270 THE MEDITERRANEAN, PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL. 



scorching heat of the desert, which had nearly proved fatal to the 

 army of Cato, were no bar to the hardy Arabians and their enduring 

 camels. The march to Tripoli was a fatiguing one, but it was success- 

 fully accomplished ; the invaders did not exhaust their force in a vain 

 effort to reduce its fortifications, but swept on ov^er the Syrtic desert 

 and north to the province of Africa, where, near the splendid city of 

 Suffetula, a great battle was fought between them and the army of the 

 Exarch Gregorius, in which the Christians were signally defeated, 

 their leader killed, and his daughter allotted to Ibu-ez-Zobair, who had 

 slain her father. 



Not only did the victorious Moslems overrun north Africa, but soon 

 they had powerful fleets at sea, which dominated the entire Mediter- 

 ranean, and the emperors of the East had enough to do to protect their 

 own capital. 



Egypt, Syria, Spain, Provence, and the islands of the Mediterranean 

 successively fell to their arms, and until they were checked at the 

 Pyrenees by Charles Martel it seemed at one time as if the whole of 

 southern Europe would have been compelled to submit to the disciples 

 of the new religion. Violent, implacable, and irresistible at the moment 

 of conquest, the Arabs were not unjust or hard masters in countries 

 which submitted to their conditions. Every endeavor was, of course, 

 made to proselytize, but Christians were allowed to preserve their re- 

 ligion on payment of a tax, and even Popes were in the habit of entering 

 into friendly relations with the invaders. The Church of St. Cyprian 

 and St. Augustine, with its 500 sees, was indeed expunged, but five cen- 

 turies after the passage of the Mohammedan army from Egypt to the 

 Atlantic a remnant of it still existed. It was not till the twelfth cen- 

 tury that the religion and language of Home became utterly extin- 

 guished. 



The Arabs introduced a high state of civilization into the countiies 

 where they settled; their architecture is the wonder and admiration of 

 the world at the present day; their irrigational works in Spain have 

 never been improved upon ; they fostered literature and the arts of 

 peace, and introduced a system of agriculture far superior to what 

 existed before their arrival. 



Commerce, discouraged by the Romans, was highly honored by the 

 Arabs, and during their rule the Mediterranean recovered the trade 

 which it possessed in the time of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians; 

 it penetrated into the Indian Archipelago and China ; it travelled west- 

 ward to the Niger, and to the east as far as Madagascar, and the great 

 trade route of the Mediterranean was once more developed. 



The power and prosperity of the Arabs culminated in the ninth century, 

 when Sicily fell to their arms ; it was not, however, very long before 

 their empire began to be undermined by dissensions; the temporal and 

 spiritual authority of the Ominiade Khalifs, which extended from Sind 

 to Spain and from the Oxus to Yemen, was overthrown by the Abba- 



