OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 441 their pardon with an offering of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. The remainder of the province, Ramlahj^*^" Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no longer presumed to dispute the will of the conqueror ; and Syria bowed under the sceptre of the caliphs seven hundred years after Pompey had despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings. ^'^^ The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many The con- thousands of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and i^ia" a'd: the cheerfulness of martyrs ; and the simplicity of their faith ^"^^ may be expressed in the words of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for the last time, his sister and mother: "It is not," said he, " the delicacies of Syria, or the fading delights of this world, that have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion. But I seek the favour of God and his apostle ; and I have heard, from one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers, of paradise. Farewell ; we shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has provided for his elect." The faithful captives might exercise a passive and more arduous resolution ; and a cousin of Mahomet is celebrated for refusing, after an abstinence of three days, the wine and pork, the only nourishment that was allowed by the malice of the infidels. The frailty of some weaker brethren exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism ; and the father of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostacy and damnation of a son, who had renounced the promises of God and the intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with the priests and deacons, thejowest mansions of hell. The more fortunate Arabs, who survived the war and persevered in the faith, were restrained by their abstemious leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a refreshment of three days, Abu Obeidah withdrew his troops from the pernicious contagion of the luxury of Antioch, and assured the caliph that their religion and virtue could only be preserved by the hard discipline of poverty and labour. But the virtue of Omar, however rigorous to himself, was kind and 107 [The name Ramlah is of later date (8th cent.) ; at the time of the conquest the name was Rama.] ii'SSixty-hve years before Christ, Syria Pontusque monumenta sunt Cn. Pompeii virtutis (Veil. Patercul. ii. 38), rather of his fortune and power; he adjudged Syria to be a Roman province, and the last of the Seleucides were incapable of drawing a sword in defence of their patrimony (see the original texts collected by Usher, Annal. p. 420).
