CONQUF.STS OF THE SARACENS. 



349 



the third day, early in the action, this leader fell 

 mortally wounded bv an arrow. He had delayed 

 the attack till the afternoon, the favourite hour ot 

 battle with the Prophet, at the moment when the 

 supphcations of the faithful from every pulpit and 

 inosquewere ascending to heaven in aid of their 

 armies • and when he received his wound was in the 

 act of ffivinff the last tecbir. His death was con- 

 cealed f but a day of terrible slaughter irrevocaby 

 sealed the destiny of the ill-fated empire Thirty 

 thousand Persians were left on the field ; 80,000 

 perished amid the confusion in their own mtrench- 

 ments ; 4000 who fled with Feroozan to the neigh- 

 bouring mountains were overtaken, and all put to 

 the sword The loss of the Moslems was gi-eat, but 

 the result was decisive ; and the triumph at Naha- 

 vund, achieved in the twenty-first year of the Hejira, 

 is remembered by the Arabs as the Victory of Vic- 

 tones. The booty was prodigious, though small when 

 compared with the wealth of the metropolis. In the 

 equipage of the flying general, it is said, was a crowd 

 of mules and camels laden with honey,— an incident 

 that may serve to indicate the luxurious impedi- 

 ments of an oriental army. The unhappy Yezdi- 

 iird was thunderstruck by this new disaster. He 

 fled from city to citv,— his own governors shutting 

 their gates against him,— until at length he feU near 

 Meru, by the hand of an assassiji. He was the last 

 soverei<rn of a dynasty that had governed Persia 

 durintr 415 years. His daughters were carried into 

 captivity, and given in marriage to the victors. 

 Hassan; the son of Ah, espoused the one, and Mo- 

 hammed, the son of Abu Beker, the other ; and thus 

 the race of the caliphs and imams was ennobled by 

 the blood of their royal mothers. 



After the defeat at Nahavund, the Saracen leaders 



soon overran the whole country as far as the Oxus, 



destroying with bigoted fury all that was useful, 



grand,"or sacred. Hamadan surrendered on capitu- 



VoL. I.— G g 



