History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. 2 (of 3)

Classic Souvenirs of Sicily--Its Great Natural Advantages--It becomes the Stronghold of the Papacy--Invasion of the Arabs--They besiege Syracuse--Strength of that City--Failure of the Enterprise--Capture of Palermo--Rapid Progress of the Moslems--Condition of Italy--Arab Alliance with Naples--Messina taken--Betrayal of Castrogiovanni--Rout of the Greeks near Syracuse--Feuds of the Conquerors--Their Successes in Italy--Second Siege of Syracuse--The City is stormed and destroyed by Ibn-Mohammed--Peril of Rome--Appearance of the Normans in the South of Europe--They invade Sicily--Siege of Palermo--Subjection of the Island--Influence of the Moslems over their Conquerors--General Condition of Sicily--Its Civilization--Palermo and its Environs--Science, Art, and Literature--The Great Work of Edrisi--Arab Occupation of Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta.

The island of Sicily, by reason of its geographical position, its extraordinary fertility, and its commercial advantages, was one of the most renowned and coveted domains of the ancient world. Its situation, near the centre of the Mediterranean, afforded rare facilities for participation in the trade and enjoyment of the culture of those polished nations whose shores were washed by that famous sea. Its soil yielded, with insignificant labor, the choicest products of both the temperate and the torrid zones. Its coast was provided with numerous and commodious harbors. That of Messina permitted vessels of the heaviest tonnage to discharge their cargoes in security at her quays. Those of Syracuse and Palermo were double, for the use of men-of-war and merchantmen, as were the port of Tyre and the Kothon of Carthage. The Phœnicians, at a period far anterior to any mentioned in history, had established and maintained important trading stations at points subsequently marked by the erection of vast and flourishing cities. Doric and Ionic colonists, in their turn, carried thither the elegant luxury and fastidious tastes which distinguished the finished civilization of antiquity. This mysterious island, where were manifested some of the most appalling and inexplicable phenomena of nature, was the home of frightful monsters, the scene of dire enchantments, the inspiration of Homeric fable and mythological legend. Here was the haunt of the dreaded Cyclops. A short distance from its shores were practised the infernal arts of the beauteous but vindictive Circe. Here passed the Argonauts on their triumphant return from Colchis. To the Greek succeeded the Carthaginian, who might assert, with no little show of justice, a claim to the inheritance of his Phœnician ancestors. Next came the mighty and resistless supremacy of Rome. Sicily was one of the first, as it was among the richest, of the provinces early acquired by her arms. It long shared with Egypt the honorable distinction of being one of the granaries of Italy. The great resources of the island in the days of the Republic are indicated by the value of the spoils appropriated by the avarice of a rapacious governor. The corrupt accumulations of Verres, during the course of his magistracy, amounted to forty million sesterces. Besides the money of which he plundered the unfortunate dependents of the Republic are enumerated statues, paintings, bronzes, utensils sacred to the service of the gods, the ornaments of the altars, the costly offerings with which the affectionate gratitude of the pious and the opulent had enriched her magnificent temples. In intellectual advancement Sicily kept well abreast of her enlightened neighbors. The choicest works of the Attic and of the Roman muse were read with delight by the polished society of her cities. The masterpieces of Aristophanes and Terence were enacted with applause in her spacious theatres, resplendent with many colored marbles and decorations of beaten gold. The intimate social and commercial relations maintained with the cities of Magna Græcia aided, in no inconsiderable degree, the development of Sicilian civilization. The citizens of Messina and Palermo could perhaps claim a common origin with the refined inhabitants of Crotona and Tarentum.

Thus had Sicily, by her amalgamation of widely different races and through her political affiliations, inherited all the noblest traditions of antiquity, all the maxims of Oriental philosophy, of Grecian culture, of Phœnician enterprise, and of Roman power. With her history are associated the names of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, of Pyrrhus and Marcellus, of Dionysius and Archimedes. But long before the period of Byzantine degeneracy so fatal to the Empire, her prosperity had greatly declined. Even in the time of the Cæsars the evils of a venal and rapacious administration had been felt in the imposition of onerous taxes, and the consequent and inevitable decay of agriculture. Insurrections were common, and characterized by all the atrocities of anarchy. The harvests were wantonly destroyed. The villas of the Roman nobles, whose extensive domains embraced the larger portion of the arable land, were given to the flames. Bands of robbers roamed at will through the deserted settlements. The cities were not infrequently stormed and plundered. The tillage of the soil was no longer safe or profitable. Extensive tracts of territory, whose extraordinary and varied productiveness had formerly astonished the stranger, were abandoned to pasturage, an unfailing sign of national decadence. The care of the flocks was committed to slaves, whose savage aspect and brutal habits proclaimed their barbarian lineage. Clothed in skins and armed with rude weapons, they were a menace alike to the industrious citizen and the belated wayfarer. No wages or sustenance was bestowed upon these outlaws, who were expected and encouraged to supply by acts of violence the necessaries denied by the neglect and parsimony of their masters. Others, whose ferocious temper and habitual insubordination demanded restraint, labored from early dawn in fetters, and were confined in filthy dungeons during the night. The most shocking crimes were perpetrated with impunity. The spoils which had escaped the robber could not be rescued from the vigilant perquisitions of the farmer of the revenue. The tax upon grain amounted to twenty-five per cent., and the impositions upon articles of commerce and the scanty manufactures which had survived the general destruction of trade and the mechanical arts were apportioned in a corresponding ratio, and were collected with uncompromising severity. With the prevalent insecurity of person and property, maritime enterprise was checked, and the fleets of foreign merchantmen which had once crowded the seaports of the island disappeared. The weak and corrupt government of Constantinople, dominated by eunuchs and disgraced by the political intrigues of ecclesiastics and women, was powerless to correct the disorders of a distant and almost unknown province. Theological disputes and the pleasures of the circus engrossed the attention of the successors of the martial Constantine, whose authority, disputed at home, was often scarcely acknowledged in their insular possessions. The exaggerated perils of the strait, aided perhaps by a knowledge of the impoverished condition of the country, may have deterred the victorious barbarians from any prolonged occupation of Sicily. While they overran the country at different times, they left no traces of their sojourn,--neither colonies, institutions, racial impressions, nor physical peculiarities. But this comparative exemption from the common ruin seems to have been productive of no substantial benefit. The spirit of the people was not adapted either to the requirements of self-government or to the imperious demands of vassalage. They were at once turbulent, rebellious, servile. In the character of the Sicilian of the ninth century, as in that of the Calabrian of modern times, every evil instinct was predominant. The seditious spirit of the peasantry, aided by their proverbial inconstancy, was one of the principal causes which prevented the consolidation of the Mohammedan power.

From being the seat of Grecian civilization, the granary of Rome, the theatre of barbarian license, Sicily had become the nursery of the Papacy. It furnished bold and zealous defenders of the chair of St. Peter. Its opportune contributions replenished the exhausted treasury of the Vatican. There the genius of St. Gregory first laid the foundations of the temporal power of the Holy See. There was situated the richest portion of the possessions of the Roman hierarchy. There were matured political measures which were destined to exercise for generations the talents of the ablest statesmen of Europe. At an early period the popes acquired an important following among the peasantry of the island. The ignorance of the populace, and the eagerness with which it received impressions of the supernatural; the associations derived from the legends of antiquity, many of which, with political foresight, had been bodily appropriated by the Fathers of the Church; the absolution promised, without reserve, for the most heinous offences, had allured thousands upon thousands of proselytes to the gorgeous altars of Rome. The institution of the monastic orders and the vast number of idlers increased tenfold the burdens of an oppressed and impoverished country. It was said that the Benedictines alone possessed nearly half of the island. Convents surrounded with beautiful gardens and supplied with all the requirements of luxury arose on every side. The mountain-caves swarmed with hermits. The miracles performed by holy men and women surpassed in wonder and mystery the achievements of mythological heroes,--the conquerors of Cyclops, the captors of dragons. Martyrs underwent the most exquisite tortures with unshaken constancy. In no other province which recognized the predominance of the Papacy was there greater reverence for ecclesiastical tradition; and, as a legitimate consequence, in no other was prevalent a more marked degree of ignorance in the masses, or a more habitual defiance of the laws of morality and justice by those indebted for their superiority to the influence of the Church. The number of slaves owned by the Holy See and employed upon its estates was enormous. The greater part of its wealth was computed to be derived from their labor and from the traffic in their children. The arts of the confessor secured from the wealthy penitent immense estates and valuable legacies, the reluctant tribute of terror and remorse. These possessions, once in the iron grasp of the sacerdotal order, a master endowed with legal immortality, were never relinquished. The oblations of grateful convalescents enriched the treasuries of chapel and cathedral. Pilgrims flocked in great numbers to those shrines which enjoyed an extensive reputation for sanctity, and whose relics were believed to possess unfailing virtues for the cure of the sick and the relief of the afflicted. A profitable trade was supported at the expense of the superstitious credulity of these devout strangers. Well aware of its importance as an adjunct to their temporal power, and taking advantage of the relations of its parishioners with the Byzantine court, the early bishops of Rome extended every aid to the Sicilian branch of the Catholic hierarchy. It enjoyed peculiar privileges. It was exempted from vexatious impositions. Its legates were received with distinguished courtesy by the papal court. Gregory founded from his private purse seven monasteries in the island. Adrian frequently referred to it as the citadel of the Italian clergy. No portion of the patrimony of St. Peter could boast a priesthood more opulent, more arrogant, more powerful, more corrupt.