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firmness; remember that arms are given them to defend, not to
devastate, their country; and be careful always that they are
regularly paid, and that they may ever rely upon thy promises. Strive
to make thyself beloved by thy people, for in their affection is the
security of the state, in their fear its danger, in their hatred its certain
ruin. Protect those who cultivate the fields and furnish the bread that
sustains us; do not permit their harvests to be injured, or their forests
to be destroyed. Act in all respects so that thy subjects may bless
thee and live in happiness under thy protection, and thus, and in no
other way, wilt thou obtain the renown of the most glorious of
princes.”
Early in the following spring Hischem expired, after a short illness,
in the fortieth year of his age. His reign had not been distinguished
by great military enterprises, nor by measures that indicated the
possession of more than ordinary talents for the requirements of
politics or the art of government. But although his administration was
not brilliant it was eminently successful. He had checked the
impetuous ardor of the Asturians. He had invaded and ravaged with
impunity the provinces of the most illustrious and powerful monarch
in Europe. He had thwarted the repeated attempts of desperate
adventurers to overturn his throne. He had gained the applause of
his enemies by his clemency, and won the admiration of his friends
by his generous treatment of his rebellious kinsmen. No unfortunate
was so degraded as to be unworthy of his notice, no sufferer too
obscure to be the recipient of his bounty. By the enforcement of
judicious regulations he had accomplished much towards the
removal of those social and political barriers which separated the
races and menaced the prosperity of his kingdom. By his influence
and example he gave fresh impulse to the cultivation of letters. The
universal sorrow manifested by all classes at the news of his death
announced the depth of the esteem and affection everywhere
entertained for his character.
It was with ill-concealed anxiety that the subjects of the emirate
expected the first act of the administration of Al-Hakem. It is true no
one doubted his ability. His military prowess had already been
demonstrated, for, while yet a boy, he had at the head of an inferior
force annihilated the army of his uncle on the plains of Lorca. The
prophetic sagacity of his father, in accordance with the custom of his
princely line, had early familiarized him with the functions of a ruler
by his employment in offices of grave responsibility. His education
had been entrusted to the best scholars of the time, and he had
proved an apt and intelligent pupil. The fortuitous but important
advantages of personal beauty and a distinguished presence were
not wanting to this heir to the glory and the misfortunes of the
Ommeyades. Yet, though reared in the publicity of a court and
habituated to the transaction of official business, little was known of
the disposition and the private opinions of Al-Hakem. A stolid apathy
and an impenetrable reserve effectually concealed his emotions. His
feelings never relaxed even in the presence of his most intimate
associates, upon whom, moreover, his confidence was grudgingly
bestowed. But the veil which enveloped his character could not hide
the fact that he was irascible, arrogant, vainglorious, and cruel. The
event proved that the apprehensions of the shrewd observers who
regarded his accession with manifest uneasiness and distrust were
not entirely without foundation.
It was the practice of the Ommeyades with the advent of a new
sovereign to change the hajib, or high chamberlain, whose duties
and authority coincided with those of a prime minister, or chief
dignitary of state. For this responsible employment, Al-Hakem
selected Abd-al-Kerim, son of Abd-al-Walid, who had filled the
position under his father. Eminent for bravery and learning, and
versed in all the accomplishments of the age, Abd-al-Kerim had,
from childhood, enjoyed the friendship and shared the amusements
of his master. This choice was accepted as a happy augury of the
future conduct of the new ruler, and contributed greatly to allay the
fears of those who had questioned his intention and his ability to
control the fiery passions of youth, which the possession of
irresponsible power offered no inducements, save those enjoined by
the precepts of morality, to restrain. His qualities as a politician and a
general were destined to be soon put to the test in the suppression
of an extensive insurrection, the prelude of an unquiet and
sanguinary reign. His uncle, Suleyman, had long meditated, in the
security of exile, designs against the crown, which he considered his
birthright. His royal lineage, great wealth, and affable demeanor had
gained for him a host of adherents among the adventurers and
banditti who inhabited the city of Tangier and infested its environs.
Their ambition was excited by magnificent promises, and their
cupidity stimulated by the prospect of a contest whose prizes were
the acquisition of untold wealth and the exercise of boundless
license. The gold of Suleyman had corrupted many dissatisfied
officials and a majority of the Berber chieftains. The moment so long
awaited by the conspirators had now arrived. Abdallah, secretly
leaving his estate at Toledo, joined his brother at Tangier. The details
of an uprising were arranged, and every resource was employed to
insure the success of the enterprise. Abdallah made a rapid journey
from Tangier to Aix-la-Chapelle. The object of this embassy has
never been disclosed, but from the result it is easy to conjecture its
import. The aid of Charlemagne was solicited and obtained, and the
co-operation of the walis of Barcelona and Huesca assured. The
King of Aquitaine, with every mark of honor, escorted the Moslem
prince to the base of the Pyrenees, and the latter in a few days was
once more in the midst of the seditious populace of the ancient
Visigothic capital. The measures of the rebel leaders were well
taken. Simultaneously with the delivery of the citadel of Toledo to
Abdallah, through the treasonable connivance of its governor,
Suleyman landed at Valencia with a powerful army, and, founding his
pretensions on the right of primogeniture, proclaimed himself. Emir
of Spain. Al-Hakem, hearing of the revolt of Abdallah, had hastened
to Toledo with the flower of the Andalusian cavalry and invested its
walls. The lines had hardly been formed, however, when intelligence
was received that Louis, King of Aquitaine, the son of the great
emperor, had retaken Gerona, the key of the Pyrenees, and, aided
by the defection of the walis of Lerida and Huesca, had already
overrun a large part of the provinces of the Northwest. Charlemagne,
eager to avenge the slaughter of Roncesvalles, as well as to extend
the limits of his empire, had placed under the command of his son
the picked troops of his army, veterans of a score of campaigns on
the Danube and the Rhine. Recognizing the peril of the situation,
and aware of the importance of preventing the union of this new
enemy with those who were throwing his kingdom into confusion, Al-
Hakem promptly abandoned the siege and advanced by forced
marches to the valley of the Ebro. But the Franks had already
retired. The details of their operations, scarcely mentioned in the
annals of the time, throw no light upon their motives; but it is clear
that the results of the expedition did not correspond with the
magnificence and completeness of its preparations or with the hopes
entertained of its success. An extreme caution, akin to timidity,
seemed to take possession of the conquerors of the Saxons, the
descendants of the heroes of Poitiers and Narbonne, as soon as the
frowning barrier of the Pyrenees was left in their rear.
The presence of Al-Hakem revived the dormant enthusiasm of his
subjects. Gerona, Huesca, Lerida, were recovered. Barcelona,
whose perfidious governor, Zaid, after soliciting the protection of
Charlemagne and paying homage to his son, had refused to admit
the Franks into the city, now, with every demonstration of loyalty,
threw open its gates at the appearance of his lawful sovereign.
The energy of Al-Hakem, seconded by the activity of his
squadrons, in a short time reduced to obedience the entire territory
which had been overrun by the Franks. Carried irresistibly on by his
martial ardor he crossed the Pyrenees, and, by an unexpected
stroke of good fortune, seized Narbonne, whose garrison he
massacred and whose inhabitants he led into captivity. Elated by
victory and laden with spoil, he left his trusty lieutenants, Abd-al-
Kerim and Ibn-Suleyman, in charge of the frontier, and, with a force
largely increased by the fame of his successes and the hope of
rapine, once more directed his march towards Toledo. In the
meantime, Suleyman had effected a junction with Abdallah on the
banks of the Tagus. Indecision and a spirit of indolence seem to
have prevailed in their councils, for, instead of making a diversion
which might have still further embarrassed the movements of Al-
Hakem and have perhaps changed the result of the conflict, they
remained inactive, expecting the conclusion of the campaign with the
Franks, until the approach of the Emir roused them from their
lethargy. Fearful lest their hastily assembled and undisciplined levies
of barbarians and malcontents might not be able to withstand the
attack of the veterans of the regular army fighting under the eye of
their sovereign, the insurgents left in Toledo as commander
Obeidah-Ibn-Hamza, one of the most able officers in their service,
who had surrendered the city and was continued in power as the
reward of his infamy, and withdrew, after some desultory and
indecisive engagements, into the province of Murcia. Here the
veneration attaching to the name of Abd-alRahman, and the
personal popularity of Abdallah, secured for the rebellious brothers a
great accession of strength and a corresponding increase of
confidence. Entrusting Amru, one of his officers, to prosecute the
siege of Toledo, Al-Hakem pressed forward in quest of the rebels,
and resolved, if possible, to bring the contest to a speedy
termination. But again the courage of the insurgents failed them, and
they sought the protection of the mountain fastnesses, where the
Andalusian horsemen could not follow. For months the struggle was
protracted, and the force of the Emir, impatient under inaction, began
to be diminished by desertions. At length the rebels, whose supplies
of provisions had been intercepted, ventured forth from their
stronghold. In the plains of Murcia, not far from the field where Al-
Hakem had won his first laurels in a victory over one of his present
antagonists, a bloody battle was fought. The issue at first was
doubtful, as the insurgents contested the ground with all the energy
of desperation; but, at a decisive moment, the throat of Suleyman
was pierced with an arrow, and, by his death, the spirit of his
followers was broken. The slaughter that followed was long
remembered as remarkable even amidst the butchery that disgraced
the civil wars of Spain. The survivors were dispersed beyond all
possibility of reorganization; and Abdallah, by an early withdrawal
from the field, succeeded in reaching Valencia, where, disheartened
and thoroughly penitent, he implored the forgiveness of his injured
sovereign. With a magnanimity that did credit alike to his sagacity
and his sentiments of affection, Al-Hakem accepted the submission
of his uncle, but insisted upon his permanent retirement to Tangier
and the surrender of his two sons, Esbah and Kasem, as hostages.
The latter were treated with kindness and with the distinction due to
their rank; a regular pension was assigned to them; and during the
second year of their residence the younger was raised to an
honorable employment, and the elder, having received the daughter
of the Emir in marriage, was appointed governor of the important city
of Merida.
While the operations of the war were languidly pursued in the
South, the energy and resolution of Amru began to tell severely upon
the besieged in Toledo. The inconstant populace, weary of perpetual
alarms and threatened with famine, made their peace with the
representative of the Emir by the surrender of the city and the
sacrifice of their general. The treacherous Ibn-Hamza was promptly
executed, and his head sent by a courier to Al-Hakem; the affairs of
the city were regulated with all possible expedition; and Amru,
leaving his son Yusuf in command of the garrison, departed with all
his available battalions to reinforce the army of his sovereign, then at
Chinchilla.
The serious disturbances which had for three years employed the
resources and monopolized the attention of the Emir of Cordova
presented to the hereditary and natural enemies of Islam an
opportunity too favorable to be neglected. In 798 an alliance was
concluded between Alfonso the Chaste and Charlemagne, but
whether on equal terms or contingent on the vassalage of the
Asturian king is uncertain. The Moslem governors of the frontier
cities again renounced their allegiance to Al-Hakem, and, under an
assurance of support and independence, rendered homage to Louis
as their suzerain. The enterprising genius of Charlemagne,
instructed by the costly lesson taught nearly a quarter of a century
before in the pass of Roncesvalles, had abandoned, so far as the
Peninsula was concerned, all ideas of permanent conquest and
occupation. Experience had conclusively demonstrated that the
contentions of factions, as well as the antipathies of race, became
temporarily but effectually reconciled in the presence of a foreign
enemy. But while his armies had not been able to obtain a foothold
south of the Pyrenees, or even to traverse the defiles of that
mountain chain in safety, no such difficulties seemed to attend the
movements of the Moslems, whose flying squadrons plundered and
ravaged without resistance the distant provinces of his empire.
These important considerations, and the apprehension that some
skilful Arab captain might recover and retain the fertile valleys of the
South, the traditions of whose people recalled with pleasure the
dominion of their ancient Mohammedan masters, impelled the
Emperor to found and maintain a bulwark which would be available
to harass the enemy as well as to break the force and retard the
advance of an invading army. With this object in view a principality
was founded on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, which was given
the name of the Gothic March, and its first lord, a Frankish noble
named Borel, received his investiture from, and did homage to, the
King of Aquitaine.
Insignificant at first, this embryo state speedily increased in power
and consequence. The domain included within its boundaries had for
years been the scene of bloody insurrections, of incessant anarchy,
of partisan warfare. Its lands were untilled. Its inhabitants feared to
venture beyond the walls of their cities. Its communications with the
central government, always precarious, were often completely
interrupted for months at a time. But as soon as comparative
protection and safety were assured by the occupancy of the Franks
a striking change became apparent in the condition of the country.
The ruined fortifications were repaired. The habitual perfidy of the
walis, tempted by the prospect of greater freedom, induced them
once more to transfer their allegiance to the enemies of their faith.
By the donation of extensive grants of territory, and the promise of
unusual franchises and privileges, a host of colonists was attracted
to the settlements of the new principality. The fields reclaimed from
desolation again assumed the attractive prospect of cultivation and
prosperity. The Gothic March became the refuge not only of such
Christians as were discontented under Moslem rule, but of all those
whose grievances led them to renounce allegiance to the King of the
Asturias or to the chieftains of Biscay. Not a few were allured by the
hope that here might arise a monarchy which, founded by the
descendants of its ancient masters, would restore the laws, the
prestige, and the glory of the Visigothic empire. Such was the origin
of the state soon to be known as the County of Barcelona, a name of
profound import in the subsequent history of the Peninsula. Its
foundation was the second step towards the weakening of the
Moslem power, and one scarcely inferior in political results to the
establishment of the kingdom of the Asturias.
 The chief towns of the new principality were Ausona, Cardona,
Manresa, and Gerona. None of these were seaports, and the
sagacity of Charlemagne perceived and appreciated the necessity of
securing maritime communication with his dominions to obviate the
possible isolation of the Gothic March, either through the inclemency
of the seasons or the vigilance of his enemies. He therefore
projected an expedition against Barcelona, which possessed an
indifferent but available harbor, and whose commercial rank already
afforded many indications of the importance to which it afterwards
attained. Its situation and the intrigues of its walis had previously
acquired for it a nominal independence. The present governor, Zaid,
had constantly alternated between protestations of loyalty to Al-
Hakem and solicitations of protection from Charlemagne. The King
of Aquitaine having appeared before the walls with a numerous
army, Zaid, with plausible excuses, protracted the negotiations
looking to the delivery of the city until the approach of winter
rendered a siege impracticable. Hassan, the wali of Huesca, also
declined to admit the Franks, although he was the sworn vassal of
Louis; and that disappointed prince, who had pictured to himself an
easy and profitable termination of the campaign, was forced to retire
with ignominy, amidst the murmurs of his dissatisfied soldiers, to the
security of his own dominions.
The Grand Council of the empire, held according to the custom of
the Franks every spring, met in the beginning of the year 801 at
Toulouse. The object of these national assemblies was the
discussion and settlement of future military operations, as
determined by the arguments and the experience of the veteran
warriors whose influence decided their deliberations. The abortive
results of preceding enterprises had provoked the impatience rather
than damped the ardor of the Frankish chieftains, and the
unanimous voice of the Council tumultuously demanded the capture
of Barcelona. Before the close of the year an immense army, which
is designated by vainglorious chroniclers as composed of many
distinct nations, emerged from the defiles of the Pyrenees. The
vanity of Louis, which had suffered through the unprofitable issues of
former campaigns, or possibly the entreaties of his lieutenants who
knew his incapacity, induced him to remain at Rousillon until the
event of the expedition could no longer be doubtful. The invading
force was marshalled in two divisions,—one, under the Count of
Gerona, pressed the siege of the city, and the other, commanded by
William, Count of Toulouse, was stationed as a corps of observation
between Lerida and Tarragona to prevent any attempt at relief by the
Moslems of Cordova. The fortifications were fearlessly attacked and
obstinately defended. Zaid, the wali of the city, abandoning the
vacillating and treasonable conduct which had so long obscured his
character, conducted the defence with an intrepidity and a resolution
worthy of the greatest military heroes. Animated by his example, the
garrison repulsed the storming parties, one after another, with great
slaughter, although these were directed by the Frankish general in
person. The losses sustained in these assaults impelled the
besiegers to resort to the tedious but more certain measure of a
blockade. The lines were drawn so tightly that the inhabitants soon
began to experience the pressure of hunger. While the port does not
seem to have been closed, still no supplies were sent to the suffering
garrison by the government of Cordova. Many of the inhabitants
perished; the remainder were reduced to contend with each other for
the vilest and most revolting means to sustain their failing strength.
They devoured the refuse of the streets. They fought desperately for
fragments of the leathern curtains which hung before the doorways
of their houses. Some in despair threw themselves from the walls.
Others rushed headlong upon the weapons of the enemy. But
despite the harrowing scenes of universal misery, there was no
whisper of surrender. Even the Christians, who were numerous, took
their turns upon the battlements and crossed swords with their co-
religionists in the breach. No one believed that the Emir would
abandon, without an attempt at relief, a city whose commercial
advantages and geographical position rendered it one of the keys of
his empire. At length a new army, commanded by King Louis
himself, reinforced the besiegers. The distress of the garrison was
increasing daily, and, his resources exhausted, Zaid determined to
endeavor to reach Cordova and by a personal appeal to Al-Hakem
obtain means to relieve the city. The intrepid governor, issuing
unattended from a secret postern by night, had almost succeeded in
penetrating the enemy’s lines when the neighing of his horse gave
the alarm and he was captured. These depressing events exerted
their influence on the besieged, but their constancy and courage still
sustained them. At length, after several breaches had been made in
the walls, and the Moslems, decimated in numbers, had been
reduced to despair, negotiations were opened with the Franks. The
most favorable terms obtainable involved the loss of property and
the hardships of exile. The gates were finally thrown open, and a
long and melancholy procession of unfortunates, tottering with
weakness and emaciated by famine, upon whose faces were
stamped the signs of protracted suffering, filed painfully through the
camp of the enemy; and the Frankish chieftains, preceded by the
ministers of the Christian faith arrayed in all the pomp and splendor
of their order, entered the city, to celebrate before the altar of its
principal temple the triumph by which the most important province of
Eastern Spain had passed forever from beneath the Moslem
sceptre.
The Christian population welcomed its change of masters with no
manifestations of joy or enthusiasm. A gloomy silence pervaded the
crowds lining the streets, as the prelates in gorgeous vestments and
the men-at-arms in glittering steel swept by in majestic procession,
to solemnize, with every circumstance of ecclesiastical ceremony
and military ostentation, the fortunate termination of their enterprise.
In the early ages of Islam the beneficent and tolerant rule of the
Moor seems to have universally won the respect and inspired the
confidence of conquered nations and hostile sectaries alike. For the
happy conditions promoted by the exercise of the generous
principles of equity and religious freedom, the ignorance, tyranny,
and intolerance of a foreign hierarchy offered no adequate
compensation. From the hamlets of Provence to the plains of
Andalusia, the tributary Christians, save only such as were invested
with the dignity of the sacerdotal order, appear to have always
beheld, with unconcealed regret, the discomfiture and displacement
of their infidel lords.
Well apprized of the uncertainty and difficulty of retaining his
conquest, Louis repaired—as well as circumstances would permit—
the walls of Barcelona, which had sustained considerable damage
from the mines and military engines of his soldiery. A governor of
Gothic race was left in command of a well-appointed garrison, and,
his object finally attained, the King of Aquitaine retired from the
scene of such devotion, self-sacrifice, and valor. The heroic Zaid,
after receiving the reproaches and vituperation of his conqueror,
who, actuated by some unknown motive, condescended to spare his
life, was condemned to perpetual banishment, and henceforth
disappears from history.
The introduction of the Feudal System into Spain practically dates
from the capture of Barcelona by the army of Louis. That system had
long before been instituted in France. Its germs, as yet undeveloped,
had appeared in many of the regulations of the Visigothic
constitution. But the minutely defined and mutual obligations of
vassal and lord, and the exact nature of the allegiance due from the
noble to his prince as suzerain, had been neither established by
prescription nor formulated by law. Nor did its rules ever acquire
among the independent races of the Peninsula the force and extent
accorded to them elsewhere. The humiliating seigniorial rights
claimed and exercised by the dissolute barons of England, France,
and Germany were never imposed upon the brave and self-
respecting peasantry of Spain. It was long before the hereditary
transmission of fiefs was fully recognized in that country.
North of the Pyrenees the duties of feudalism, once assumed,
could never be relinquished. In Castile and Aragon the vassal could
renounce the service of one protector for that of another, if he had
previously surrendered all property received from the former or its
pecuniary equivalent. This establishment of feudal institutions in the
Gothic March not only assured the permanence of its conquest, but
gave the Franks an influence in the affairs of the Peninsula as
advantageous to the promotion of Christian success as it was
prejudicial to the continuance of Moslem power.
The loss of Barcelona was, as soon became evident. a
catastrophe of signal importance, whose consequences seriously
affected the prestige and diminished the strength of the Moorish
empire in Spain. No explanation has ever been adduced to account
for the surprising indifference or culpable neglect of Al-Hakem in
allowing the enemies of his faith and his dynasty to wrest from its
brave defenders one of the most considerable and prosperous cities
in his dominions. A mysterious silence pervades the ancient
chronicles in regard to the reasons for his conduct,—so
extraordinary; so at variance with the energy of his character; so
detrimental to the interests of his kingdom; so destructive to his
hopes of future greatness. Experience had proved him to be
endowed with many of the qualities of a daring and active leader.
From his very youth, the excitement of war had been to his fiery spirit
a favorite and exhilarating pastime. His resources were unlimited, his
army well equipped and numerous. So far as we have any
information, the remainder of his kingdom was at peace. In case the
Christian host was too powerful to encounter in battle, the sea
offered a broad and unobstructed highway for the transportation of
supplies and reinforcements. Time was not wanting, for the siege
lasted seven months. Whether the menacing attitude of the King of
the Asturias, or some obscure domestic sedition, which, obscured by
the crowning exploit of the Frankish crusade, has escaped the notice
of historians, is responsible for this apparently unaccountable and
suicidal apathy, must remain forever a matter of conjecture. But
whatever was the cause, the misfortune was irreparable. The iron
grasp of the Frank never slackened its hold. The colony became a
principality, the principality a kingdom, which, in time, consolidated
with other provinces into the monarchy of Aragon, led the van of the
Christian armies in the War of the Reconquest.
All authorities agree, however, that the Emir was on the point of
marching to the relief of Barcelona when information reached him of
its surrender. Unwilling to disband his army without an attempt to at
least partially regain his lost prestige, he proceeded to Saragossa,
and then, following the course of the Ebro, succeeded in retaking
Huesca, Tarragona, and some other places of inferior importance.
The rebel chieftains, Hassan and Bahlul, to whose treasonable
artifices is mainly to be credited the loss of Eastern Spain, were
captured and beheaded. No demonstration was made before
Barcelona, a fact that would seem to suggest either the inferiority of
the troops in numbers and equipment or the prudence or fears of
their commander.
 The religious enthusiasts of the capital had seen, with alarm and
disgust, the accession of Al-Hakem. While not eminent for piety like
his father, he, on the other hand, had manifested no particular
hostility to the theological faction. Its members, however, were not
his favorites. He was devoted to amusements and practices
abhorrent to the principles openly preached and secretly neglected
by these rigid precisians. His frequent intoxication, a vice which
outraged public opinion and provoked the contempt of the
conscientious Moslem, made the palace the scene of orgies that
were the reproach and the scandal of the capital. From childhood he
had been immoderately devoted to sensual indulgence. The pastime
of the chase, which involved the employment of animals declared
unclean by the Koran, occupied no small part of his leisure. A
ferocious temper, an exaggerated idea of his authority, an implacable
spirit, and a merciless severity in the infliction of punishment for even
trifling offences increased the terror with which he was regarded by
noble, peasant, and theologian. But these sins were venial when
compared with the indifference with which he treated the saints and
the doctors upon whom Hischem had bestowed distinguished honors
and unbounded confidence. Those who had formerly been entrusted
with important secrets of state, which they were able to use for their
personal advantage, were now excluded from the Divan. Instead of
entering the royal presence without ceremony, they were compelled
to wait the pleasure of their master in the antechambers. The
donations from the public treasury, which had been bestowed with
unstinted hand upon every specious pretext, were now withheld.
Degraded in the popular estimation, humbled in pride, diminished in
wealth, derided by the court, but still retaining the sympathy of the
masses, the fanatics of rival sects began to overlook their mutual
animosity in the hope of restoring the vanished importance of their
order, and to entertain designs against the life as well as the
government of Al-Hakem.
The scheming and disappointed Malikite faquis, whose
ecclesiastical character, assisted by a talent for imposture, had
caused the multitude to attribute to them supernatural powers, were
the chief promoters of the conspiracy. The prestige of a royal name
being considered essential to their success, they approached Ibn-
Shammas, son of Abdallah, and a cousin of the Emir, and, finding
him apparently favorable to their designs, openly tendered him the
crown. The ambition of that chieftain, however, was not sufficiently
strong to induce him to compromise his loyalty. Dissembling his
indignation at the presumption of those who could think him capable
of such flagrant ingratitude and treason, he demanded a list of the
principal conspirators as an indispensable condition of his
compliance. The deputation, headed by a faqui named Yahya,
readily agreed to this, and a night was designated when the
information would be given. Meanwhile, Ibn-Shammas informed the
Emir of what had happened, and when Yahya and his companions
were introduced into his apartments, Ibn-al-Khada, the private
secretary of Al-Hakem, was already there concealed behind a
curtain, and ready to write down the names as fast as they were
communicated. The list included many of the most considerable
nobles and citizens of Cordova, and the secretary, fearing lest the
conspirators, to magnify their importance, might include his own
name among the number, an act which would insure his destruction,
designedly allowed the reed with which he was writing to scratch
upon the paper. The traitors instantly took the alarm; the house of
Ibn-Shammas was deserted in a moment; all implicated who had
time to escape fled precipitately from the city, and the others, to the
number of seventy-two, were crucified.
The year 805 witnessed the institution of an alliance between the
Emirate of the West and the newly founded kingdom of the Edrisites
in Africa, destined to exercise a marked influence upon the fortunes
of the former power, and whose close relations in peace and war
were not finally sundered until the kingdom of Granada was
incorporated into the Spanish monarchy. Several years previously a
noble Syrian named Edris, a fugitive like Abd-al-Rahman from the
persecution of the Abbasides, had sought a refuge in the mountain
defiles and desert wastes of Western Africa. Without friends, money,
or influence, he nevertheless received a hearty welcome from the
tribes of the Atlas. His manly traits and chivalrous bearing soon
secured for him the esteem of his protectors, and, from a penniless
refugee, he rose by degrees to be the chieftain of a clan, the founder
of a nation, and the head of a dynasty. It was to his son and
successor Edris that Al-Hakem now sent an embassy to felicitate
him upon his accession, and to propose an alliance which might be
employed to contract the dominions and weaken the power of the
detested tyrants of the East. The importance of the occasion was
disclosed by an escort of five hundred Andalusian nobles, and the
interchange of magnificent presents. The embassy was splendidly
entertained by the African monarch, and a treaty concluded which,
by its provisions for mutual support and constant hostility against the
common enemy, accomplished much towards the consolidation and
perpetuity of the Moslem power in the West. Two years afterwards
the city of Fez was founded. Its population, composed largely of
Christians, Jews, fire-worshippers, and idolaters, excited the wonder
and contempt of the pious Mussulmans who visited it; and the
incessant strife promoted by the political adventurers and zealots of
the various forms of faith, who had established their abode within its
walls, augured ill for the future peace or prosperity of the Edrisite
capital.
While absent on the expedition to Eastern Spain, the mind of Al-
Hakem had been disturbed by tidings of another outbreak at Toledo.
Yusuf, the son of Amru, who, through paternal fondness and the
partiality of the Emir, had been exalted to a position to the discharge
of whose responsibilities his experience and qualifications were
wholly inadequate, had signalized his promotion by flagrant and
repeated acts of tyranny and insolence. The Toledan populace,
seditious by inheritance and practice, and which, from time
immemorial, had been ready to assert, on the slightest provocation,
the dangerous privilege of resistance, at the perpetration of some
outrage of unusual atrocity ran to arms, attacked the palace, and
overpowered a detachment of the guard. The principal citizens,
dreading the consequences of an insurrection, interposed their good
offices between the governor and the mob, and, with great difficulty,
prevented the sack of the palace and the death of its master. But the
latter, far from appreciating either the efforts of his benefactors or the
peril which he had just escaped, meditated and planned, without
concealment or precaution, a bloody and merciless revenge.
Informed of his intentions, the nobles deprived him of his office
without ceremony, and threw him into prison. A messenger was sent
to Al-Hakem to acquaint him with the facts, and to explain the danger
which justified the adoption of such extreme and arbitrary measures.
The Emir, with every appearance of kindness, excused the violence
of his subjects; gave orders for the removal of the obnoxious Yusuf;
and reinstated, at his own solicitation, Amru as wali; the grateful
inhabitants returned to their avocations, and the city once more
assumed the appearance of its former tranquillity.
But the habitual defiance of his authority by the Toledans rankled
in the breast of Al-Hakem. The city had long been the focus of
insurrection, the rallying-point of the discontented, the head-quarters
of every turbulent and ambitious chieftain. Not even the metropolis
itself surpassed it in its influence on the politics of the kingdom. The
audacity of its citizens and the pride of its clergy concurred in
supporting its extravagant pretensions to supremacy. The limited
area enclosed by its walls had always been occupied by a dense
population, among whose members the Christians largely
preponderated, and over whose minds the traditions of the Visigothic
monarchy exerted a power constantly distrusted and feared by every
Moslem ruler who exercised jurisdiction over its territory. The Arab
historians have repeatedly asserted, with every appearance of truth,
that no other body of subjects within the dominions of Islam were so
infected with the spirit of mutiny and disorder as the populace of
Toledo. Even the descendants of renegades who had renounced
their creed and their nationality—a class whose religious zeal and
uncompromising fidelity are proverbial—were not insensible to the
time-honored legends and historical souvenirs that recalled, on every
side, the glorious events and vanished grandeur of the ancient
capital of the Visigoths. The Moslems, who had settled principally in
the environs, were overawed by the insolence of their neighbors,
who, although their tributaries, maintained all the haughtiness that
ordinarily attaches to superior birth and exalted station. Once more
installed as governor, Amru exerted all his tact to allay the
apprehensions of the people, who feared that his paternal pride
might impose upon them a heavy penalty for their former
disobedience. By every expression of solicitude, by every show of
partiality and consideration, he sought to regain their confidence. He
privately assured their leaders of his approval of, and sympathy with,
their efforts to obtain their independence and resist the imposition of
tyrannous exactions and unjust laws. He even went so far as to
denounce the Emir, and to promise his own co-operation in case of
future unwarrantable encroachment upon the lives and liberty of the
Toledans by the despotic court of Cordova. Thoroughly imposed
upon by his duplicity, the masses, as well as the nobles and the
priesthood, regarded him as their benefactor, and bestowed upon
their crafty governor every mark of honor and esteem. Then,
instructed by Al-Hakem, Amru represented that, as the ordinary
practice of billeting soldiers upon the families of the citizens was a
serious grievance and productive of much disorder, this
inconvenience could be obviated by the erection of a strongly
fortified citadel, which he suggested would also be of incalculable
value in the assertion of popular rights in future insurrections. Public
approval was readily obtained; the fortress rose on the most
commanding point of the city; the wealthy contributed of their means,
the poor donated their labor, to aid in its construction; the
advantages of location and the resources of engineering skill
conspired to make its defences almost impregnable. A powerful
garrison was introduced, and Al-Hakem was notified that the time
had finally arrived for the gratification of his long-meditated
vengeance.
A despatch was now sent to the frontier directing one of the
officers who commanded in that quarter to petition for
reinforcements, in view of a pretended demonstration of the Franks.
This was accordingly done; and a force of several thousand troops,
commanded by the young prince, Abd-al-Rahman, heir to the throne,
who was assisted by the counsels of three viziers of age and
experience, marched out of Cordova, apparently destined for service
in the Pyrenees. When the army reached Toledo, it was informed
that the anticipated danger had been exaggerated; that the enemy
had withdrawn from the vicinity of the frontier, and consequently that
all prospect of hostilities had disappeared. While encamped in the
vicinity, the officers received a visit from the governor, who was
accompanied by a number of the most prominent citizens. The
deputation was received and entertained with distinction and
hospitality, and the guests were delighted with the politeness, the
condescension, and the precocious talents of their prospective
sovereign, who had not yet attained the age of fifteen years. Then, at
the suggestion of Amru, an invitation was extended to the prince to
make the city his home until his departure, a proposal which was
accepted with well-feigned reluctance. Preparations were made for a
sumptuous banquet. In the long list of guests appeared the names of
the most distinguished nobles, the most opulent citizens, the most
eminent leaders, who were either suspected of disaffection or had
openly signalized their zeal for the popular cause, either by open
resistance or by instigation to rebellion. When the hour designated
for the festivities approached, the guests were introduced, one by
one, through a postern, where they successively fell by the hands of
the soldiers. As each party arrived, the equipages and attendants
were sent to the opposite gate of the fortress, there to await the
reappearance of their masters. An immense crowd, attracted by the
novelty of the occasion and the presence of royalty, surrounded the
citadel. Among the spectators, a physician, shrewder or more
suspicious than his companions, had remarked the ominous stillness
that reigned within the walls, and the fact that of all the guests who
had been known to enter none had been seen to leave, although the
sun was now far past the meridian. A bystander directed his attention
to a cloud of vapor faintly discernible above the ramparts as an
evidence that the festivities had not ceased. The experience of the
practitioner at once detected the cause, and raising his hands in
horror, he exclaimed: “Wretch! that is not the smoke which proceeds
from the preparation of a banquet; it is the vapor from the blood of
your murdered brethren!”
The number of victims of this awful crime is variously stated at
from seven hundred to five thousand. As the bodies were
decapitated, they were cast into a trench which had been dug during
the construction of the castle; and from this fact the deed which
violated the rites of hospitality so sacred in the eye of the Arab
became known in the annals of the Peninsula as the “Day of the
Ditch.”
The next morning the heads of those who, by an act of
unparalleled treachery, had so severely expiated their past offences
and the faults of their kindred, were ranged in bloody array upon the
battlements. There was scarcely a household among those of the
most distinguished residents of the city which was not filled with
mourning. A feeling of deep but smothered exasperation pervaded
the community. But the object of the tyrant was attained; a lesson of
terror had been inculcated; the leaders were gone; the spirit of
insurrection was effectually crushed; and many years elapsed before
Toledo was again vexed by the tumults and the violence of a
seditious demonstration.
About this time a serious difficulty arose at Merida. Esbah, the
wali of that city, was, as will be remembered, at once the cousin and
the brother-in-law of the Emir. For some cause he dismissed his
vizier, and the latter, by false statements concerning the ambitious
designs of his superior, induced Al-Hakem to deprive him of his
office and confer it upon himself. The wali, indignant at being thus
unjustly accused, defied the royal edict; the people, by whom he was
greatly beloved, espoused his cause; and a formidable rebellion
seemed imminent, when the beautiful Kinza, the sister of Al-Hakem,
succeeded by her entreaties in averting the impending calamity.
Explanations were tendered, the incensed and alienated kinsmen
were reconciled, and Esbah was reinstated in his authority amidst
the congratulations of his wife and the acclamations of the people.
The habitual distrust of Al-Hakem, his love of military pomp, and
the knowledge of the turbulence and duplicity of a large proportion of
his subjects, had led him to increase his body-guard to the number
of six thousand. The impatience of the Arab under restraint, as well
as his suspicious fidelity, excluded him from the select corps
entrusted with the protection of the life of the sovereign. The lessons
of experience, and the well-recognized principle of despotism which
discourages all sympathy between the people and the army,
suggested the enlistment of foreigners and infidels. Three thousand
of the guard were Spanish Christians, the rest were slaves—
Ethiopian and Asiatic captives purchased in the marts of the eastern
Mediterranean, who were popularly designated mutes on account of
their ignorance of the Arabic language. Their arms and equipment
were of the finest and most expensive description. Their discipline
was as thorough as the tactics of the age could inculcate. Two
thousand were quartered in extensive barracks erected on the
southern side of the Guadalquivir, whose banks were constantly
patrolled by their sentinels. The others, whose numbers were
swelled by hundreds of eunuchs and retainers of the Emir’s
household, were stationed in the palace, whose defences were more
characteristic of an impregnable fortress than of the ordinary abode
of a sovereign. The great mass of the people, and especially the
severely orthodox, viewed the establishment of this large military
force—whose existence was a silent reproach to their loyalty and
whose opinions were considered idolatrous—with mingled feelings of
hatred, jealousy, and contempt. The fierce zealots and ecclesiastical
demagogues, whose arts had acquired for them a dangerous pre-
eminence and whose influence had been of late years a perpetual
menace to the government, regarded the royal guards with
sentiments of peculiar aversion. The maintenance of this splendid
body of soldiers, whose expenses far exceeded those of an ordinary
division equal to it in numbers, was a heavy charge upon the
treasury. To meet the increasing expenditure, a new duty was levied
upon all merchandise imported into the capital. The burdens arising
from the imposition of this tax, and the inconvenience attending its
collection, were the most keenly felt by the southern suburb. Of this
densely populated quarter, fully one-fifth of the inhabitants were
teachers and students of theology. Not only over these, but over the
various guilds of merchants, tradesmen, and laborers, the authority
of a few faquis, who united the qualifications of religious instructors
with the privileged attributes of saints, was despotic. A soldier who
ventured alone into the stronghold of these desperate fanatics did so
at the risk of his life. No opportunity was suffered to pass whereby
indignity could be heaped upon the guards of the Emir. The monarch
himself was not less unpopular. The theological faction constantly
made unfavorable comparisons between his skepticism and luxury
and the austere virtues of his father, Hischem, whose partiality for
their sect had formerly obtained for its dogmas the highest respect
and consideration. The failings and vices of royalty received scant
indulgence at the hands of the Malikites. When, from the summit of
the minaret, the muezzin proclaimed the hour of public devotion, a