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were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual necessity could sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of prisoners: ^94 but in the national and religious conflict of the two empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy. Quarter was seldom given in the field; those who escaped the edge of the sword were condemned to hopeless servitude, or exquisite torture; and a Catholic emperor relates, with visible satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of Crete, who were flayed alive, or plunged into caldrons of boiling oil. ^95 To a point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same caliph descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve the distress of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had tumbled into a ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect with the most pleasure, when he was summoned by the angel of death? ^96

[Footnote 91: The same number was applied to the following circumstance in the life of Motassem: he was the eight of the Abbassides; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days; left eight sons, eight daughters, eight thousand slaves, eight millions of gold.]

[Footnote 92: Amorium is seldom mentioned by the old geographers, and to tally forgotten in the Roman Itineraries. After the vith century, it became an episcopal see, and at length the metropolis of the new Galatia, (Carol. Scto. Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p. 234.) The city rose again from its ruins, if we should read Ammeria, not Anguria, in the text of the Nubian geographer. (p. 236.)]

[Footnote 93: In the East he was styled, (Continuator Theophan. l. iii. p. 84;) but such was the ignorance of the West, that his ambassadors, in public discourse, might boldly narrate, de victoriis, quas adversus exteras bellando gentes coelitus fuerat assecutus, (Annalist. Bertinian. apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 720.)]

[Footnote 94: Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 167, 168) relates one of these singular transactions on the bridge of the River Lamus in Cilicia, the limit of the two empires, and one day's journey westward of Tarsus, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 91.) Four thousand four hundred and sixty Moslems, eight hundred women and children, one hundred confederates, were exchanged for an equal number of Greeks. They passed each other in the middle of the bridge, and when they reached their respective friends, they shouted Allah Acbar, and Kyrie Eleison. Many of the prisoners of Amorium were probably among them, but in the same year, (A. H. 231,) the most illustrious of them, the forty two martyrs, were beheaded by the caliph's order.]

[Footnote 95: Constantin. Porphyrogenitus, in Vit. Basil. c. 61, p. 186. These Saracens were indeed treated with peculiar severity as pirates and renegadoes.]

[Footnote 96: For Theophilus, Motassem, and the Amorian war, see the Continuator of Theophanes, (l. iii. p. 77 - 84,) Genesius (l. iii. p. 24 - 34.) Cedrenus, (p. 528 - 532,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 180,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 165, 166,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 191,) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 639, 640.)]

With Motassem, the eighth of the Abbassides, the glory of his family and nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over the East, and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost the freeborn and martial virtues of the desert. The courage of the South is the artificial fruit of discipline and prejudice; the active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the mercenary forces of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of the North, of which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the Turks ^97 who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the robust youths, either taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the exercises of the field, and the profession of the Mahometan faith. The Turkish guards stood in arms round the throne of their benefactor, and their chiefs usurped the dominion of the palace and the provinces. Motassem,