30 



CALIPHS OF BAGDAD. 



twenty years maintained his power against the 

 liphs ; during which time he had massacred above 

 250,000 individuals. Nud, one of his officers em- 

 ployed in these executions, acknowledged that he 

 had destroyed with his own hand more than twenty 

 thousand Moslems. 



On the suppression of this rebellion, Motassem 

 conducted a formidable army into Asia Minor. 

 Ancyra was laid in ashes, and not a town or for- 

 tress belonging to the Christians could withstand 

 him. Amorium was invested ; and after an obsti- 

 nate siege of fifty-five days, and the loss of 30,000 

 Greeks, the place was betrayed by one of the inha- 

 bitants, who had abjured the Christian religion. 

 The walls were levelled with the ground, and 

 30,000 wretched captives gratified the vengeance of 

 the conqueror. Theophilus had marched to the re- 

 lief of his native city ; but he was opposed by a body 

 of ten thousand Saracens. The two armies came to 

 a general action at Dazymenum. The Arabs at 

 first were broken ; but the Greeks, in the pursuit, 

 were so galled by the arrows of the Turks, that they 

 were in their turn thrown into complete disorder ; 

 and had not the enemy's bowstrings been damp- 

 ed and relaxed by the evening rain, very few of the 

 Christians would have escaped with their emperor 

 from the field of battle. Tired of destruction, Mo- 

 tassem returned to his new palace of Samarra. 



The loss of 70,000 Moslems in the siege of Amo- 

 rium entailed a severer fate on the unhappy cap- 

 tives, who were treated like the most atrocious cri- 

 minals. Mutual necessity sometimes extorted the 

 exchange or ransom of prisoners ; but, in the re- 

 ligious conflict of these great empires, peace was 



