SCOT AT TOLEDO 43 



in their turn the conquered, not under force of arms 

 indeed, but as subdued by the still vital intel- 

 lectual power possessed by those whom they had in 

 a material sense overcome. In their new seat by 

 the streams of the Euphrates they learned from 

 their Syrian subjects, now become their teachers, 

 the treasures of Greek philosophy which had been 

 translated into the Aramaic tongue. Led captive 

 as by a spell, the Caliphs of the Abassid line, espe- 

 cially Al Mansour, Al Eachid, and Al Mamoun, 

 encouraged with civil honours and rewards the 

 labours of these learned men. Happy indeed was 

 the Syrian who brought to life another relic of the 

 mighty dead, or who gave to such works a new 

 immortality by rendering them into the Arabic 

 language. 



Meanwhile the progress of the Ommiad arms, 

 compelled to seek new conquests by the defeat they 

 had sustained in the East from the victorious 

 Abbassides, was carrying the Moors west and ever 

 westward along the northern provinces of Africa. 

 Egypt and Tripoli and Tunis successively fell before 

 their victorious march ; Algiers and Morocco shared 

 the same fate, and at last, crossing the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, the Moors overran Spain, making a new 

 Arabia of that western peninsula, which in position 

 and physical features bore so great a likeness to 

 the ancient cradle of their race. 



It is true indeed that long ere the period of 

 which we write the Moorish power in the West had 

 received a severe check, and had, for at least a 

 century, entered on its period of decay. The battle 

 of Tours, fought in 732, had driven the infidels 

 from France. The Christian kingdoms of Spain 



