Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/502

A.D. 713] 480 THE DECLINE AND FALL arches^ and the theatre^ of the ancient metropolis of Lusitania, "I should imagine/' said he to his four companions, "that the human race must have united their art and power in the founda- tion of this city ; happy is the man who shall become its master!" He aspired to that happiness, but the Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honour of their descent from the veteran legionaries of Augustus. ^^^ Disdaining the confinement of their walls, they gave battle to the Arabs on the plain ; but an ambus- cade rising from the shelter of a quarry, or a ruin, chastised their indiscretion and intercepted their return. The wooden turrets of assault were rolled forwards to the foot of the rampart ; but the defence of Merida was obstinate and long ; and the castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of the losses of the Moslems. The constancy of the besieged was at length subdued by famine A D^mn ^^^ despair ; and the prudent victor disguised his impatience under the names of clemency and esteem. The alternative of exile or tribute was allowed ; the churches were divided between the two religions ; and the wealth of those who had fallen in the siege, or retired to Gallicia, was confiscated as the reward of the faithful. In the midway between Merida and Toledo, the lieutenant of Musa saluted the vicegerent of the caliph, and con- ducted him to the palace of the Gothic kings. Their first inter- view was cold and formal ; a rigid account was exacted of the treasures of Spain ; the character of Tarik was exposed to suspi- cion and obloquy ; and the hero was imprisoned, reviled, and ignominiously scourged by the hand or the command of Musa. Yet so strict was the discipline, so pure the zeal, or so tame the spirit, of the primitive Moslems that, after this public indignity, Tarik could serve and be trusted in the reduction of the Tarra- gonese province. A mosch was erected at Saragossa, by the liberality of the Koreish ; the port of Barcelona was opened to the vessels of Syria ; and the Goths were pursued beyond the P)rrenean mountains into their Gallic province of Septimania or Languedoc.216 In the church of St. Mary at Carcassonne, Musa 215 The honourable relics of the Cantabrian war (Dion Cassius, 1. liii. p. 720 [c. 26]) were planted in this metropolis of Lusitania, perhaps of Spain (submittit cui tota suos Hispania fasces). Nonius (Hispania. c. 31, p. 106-1 10) enumerates the ancient structures, but concludes with a sigh : Urbs hasc olim nobilissima ad magnam incolarum infrequentiam delapsa est et praeter priscas claritatis ruinas nihil ostendit. -16 Both the interpreters of Novairi, de Guignes (Hist, des Huns, torn. i. p. 349) and Cardonne (Hist, de I'Afrique et de I'Espagne, torn. i. p. 93, 94, 104. 105), lead Musa into the Narbonnese Gaul. But I find no mention of this enterprise either in Roderic of Toledo or the Mss. of the Escurial, and the invasion of the Saracens is postponed by a French chronicle till the ixth year after the conquest of Spain, A. D.