brandishing his weapons, denounced implacable war against the worshippers of fire. But the proposal of the silk trade was eluded; and notwithstanding the assurances, and perhaps the wishes, of the Abyssinians, these hostile menaces evaporated without effect. The Homerites were unwilling to abandon their aromatic groves, to explore a sandy desert, and to encounter, after all their fatigues, a formidable nation from whom they had never received any personal injuries. Instead of enlarging his conquests, the king of Æthiopia was incapable of defending his possessions. Abrahah, the slave of a Roman merchant of Adulis, assumed the sceptre of the Homerites; the troops of Africa were seduced by the luxury of the climate; and Justinian solicited the friendship of the usurper, who honoured, with a slight tribute, the supremacy of his prince. After a long series of prosperity, the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the gates of Mecca; his children were despoiled by the Persian conqueror; and [c. A.D. 562-572] the Æthiopians were finally expelled from the continent of Asia. This narrative of obscure and remote events is not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the world.[1]
- ↑ The revolutions of Yemen in the sixth century must be collected from Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20), Theophanes Byzant. (apud Phot. cod. lxiii. p. 80), St. Theophanes (in Chronograph, p. 144, 145, 188, 189, 206, 207, who is full of strange blunders [A.M. 6015, 6035, 6064]), Pocock (Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 62, 65), d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 12, 477), and Sale's Preliminary Discourse and Koran (c. 105). The revolt of Abrahah is mentioned by Procopius; and his fall, though clouded with miracles, is an historical fact. [See further Appendix 17.]
