Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/454

432 THE DECLINE AND FALL Battle of Yermuk. A.D. 636, November [A.D. 634, August] Yet the commander of the faithful reproved the slowness of their progress, and the Saracens, bewailing their fault with tears of rage and repentance, called aloud on their chiefs to lead them forth to fight the battles of the Lord. In a recent action, under the walls of Emesa, an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled, was heard aloud to exclaim, " Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking upon me : one of whom, should she appear in this world, all mankind would die for love of her. And I see in the hand of one of them an handkerchief of green silk, and a cap of pre- cious stones, and she beckons me, and calls out. Come hither quickly, for I love thee." With these words, charging the Christians, he made havoc wherever he went, till, observed at length by the governor of Hems, he was struck through with a javelin. It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of their valour and enthusiasm against the forces of the emperor, who was taught by repeated losses that the rovers of the desert had undertaken, and would speedily achieve, a regular and per- manent conquest. From the provinces of Europe and Asia, fourscore thousand soldiers were transported by sea and land to Antioch and Caesarea ; the light troops of the army consisted of sixty thousand Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the banner of Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the van ; and it was a maxim of the Greeks that, for the purpose of cutting diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius withheld his person from the dangers of the field ; but his pre- sumption, or perhaps his despondency, suggested a peremptory order that the fate of the province and the war should be decided by a single battle. The Syrians were attached to the standard of Rome and of the cross ; but the noble, the citizen, the peasant, were exasperated by the injustice and cruelty of a licentious host who oppressed them as subjects and despised them as strangers and aliens. ^^ A report of these mighty preparations was con- veyed to the Saracens in their camp of Emesa ; and the chiefs, though resolved to fight, assembled a council ; the faith of Abu Obeidah would have expected on the same spot the glory of martyrdom ; the wisdom of Caled advised an honourable retreat to the skirts of Palestine and Arabia, where they might await the succours of their friends and the attack of the unbelievers. 88 1 have read somewhere in Tacitus, or Grotius, Subjectos habent tanquam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Some Greek officers ravished the wife, and murdered the child, of their Syrian landlord ; and Manuel smiled at his undutiful complaint.