THE MYSTERIOUS KAZARS.

345 in the direction of Constantinople, but had been obliged to return in shame to Damascus. A few years afterwards, he attacked the town of Nicæa, the metropolis of Bithynia, which was protected by walls fifteen or twenty feet in thickness and thirty or forty feet in height. Here, too, he was unsuccessful.

After these struggles, there followed disturbances in Armenia, where a powerful race from beyond the Caucasus had fallen upon the possessions of the Moslems. These barbarians were known as Kazars.* At first they ravaged the border-lands with success; then they were repulsed; again, they gained a victory over the Saracens; and thus, like the weaver's shuttle, victory was thrown from side to side. The year at which these disturbances began is not determined, but they were renewed in 728, when the king of the Kazars advanced to the very gates of Mosul in Mesopotamia, not far from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. From this point they were obliged to retreat, and they crossed the Caucasus in safety. A permanent colony of Saracens was established as a protection against further inroads. The next year the troops of the kalif penetrated the country of the

* Much controversy has been waged over the origin of the Kazars. They are supposed to have been Scythians. From remote antiquity they dwelt in a region north of the Caspian, whence, in the sixth century, they made terrible incursions into Persia, even after the defiles of Daghestan had been closed by the wall and the iron gates of Kobad, the father of Chosroes, in 507 A.D. Gibbon describes this wall as being formed of stones "seven feet thick, twenty-one feet in length," framed without cement into a wall running more than "three hundred miles from the shores of Derbend over the hills and through the valleys of Daghestan and Georgia."-" Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chapter xl., par. vi.

Kazars without effecting any thing of importance. In 731, the Kazars made another invasion, but were speedily forced back again. Thus the battle waged among the half-conquered subjects to the north, until, in 743, the kalif died, and his dominions which he had not increased, fell to his nephew, Walid II., who reigned but fifteen months, and was followed by Yezid III., who died of the plague after a reign of five months. Ibrahim followed, but was deposed at the end of three months.

THE conquering career of the Saracens had come to an end. The kalif whose troops had been overthrown in their pride by Charles Martel, though he did not materially decrease the extent of the dominions received from his predecessor, handed them over to his nephew without addition. Walid II. was not at all the man to impart new life to the military movements; he had none of the qualities of a successful ruler; and as he had been away from the capital, he assumed the supreme authority ignorant of the duties it involved, and liable to make fatal mistakes at every step. He was lazy, indisposed to affairs, and gave himself up to unrestrained indulgence, carrying his dogs with him to the sacred soil of Mecca, and even drinking there the forbidden. wines. Thus his actions estranged his people from him, and when, in 743, his cousin aspired to the office of kalif, the citizens of Damascus opened their gates and received him as Yezid III. Walid at last seemed to obtain the mastery of himself, and fought a battle in which, though unsuccessful, he won some admiration for his valor.

Ten years of civil war followed; the death of Wa

lid (in 744) not serving at all to quiet the disturbances that his ill conduct had excited. Africa escaped from the kalifate; Spain was rent with discord; and above all, Korassan was filled with insidious emissaries of the faction that bore the name of Ali, stirring up hatred against all the family of the Omiades. To these disturbing elements must be added the most powerful of all, that of the descendants of the uncle of Mohammed, Abbas, son of Abd al Muttalib, known in history as the Abbassides. Their grounds for claiming the kalifate were not so strong as those of the Alyites, but they them selves were more forcible, and they were united in action, which the Alyites were not.

At the time of the troubles in Africa and Spain, in the reign of Yezid II., and Hisham, the Alyites and the Abbassides sent emissaries secretly throughout Korassan, preaching discontent and mysteriously bidding the people to expect a new apostle especially sent by Allah, who should be of the blood of the prophet. Hisham had heard of these missionaries, and had put the governors of Irak and Korassan on their guard against them. There was now a revolt at Homs (Emesa), and Palestine rose on pretext of revenging the death of Walid II. In this disturbed condition of the kalifate, Yezid III. died. His brother, Ibrahim (744), was soon overcome by a grandson of Merwan I., then governor of Irak, who ascended the throne as Merwan II. (Nov., 744).

Hardly had Merwan been saluted as kalif in the mosque at Damascus when a new revolt occurred. He had retired to Harran, which he made his resi

A REVOLT AT DAMASCUS.

349

dence, when Homs, just north of that place, though it had assisted in raising him to the throne, pronounced his deposition. Merwan intended to visit immediate and condign punishment upon the town; but he heard that a revolt had broken out almost under the walls of Damascus; in fact, he found himself in the midst of uprisings which demanded the most active efforts to repress, and he rose SO

completely to the situation that he was nicknamed from his agility "the Ass of Irak."

An apparent peace followed, and for two years it seemed as though the Omiades might hold their power a little longer; but the Alyites and the Abbassides were constant in their secret labors, and under the lead of masters of intrigue, were making sure of every step. By the year 745, they began to