confined to the family, though not limited to the eldest child, or even to legitimate children. Upon the failure of the blood royal, the election was free.

The chief officers in the administration of the Gothic government were the dukes and counts. These officers, we have seen, were known in the Roman empire before the time of Constantine. The former were the highest in military command, and the latter the first among the civil dignities. The duke, as his name imported, dux exercitus, was the commander-in-chief of the troops of the province over which he presided. There is, however, reason to believe that his office was not confined to a military command alone. He even appears to have had sometimes the supreme civil as well as military government in the province. Pantinus, in his treatise on the Gothic dignities, gives an instance from which it appears that even the higher clergy were subject to his jurisdiction.

As the office of the duke was, however, chiefly confined to military affairs, that of the comes, or count, was principally exercised in the civil. He was the highest civil judge in the province, with power of reviewing the decrees of all inferior jurisdictions. He had the power of suspending from office and punishing his subordinate judges for negligence or misdemeanor. In the absence of the count from the town or district where he presided, he named a præpositus or vicarius, to decide in ordinary matters, but with instruction to report to him all cases of difficulty. As the office of the duke infringed sometimes on that of the count in his civil power, so did that of the count upon the duke's in military; for it appears that, on sudden emergencies, the comes could summon out all the military force. This was probably when, from the distance of the residence of the duke from the extremities of the provinces, or his being engaged in the exercise of his duty in a remote quarter, there was a necessity for another to act in his place. In general, however, the office of count was that of the supreme civil judge, and that of the duke the chief military dignity; at least, it appears to have been such in Italy under the Ostrogoth princes.

The Gothic government seems then, upon the whole, to have been an absolute monarchy, of a mixed hereditary and elective nature. The nobles, it is plain, if they did not determine the succession of the crown, at least ratified it. Of this convocation of the proceres, for that purpose, we have frequent mention in the Gothic historians. These proceres were probably the body of the dukes and counts. The monarch, once elected, was absolute in the most ample sense. We do not find any laws limiting or even prescribing his powers; and it is certain that the nomination of all dignities, offices, and magistracies, was in the sovereign. He imposed tributes and taxes at his discretion; and could condemn capitally without form of trial. Of this we have a strong instance

in Theodoric the Great, which is the only stain upon his memory -the condemnation of the philosopher Boetius and the senator Symmachus, on slight suspicions of treasonable designs—a procedure which only an absolute and despotic power in the sovereign could have warranted.

Here we close our review of what may properly be called Ancient History.

BOOK THE SIXTH.

CHAPTER I.

ARABIA-Ancient Manners and Religion -Rise of Mahomet-His DoctrinesConquests-Death-Causes which contributed to the rapid progress of his Religion-Conquests of the Successors of Mahomet-change in the National Character after the removal of the Seat of Empire to Bagdad-Learning of the

Arabians.

Ar the period of the extinction of the Roman power in the West, the Eastern empire was in a state of weakness, apparently fast verging to a fate similar to that which the Western had undergone; but its catastrophe was not yet at hand, and was to come from a different quarter. A small spark of superstition, kindling, in the meantime, in the heart of Arabia, produced a new religion, and a new empire which arose to a very high degree of splendor. To that quarter, therefore, we now turn our attention, to mark the rise of the Mahometan superstition, and the foundation of the empire of the Saracens.

Arabia is a large peninsula, divided in the middle by the tropic of Cancer. It is bounded on the north by Syria and Palestine; on the south, by the Indian Ocean; on the east, by the Gulfs of Bassora and Ormuz; and on the west, by the Red Sea, which separates it from Egypt. It is divided into three parts: Arabia Petræa, which, as its name implies, is a barren and rocky country, bordering on the Red Sea; Arabia Deserta, so named from the sandy deserts with which it abounds, is adjacent to the Gulf of Ormuz; and Arabia Felix, a comparatively fertile and delightful clime, forms the southern part of the Peninsula.

Before the period of which we now treat, the Arabians had lived chiefly in independent tribes, and were almost unknown to other nations. The inhabitants of the interior part of the country were mostly shepherds; and those of the coasts and frontiers, pirates and plunderers. They lived in tents, and occasionally migrated from one country to another, without laws or any established police, and acknowledging no superior but the head of their tribe. Their manners are described as being, beyond measure, barbarous; their religion an incoherent assemblage of all the

superstitions with which the neighboring countries abounded. They had a confused tradition, that they were descended from the Patriarch Abraharn; and they retained, of the Jewish religion, the ceremony of circumcision, ablutions, and the horror for certain meats, which they regarded as unclean. With these rites, they combined the worship of idols, and the belief of three goddesses of equal power and wisdom, and co-existent with the Supreme Being.

The city of Mecca was the residence of the chief of these idols. A small square edifice, or temple, called the Caabba, was held throughout all Arabia to be a place of the most supreme sanctity. Within this temple was a stone, which was the peculiar object of veneration, and was said to have descended from Heaven, in those days of innocence when man was free from guilt as he came from the hands of his Creator. The stone was then white, but gradually became sullied, as man became more wicked, till at last it grew entirely black. From the pilgrimages which it was customary to make to this temple, and the riches it brought thither, Mecca became the most considerable city of Arabia.

The wandering tribes had a sort of rank, or settled preëminence among themselves, though we know of no head whom they all obeyed. One of the principal of these tribes was that of Koreish; yet it does not appear to have been remarkably flourishing at the time of the appearance of Mahomet; for he, though a prince of that race, was born to no ampler inheritance than an Ethiopian slave and five camels.

This extraordinary person was born in the year 571 of the Christian era.* His father died before his birth, his mother when he was but a few years old; and his relations put him into the service of a woman of the name of Cadigha, who traded into Syria. In his intercourse with this country, he had opportunities of observing the manners of a nation more polished than his own, and felt the defects of his own education, for as yet he could neither read nor write. Syria was at this time a Roman province. He was struck with the manners of the people, their laws, their government and policy. His mind was of that reflecting turn which profits by every observation. It is probable that in this country, where he found a mixture of Jews and Christians, his thoughts first turned upon religion; and finding that the gross superstition and idolatry of his own country offered ample room for a reformation, which presented the most flattering objects to an ambitious mind, he began to conceive the project of establishing a new religion. Christianity presented a system of the most beautiful morality; but, the religious notions of his countrymen inclining to Judaism, he thought it advisable to retain some great

The precise era of his birth has been much disputed, and has been fixed, by different authors, at various periods from the year 560 to the year 620 of the Christian era. The date given in the text is that now most commonly adopted.

features likewise of that ceremonial, as well as certain idle customs and ceremonies to which the Arabians had long been addicted; such as the pilgrimage to the temple of Mecca, and the adoration of the black-stone. His most politic idea was the thought of attracting proselytes to his new religion, by accommodating it, as much as possible, to the voluptuous spirit of his countrymen. But as yet the whole system was, probably, only a dream, which the poverty and obscurity of its author could give him very little prospect of ever realizing.

Mahomet, however, was fortunate enough to insinuate himself into the good graces of his mistress, Cadigha, and, marrying her, he saw himself raised to a situation which made him one of the most considerable men of his country. Instead of abandoning his former project, he considered his new situation as only a stronger incentive to the prosecution of his plan, which his influence and fortune promised materially to facilitate. He began, therefore, to put his scheme in practice. He endeavored to remedy the defects of his education, by acquiring some knowledge of letters. He affected a solitary life; bestowed a great deal in charity; retired, at times, to the desert, and pretended that he held conferences with the angel Gabriel. The epilepsy, a disease to which he was subject, was, he pretended, a divine ecstasy, or rapture, in which he was admitted to the contemplation of Paradise. He made his wife an accomplice in the cheat, and she published his visions and reveries to all the neighborhood. In a short time the whole city of Mecca talked of nothing but Mahomet. He began to harangue in public; and his natural eloquence, which was wonderfully animated, joined with a noble, commanding, and majestic figure, gained him many proselytes.

*

This was the substance of the religion, which he held forth as a new revelation. He taught that mankind should acknowledge one God, without division of substance, or of persons; an eternal and all-powerful being, Creator of the universe ;-That the laws of this being, whose beneficence is equal to his power, are such as tend universally to the happiness of his creatures;-That the duty which man owes to God is to pray seven times a day; to honor him by such ceremonies as are figurative of his bounties; to love all mankind, as members of one family; to assist the poor and protect the injured; and to show kindness even to inferior animals. To these precepts, which it must be owned are excellent, Mahomet joined others, which recommended his doctrine to the passions of his followers. He was himself of an amorous and voluptuous constitution. The pleasures of love were, by the religion of Mahomet, held forth as a duty in this life, and the highest reward for the good Mussulman in a future state. He permitted his followers to have four wives, and as many slaves for their concubines as they

* See Sale's Koran, Preliminary Discourse, Section 4th,