CALIPHS OF BAGDAD. 25 



rium entailed a severer fate on the unhappy captives, 

 who were treated like the most atrocious criminals. 

 Mutual necessity sometimes extorted the exchange 

 or ransom of prisoners ; but, in the relig^ious conflict 

 of tliese great empires, peace was without con- 

 fidence, and war without mercy. Quarter was sel- 

 dom given in the field ; those who escaped the edge 

 of the sword were condemned to hopeless servi- 

 tude, or cruel torture ; and a Catholic emperor 

 relates, with visible satisfaction, the execution of 

 the Saracens of Crete, who were flayed alive, or 

 plunged into caldrons of boiling oil. Vathek nego- 

 tiated with Michael III. for an exchange of captives. 

 The Christians and the Moslems were drawn up on 

 the banks of the Lamus, near Tarsus. Of the Arabs, 

 4460 men, 800 women and children, and 100 con- 

 federates were exchanged for an equal number of 

 Greeks ; and more might have been redeemed, had 

 not the caliph excluded from the benefit of the car- 

 tel all heretics who refused to assert the creation of 

 the Koran. The two bands passed each other on 

 the middle of the bridge, and the shouts of Allah 

 akbar! on the one side, and Kyrie eleison! on the 

 other, announced the grateful tidings that they had 

 joined the respective camps of their countrymen. 



Under the feeble successors of Moktader and 

 Rhadi, irruptions were occasionally made into the 

 Grecian territories, both by sea and land ; but, in 

 proportion as the Eastern World was convulsed and 

 broken, the Byzantine empire had recovered its 

 prosperity, especially after the accession of the 

 Basilian race, whose wisdom and talents infused a 

 new strength into the government. The lofty titles 

 of the Morning Star and the Death of the Saracens 

 were applied in the public acclamations to Nicepho- 

 rus Phocas, a sovereign as renoAvned in the camp as 

 he was unpopular in the city. The twelve years' 

 reign (A . D. 963-975), or military command of this 

 prince, and of his assassin and successor John Zi- 



VoL. IL— C 



