The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1779]
[Footnote 11: In the division of the Themes, or provinces described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Thematibus, l. i. p. 9, 10,) the Obsequium, a Latin appellation of the army and palace, was the fourth in the public order. Nice was the metropolis, and its jurisdiction extended from the Hellespont over the adjacent parts of Bithynia and Phrygia, (see the two maps prefixed by Delisle to the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]
[Footnote *: Compare page 274. It is singular that Gibbon should thus contradict himself in a few pages. By his own account this was the second time. - M.]
[Footnote !: The account of this siege in the Tarikh Tebry is a very unfavorable specimen of Asiatic history, full of absurd fables, and written with total ignorance of the circumstances of time and place. Price, vol. i. p. 498 - M.]
[Footnote 12: The caliph had emptied two baskets of eggs and of figs, which he swallowed alternately, and the repast was concluded with marrow and sugar. In one of his pilgrimages to Mecca, Soliman ate, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of the grapes of Tayef. If the bill of fare be correct, we must admire the appetite, rather than the luxury, of the sovereign of Asia, (Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 126.)
Note: The Tarikh Tebry ascribes the death of Soliman to a pleurisy. The same gross gluttony in which Soliman indulged, though not fatal to the life, interfered with the military duties, of his brother Moslemah. Price, vol. i. p. 511. - M.]
[Footnote !!: Major Price's estimate of Omar's character is much more favorable. Among a race of sanguinary tyrants, Omar was just and humane. His virtues as well as his bigotry were active. - M.]
[Footnote 13: See the article of Omar Ben Abdalaziz, in the Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 689, 690,) praeferens, says Elmacin, (p. 91,) religionem suam rebus suis mundanis. He was so desirous of being with God, that he would not have anointed his ear (his own saying) to obtain a perfect cure of his last malady. The caliph had only one shirt, and in an age of luxury, his annual expense was no more than two drachms, (Abulpharagius, p. 131.) Haud diu gavisus eo principe fuit urbis Muslemus, (Abulfeda, p. 127.)]
[Footnote 14: Both Nicephorus and Theophanes agree that the siege of Constantinople was raised the 15th of August, (A.D. 718;) but as the former, our best witness, affirms that it continued thirteen months, the latter must be mistaken in supposing that it began on the same day of the preceding year. I do not find that Pagi has remarked this inconsistency.]
[Footnote *: The Tarikh Tebry embellishes the retreat of Moslemah with some extraordinary and incredible circumstances. Price, p. 514. - M.]
[Footnote 15: In the second siege of Constantinople, I have followed Nicephorus, (Brev. p. 33 - 36,) Theophanes, (Chronograph, p. 324 - 334,) Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 449 - 452,) Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 98 - 102,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 88,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 126,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 130,) the most satisfactory of the Arabs.]
In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be chiefly ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real efficacy of the Greek fire. ^16 The important secret of compounding and directing this artificial flame was imparted by Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis in Syria, who deserted from the service of the caliph to that of the emperor. ^17 The skill of a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the succor of fleets and armies; and this discovery or improvement of the military art was fortunately reserved for the distressful period, when the degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with the warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigor of the Saracens. The historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the