Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/409

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 387 caliph encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under the walls of Bassora. Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the arms of the Moslems. After passing through the ranks to animate the troops, Ayeslia had chosen her post amidst the dangers of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men who held the bridle of her camel were successively killed or wounded ; and the cage or litter in which she sat was stuck with javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was speedily dismissed to her proper station, at the tomb of Mahomet, with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow of the apostle. After this victory, which was styled the Day of the Camel, AH marched against a more formidable adversary : against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of Syria and the interest of the house of the Omraiyah. From the passage of Thapsacus, the plain [omayya] of Siltin^™ extends along the western bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five, thousand soldiers ; and the list of the slain was dignified with the names of five and twenty veterans who had fought at Beder under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest, the lawful caliph dis- played a superior character of valour and humanity. His troops were strictly enjoined to await the first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to respect the bodies of the dead and tlie chastity of the female captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems by a single combat ; but his trembling rival declined the challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The i-anks of the Syrians were broken by the *^' charge of a hero who was mounted on a piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the Allah Acbar, "God is victorious; and in the tumult of a nocturnal ["God, la most battle he was heard to repeat four hundred times that tre- mendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already medi- tated his flight, but the certain victory was snatched from the li^The plain of Siffin is determined by d'Anville (rEuphr.ite et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of Procopiiis.