CALIPHS OF BAGDAD. 29 



to an annual assessment. As a further mark of his 

 degradation, the coin of the tribute-money was 

 stamped with the image and superscription of Haroun 

 and his three sons. It was perhaps fortunate for 

 Nicephorus, as the terms might have been still more 

 humiliating, that his adversary was hastily called 

 away to check the progress of revolt at Samarcand, 

 where the usurper, Ibn al Leith, had assumed the 

 title of caliph. The insurrection spread over the 

 Transoxian provinces, and extended also to Kho- 

 rasan and Kerman. Haroun had left his favourite 

 palace at Racca, to march against the rebels, when 

 death put an end to his triumphant career. His 

 general, Harethmah, laid siege to Samarcand, and 

 conveyed the refractory chief in chains to the pre- 

 sence of Almamoun. 



The Emperor Theophilus, one of the most active 

 and high-spirited princes that reigned at Constan- 

 tinople during the middle ages, had led an army 

 five times in person against the Saracens. In the 

 last of these expeditions (A. D. 838) he invaded Sy- 

 ria at the head of a hundred thousand men, and 

 besieged the obscure town of Sozopetra, the birth- 

 place of Motassem, which he took and levelled 

 with the ground. The male inhabitants were all 

 put to the sword, and the women and children 

 carried into captivity. At Malatia, in Cappadocia, 

 1000 females were made prisoners; these, and the 

 natives of other towns which he reduced, were treat- 

 ed with excessive cruelty, their eyes put out, or their 

 noses and ears cut off. The arms of Motassem were 

 at that moment occupied with the revolt of the 

 Persian impostor Babec, who was taken in 837 and 

 put to an ignominious death. This fanatic had for 



VOL. II. B 



