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448 THE DECLINE AND FALL voiuntajy Yet the Arabs, after a fflorious and profitable enterprise, must aubmission ' '=> i-ii /> j /• i ofthecopu have retreated to the desert, had they not round a poweriul or Jacobites. n i mi • i j i' AD. 638 alliance in the heart of the country. Ihe rapid conquest or Alexander was assisted by the superstition and revolt of the natives ; they abhorred their Persian oppressors, the disciples of the Magi, who had burnt the temples of Egypt, and feasted with sacrilegious appetite on the flesh of the god Apis.^^s After a period of ten centuries the same revolution was renewed by a similar cause ; and, in the support of an incomprehensible creed, the zeal of the Coptic Christians was equally ardent, I have already explained the origin and progress of the Monophysite controversy, and the persecution of the emperors, which con- verted a sect into a nation and alienated Egypt from their re- ligion and government. The Saracens were received as the deliverers of the Jacobite church ; and a secret and effectual treaty was opened during the siege of Memphis between a vic- torious army and a people of slaves. A rich and noble Egyptian, of the name of Mokawkas, had dissembled his faith to obtain the administration of his province : in the disorders of the Persian war he aspired to independence; the embassy of Mahomet ranked him among princes ; but he declined, with rich gifts and am- biguous compliments, the proposal of a new religion.^26 fhe abuse of his trust exposed him to the resentment of Heraclius ; his submission was delayed by arrogance and fear ; and his con- science was prompted by interest to throw himself on the favour of the nation and the support of the Saracens. In his first confer- ence with Amrou, he heard without indignation the usual option of the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. " The Greeks," replied Mokawkas, " are determined to abide the determination of the sword ; but with the Greeks I desire no communion, either in this world or in the next, and I abjure for ever the Byzan- tine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and his Melchite slaves, III, 112, 130-149), who have removed Memphis towards the village of Mohannah, some miles farther to the south. In their heat, the disputants have forgot that the ample space of a metropolis covers and annihilates the far greater part of the controversy. 12s See Herodotus, 1. iii. c. 27, 28, 29. ^lian. Hist. Var. 1. iv. c. 8. Suidas in nxo?, torn. ii. p. 774. Diodor. Sicul. tom. ii. 1. xvii. p. 197 [c. 49], edit. Wesseling. Tmv Ylfpcra-i' rta-ep-qKOTuiv el<; to. lepd. says the last of these historians. 126 Mokawkas sent the prophet two Coptic damsels [see above, p. 379], with two maids and one eunuch, an alabaster vase, an ingot of pure gold, oil, honey, and the finest white linen of Egypt, with an horse, a mule, and an ass, distinguished by their respective qualifications. The embassy of Mahomet was dispatched from Medina in the seventh year of the Hegira (A.D. 628). -See Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 255, 256, 303), from Al Jannabi. [For Mokawkas or al- Mukaukis see Appendix 20.]