402 THE DECLINE AND FALL of their enemies. ^'^ After a century of ignorance, the first annals of the Musulmans were collected in a great measure from the voice of tradition.il Among the numerous productions of Arabic and Persian literature,'- our interpreters have selected the im- perfect sketches of a more recent age.^"" The art and genius of history have ever been unknown to the Asiatics ; i* they are igno- rant of the laws of criticism ; and our monkish chronicles of the ^opor the viith and viiith century, we hare scarcely any original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the Chronicles of Theophanes (Theophanis Confessoris Chronographia, Gr. et Lat. cum notis Jacobi Goar. Paris, 1655, in folio), and the Abridgment of Nicephorus (Nicephori Patriarchse C. P. Breviarium Historicum, Gr. et Lat. Paris, 1648, in folio), who both lived in the beginning of the ixth century (see Hanckius de Scriptor. Byzant. p. 200-246). Their con- temporary Photius does not seem to be more opulent. After praising the style of Nicephorus, he adds, Kal oAws ttoAAoOs ecm Twr nph avToii aTTOKpvTTTOfjLei'o^ ^V^' Tigs ioTopias Tj) (Tvyypaifirj, and Only complains of his extreme brevity (Phot. Bibliot. cod. Ixvi. p. 100). Some additions may be gleaned from the more recent histories of Cedrenus and Zonaras of the xiith century. [An earlier source than any, either Greek or Arabic, is the chronicle of John of Nikiu in an Ethiopic version. See Appendix i.] ^I'Fabari, or Al Tabari, a native of Taborestan, a famous Imam of Bagdad, and the Livy of the Arabians, finished his general history in the year of the Hegira 302 (a.D. 914). At the request of his friends, he reduced a work of 30,000 sheets to a more reasonable size. But his Arabic original is known only by the Persian and Turkish versions. The Saracenic history of Ebn .^mid or Elniacin [Ibn al- Amid al-Mekin] is said to be an abridgment of the great Tabari (Ockley's Hist, of the Saracens, vol. ii. preface, p. xxxix. and list of authors ; d'Herbelot, p. 866, 870, 1014). [See Appendix i.] 1- Besides the list of authors framed by Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 179-189), Ockley (at the end of his second volume), and Petit de la Croix (Hist, de Gengiscan, p. 525-550), we find, in the Bibliotheque Orientale Tarikli, a catalogue of two or three hundred histories or chronicles of the East, of which not more than three or four are older than Tabari. A lively sketch of Oriental literature is given by Reiske (in his Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifae librum memorialem ad calcem Abulfedas Tabulae Syrise, Lipsias, 1766) ; but his project and the French version of Petit de la Croix (Hist, de Timur Bee. torn. i. preface, p. xlv.) have fallen to the ground. ^^The particular historians and geographers will be occasionally introduced. The four following titles represent the annals which have guided me in this gcner.1l narrative, i. A/males Eutychii, Patriarcho' Alexandritii, ab Edivardo Pocockic, Oxon. 1656, 2 vols, in 4to. A pompous edition of an indifferent author, translated by Pocock to gratify the Presbyterian prejudice of his friend Selden. 2. Historia Saracenica Georgii Ehnacini, opera cl studio Thomae Erpini, in 4to, Lugd. Bata- von/iit, 1625. He is said to have hastily translated a corrupt Ms. and his version is often deficient in style and sense. 3. Historia compendiosa Dyitastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edwardo Pocockio, in 4to, Oxon. 1663. More useful for the literary than the civil history of the East. 4. Abulfedae Annates Moslcmici ad Ann. Hegirae ccccvi. a Jo. Jac. Rciskc, in 4to, Lipsiae, 1754. The best of our chronicles, both for the original and version, yet how far below the name of Abulfeda ! We know that he wrote at Hamah, in the xivth century. The three former were Christians of the xth, xiith, and xiiith centuries ; the two first, natives of ligypt, a Melchite patriarch and a Jacobite scribe. '■I M. du Guignes (Hist, des Huns, tom. i. pref. p. xix. xx.)has characterized, with truth and knowledge, the two sorts of Arabi.an historians : the dry annalist and the tumid and flowery orator.
