CALIPHS OF AFRICA, 41 



the barren place of your nativity. As for your 

 wives and children, your beautiful captives v^^ill 

 supply the place of the one ; and in their embraces 

 you will soon become the fathers of a new progeny." 



Their first habitation was their camp, surrounded 

 with a ditch and a rampart, in the Bay of Suda. 

 An apostate monk pointed out to them a more de- 

 sirable residence ; and the modern appellation of 

 Candia, from Candax, the fortress and colony of the 

 Spanish Arabs, has superseded the ancient name, 

 and been extended to the whole island. Of its thirty 

 cities the inhabitants of Cydonia alone had courage 

 to retain their freedom and their Christianity. The 

 timbers of Mount Ida soon repaired the loss of the 

 Saracen navy ; and during a period of 138 years, 

 these licentious freebooters defied the curses and the 

 arms of the Byzantine emperors, until they were 

 extirpated by the valour of Nicephorus Phocas; 

 '* when the natives," to use the words of a contem- 

 porary writer, " exchanged the detested supersti- 

 tion of the Hagarenes for the baptism and discipline 

 of the Catholic church." In the reign of Motamed 

 they captured the imperial fleet in the Mediterra- 

 nean, and put 5000 Greeks to the sword at Melazzo 

 in Sicily. A short time after, they reduced the 

 island of Lemnos, ravaged without control the coasts 

 of Asia, made themselves masters of Thessalonica, 

 and threatened to invest Constantinople. 



Sicily had been repeatedly attacked by the West- 

 ern Arabs ; but its loss was occasioned by an act of 

 injudicious rigour. Euphemius, an amorous youth, 

 who had stolen a nun from her cloister, was sen- 

 tenced by the emperor to the amputation of his 

 tongue. He appealed to the Saracens of Africa, who 

 sent him back with a fleet of 100 ships, and an army 

 of 700 horse and 10,000 foot. These troops landed 

 at Mazara, near the ancient Silenus, and after some 

 partial victories, in which they made themselves 

 masters of Ragusa, Messina, Emia, and other places, 



D2 



