questioned about him, 'Amr said, ‘Judge which was the better man. His mother was Umm Harmalah, aunt of Omar ibn al Khattab, while my mother was an Anaziah. My father loved him more than me, and you know what a good eye a father has for his children. He became a Muslim before me, and has gone to God before me; for he died a martyr’s death at Yermouk, while I was left behind.’

'Amr’s great distinction is that he was made military commander direct by the Prophet. In appointing him Mohammed said, ‘I am sending you forth as commander of a troop. May God keep you safe and give you much booty.’ When 'Amr answered, ‘I did not become a Muslim for the sake of wealth, but for the sake of submission to God,’ the Prophet rejoined, ‘Honest wealth is good for an honest man’—a maxim which 'Amr doubtless remembered. He was placed at the head of the force which fought the battle of As Salasil, or the Chains, but had to write for reinforcements. So Mohammed sent 200 more men, including Abd Bakr and Omar, under the orders of AM 'Ubaidah ibn al Jarrah. As they came up, 'Amr said quietly, ‘I am your leader and you are my helpers.’ ‘No,’ said Abd 'Ubaidah, ‘I am chief of my men, you of yours’;  but when 'Amr declined this arrangement, he added, “The Apostle of God enjoined that there should be no dissension; if therefore you refuse to obey me, I will obey you.” “I refuse,” said 'Amr ; whereupon Abd 'Ubaidah saluted 'Amr, and he stood behind him at public prayer.

After the battle of the Chains 'Amr was made governor of Uman, and there remained till the death of Mohammed; a year or two afterwards he was sent by Abu Bakr as one of the generals in the Syrian expedition. There his reputation both as a hard fighter and an able tactician was immensely strengthened, and he ill brooked the superior command which Omar on his accession gave to Abd 'Ubaidah. But perhaps the most striking passage about the conqueror of Egypt is that which records a speech made by 'Amr in self-defence, when Muawiah was charged with unduly favouring him: “I am the man who at the battle of Siffin quoted the verse,

When other eyes faltered, mine never quailed;

I half-closed my eyes to their failure, but not to danger.”

Remember, how again and again I returned to the charge. I bear good and evil fortune alike; I am inexorable, like the serpent at the root of the tree. ’Fore God, I am no sluggard or weakling. I am the deaf adder, from whose bite none may recover, whose sting renders a man sleepless. I am a man who shatters what he strikes, who turns to cinders what he kindles. At the battle of Harir the foemen knew me for the most dauntless of heart, the strongest of hand, the staunchest defender of the flag. To me in comparison with my traducer may be applied the words of the poet,

“If the tree of mine honour be made of gold,

Shall I not esteem it of higher worth

Than to be placed in competition with vile weeds?” ’

Language like this seems to reveal the man in all his self-confidence and consciousness of power. In the dispute which followed the battle of Siffin, 'Amr no doubt showed some unscrupulousness. Adh Dhahabi records how he clove through the false excuses and hypocrisy of Mu'awiah at the time of the battle, exclaiming, ‘O Muawiah, my heart has burnt with wrath while I have listened to your pretences. Do you think that we are rebelling against Ali because our claims are more rightful than his? No, ’fore God; it is only that we fly like dogs upon the riches of this world; and by God, I swear that you shall give me a share in your wealth, or else I fight not upon your side.’ In the matter of the arbitration his action reads like a breach of faith with Abu Musa. The latter thereafter always mingled in his prayers curses against 'Amr, and he insulted his enemy, saying, “Amr’s likeness is the likeness of a dog; if you drive him away, he puts forth his tongue; and if you leave him alone, he puts forth his tongue!’ “And you,’ retorted 'Amr, ‘are the donkey laden with books, and none the wiser for them!’

Ibn al Hajar records that one of his friends said of 'Amr, ‘I have never met a man who understood the Kuran better, or had a nobler character, or was more honest and open in his dealings.’ One named Jabiz is quoted as saying, ‘I never met a man more learned in the Book of God than Omar. When I was in Muawiah’s company, I found none more gentle. When I was with 'Amr, I found a man of most intelligent conversation, a most excellent companion and counsellor.’ One or two more brief anecdotes may be given, bringing out his good-heartedness, his candour of mind, and his love of musical measure. When he was reproached once for riding an old and ill-favoured mule, he replied, ‘I do not grow tired of a beast that has carried me well, nor of a wife who makes my life happy by her society, nor of a friend who keeps my secrets.’ On another occasion he had a dispute with Al Mughirah ibn Sha'bah, who lost his temper and used some strong language. ‘Will ye insult me, ye family of Husais?’ cried 'Amr, blazing with fury. But 'Amr’s son 'Abdallah was standing by, and when he called out ‘Verily we belong to God! you have uttered the war-cry of the tribes, which is forbidden,’ the father accepted the son’s rebuke and freed thirty slaves as an act of repentance. But it was in his younger days at Medina that, after listening to Ziyads eloquent Khutbah, he exclaimed, ‘How marvellous a talent hath God granted to that youth! Verily if he were a son of the tribe of the Kuraish, it were easy for him to drive the Arab nation before him with a switch.’

Such anecdotes might doubtless be multiplied. But enough has been said to show what manner of man 'Amr was. Putting together some of his characteristics, one may note that he combined great power of brain and body with great enthusiasm: he had an iron will and unfaltering courage, yet measured aright the advantage which coolness and skill possess over mere valour. In matters of religion and ceremonial he was devout, and, though fiercely swayed at times by worldly motives, yet in the main upright and high-principled. He was not unlearned, as the times went; indeed he was held to be the cleverest of the Arabs, and one of the most accomplished; passionately fond of music and verse; gifted with imagination, a good talker. In 'Amr there mingled something at once of soldier, saint, adventurer, and poet. Frank and open in his bearing, heroic in aim and action, he possessed great charm of presence and manner—that talisman which so often avails great men to transmute admiration into personal devotion.

Such was the captain of the four thousand horse­men who were bent on wresting Egypt from the grasp of the Caesars.

CHAPTER XV. OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN

The alarm was now sounded through Egypt, and Cyrus, the Mukaukas, heard that the dreaded Saracens were coming. Some measures of defence he had taken already: a moat had been dug round the great castle of Babylon near Memphis, other forts had been strengthened, and the walls of many cities which had suffered in the Persian invasion were repaired. But it is false to say that Cyrus now bought off the Arabs by a promise of tribute. That is the statement which Theophanes makes, or seems to make. But most unfortunately the Greek historians are quite in the dark both as to the facts and as to the order of events at this period. Nicephorus is even worse than Theophanes, and the writer of the Chronicon Orientale worse than either. They neither examined nor understood what they recorded, and their confusion of dates and perversion of truth are such that they have served only as false lights, luring into quagmires nearly every modern writer who has followed them. But it must suffice here to say that there is not a word of truth in the story of tribute paid to stave off the conquest of Egypt. There is no whisper or hint of any such arrangement in any single Oriental writer—Persian, Arabic, Syriac, or Coptic—with the exception of the passage in Severus copied by the Chronicon Orientale. The idea is a mere blunder of the Greek historians, a distorted image of a totally different and much later transaction, as will be set forth in due order. It was needful at the outset to sweep aside this misconception ; but the way is now clear to follow 'Amr on his march through the desert.

From the valley of Arish with its groves of palm the road passed nearly due westward, but away from the coast, through a waste of desert, relieved by occasional watering-places and villages. It was the immemorial high-road to Egypt—the road which had witnessed the passage of the first prehistoric settlers in Egypt, the passage of Abraham, of Jacob and Joseph, of Cambyses, Alexander, and Cleopatra, of the Holy Family, and lately of the Persian invaders. It was the road of merchants, travellers, and pilgrims at all times, and of the many caravans which here linked Asia to Africa. A few miles before reaching Pelusium the way trends north-westwards, plunging among dunes or moving sandhills; but no Roman soldiers were met by the Arabs till they came within sight of the city.

Pelusium, the Coptic Peremoun and the Arabic Al Farama, seems to have stood on an eminence about a mile and a half from the sea; it possessed a harbour, possibly connected with the town by a canal, and the Pelusiac arm of the Nile here joined the sea. The city was ancient and strongly fortified, full of old Egyptian monuments, as well as churches and monasteries; and as the key of Egypt on the eastern side, it was a place of the greatest importance, commanding the desert approaches, the coast, and a waterway leading into the Delta. Yet it seems to have been poorly defended. The Persians, who were practised in the art of siege warfare, had captured it with very little fighting, and they probably had made havoc with its walls, wrecking them in parts, as they wrecked the churches. Still the Romans had warning enough, and might easily have repaired the damage.

But the Arabs under 'Amr had no engineering skill or resources, and they had to capture the city by storm or starvation. We do not know the numbers of the garrison: but it is clear that the Saracen force was too weak to beleaguer the place, and there were frequent sallies. Desultory fighting lasted a month—or two months according to one authority—till at last one of the gates was seized in the repulse of a sally, and the city was taken. The first Arab to force his way through the gate was called Asmaika ibn Walah as Sabai. Makrizi and Abu ’l Mahasin (who copied from him) mention a report that the Copts aided the Arabs at the siege, but it is certainly baseless. It seems a mere revival of the old falsehood which charged the Copts with aiding the Persians. It occurs, I believe, in no writer before the fourteenth century, and it seems refuted by the story of the capture which I have given. It is also inconsistent with the fact that the Arabs not only burnt the shipping and dismantled the fortress, but also, like the Persians, destroyed the remnant of the churches in Pelusium. Finally, the charge is in direct antagonism to the statement of the nearly contemporary John of Nikiou, who says that the Copts did not lend any aid to the Muslim forces until after the enemy had taken possession of Fayfim and all its territory. What point of time this denotes is doubtful: it is certain that it was subsequent to the capture of Babylon, and that the aid then given was very partial and limited.

By the reduction of Farami the Arab forces had now secured their only line of communication, and of retreat in case of disaster. They had also formed some measure of the gigantic task which lay before them, if they were ever to capture the far more powerful fortress of Babylon and the mighty city of Alexandria. "Amr must have realized that without the promised reinforcements he was doomed to failure; and he knew that reinforcements could come by Farama alone. He could spare no troops to hold the town, and he was therefore more than justified in razing its defences, and making it useless to the enemy, if recaptured. What the Romans were about meanwhile, it is difficult to conjecture. Cyrus must have known that it was merely a question of time, when the Muslim forces overrunning Syria would turn their arms against Egypt. The event was bound to come. Common prudence would have established posts of observation along the desert, at least as far out as 'Arish, to give timely warning; and would have prepared an army to concentrate on Pelusium. Had the Romans sent only 10,000 men to harass 'Amr’s line of march, or had they mustered such an army under the fortress, they could scarcely have failed to rout and crush the little force of Arabs, although even that result might not have deferred for long the fate of Egypt. Instead of that, they did nothing. They trusted to the normal garrison to defend the town; and though they were in a sense surprised by the sudden advance of the Arabs, yet during the month of siege they sent no troops to its relief or rescue. Their tame and needless loss of Pelusium was their first great blunder in the war; is it possible that one may call it the first act in the great betrayal of the Empire by Cyrus? Had he already formed in his mind the plan for rendering the patriarchate of Alexandria independent of Constantinople by an alliance with the Arabs against the Empire? On no other theory does it seem possible to explain his action, at least in its later developments.

It was now past the middle of January, 640 a. d., which year nearly coincided with the Muslim a.h. 19, when 'Amr resumed his march. His losses in the recent fighting were more than made good by a number of Beduins who, scenting war and plunder, had flocked to his standard. From the  salt-encrusted country round Pelusium he passed over a stretch of white shell-strewn sand, till he reached the ancient Migdol to the south-west, thence to the point now known as Al Kantarah on the Suez Canal. Here the desert changes to a hard and pebbly surface, while its monotony is relieved by a few green patches of vegetation and reedy brackish lagoons. The Arabs kept to the desert, and probably made for Salahiah. Most ancient conquerors of Egypt, like Cambyses, took a different route, striking nearly due west from Pelusium to Synhor and Tanis, and thence up through the Delta to Bubastis: but by this time the swamps round Lake Manzalah had spread so as to render that route more difficult. Besides, 'Amr’s army were all mounted, and had no means of bridging canals or rivers. Moving then from Salahiah or Kassassin nearly due south, 'Amr crossed the hills of the Wadi Tumilat near the place now known for the battle of Tall al Kabir; and when once he was clear of the Wadi, there remained but a short and easy march between him and Bilbais.

Here, however, the Roman forces began to show some resistance. Their scouts had watched the progress of the Arabs across the desert, but there had been no fighting beyond some trifling skirmishes. The story that two bishops, called Abd Maryam and Abd Marydm (or Abd Martam), were sent by the Mukaukas to parley with the Arabs, is somewhat legendary. No bishops of such name ever existed, and the incident may be a myth which has arisen from the boundless confusion caused in the minds of Arab historians by the perusal of documents in which matters of legend and history are hopelessly intermingled, while the text has been corrupted at the hand of careless copyists. Yet there is reason to think that some sort of deputation headed by a bishop did parley with 'Amr at this time. Tabari even relates that ‘Amr urged the Copts to assist the Muslim forces on the ground of the kinship subsisting between Copts and Arabs through Hagar. The Copts, however, argued that this relationship was somewhat shadowy, whereupon 'Amr granted them four days to consider the matter. But the Roman general had no need to ponder arguments of this kind. Artaban, as he is called by Arab writers, or Aretion as he should be called, was probably the same person as the Roman governor of Jerusalem, who, as we have seen, fled to Egypt when the city was about to surrender to Omar. As general of the Roman troops he decided to force a battle, and on the second day after the parley he surprised the Arab camp by a fierce onslaught at night. But the result was disastrous, and his force was cut to pieces. Still the town of Bilbais was strong enough to detain ‘Amr for a full month, during which frequent encounters took place, and its capture caused some loss to the invaders. On the other hand, the Romans are said to have lost 1,000 in killed and 3,000 prisoners .

‘Amr was now but one day’s march from the head of the Delta. He passed by Heliopolis, and still skirting the cultivated land, aimed for a point on the Nile called Umm Dunain, which lay to the north of Babylon, in what is now the heart of Cairo. But the Roman troops were at length more alert, and were not prepared to allow the seizure of this fortified position, with its harbour and shipping, which were both of great strategical value. The commander-in-chief of all the Roman forces in Egypt at this time was Theodore, a dilatory and incom­petent general, who had only just discovered that he had something more than a raid of Beduins to deal with. Cyrus, the Mukaukas, the Viceroy of Egypt and imperial Patriarch of Alexandria, seems now to have hurried up with Theodore to the fortress of Babylon, where enough troops were assembled to put in the field against the Arabs. Umm Dunain itself was strongly held, and the main force of the Romans, secure behind the massive walls of their fortress, could choose their own moment for attack and for retreat. Several weeks accordingly passed in a series of indecisive engagements, which hurt the Romans little, but wore down slowly the numbers of the Muslims, already perilously weak for the enterprise on which they had ventured.

Indeed 'Amr was now in a somewhat serious predicament. He had reconnoitred the country round, and found that he could not hope with his present forces either to invest or to storm the castle of Babylon, nor even to seize the city of Misr, which adjoined and nearly surrounded it. The recent battles had not been so uniformly in favour of the Muslims as their enthusiasm and their fighting powers had led them to anticipate. It was known that Omar had promised to forward reinforcements, and 'Amr now sent urgent dispatches to press for their arrival. But there was no sign of their coming. Every day’s delay was now a gain to the enemy, and it seemed that the issue of the war hung in the balance: either scale might prove the scale of victory. But though the position was critical, it was not in the nature of the Saracen general to despair or to think of retreat. Recognizing, however, the fact that his main objective, the capture of Babylon, was for the moment out of reach, 'Amr resolved on a diversion of singular boldness. His project was nothing less than to make a dash for the Fayum, a rich province some fifty miles further south, but on the opposite or western bank of the Nile. For this purpose the undisputed possession of Umm Dunain was essential, at least for a time; and he resolved to achieve it at all costs. How the place was carried is not known, but the demand which 'Amr made on the endurance of his men is shown by an anecdote of this period. He was speaking sternly to some of them, in whom he had noticed a failure of strength or of heart, when a trooper murmured, ‘We are not made of iron!’ ‘Silence, you dog!’ roared the commander. ‘If I am a dog,’ rejoined the trooper, ‘you are a leader of dogs —a remark which turned the laugh against 'Amr, and which seems to have gone un­punished. But the task was accomplished, and the capture of Umm Dunain established 'Amr’s force on the Nile banks, and enabled him to seize boats enough to transport his diminished army across the river.

CHAPTER XVI . BATTLE OF HELIOPOLIS

As soon as the passage of the river was safely accomplished, ‘Amr’s force marched southward by the cultivated land to Memphis. This ancient city (which has now completely disappeared) had been falling into decay ever since the foundation of Alexandria: but vast ruins and remains still marked the site of the capital of the Pharaohs at this time, and there were still a good many inhabited houses, although the town of Misr, which lay mostly south of Babylon on the opposite side of the Nile, had become far more populous and important and had even usurped the name of Memphis. It was here, perhaps, from the western bank that the Saracen army first had a clear view of the city of Misr and the great towers of Babylon rising from the water’s edge across the isle of Raudah. A nature like 'Amr’s may have been stirred as he surveyed the Pyramids on his right, the Nile and Babylon on his left, and the ruins of Memphis about him, though his troop of desert warriors, as they threaded among the palm­groves, recked but little of the ancient civilization or of the Roman or Byzantine buildings that met their gaze.

The course of their journey is far from clear. The city of Fayum was held by the governor Domentianus, while Theodosius the Prefect of the province was with Anastasius, Prefect of Alexandria, in the Delta not far from Nikiou. The defence of the province was entrusted to John, general of the militia or local levies, with John of Maros under his orders. The points of entrance to the Fay dm were strongly guarded, and in particular a post of observation was established by the Romans  at Hajar al Lahun to keep watch over the enemy and report his movements to John, who was stationed on the bank of the river. A force of cavalry and archers was also sent against the Arabs to arrest their march. The Saracen army seem to have found it impossible to break through the Roman cordon, and edged off to the desert hills, capturing a large quantity of cattle on the way. They advanced in this way to a town called Bahnasa, which they took by storm, and slaughtered all before them—men, women, and children^. ‘Amr now faced about suddenly, as he heard that John with a small force of fifty men had been following him and spying his movements, and was at some distance from his supports. John, realizing his danger, endeavoured by a rapid retreat to regain his camp at Abuit at no great distance on the bank of the Nile. His troop marched by night, taking cover by day in palm-groves and thickets. But their hiding-place was betrayed to ‘Amr by a Beduin chief. They were surrounded and slain to the last man. The general John and his lieutenant both perished, for the Arabs took no prisoners.

When the commander-in-chief Theodore heard of this disaster, he broke into loud lamentations. Too late as usual, he now hurried all available troops up the river to the island of Lokyon, while Anastasius and Theodosius hastened from Nikiou to the castle of Babylon to strengthen the garrison. From Babylon, however, a further force was sent under a general named Leontius to the Roman camp at Abhit. On reaching the camp, Leontius, who was obese and indolent and knew nothing of war, found that the Egyptian forces were already in touch with the Arabs, and that Theodore, who had thrown his troops into the city of Fayum, was making frequent sorties against the Arab headquarters at Bahnasa. Judging that 'Amr would soon be repulsed from that region, he left only half of his men with Theodore, and returned with the other half to report what he had seen to the commanders at Babylon.

There is no doubt that the Saracens failed to capture the city of Fayum, and that they now began to retire down the river northward again. Theodore gave orders to search for the body of John the general, which had been thrown into the Nile. It was recovered at last with a net, and embalmed; then it was placed on a bier with every sign of mourning, and carried down the river to Babylon, whence it was sent on to Heraclius. The defeat and death of John made a deep impression on the Emperor, who lost no time in signifying his displeasure to Theodore; and the commander-in-chief, knowing that he must have been judged guilty of John’s death upon reports from Theodosius and Anastasius, conceived a bitter enmity against those officers.

But it was not mere failure which brought about the retirement of the Arabs from the Fayum. Indeed ‘Amr had probably done more than he had expected. He had extricated his army from a dangerous position at Tendunias, and had removed it to a place of comparative safety: he had kept it employed and had won several successes, if no very great victory: and above all he had gained time. The long-delayed reinforcements were now coming, and it was the news of their arrival which caused the Muslim chief to retrace his steps for the purpose of meeting them. Theodore, likewise, came down the river again with his troops to the fortress of Babylon, where a large army had assembled from different quarters of Egypt.

The expedition to the Fayum had started about the beginning of May, and it had taken some weeks —weeks which had been worse than wasted for the Romans, while they greatly advantaged the Arabs. It was probably on June 6 that the second Muslim army dispatched by Omar arrived in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis. This contingent was under the command of a noted leader named Az Zubair ibn al 'Awwam, a kinsman and Companion of the Prophet and one of the six counsellors. The legion under him numbered 4,000 men, but was being followed at a short distance by two other columns of equal strength, so that the total reinforcements amounted to 12,000 men. The Nile begins to rise in its deep channel about midsummer, and the Romans were anxious to give battle with their now united forces before the waters overflowed. But they seem to have failed entirely to prevent the junction of the divided Saracen army. They possessed Babylon; they held the command of the river; and they had reoccupied the fortified outpost of Umm Dunain: so that with common skill and prudence they might have foiled all 'Amr’s efforts to recross to the eastern bank, and might have crushed him while he was thus isolated.

Yet with every advantage in their favour they did not prevent 'Amr from stealing or forcing the passage. It seems likely that he crossed somewhat lower down to the north of Umm Dunain; for Trajan’s Canal had silted up from neglect, and would have presented no obstacle, even had the Nile already risen. 'Amr had been aware that the Muslim reinforcements were marching in two columns on 'Ain Shams or Heliopolis, and his position on the western bank had been decidedly dangerous: indeed, he had been seriously alarmed lest the Romans should, by barring his passage, render it impossible to join forces with Zubair. But as usual Theodore lost his opportunity of striking home, and 'Amr’s army, elated with their adventures, marched into the Muslim camp at Heliopolis.

In ancient times Heliopolis had been one of the most famous cities of-Egypt. Its name of On, familiar in the Mosaic narrative, was still preserved as the name in common use among the Copts in the seventh century, and that it connoted the idea of ‘sun-city,’ expressed in the Greek form Heliopolis, is not questioned: even the Arabs retained this idea when they changed the name of the place to 'Ain Shams, i.e. Fountain or Well of the Sun. On had been no less famous for the splendour of its monuments than for its renown as a religious centre and seat of learning. When Strabo visited it six hundred years before this period, although wars and sieges and the changes of time had overthrown and ruined most of the temples and statues, yet people still pointed out the halls in which Plato had studied. But when the Arabs came, little of the ancient grandeur remained beyond some broken walls and half-buried sphinxes, and the solitary obelisk, which stands to this day as a memorial of a vanished world.

Heliopolis was on a slight eminence and had been surrounded by a rampart of great thickness, some traces of which are still visible. Though it had no great military importance at this time, yet it was capable of defence; it was well supplied with water; and it was convenient for provisioning the army. For these reasons 'Amr retained it as his headquarters, while preparing for the conflict which was impending. We have already seen that Theodore at Babylon had been drawing troops from the Delta towns: but by the time he had massed an army capable of driving the Muslims out of Heliopolis, it is probable that the whole of the reinforcements sent by Omar had arrived, and 'Amr now found himself at the head of about 15,000 men, including some of the most renowned soldiers of Islam. What numbers the Romans mustered can only be conjectured. They had a sound estimate of the enemy’s valour. Earlier in the war a Copt was overheard expressing astonishment that the Arabs had dared to enter Egypt and array their handful of men against the immense forces of the Emperor’s army; to which another Copt answered that the Arabs were incapable of yielding—they must either prove victorious or die to the last man. Another story is that the Romans were reluctant to fight, saying, ‘We have small chance against the men o have conquered Chosroes and Caesar in Syria. But these stories are from Arab sources, and the latter is certainly doubtful. It is incontestable, however, that the Romans had a vast superiority in numbers, and their forces now available for battle—apart from fortress garrisons—were not less than 20,000.

It was evidently 'Amr’s policy to draw the Roman army into the open plain away from Babylon; and when Theodore felt himself strong enough to take the offensive, his force moved out towards Heliopolis —a distance of six or seven miles from his camp. Theodosius and Anastasius were in command of the cavalry, but the bulk of the Roman army were foot soldiers—spearmen and archers. 'Amr’s spies had given him warning in good time of the enemy’s intentions, and he had disposed his forces in position. He himself with the main body of the Arabs would advance from Heliopolis to meet the Romans: but under cover of night he detached two other bodies of troops, placing one not far from Umm Dunain. and the other under Kharijah at a point further east—probably in the fold of the hills’, close to what is now the citadel of Cairo. The line of the Roman advance thus lay between the two detached corps of Arabs, which had orders to fall on the flank and rear of the enemy when the right opportunity offered. It was early morning when the Roman forces emerged from the gardens and monasteries which covered the ground north-eastward of the fortress, and deployed in the open. They were in complete ignorance of 'Amr’s stratagem, but they knew that his main army was marching from Heliopolis to meet them. The encounter probably took place about half way between the two camps, somewhere in the region now called 'Abbasiah. Both sides knew that on that field the fate of Egypt would be decided; and both fought with obstinate courage. But while the struggle was at its fiercest, the Arab detachment  under Kharijah issued from the hills, and fell like a whirlwind on the rear of the Romans. Caught thus between two forces they fell into disorder, and moving somewhat to their left towards Umm Dunain were met and charged by what seemed a third Arab army. Disorder now turned into disaster, and in headlong flight they strove to escape the flashing scimitars of the Arabs. Some few got back to the fortress by land: many others, pressing towards the river, seized boats and sailed back to Babylon: but great numbers perished. The victorious Arabs took possession of Umm Dunain a second time. Of its Roman garrison all but 300 men had perished in the fight. These survivors retreated to the fortress of Babylon and shut the gates: but when they heard of the terrible slaughter which the Romans had suffered, they lost heart and fled down the river by boat to Nikiou.

Even tradition is silent as regards the losses on either side. But it is known that the commander­in-chief, Theodore, and the two governors, Theodosius and Anastasius, were not among the slain. Enough Roman troops too were left to form, with those who had held the fortress during the battle, an effective garrison. But the advantages of the victory to the Arabs were enormous. The town of Misr, which had been hitherto protected by the Roman army at Babylon, was now at their mercy, and it was captured without further fighting. They were now masters of the whole river-bank, above and below the fortress, and moving up their camp from Heliopolis, they pitched it north and east of the fortress in the region of the gardens and churches—the region known in subsequent history as Fustat. Their forces too were now both sufficient to beleaguer Babylon and free to concert measures for its investment. The Roman army was swept away as a fighting force, and any remnant which escaped was either shut up within the fortress walls or scattered through the Delta in panic. Moreover the news of the Arab victory at once cleared the city of Fay dm of its defenders. For Domentianus, on learning the result of the battle, evacuated the city by night, and marched the garrison to Abuit: there they hastily embarked and fled down the river to Nikiou, without even telling the people of Abflit that they were abandoning the Fayum to the enemy. As soon, however, as the flight of Domentianus was reported to 'Amr, he flung a body of troops across the Nile; the towns of Fayum and Abuit were captured amid scenes of ruthless massacre; and the whole province was brought under Muslim dominion.

When the last sparks of resistance had thus been quenched in the Fayum, 'Amr directed the troops there to concentrate at the town of Dalas as the most convenient place of embarkation. The command of the river had for the moment passed to the victors—not the least result of the battle. The Romans still held the fortified island of Raudah in close connexion with Babylon, maintaining communication by boat between the two strongholds: and for a while longer the navigation of the river remained more or less open, because the Arabs were as yet no sailors, and they were busy with further conquest by land. For ‘Amr now recalled the various troops of horsemen, which had scoured the country after the battle of Heliopolis; and he ordered Apa Cyru of Dalds to supply Nile boats for the transport of the force in the Fayum from the western to the eastern bank. His intention was to subjugate the whole province of Misr, which extended over the apex of the Delta.

The battle of Heliopolis was probably fought about the middle of July, 640 a.d. Not less than a fortnight was spent in taking possession of the Fayum, so that we are brought to the beginning of August for the expedition to the Delta. Amr wished to strike a blow there before the rise of the Nile made it impossible. George, the Prefect of the province of Misr, had either been captured when the town was taken or had sent in his submission. Indeed the terror of the Arabs’ name now secured all the country within reach of their sword, save only the fortified places.

But the Delta was covered with waterways, some of which were unfordable: and George was ordered at once to have a bridge built over the canal at Kaliub. ‘And,’ says John of Nikiou, ‘people began to help the Muslims.’ It is unfortunate that the bishop’s language is not more explicit; but, taken in connexion with the context and with subsequent passages, this remark seems to prove nothing except that service was requisitioned from the country folk. It was, in other words, forced, not voluntary. Indeed this very passage makes that meaning clear. For after recording that the Arabs captured the important towns of Athrib and Manuf with all their territory, and subjugated the whole province of Misr, the writer continues, ‘Not content with that, 'Amr had the Roman magistrates arrested and their hands and feet fettered with chains or logs of wood: he extorted great sums of money, laid a double tax on the peasants, whom he forced to bring forage for his horses, and he committed innumerable acts of violence.’ That measures of this kind crushed resistance, and disposed the people to obey the will of their conqueror, is not surprising: but so far there is not a word to show that any section of the Egyptian nation viewed the advent of the Muslims with any other feeling than terror.

Although Athrib and Manuf had fallen, the town of Nikiou, which lay on the western branch of the Nile, was too strongly fortified to be taken without a regular siege, for which neither time nor means were available. It remained therefore as a link between Babylon and Alexandria. But the mere report of the Muslim victories determined the Roman chiefs who were there to retire on the capital. They left, however, Domentianus with a small garrison, and sent to Dares at Samanfa the order to defend the country between the two branches of the Nile. But the alarm now became a panic, which spread through every town of Egypt. From all parts the inhabitants streamed towards Alexandria, abandoning lands and houses, goods and chattels, cattle and crops. A new reign of terror had begun for the people who had been scourged by ten years of persecution under Cyrus, Al Mukaukas.

But 'Amr was not prepared to follow the flying crowds northwards. The Nile, now rising fast as August waned, was making the country impassable: besides he had no wish to leave in his rear the powerful fortress of Babylon unmasked, while to mask it such a number of troops were needed as would leave him no army capable of conquering Alexandria. His next step therefore must be the reduction of Babylon.

CHAPTER XVII. THE FORTRESS OF BABYLON

Up to nearly the beginning of the twentieth century enough of the ancient fortress still stood to give a clear idea of its structure and its importance. These remains owed their preservation entirely to the Copts, whose churches had clustered within the walls from the very beginnings of Christianity, and had found in them a sure bulwark in times of persecution. The walls were Coptic property, save where the Melkite church of St. George or the Jewish synagogue claimed a small section of them; and the Muslims seem never to have shown any care to preserve a monument which played so large a part in the conquest, and about which so much is written in the pages of their own historians.

But with the British occupation came a sense of security which has led to the most deplorable destruction. The need of a fortified enclosure having vanished, Copts, Greeks, and Jews vied together in demolishing the walls, wherever their fancy suggested a new entrance or a new building. It is the simple truth that in the last eighteen years more havoc has been wrought upon the Roman fortress than in the previous eighteen centuries.

At last, when nearly all the mischief was done, the government interfered, and all that now remains is placed under government protection. But that is little enough.

The ruined castle lies in the region now miscalled Old Cairo. Three sides of the enclosure were almost uninjured a few years ago; but now of two sides only some fragments remain, while the third is sadly mutilated. The walls were about eight feet in thickness, built of brick and stone courses alternating, and they seem to have formed an irregular quadrilateral, the full extent of which cannot be known until the foundations of the fourth or vanished side are rediscovered. On the south and on the eastern side of the fortress the line of walls was broken out by four projecting bastions at somewhat uneven intervals. Three of the four bastions on the south were recently visible: now one has been completely destroyed, but between the other two may be seen the magnificent ancient gateway, which has been excavated from the encumbering rubbish mounds to a depth of some thirty feet. On the western side of the fort there was no bastion—a fact which one may explain by remembering that when the fort was built, and even at the time of the conquest, the Nile flowed under the wall, so that boats moored beneath it. Another gate, opening on to the river, probably lay between the two enormous round towers, which were little injured before the recent changes. Now one of them is all but demolished, the other has been entirely obliterated from view by being enclosed and encased in a rectangular block of modern Arab construction. Each tower was circular on plan, upwards of 100 feet in diameter, and contained an inner circle of wall: radiating walls divided the space between the two concentric circles into eight compartments, one of which was occupied by a stone staircase leading to the top of the building. The ordinary walls of the fortress were some sixty feet high, as is proved by recent excavations, although the whole fortress is now buried to a depth of thirty feet by the accumulations of ages. But the towers rose higher still, and from their top opened an immense view embracing the Mukattam Hills on the east, long reaches of the Nile to north and south, Jizah, the Pyramids, and the Libyan desert on the west. And at the time of the conquest, before Cairo was built, the field of vision must have reached as far as Heliopolis.

The two towers were joined by a curtain wall, which was pierced by the gate above mentioned. But it was not this gate, all trace of which is destroyed or buried, but the southern gate now opened out to view, which the Arab writers dwell upon and associate with the Mukaukas. This is no longer doubtful. For the recent excavations have disclosed one very curious result: they show that either the Nile itself or a short inlet from it came right up to the main southern gate of the fortress (the ‘western’ gate of the Arab writers), and to the quay at which the Roman boats moored. The quay is graduated with steps to suit the changing level of the Nile: but its existence is a singular confirmation of the minute accuracy with which facts are sometimes recorded by the Arab historians. Possibly the same arrangement existed at the gate between the round towers towards the Isle of Raudah. But unquestionably it was this southern gate—the gate of Al Muallakah—which was the Iron Gate of Arab story. This is proved first by the discovery of the quay : next by the fact that the gateway now standing still shows deep chases cut in the masonry for the portcullis or drop gate, which was either made of iron or plated with iron : and lastly by the fact that Makrizi expressly identifies the Iron Gate with the ‘western’ gate (which I call the southern), while his contemporary Ibn Dukmik identifies the ‘western’ gate with the gate which is under the church of Al Muallakah.

It is curious in this connexion to note that even as late as the year 1400 a.d. this Iron Gate, marked by the ancient quay, was used as the ordinary entrance to the fortress. Just outside stood the Great Market, as it was called, and from this the main road passed through the gateway under the church of Al Muallakah, and crossing the enclosure issued out of the walls again by a gate on the northern side towards the mosque of 'Amr. On this side also was the ‘guard-house of Binunah,’ possibly the detached Roman building of which a fragment still remains. Although Ibn Dukmak’s language implies the existence of several other gates, only one more is mentioned—that upon the western side—which may be the gate between the towers. The western walls, then, were washed by the Nile, and boats came up also to the Iron Gate. At the present day the Nile has retreated far from the ramparts, and the level of the soil has risen so high all-round the fortress that the walls lie buried to half their original height. This underground portion at least of the ancient circuit has escaped the hand of the destroyer, and it is to be hoped that some day it may see the light again.

The island of Raudah itself was strongly fortified at this epoch; and by its commanding position in mid channel of the Nile it added immensely to the military value of Babylon. Ibn Dukmak seems to say that the Arabs attacked the island during the investment of Babylon, and that when the Romans retreated, 'Amr threw down part of the island walls and towers, which remained in a dismantled state till Ibn Tulun rebuilt them in the year 876, for the purpose of guarding there his treasure and his seraglio. The island from another use was called also Arsenal Island by the Arabs in later ages. The Nilometer at the south end of the island was built in the year 716 a.d. in replacement of an earlier monument of the kind, which was inside the fortress of Babylon.

At the time of the conquest the whole region eastward of the fortress was an open cultivated plain. Northward spread gardens and vineyards, while all the region between the vineyards and the mountains as far as the present mosque of Tulun and Al Kabah was dotted over with churches and convents, some few of which remain to this day, both within and without the walls of Cairo, though the greater number were destroyed in the fourteenth century by Al Malik an Nasir ibn Kalaun.

As regards the origin of the fortress, the conjecture which I ventured to make, that it was built by Trajan c. 100 a.d., has been amply confirmed by the since-published work of John of Nikiou. He relates that, in consequence of a Jewish rebellion at Alexandria, Trajan first sent Marcius Turbo with a large army, and then ‘himself came to Egypt and there built a fortress with a powerful and impregnable citadel, and he brought there abundance of water.’ This last expression may refer to the wells sunk below the round towers and in other parts of the fortress. John goes on to say that the original foundations of the fortress were laid by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave it the name of Babylon, his own capital, at the time of his invasion of Egypt, and that upon these Trajan raised the circuit walls and otherwise enlarged the buildings. All, however, that stands above ground now is undoubtedly Roman, nor is it likely that Trajan followed the lines of any previous construction upon that spot.

On the other hand, the existence of an earlier fortress in the vicinity is certain. Strabo, who visited Egypt about 130 years before Trajan, mentions a strong fort standing on a rocky ridge, and traces the name to some Babylonian exiles who settled there. Diodorus recounts that some captives brought by Sesostris from Babylon established themselves in a castle which they called after their mother city. Josephus thinks the castle was built during the Persian conquest under Cambyses. Finally, Eutychius gives Akhus, i. e. Artaxerxes Ochus, as the builder of the fortress. It may then be taken for granted that near the present site there was a stronghold called Babylon for many centuries before the days of Trajan: but I have shown elsewhere that the original castle stood rather to the south on the rocky ridge (which is still clearly visible), as required by Strabo’s description. At the time of 'Amr’s invasion this ridge and the adjacent locality were probably occupied by the town of Misr, which spread as far as the Roman fortress, if not further, to the north. The fortress, however, was surrounded by a moat, which Al Mukaukas, or Cyrus, had lately cleared out and furnished with drawbridges. It is probable too that in the town of Misr many ancient Egyptian buildings were still standing, as excavations are constantly yielding large stones covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions.

The name Babylon has caused much confusion among Arab writers. It lingers on today not as the name of the fortress, which is called Kasr ash Shama, Castle of the Torch or Beacon, but in connexion with a little convent a short distance to the south, which is still called Dair Bablun. At the time of the conquest the fortress was called in Coptic ‘Babylon an Khemi’ or ‘Babylon of Egypt.’ The name lent itself easily to misconstruction in Arabic, as the first syllable means ‘gate’ in that language, and the remainder suggests a genitive case, as we have already seen. How the name Kasr ash Shama arose is not so easy to discover. It may well be that ‘Shama’ is a mere echo of the Coptic ‘Khemi.’ On the other hand, there is a very distinct tradition that a fire-temple was built in connexion with the old Babylonian castle, and also that a similar temple was erected on one of the Roman towers, at least during the Persian occupation, in the seventh century. We find even mention of a Rubbat ad Dukhan—Dome or Temple of Smoke— in the Arabic writer Yakut. But considering the importance of the towers as signal-stations in time of war, it is easy to imagine that upon one or both of them arrangements were made to light beacon fires, and that from this fact arose the name Kasr ash Shama. It is, however, curious to remark that, however ill the Arabs understood the name of the fortress, yet among European writers in the Middle Ages it was ‘Babylon’ and not ‘Misr’ which survived as the name of the place; and the title was even transferred after the building of Cairo to that city, so that its ruler was spoken of as Soldan of Babylon.

One word more. Though little is told of the buildings which stood in the interior of the fortress when 'Amr pitched his camp against it, we know that it contained a Nilometer, of which traces remained in the days of Makrizi We know also that some at least of the churches which were frequented by the Roman garrison, such as the cathedral church of Abd Sargah and possibly Al Mu'allakah, may be seen at the present day after the lapse of nearly thirteen centuries.

CHAPTER XVIII. SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF BABYLON

With the beginning of September Amr had not only returned to Babylon, but had made all his dispositions for a regular blockade of the fortress. Its massive walls and lofty towers encircled by the Nile—for the moat was now full of water—promised a long defiance to enemies ignorant of engineering and unprovided with siege equipment. Some few engines of war had been captured in the Fayum and in Trajan’s citadel at Manaf, but the Arabs had no skill to work them or to keep them in repair, and they did but little damage to the garrison, though the ridge some 200 yards south of the fortress offered an admirable vantage-ground for the besiegers’ batteries.

The fortress stood, as we have seen, on the edge of the river, its long line of western wall awash with the flood, while the Iron Gate opened on the moat or dock on the south side. Opposite lay the island of Raudah, the southern end of which in times of peace at any rate was connected with the fortress by a bridge of boats. Whether the bridge was left standing in war is doubtful; but it is certain that pontoons were kept moored by the Iron Gate in a position of security, and that boats readily passed from the fort to the island. In spite of his victory Amr was not yet able to dominate the river. Its swelling tide would have baffled more skilful navigators than the Arabs; and if he had risked an attack from that side, his boats would have been swept away by the flood or sunk by the defenders’ catapults.

All the Arab writers are agreed that when the siege began, the Mukaukas himself (or the Patriarch Cyrus) was within the walls of Babylon. Theodore too had been there before the battle of Heliopolis, though his actual presence at that battle is not recorded: but when the Roman forces were defeated, he seems to have joined the fugitives and hastened to Alexandria. Cyrus therefore, as Heraclius’ Viceroy, was the real commander in Babylon, although the general in charge of the garrison bore another name which the Arabs give as Al 'Araj, and which is probably a corruption of ‘George,’ though this George must be a different person from his name­sake the Prefect, whom 'Amr forced to bridge the canal at Kalihb. Another general who remained through the siege was Eudocianus, elder brother of Domentianus. The forces under George may have amounted to 5,000 or 6,000 men—hardly more—but the garrison was amply provided with food and warlike stores of all kinds. The civil population had been swollen by a number of refugees from the adjacent city of Misr and the convents round, but it is probable that most of these were sent away by river, so as to leave the garrison more freedom. All the churches within the walls were now, it must be remembered, in possession of clergy professing Chalcedonian or Melkite opinions, and no other opinion was tolerated. Cyrus had not changed his character as arch-enemy of the Coptic faith—a character which he maintained to the end; and his presence in the fort is the strongest proof, if proof were needed, that the only Copts there remaining were those who had been driven by persecution to renounce their creed. Indeed even of those, some, whose sincerity was doubted, were thrown into prison, where, as we shall see, they were treated with great barbarity.

It is therefore a mere perversion of history to speak, as many Arab writers do, of the Copts as the defenders or the dominant party within the fortress. The Copts had simply no existence as a belligerent body. Even their religious unity had been shattered by the ten years’ persecution. In the mountains and caves and deserts and in fortified monasteries of Upper Egypt there were still Copts and Coptic communities; but at Babylon, in the Delta, and at Alexandria, all the Copts had been forced within the pale of the established Church, where their secret disloyalty was powerless. Arab historians, writing some centuries after the conquest, naturally speak of Egyptian armies and Egyptian leaders without distinction of Roman or Copt, and the consequent mistakes and misunderstandings are legion : but it cannot be too clearly understood that at this time there was no such thing as a Coptic party in the field. The Copts were wholly out of action— crushed by Cyrus; and it is untrue to represent them as capable of combining among themselves or of fighting or treating with the Arabs.

But while the heart of Cyrus was still hardened against the Copts, he must have felt how ill he had prepared the country to resist a powerful enemy. His reign of violence had brought about a false semblance of religious unity, but it had torn asunder every shred of sympathy between governors and governed. At the best he could only expect that the Copts should watch in sullen aloofness the struggle between two alien and equally detested powers. All hope of saving Egypt by force of arms was ebbing away: was this the result on which he had calculated?

For the moment Al Mukaukas was secure in an almost impregnable castle, girdled by the waters of the Nile. The Roman catapults were more than a match for the Muslim bolts and arrows that volleyed across the moat. But as time wore on, the water in the moat was certain to sink, and already the fierce pertinacity of the assailants was causing some misgiving in the fortress and some division of opinion. It was about a month after the siege had begun, i. e. at the beginning of October, 640, that Cyrus summoned those officers of the garrison whom he trusted, together with the Melkite bishop of Babylon, to a secret council of war, and set before them his views. The war had gone against them. Their main army had been destroyed, and they were now beleaguered by a superior force of men, whose fighting capacity was most formidable. For some months at any rate there was no chance of any relieving army taking the field. The fortress might hold out, no doubt; but even so, were the chances of war in their favour? If not, would it not be better to buy off the enemy— to pay him a certain sum to clear out of the country? If such a peace could be purchased—if payment of an indemnity would secure the retirement of the Arabs—would not Egypt be saved for the Empire? Arguments like these, expanded and fired by the eloquence of which Cyrus undoubtedly was master, prevailed with the council, and it was resolved if possible to carry out the plan. But it was essential not to alarm the garrison and the advocates of war to the death: so it was decided that Cyrus and his confederates should take boats by night and steal across to the island of Raudah, whence they could open negotiations with the Arab leader in complete tranquillity.

The plan was carried out with the utmost secrecy. The Iron Gate on the Nile was opened and taking the boats there moored, the party crossed to the island, landing at the spot where afterwards the arsenal was erected. George, the commander of the fortress, was probably in the plot, but he remained within the walls to silence any rumours of treachery that might arise when the departure of Cyrus was discovered. Cyrus removed all the pontoons, so that, in case a panic seized the garrison, they would be unable to leave the fortress; and as soon as he had secured his position on the island, he sent envoys to Amr, among them being the bishop of Babylon. They were courteously received, and delivered their message. ‘You and your army,’ they said, ‘have invaded our country, and seem bent on fighting us. Your stay in the land is long, no doubt: but you are a small force, far outnumbered by the Romans, who are well-equipped and well-armed. Now too you are surrounded by the waters of the Nile, and are in fact captives in our hand. It would be well for you therefore to send envoys with any proposals you wish to make for an agreement, before the Romans overwhelm you. Then it will be too late, and you will regret your error.’ No immediate answer was given, but the envoys were detained in the Arab camp for two days, during which time they were allowed to go about freely and make their own observations on the life and character of the Muslims. 'Amr then dismissed them with the usual offer of terms. Only one of three courses is open to you; (1) I slim with brotherhood and equality; (2) payment of tribute, and protection with an inferior status; (3) war till God decides between us.

Cyrus was relieved by the return of the envoys. He had been anxiously asking whether it was lawful under the Muslim religion to kill ambassadors. But the simplicity and the enthusiasm of the Arabs had deeply impressed the Roman messengers. ‘We have seen,’ they reported, ‘a people who prefer death to life and humility to pride. They sit in the dust, and they take their meals on horseback. Their commander is one of themselves : there is no distinction of rank among them. They have fixed hours of prayer at which all pray, first washing their hands and feet, and they pray with reverence.’ And despite the harsh precision of the terms offered, Cyrus thought it better to treat now, while the Arab forces were hemmed in by the floods, rather than await the time when they could move freely through the country. He therefore sent back to 'Amr the request that special envoys might be empowered to discuss terms for agreement. 'Amr accordingly deputed ten of his officers, headed by a powerful negro called Ubadah ibn as Samit: but their orders were to accept no terms incompatible with one of the three defined courses.

The Arabs were ferried across to Raudah; but when Ubadah was ushered into the presence of Al Mukaukas, the latter was shocked and exclaimed, ‘Take away that black man: I can have no discussion with him.’ But the Arabs explained that Ubadah was one of their most trusted and capable leaders, and that 'Amr had commissioned him personally to treat with the Roman. To the Archbishop’s further astonishment, they added that they held negroes and white men in equal respect—that they judged a man by his character, not his colour. And Ubadah, when bidden to speak gently, so as not to frighten the delicate prelate, replied, ‘There are a thousand blacks, as black as myself, among our companions. I and they would be ready each to meet and fight a hundred enemies together. We live only to fight for God, and to follow His will. We care nought for wealth, so long as we have wherewithal to stay our hunger and to clothe our bodies. This world is nought to us, the next world is all.’ This profession of piety moved the Archbishop. ‘Do you hear this?’ he said to his companions; ‘I much fear that God has sent these men to devastate the world.’ Then, turning to Ubadah, he remarked, ‘I have listened, good sir, to your account of yourself and your comrades, and I under; stand why your arms so far have prevailed. I know too that the Romans have failed by caring over­much for earthly things. But now they are preparing to send against you immense numbers of well-armed battalions. Resistance will be hopeless. But for the sake of peace, we will agree to pay a sum of money at the rate of two dinars a head for every man in the Arab’ army, a hundred dinars for your commander, and a thousand for your Caliph, on condition that you return to your own country.’

To this Ubadah answered, ‘Do not deceive yourselves. We are not afraid of your numbers. Our greatest desire is to meet the Romans in battle. If we conquer them, it is well; if not, then we receive the good things of the world to come. Our prayer is for martyrdom in the cause of Islam, not for safe return to wife and children. Our small numbers cause us no fear; for it is written in the Book, “Many a time hath a small company overcome a great host, by the will of God.” Understand, therefore, that we can accept no terms save one of the three conditions which we are ordered by the Caliph to offer you.’ Cyrus in vain endeavoured to obtain terms more in accordance with his proposal; his arguments fell on deaf ears; till at last in answer to his final inquiry, Ubadah, losing patience, raised both his hands above his head and exclaimed vehemently, ‘No, by the Lord of heaven and earth and all things, you shall have no other terms from us. So make your choice.’

Thereupon Cyrus and his companions held a consultation. To the first alternative they answered uncompromisingly, ‘We cannot abandon the religion of Christ for a religion of which we know nothing.’ Thus ruling out the adoption of Islam, there remained only submission, with payment of tribute, or war. They argued that submission to the Muslims and payment of tribute would be tantamount to slavery: death would be easier. But 'Ubidah explained that both their persons and their property would be respected; that they would retain full control over their possessions and all existing rights of inheritance; that their churches would be left uninjured, and the practice of their religion unmolested. So interpreted, the terms seemed reasonable and even generous to the Mukaukas, Cyrus, whose courage was sapped by the secret conviction that the Muslims were destined to conquer. But the Christians were not all prepared to surrender their country so tamely as the foreign Archbishop of Alexandria. George, the commander of the fortress, seems by this time to have joined the conference, and it is certain that violent opposition was offered to Cyrus’ proposal to capitulate: but here, as so often in this history, a veil falls on the scene, and one can only conjecture what lies behind.

It seems, however, that failing agreement upon the Muslim proposals, the Roman chiefs asked for a month to consider the matter. Amr answered decisively that he would grant only a three days’ armistice. By this time Cyrus’ secret action was known to the Roman garrison. His party probably returned from Raudah to within the walls of Babylon, where the popular feeling set strongly against Cyrus. Accordingly the advocates of resistance had an easy triumph : the soldiers of the Emperor absolutely refused to surrender. Indeed, this decision was reached so quickly, that by the time the armistice had expired, measures were taken to prepare a sudden onslaught upon the besiegers. No answer was sent to 'Amr; but on the fourth day, when the armistice was over, while the Arab commander was considering what action to take, the Romans sallied out over their drawbridges and fell upon the camp of their unsuspecting enemy. The Arabs, though completely surprised, flew to arms, and a desperate battle ensued. But bravely as the Romans fought, their army, which was ere long outnumbered, was slowly driven back, and after severe losses made good its retreat within the walls.

Al Mukaukas, whose dark and tortuous mind was still haunted by thoughts of surrender, now found his opportunity. The army, which had scorned his counsel, had trusted to the sword: in the battle they had demeaned themselves as Roman soldiers should: yet though they had taken the foe at a disadvantage, by the sword they had fallen. As Viceroy of Egypt, Cyrus could see no prospect of driving the invaders out of the country, and this fresh failure only confirmed his evil forebodings. He found the party of resistance weakened and disheartened, and he had little difficulty now in securing a gloomy assent to his proposal for re­opening negotiations with 'Amr. It is somewhat surprising to find that the terms offered by 'Amr remained the same, but there is no reason to think that they varied either now or at any later period in the war. The alternative chosen by the Romans was, of course, subjection and tribute; and this arrangement was embodied in a treaty, which was concluded on the express condition that it was subject to the approval of the Emperor. Cyrus undertook to submit the treaty to Heraclius im­mediately, and it was agreed that pending ratification there should be no change in the military situation, or at least that the fortress should not be surrendered.

It was at this juncture that Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, took his departure from Babylon and hastened down the Nile to Alexandria, whence he sent urgent dispatches to the Emperor, regretting the action which he had been forced to take, and explaining the absolute necessity of coming to terms with the Arabs. He therefore prayed the Emperor to confirm the agreement for a treaty and so deliver Egypt from the miseries of war. Heraclius may well have been puzzled by this communication. Did the proposed treaty relate to Babylon alone, or did it cover the surrender of all Egypt, including Alexandria ? Were the Arabs merely to receive a tribute of money and to retire, or were they to remain masters of the country ? Was Egypt, in a word, to be torn from the Empire and delivered to the enemies of Christendom ? For months past the Emperor had been reproaching his generals and Cyrus, his Viceroy, with their shameful mismanagement, which had suffered a handful of Saracens to plant their standards in Egypt and to defy the imperial forces. Now it was proposed either to bribe the barbarians to retire, or to yield them possession of the whole province, with all its corn and gold. What was the meaning of this surrender ? Cyrus must come and give an account of his viceroyalty.

It was probably about the middle of November when a peremptory message of recall reached Cyrus. Its tone was not reassuring, and his conscience may well have quailed as he prepared the account of his stewardship for his master. He alone knew how far he had betrayed and how far he had followed either the letter or the spirit of the Emperor’s instructions during the ten years of the Great Persecution: but he could not disguise the fact that his religious mission had been a disastrous failure, while the ruin of his schemes was bringing about the political ruin of Egypt. Withal he must have been conscious, that however honest his motives might be as shaped to himself, yet his easy despair of the Roman cause, and his readiness—even anxiety —to parley with the enemy, clouded his conduct with the suspicion, of treachery. Thoughts like these must have weighed down his spirit, as he reached the Emperor’s presence in Constantinople. He met with an angry reception. He could only admit the truth of the charge that he had agreed to pay the gold of Egypt to the Arabs: but apparently he thought, or feigned to think, that they could still be prevailed upon to quit the country, and he urged that the tribute might be met by a special tax upon merchandise at Alexandria, so that the imperial revenues would be in no way diminished. For the rest, he saw no hope. The Arabs were not as other men : they had, as they said, no earthly wants but bread for sustenance and a garment to cover their bodies. They were ‘a people of death,’ holding it gain to be killed and sent to paradise, whereas the Romans loved the things of this life and clung to them. If the Emperor saw the Arabs and knew their fighting powers, he would be forced to acknowledge that they were invincible. It was therefore better to come to terms with 'Amr, before the capture of Babylon placed Egypt at his mercy.

Such was the defence of the Viceroy. Nicephorus adds that before the recall of Cyrus the Emperor had dispatched Marinus to take council with him, and to devise with him measures for dealing with the Saracen crisis: and that, concurrently with the proposal to pay tribute, Cyrus had suggested that Eudocia, or another daughter of the Emperor, should be given in marriage to 'Amr, who would then receive baptism and become a Christian. This story seems to me extremely improbable—a mere wild echo of the arrangement by which Eudocia was promised in marriage many years previously to the chief of the Khazars. Cyrus can have been under no illusion with regard to the uncompromising quality of the Muslim religion, and such a conversion of 'Amr passes all romance. Nor is there the slightest warrant for the story in any other chronicle. But it needed not this to fire the wrath of Heraclius. He asked angrily if 100,000 Romans were not a match for 12.000 Saracens. Al Mukaukas—as we may. still call Cyrus even in the Byzantine capital—was arraigned on a charge of betraying the Empire to the Saracens, and being adjudged guilty was threatened with death. Heraclius taunted him with behaviour worthy of an Egyptian peasant, called him an abject coward and a heathen, and delivered him over to the city Prefect, at whose hands he suffered great indignities; then he was sent into exile.

Meanwhile the rejection of the treaty by the Roman Emperor must have become known in the Arab camp at Babylon before the end of the year 640. All truce or half-measures were now over, and both sides braced themselves afresh for the struggle. The Nile was fast falling, and, as it fell, the waters in the moat sank lower and lower: with it sank the hope, if not the courage, of the defenders. But as the receding flood emptied the moat, the Romans sought to make good the loss by sprinkling the bottom of the ditch with spiked caltrops, which they sowed more thickly in front of the gates. These tactics the Muslims doubtless met by throw­ing down the embankment and endeavouring to level an approach. But generally few details of the siege operations remain. We read of missiles and battering-rams, of sallies and assaults; but it is abundantly clear that the Arabs, owing to their want of engineering science, made very slow progress towards the reduction of the fortress. It may even be doubted whether the blockade, though closely set on the landward side, was ever effective on the side of the river. But here the Muslims seemed to have derived some help from a local combination of the Green and Blue factions, probably those of the conquered Fayum. Bands of adventurers under Menas, chief of the Greens, and Cosmas, son of Samuel, chief of the Blues, were in the habit of crossing the river in boats by night and raiding the island of Raudah, or falling on any Roman vessels passing to the fortress or moored at the Iron Gate. These tactics harassed the defenders, and partly cancelled their advantage in the freedom of the river.

But even on land the watch was not always well kept by the Muslims. One day a small patrol went out of the fortress and fell upon Zubair and 'Ubidah at the time of their devotions. The Arab chiefs at once leapt on their horses, charged, and chased the Romans, who, as the enemy were gaining upon them, threw off their girdles and ornaments. The proffered spoil was neglected, but the Romans managed to secure their retreat within the fortress, 'Ubadah being slightly wounded by a stone slung from the battlements. Scorning to lift the Roman trappings the two Arabs returned to their place and finished their prayers, while the Roman soldiers came out again and recovered what they had thrown away.

Wakidi gives particulars of another battle. One Friday, as the Muslim host were gathering together for prayer, 'Amr moved among the crowd exhorting his men to fight valiantly. A Roman spy watched the proceedings and reported them at Babylon. After the usual sermon 'Amr came down from the rude platform on which he had spoken, and while he was leading the solemn recital of prayer, a Roman force, which had crept up unobserved, suddenly swooped on the defenceless Muslims, and caused them some loss.

But as the winter waned, sallies and combats without the walls grew rarer, assaults upon them fiercer and more frequent. The Romans, worn out by watching and fighting, found their defences harder to guard. Although the ramparts were little weakened, if at all, the numbers within were thinned by the plague which now was making havoc in the garrison: while the sentinels upon the round towers scanned the horizon in vain for the flash of Roman spear and cuirass beyond the white domes of the convents which dotted the plain northwards. For now was the time, when the floods were down, if ever a relieving army was to save Babylon.

Indeed it was probably at this period of the war that news reached 'Amr of an army assembling under Theodore in the country between the two branches of the Nile. 'Amr did not wait to be attacked; but leaving a strong enough force to maintain the investment of Babylon, he moved up the Damietta branch, crossed the river at Athrib, and struck northwards in the direction of Samanud. Theodore dispatched two of his generals to hold that city, and their column effected a junction with a body of local militia. These, however, refused to follow the Roman standards or to fight the Arabs. Nevertheless battle was given in the region of Samanud, with somewhat disastrous results for the Muslim force and for some renegade Christians who had adopted Islam and enrolled under its banners. Great numbers of Muslims and their allies perished, and 'Amr found that he could inflict no. serious mischief on the northern towns, which were protected against cavalry by moats and canals. He therefore fell back to Busir and fortified it: the defences of ManQf and Athrib were also repaired, and garrisons were left within them. But if Theodore won some advantage in this brief campaign, he was unable to follow it up, and he never succeeded in placing a relieving force anywhere near beleaguered Babylon to which place 'Amr now returned.

The inaction of Theodore may have been partly due to treachery and desertion on the Roman side. How far the local militia was composed of Copts and how far of Roman troops is not known: but during the centuries of Roman occupation there must have been a mingling of blood and of sentiment which is too often forgotten by historians. The Copts had good reason to hate the Empire; and on some of the Romans, even apart from religious motives, their loyalty sat so lightly that it was shaken off by the passion or self-interest of the moment. Two cases of the kind are recorded in connexion with this episode. A general named Kaladji had gone over to the Muslims, but Theodore contrived to see him, and used the strongest arguments to secure his return. Kaladji had left hostages in the shape of his wife and his mother in Alexandria, and he agreed to purchase their safety and his own pardon from Theodore for a large sum of money. Accordingly he stole away with his troops from the Muslim camp at dead of night, and rejoined Theodore, who sent him on to strengthen the garrison of Nikiou under Domentianus. The other traitor who repented was called Sabendis. Like Kaladji he made his escape from the Muslims by night, but he fled down the river to Damietta, which was held by a general named John. By John he was sent on to Alexandria with a letter to the acting governor. He confessed his crime with tears, but said, ‘I acted as I did because I had been put to open shame by John, who regardless of my age, had struck me in the face. Thereupon I, who had been a devoted servant of the Empire, went over to the Arabs.’ So weak were the bonds of patriotism and religion even among the Romans.

So at Babylon day followed day without any sign or message of hope to cheer the defenders. It was only ill news that reached them. They had heard of Heraclius’ indignation against Cyrus and his policy of surrender, and of the sentence of exile pronounced on the Archbishop: but the legions of which the Emperor boasted still tarried, and the imperative orders which he sent to his generals seemed resultless, so far as concerned the fate of Babylon. Yet hope was not quite abandoned, until at last one day early in the month of March, 641, a great shout went up in the Muslim camp, and the garrison heard that news had come of Heraclius’ death. Then indeed their courage failed. They can but have dimly conjectured the turmoil into which this event was destined to plunge the Empire ; but the end of the old warrior king was enough to cause profound discouragement and depression. ‘God broke down the power of the Romans by his death,’ says the Arab historian, and his words well express the effect of the change upon the armies in Egypt. It gave corresponding elation to the Arabs, who re­doubled their efforts to carry the fortress.

But for more than another month Babylon defied capture. Then as victory still delayed, Zubair is said to have solemnly devoted himself as the leader of a storming party, for which preparations were ready. The moat had been filled in at the place destined for the assault, despite all resistance of the sickly and enfeebled garrison. But the actual moment of the attack was skilfully concealed, and the assault was delivered with such swiftness under cover of night that Zubair’s scaling-ladder was set against the wall unnoticed. The Arab hero sprang from it, sword in hand, upon the battlements, shouting the Muslim war-cry ‘Allahu Akbar,’ while, as the defenders rallied, a fierce rain of arrows swept the walls from without, and gave Zubair’s companions time to swarm up the ladder and make good their footing upon the parapet within. It seems that, in expectation of an assault upon this section of the wall, the Romans had blocked the ramparts by a cross-wall at either end, so that the scaling-party, after overpowering the guard upon that section and winning possession of the top of the wall, found their passage barred, and were unable to reach the stairs that led down within the fortress. They had effected a lodgement on the ramparts, but could go no further. Now was the opportunity for the defenders: if they had only retained strength and spirit enough, they might in turn have poured such a fire of arrows into the band of Muslims as would have cleared them off. But the limit of their endurance was reached. After a hurried consultation among the leaders of the defence in the dawning light, a parley was sounded, and George, the commander of the fortress, offered to capitulate, provided the lives of his soldiers were spared. 'Amr at once approved the terms, much to the indignation of Zubair, who urged that he had been on the point of taking the fortress by storm. ‘If you had only waited a little’ he said, ‘I should have got down from the wall inside the fortress, and then it would have been all over. But 'Amr paid no heed to his remonstrance : a treaty of surrender was drawn up, under which it was agreed that in three days’ time the garrison should evacuate the fortress, retiring by river, and carrying only what was necessary for a few days’ subsistence; that the fortress itself, with all treasure and war material, should be delivered over to the Arabs; and that the town should become tributary.

 The final assault of the Muslims took place on Good Friday, April 6, 641, and the evacuation on the following Easter Monday. In the interval the fleet of boats was collected from Raudah and provisioned, and all preparations were made for the retreat of the garrison down the Nile. It was a mournful coincidence for the Christian army that their last day within the fortress should be the day of the Resurrection; and one would fain picture them as thronging the churches in sorrow and self-abasement for their defeat by the followers of Mohammed. It must, however, be recorded that neither the solemnity of the crisis in the history of Christian rule in Egypt, nor the solemnity of the day, availed to abate the fury of religious passion in the hearts of the Roman leaders. We have already seen that early in the siege a number of Copts in Babylon had been thrown into prison, either from their refusal to abandon their creed or  clearness by John of Nikiou. He does not mention Good Friday: but (1) Friday is the Muslim dies faustus, and is the most probable day for Zubair’s act of self-devotion; and (2) John of Nikiou makes it clear that the garrison were allowed an interval of a day or two before the evacuation, because they had leisure on Easter Day to commit the acts of barbarity, which he records, upon the Coptic on suspicion of disloyalty. Easter Day was made a day of vengeance upon these unfortunate prisoners, who, after being dragged out of their cells and scourged, had their hands cut off by soldiers acting under the orders of Eudocianus. It is small wonder that the wrath of the Egyptian bishop is launched upon ‘those enemies of Christ, who have defiled the Church by an unclean faith, and who have wrought apostasies and deeds of violence such as neither pagan nor barbarian hath wrought: they have despised Christ and His servants, and we have not found such evil-doers even among the worshippers of false idols.’ He describes the groans and tears of the mutilated captives, as they were driven out of the fort in scorn; and, however illogical, it is not unnatural for him to think that the fall of Babylon was a divine chastisement upon the Romans for their savage maltreatment of the Copts. Truly the incident shows what implacable hatred divided the two religious parties among the Christians even at the moment when the fruits of disunion were fatally visible in the triumph of Islam.