CALIPHS OF BAGDAD. 31 



without confidence, and war without mercy. Quar- 

 ter was seldom given in the field ; those who escap- 

 ed the edge of the sword were condemned to hope- 

 less servitude, or cruel torture ; and a Catholic em- 

 peror 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 cap- 

 tives. 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 confederates, were exchanged for an equal num- 

 ber of Greeks; and more might have been re- 

 deemed, had not the caliph excluded from the be- 

 nefit of the cartel 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 tid- 

 ings that they had joined the respective camps of 

 their countrymen. 



Under the feeble successors of Moktader and Rha- 

 di, irruptions were occasionally made into the Gre- 

 cian territories, both by sea and land ; but, in pro- 

 portion as the Eastern World was convulsed and 

 broken, the Byzantine empire had recovered its 

 prosperity, especially after the accession of the Basi- 

 lian 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 Nicephorus 

 Phocas, a sovereign as renowned in the camp as he 

 was unpopular in the city. The twelve years' reign 

 (A. D. 963975) or military command of this prince, 



