important revolution, till religious persecution drove them to favour the Saracen invasion.

In this state, as a province of the Greek empire, Egypt remained till the year 638, when it was destined to undergo a revolution, as important and extraordinary as any that it had ever experienced. Palestine and Syria had already been subjugated by the victorious arms of Abu Obeidah, Caled and Amrou, the lieutenants of the caliph Omar. Amrou, who from his camp in Palestine marched to the conquest of Egypt, is said to have anticipated the orders of his sovereign. The for ces with which he undertook this great enterprise, are said to have amounted to no more than about 4000 Arabs. Pelusium was his first acquisition. From thence he proceeded to Memphis, which, although in a declining state, displayed some remains of ancient magnificence, and was still a place of such strength as to arrest the progress of the conquerors during a siege of seven months, in the course of which they were sometimes surrounded and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. Having received a reinforcement of 4,000 Arabians, with battering engines, from Syria, Amrou at length carried the city by assault. The small army of the Saracens, however, would have been totally inadequate to the conquest of Egypt, had not the people been alienated from 'the government of Heraclius by religious persecution, which is always calculated to convert subjects into rebels. The polemical controversy of monothelitism, or the unintelligible dispute concerning the existence of one or two wills in Christ; in other words, whether the Divine and human wills were united in his person, had produced a general disaffection. The emperor considered and treated his Egyptian subjects as heretics, while they, on the contrary, regarded him not as the protector, but as the persecutor of Christianity. Thus, unintelligible controversies and incom prehensible creeds, which reason would rank among metaphysical fancies, acquiring from human folly a religious and poli tical importance, become fertile sources of persecution, of treachery, and rebellion.† The Egyptians were not less ardently

Gibbon's Dec. Rom. Emp. vol. 9. ch. 51.

T

For the history of the monothelite controversy, see Gibbon's Dec. Rom. Emp, ch. 47.

attached to their monothelitism than their ancestors ten centuries before were to the worship of the god Apis: such are the revolutions of human ideas. At the period of the Saracen invasion, the Greeks, who persecuted them on account of a Christian controversy, were not less detested than the Per sians, who sacrilegiously feasted on the flesh of the sacred bull, had formerly been ; and the disaffection of the Egyptians to their government promoted the designs of Amrou ás much as they had before advanced those of Alexander. The Copts unanimously favoured the Saracen invasion, and swore allegiance to the caliph, who required only obedience and tribute as the price of religious liberty and protection. The Greeks, whose numbers were scarcely equal to one-tenth of the native Egyptians, were overwhelmed in the general defection. They retreated from the Upper Egypt; and the Saracens advanced to Alexandria, which was then the first commercial city of the world, and abundantly replenished with the means of subsis. tence and defence. The native Egyptians attached themselves with ardour to the service of Amrou. Strong reinforcements arrived in his camp. The tribes of the desert, and the veterans from Syria, flocked to his standard, and the merit of a hols war was recommended by the value of the prize. On the other haal, a numerous population, fighting for religion and property, made a resolute defence. The almost daily sallies of the Alexandrians were constantly repulsed by the besiegers, who, in their turn, made incessant attacks. At length, in the year 640, after a siege of fourteen months, and the loss of about 23,000 men, the Saracens made themselves masters of Alexandria, perhaps the most difficult, but without doubt the most valuable of their conquests. The Greeks were at this time masters of the sea; and if Heraclius had been animated with the same spirit as in the Persian war, fresh armies pouring in from Europe, might have baffled all the efforts of the enemy, and saved the capital of Egypt. In the succeeding reign, however, the clamours of the people of Constantinople, of which this country had been lately the granary, as formerly of Rome,

*

For the siege and capture of Alexandria, see Gibbon's Dec. Rom. Emp. vol. 9. ch. 51, on the authorities of Eutychius, Elmacin, and Renaudot.

compelled the court to attempt the recovery of Alexandria, The Byzantine fleets and armies twice occupied the place, but were as often expelled by the valour and conduct of Amron, who thrice made himself master of the capital of Egypt before the conquest was confirmed..

The famous and apparently fabulous story of the destruc tion of the Alexandrian library, is known to every man of learning, and almost to every school-boy. It appears, however, an extremely doubtful fact, and rests on the sole authority of Abulpharagius, who says, that this magnificent literary monument of the reigns of the Ptolemies, which Amrou would glad ly have spared, was destroyed by the command of Omar, who assigned, as a reason for this procedure, "that if the books agreed with the koran, they were useless, and need not be preserved; but if they disagreed, they were pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." Mr. Gibbon, however, professes himself-inclined to doubt of the fact; and judiciously balances against the solitary report of a stranger, who wrote on the confines of Media 600 years after the event, the silence of two annalists of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt, and the more ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of Alexandria.f Indeed, it is somewhat surprising, that neither Eutychius, Elmacin, Abulfeda, nor Murtadi, mentions so remarkable a fact, and that it should be found in no other author, Christian or Mahometan, but only in the dynasties of Abulpharagius, who was so posterior in time, and so distant in place, from the scene of the transaction. The historian here quoted, is ra ther inclined to think that the famed Alexandrian library, which had been partly consumed in Cæsar's Alexandrian war, had partly perished through the zeal of the Christians for the destruction of books of idolatry; and deduces from ancient writers strong presumptive proofs, that only the fragments of that famous collection existed at the time of the Saracen invasion. If, therefore, the world were less fond of a marvel

.

• Abulpharagius.

f See Gibbon, ubi supra.

Mr. Gibbon founds this probable supposition on Aulus, Gellius Noc. tes Atticæ, vol 6; and Ammianus Marcellinus, who scarcely leaves a doubt on the subject. See Plutarch also in Vita Julii Cæsaris.

lous tale, Omar and Amrou might perhaps be acquitted of the destruction of these monuments of the learning, the arts, and the genius of antiquity.

Egypt being now completely subjugated, the Arabians had nothing left to do but to secure and improve their conquest. Under the prudent administration of Amrou, the canals and dykes were annually repaired. The fertility of Egypt supplied the barrenness of Arabia; and strings of camels, loaded with corn and provisions, covered almost the whole length of the road from Memphis to Medina. The plans of inland navigation, which had been attempted or executed by the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Cæsars, were revived by the genius of Amrou; and a canal was opened from the Nile to the Red Sea. Of the state of the country in regard to its population and opulence at this period, some sketch might here be expected; but the wild exaggerations of writers, who make the number of inhabitants amount to 20,000,000, and the revenues of the caliphs to 300,000,000, calculations so contrary to the more sober estimates of ancient and modern times, serve only to display the romantic folly of historians. This subject must therefore be thrown into the class of uncertainties.

From the Arabian conquest the history of Egypt becomes a less curious and interesting feature in that of mankind. The subjugation of the northern parts of Africa, and afterwards of Spain, had followed in succession, and given to the empire of the caliphs a greater extent than those of the Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans had ever possessed. But this enormous empire, like most others of a similar origin and construction, after being agitated by numerous revolts and violent commotions, at last split asunder, and formed itself into separate and often hostile states. About the year 800, under the caliphate of the famous Harun-el-Rashid, Africa was erected into an independent empire by its viceroy Ibraim-ben-Aghleb, who maintained himself in his revolt, and transmitted the

Eutychius and Elmacin, apud Gibban, vol. 9. ch. 51. - -, ; † Josephus assigns 7,500,000 to Egypt when in its most flourishing state as a Roman province under Vespasian, de Bello Judaic, lib. 2. cap. 16: but in this calculation he does not include Alexandria.

sceptre to his posterity. Zindet, his successor, subjugated Sicily; but the conquest of that valuable island does not appear to have been completed, or at least secured till A. D. 877, when the great commercial city of Syracuse was taken, after a siege of nine months, and all the inhabitants put to the sword. The conquerors found there an immense booty, This dynasty ruled over eastern Africa, from Egypt to Mo. rocco, till A. D. 908, when Obeid-Ullah usurped the sovereign authority. This prince having expelled Ziadet-Ullah, the last of the Aglabites, founded the Fatimite dynasty. This family, which had arisen among the Arabs of Egypt, pretended to deduce its origin from Fatime, the daughter of Mahomet, and wife of Ali, Abul Cassim, his son, made an attempt to add Egypt to his dominions, and actually made himself master of Alexandria. But his armies being totally defeated by those of the caliph of Bagdad, his design was frustrated. AberTummin, one of his successors, however, was more fortunate. He sent a formidable army into Egypt, under the command of Jeuhar, a Greek, who succeeded in making a conquest of the country. This general is said to have laid the foundation of Cairo, to which he gave the name of Kahira, or the victorious, by which it is yet called by the Arabs. Aber-Tummin fixed his residence at Cairo, which he made the capital of his kingdom. Thus was Egypt wrested from the caliphs of Bagdad about 300 years after it was conquered by Amrou. It was now erected into an independent caliphate; and Dahir, the fourth caliph, carrying his arms into Syria, made himself master of Aleppo, which, however, he was obliged to abandon and in the reign of his successor most of the Egyptian possessions in Syria were lost. In the year 1098, the Egyptian caliph, Mostali, conquered Jerusalem from the Turks; but the croisades now taking place, that city was captured soon after by Godfrey, earl of Boulogne. The dynasty of the Fatimites terminated in Aded, who died in 1171: and Salah-ed-din, the famous Saladin of the Christian writers, a Kurd. by nation, and a soldier of fortune, having usurped the sovereignty, assumed the title of sultan of Egypt. This monarch having formed the design of adding Syria to his empire, proved a terrible enemy to the croisaders. In 1177, he was defeated by Rai