Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/484

462 THE DECLINE AND FALL of Gregory shall be repaid with his captive daughter and the equal sum of one hundred thousand pieces of gold." i"* To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the caliph en- trusted the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favour of the Saracens. Supplying by activity and artifice the deficiency of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents, while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the enemy, till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they retired with fainting steps ; their horses were unbridled, their aniiour was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed to prepare, for the refresh- ment of the evening and the encounter of the ensuing day. On a sudden, the charge was sounded ; the Arabian camp poured forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors ; and the long line of the Greeks and Africans was surprised, assaulted, overturned by new squadrons of the faithful, who, to the eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels descending from the sky. The praefect himself was slain by the hand of Zobeir : his daughter, who sought revenge and death, was surrounded and made prisoner ; and the fugitives involved in their disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the sabres and lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred and fifty miles to the south of Carthage : a gentle declivity is watered by a run- ning stream, and shaded by a grove of Juniper trees ; and, in the ruins of a triumphal arch, a portico, and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet admire the magnificence of the Romans. 1*'^ After the fall of this opulent city, the provin- cials and barbarians implored on all sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be flattered by offers of tribute or professions of faith ; but his losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease, prevented a solid establish- ment ; and the Saracens, after a campaign of fifteen months, retreated to the confines of Egypt, with the captives and the wealth of their African expedition. The caliph's fifth was granted to a favourite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand pieces of gold ;^*^*^ but the state was doubly injured by iM [Novairi, afud Slane's Ibn Khaldun, i. p. 319.] 163 Shaw's Travels, p. 118, 119. [For Sufetula (Sbaitla), an important centre of roads, see Saladin's Rapport on a mission to Tunis in Nouv. Arch, des Missions, i. 1893. The plan of the site is given in Diehl's I'Afrique Byzantine, p. 278.] is^Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat haec, et mira donatio; quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex agrario prius ablatos serario prasstabat (Annal. Moslem, p. 78). Elmacin (in his cloudy version, p. 39) seems to report the same