volume one

niSTORT OF THE CEUSADES. 13
Abassides crumbled away on all sides, and tbe world,
according to the expression of an Arabian writer, was
within the reacli of him who would take possession of it.
Islamism beheld at
The spii'itual povrer was itself di\ided ;
one time five caliphs, each of whom assumed the title of
commander of the faithful, and vicar of Mahomet.
The numerous d}Tiasties which sprung up amidst the
troubles of Asia, shared amongst them the spoils of tlie
sovereigns of Bagdad ; those which ruled over Persia and
upon the banks of the Tigris, under the pretence of defending
the Mussulman religion, subjected their spiritual chiefs
to the most humiliating subser\dency. At the same time
the Eatimites, who pretended to be descended from Alj,
and who had usurped the title of caliph, raised armies, and
launched anathemas against the Abassides ; they had taken
possession of Egj'pt, and they threatened to invade Syi'ia,
and to march to Bagdad, and dethrone the ^dcars of the
Prophet.
The Greeks then appeared to rouse themselves from their
long supineness, and sought to take advantage of the divisions
and the humiliation of the Saracens. Nicephorus Phocas
took the field at the head of a powerful army, and recaptured
Antioch from the Mussulmans. Already the people of Constantinople
celebrated his triumphs, and styled him " the
star of the East, the death and the scourge of the infidels.''^
He might, perhaps, have merited these titles, if the G-reek
clergy had seconded his efforts. Kicephorus was desirous
of giving to tliis war* a religious character, and to place in the
rank of martyrs all who should fall in prosecuting it. The
prelates of his empire condemned his design as sacrilegious,
* Lebeau, in his " History of the Lower Empire," relates, after contemporary
historians, an incident which plainly shows what was the spirit
of the Greeks at that time. " A small town of Silicia being invaded by
the Saracens, the cure of the place, named Themal, was saying mass at
the time. At the noise which he hears he descends briskly from the
altar, without taking off his pontificals, arms himself with a hammer
which seived for a bell in many eastern churches, goes straight to meet
the enemy, wounds, knocks down, crushes all that he meets, and puts
the rest to flight. Although he had delivered his tow^n from an invasion
of the Saracens, the cure Themal was censured and suspended by his
bishop. He was so ill treated that he sought refuge with the Saracens,
and embraced the religion of Mahomet."