ure of the harvest, were groaning under the weight of taxes, a man named Chu appeared in the south, an ex-servant of a monastery of bonzes, turned robber. By restraining his bandit companions from pillage and massacre, by applying himself to the study of the Chinese laws, by his successes, and, above all, by having on his tongue the phrase," It is the Chinese who should govern the Tartars, not the Tartars the Chinese," he aroused the nation. Placing himself at the head of the movement, he found himself able to grasp the sceptre and ascend the throne,— thus finishing the Yuen and founding the Ming dynasty, in A. D. 1364. 'My dear companions," said he, amid the universal joy, to his confederates, "we must establish good laws, and never lose sight of virtue."

He based his government on the best precedents of antiquity; admitted none to office without the ancient rigorous literary examinations; sought out genius in war, navigation, arts, sciences, or mathematics, and rewarded it like a prince. In his palace at Nanking, he lavished no sums on costly furniture, and curious foreign trifles, and inflexibly banished indecent statues and paintings. He won the hearts of mechanics, peasants, and laborers, by his affable interest in their concerns, often indemnified their losses and assisted their enterprises. Chu was indeed a superior genius: valor, piety, military science, greatness of soul, equity in the distribution of favors and employments, are the virtues and accomplishments ascribed to him; and China, spreading to her ancient boundary, saw herself once more disinthralled, and the Mongol chased back into his native wilds of Tartary.

Thither Touhan fled, and it is said "the serenity of his retreat was not disturbed by the regrets of his former subjects." Two years after, he died, having reigned thirty-five years in China and two in Tartary. His son and successors sustained many wars with the Ming dynasty, who still thought them too near neighbors, while the Tartars were stimulated to aggression by the prospect of recovering the beautiful and wealthy country they had so ignobly lost. Their territory, at first extending to the wall, was gradually narrowed to the space between the Inchan Mountains and Lake Baikal, till we find it swallowed up at length in the Manchoo empire.

The Manchoos seem to have originated by the commingling, ages ago, of the Mongols and Tungouse, in what became Manchooria, a country north of China, and somewhat similar to it in shape and size. A Chinese general, having rebelled, about A. D. 1640, subdued all the country except one province, where remained a prince faithful to the Ming dynasty. This prince, occupying one of the extreme north-eastern provinces, invited the Manchoo Tartars, his neighbors, to his assistance, and their king joined him with eighty thousand men. The rebel general fled, after burning the palace, and plundering Pekin of immense treasures. The Tartar king died immediately. His youthful son was declared emperor, under the name of Shun-chi, and commenced the Manchoo dynasty, in A. D. 1644. The frontier prince, who had engaged this formidable ally, soon found, as he expressed himself," that he had let in lions to drive out dogs;" and after a fruitless insurrection, being deserted by his confederates, he died of chagrin. His son, after vainly endeavoring to make head against the Manchoos, committed suicide.

In 1682, Kanghi, the next emperor, found China so fully subdued that he determined to visit his

405

native Tartary, which he did with seventy thousand men, and diverted himself with hunting; thus giving origin to the custom of hunting on a scale unknown before, and which still continues to be practised in those countries. He was a great encourager of learning and Christianity, in favor of which latter he published a decree, in 1692. Europeans were at his court, and attended him in his yearly hunt. But in 1716, in consequence of mandarin slanders, say the Jesuits - but others think from their political intrigues-Kanghi revived some obsolete laws against the Christians, and the Jesuits could not keep their footing in China. But these details belong to the history of China, which will be found in another place.

The Kipzak Empire, which the Volga divided in the middle, now claims a passing notice, as one of the huge fragments of the colossal empire of Zingis. It included Russia in Europe, taking tribute of the republic of Novgorod. It was bounded south by the Danube, Caucasus, and the Zagatai empire, and had the republic of Novgorod, and the kingdom of Sibir, upon the Irtish, on the north. It extended but a little way into Tartary. At first a subordinate government of one of the grandsons of Zingis, it soon became independent, as before noticed. Some seventeen, or twenty-one warlike princes are enumerated as its sovereigns. At the end of the thirteenth century, it was

*These hunts serve to exercise the troops in winter, and are of great antiquity among the Tartars. They were practised by Zingis, and are still by the Chinese emperors. The emperor commands the huntsmen to trace out a vast circle, of perhaps thirty miles in circumference. The officers then station their troops, enclosing it around; the soldiers begin their march to the sound of martial music, and continue gradually to advance towards the centre, keeping the ring within the circle; but they are forbidden to kill or wound unbroken, and thus driving before them the wild animals any of them, however ferocious they may be. They encamp every night, when all the manoeuvres are punctually executed. The march lasts many weeks; the space lessens; and the creatures, finding themselves closely pressed, flee to the mountains and forests, whence they are soon dislodged by the hunters opening their dens and kennels with spades and mattocks, and even searching them out with ferrets.

As the narrowed ring brings the bewildered animals together the strong, growing furious, devour the weak, and the air is rent with horrid howlings, yells, and screams of ferocity or agony. The soldiers are scarce able to drive the beasts forward by incessant shouts. At length, when they are pent into so small a space that they can all be seen, the drums, cymbals, and other music set up a deafening clangor. This, joined to the fierce cries of the hunters and soldiers, so terrifies and astonishes the beasts, that they lose all their ferocity; lions and tigers, bears, wolves, and wild boars crouch subdued, and endeavor to skulk one behind the other.

The great khan, accompanied by his sons and chief officers, first enters the circle, holding his drawn sabre, and bow and arrows, and begins the terrific slaughter by striking the most savage of the animals. Many of these, at their last extremity, on being wounded, resume their ferocity, and struggle hard for their lives. The sovereign now retires to an eminence, where a throne has been raised, whence he views the fight, from which no one shrinks, however great the peril. When the princes and nobles have sufficiently displayed their prowess, the youths continue the carnage.

"What yet remain

Alive, with vain assault, contend to break
Th' impenetrable line. Others, whom fear
Unnerves, with self-preserving wiles, beneath
The bodies of the slain for shelter creep.
When, lo! the bright sultanas of the court! -
Suppliant they bend, and humbly sue to save
The vanquished host. *

At beauty's high behest, the khan commands, -
Opening to right and left, the well-trained troops
Leave a large void :-impetuous forth the foe
Fly frantic, on the wings of fear upborne "

406

A son of Zingis, named Zagatai, founded the Zagatai Empire, or Transoxiana. He had received the government of a territory, which, in 1290, included Independent Tartary north of the Oxus, Balkh, the five streams of the Indus, Cashgar, and Khotan. A portion of these took the name of Usbeck, from fondness to their khan of that name. One of these Usbeck khans invaded Persia, and carried off four hundred camelloads of gold and jewels, besides other valuables, all which he gave to his soldiers. In 1368, the Indus was lost to the empire on the south; and there was a correspondent gain on the north. Twenty-five princes, descended from Zingis by Zagatai, his eldest son, have reigned over Transoxiana. Their empire continued a hundred and seventy years, till 1402, when it terminated, through dissensions among relations whose ambition was active in expelling each other from the throne. The last sovereign was only a nominal prince, who commanded some battalions of troops in the army of Tamerlane.

The conversion of one of the dependent khans of this empire, Tagalak, to Mahometanism, is amusing, and is thus told: While hunting one day, he met a Mahometan trader, whom he treated most brutally. The good Mussulman's patience affected the prince, who promised to embrace a religion capable of inspiring such virtue-a resolution soon forgotten. The efforts of the Mussulman to remind him of his promise were futile, and, being about to die, he left the completion of the deed in charge to his son.

The latter had no better success, and his endeavors to enter the palace being always frustrated, he hit upon an expedient. Ascending a neighboring acclivity, he there repeated his morning prayers, and so audibly as to wake Tagalak, who sent for the devotee, to know his reasons for this strange conduct. The prince's promise was now recalled to him, and conversion was but the affair of a moment. The courtiers of the khan followed his example, except one, who promised to become a convert on one condition. "Here," said he, "is a Mongol of extraordinary strength; if the Mahometan throws him in wrestling, I will embrace his religion." Being as well gifted with sinews as with lungs, the missionary threw the Mongol upon the floor, at the first onset. The efficacy of this instruction instantly converted both the Tartar and his champion.

The Mongol Persian Empire commenced with Hoolagoo. He was brother of Kublai, and was sent thither by their common brother, Mangoo, the great khan, in 1251. Hoolagoo cleared North Persia of the Ismaelians,* alluded to in a previous chapter, by exterminating those pests of mankind, in 1255. He subjected Iconium, took Bagdad, capturing the khalif, and possessed himself of Aleppo, Mosul, Damas

Commonly called Assassins; they inhabited mountains south-east of the Caspian, from Rhages to Khorasan; their lives were devoted to the behests of a sheik, or old man of the mountain, who sent them far and wide to assassinate whom he would. His chief abode was the Castle of Alamont. Secure in the fastnesses of Mount Demavend, and in the devotion of fanatic followers, these chiefs were long the terror of Europe and Asia. An offset of forty thousand families, col

onized on Mount Lebanon, of similar tenets and habits, were destroyed by the Mamelukes. See the History of the Assassins, p. 240.

Constantinople with four hundred thousand men, but was turned aside by the siege of Bagdad. In 1290, the empire extended from Sind to Ionia-from Syria and the Persian Gulf to the Oxus.

Bagdad, when taken by Hoolagoo, was the richest city in the world. The Tartar, having plundered every part of Persia and Babylon, hovered round this devoted city, like a hunter around his prey. The weak khalif, Mostasem, was betrayed by his own vizier, who encouraged him in a preposterous confidence, grateful to his avarice and indolence, till — a hastily collected army having been lost in an inundation caused by the enemy - the city was taken by assault. The khalif presented himself to the Tartars with the vases containing diamonds and jewelry of inestimable value, amassed by his ancestors for a long period of years. Hoolagoo immediately distributed them among the principal officers of his army.

Mostasem, the most ostentatious and inaccessible of khalifs, and most chary of his august presence, was in the habit of appearing veiled - deeming the sight of his countenance too great a boon to his people. On such occasions the abject multitude so thronged the streets that the windows and balconies were hired, at an exorbitant price, to see him pass. Through those same streets which witnessed his insane pride, exposed to the view of that same populace, did the cruel Tartar drag the fallen khalif, confined in a leather sack, till he expired. Thus fell the last of the khalifs; and Bagdad was given up to pillage for seven days.

Ahmed, who came to the throne in A. D. 1282, was chosen by the grandees, but lost their esteem by embracing Islamism. He was killed, and his nephew usurped the sovereignty. Aljaptu, (1303,) of all the princes of the race of Zingis, was the most distingnished for his love of justice and religion, which he caused to flourish throughout his dominions. He built Sultania, and made it his capital. His son Abusaid's reign (1313) was disturbed by love intrigues and court cabals. A certain nobleman, Hassan, had married the beautiful Khatun; the enamored king demanded her, for Mongol law obliged any individual to divorce his wife if the sultan wished to espouse her. Khatun's father, the general-in-chief, would not consent to her repudiation, and removed her and her husband from court. Being much beloved in Khorasan, the general was able to raise a formidable army, with which he resisted the king-but unsuccessfully. He took refuge with one who had formerly been his pupil, but who, not able to withstand the dazzling bribes of Abusaid, sent him his tutor's head. But what was the traitor's surprise, when, on coming to receive his reward, he found that Hassan had surrendered his wife to the king, and that she had acquired an unlimited ascendency over her new spouse. Instead of reward, he was well pleased to return home with his life.

The king becoming jealous of Khatun, she poisoned him, in A. D. 1337. Abusaid's death gave occasion for the ripening of disturbances—already but too common and the breaking forth of plots and conspiracies on every side. The nobles fortified themselves in the different provinces they ruled, or plundered and took up arms against each other. But all these petty sovereignties were absorbed in that of Tamerlane, which we proceed to sketch in the next chapter.

407

CHAPTER CCXI.

A. D. 1336 to 1369.

enemies the idea that his troops were numerous, and he availed himself of the terror thus excited, and

tion, and Early Exploits. "THE father of Tamerlane, or, as he is called by his countrymen, Timour," says a Persian author,* was the wise and virtuous prince Emir Tragai, and his mother the chaste and beautiful Tekine Khatun, the lawful wife of the emir." He was born near his father's capital, Kech, (Tashkent,) called by his biographer, a "delicious city," in A. D. 1336, under the reign of the Sultan Cazan, king of Zagatai.

"Prince Timour's birth had been predicted to one of his ancestors, in a dream, wherein eight stars seemed to shoot out of the sleeper, and the eighth cast so great a splendor, that it enlightened the four quarters of the world; which was interpreted to mean that a prince of his race should be born in the eighth generation, who should fill the world with the splendor of his virtues and conquests. Timour's horoscope, which was drawn at the moment of his nativity, predicted to him the crown and empire, with all manner of prosperity, and a numerous issue.'

"This prince," adds the same writer,* "from his childhood showed himself likely to accomplish the predictions of his horoscope; for as soon as he attained to the age of reason, something might be seen, in all his actions, which showed an air of sovereignty. He would talk of nothing but thrones and crowns; his favorite diversions represented the military art, in which he disposed of the youth who attended him as a prince disposes of his subjects, raising to the highest dignities those who appeared most deserving, and giv. ing to others the bare title of soldiers: he made figures of canes to represent the armies of the enemy, and then attacked them with his troops, among whom he observed a military discipline."

When he was more advanced in age, and capable of applying himself to the sterner exercises of the body, "far from choosing those pleasures which most young persons fall into, as dancing and the like, which rather effeminate than ennoble the mind, he gave himself up to the science of arms." His chief diversions were riding, racing, fencing, and such exercises. He was likewise often at the chase the only recreation he took after his continual fatigues.

expedients won confidence, and with his other qualities gained him the strong personal affection of his followers.

To secure his inheritance, he was obliged to make alliance with Hussein, a neighbor chief. Both encountered extreme perils in the perpetual wars which harassed the empire through the feuds and ambition of the several chiefs. Timour bravely exposed himself in every engagement, but knew as well how to command as how to fight. He experienced every variety of fortune, a conqueror, defeated, a prisoner, released, wounded, fleeing almost alone through deserts,* reappearing with a few vagabond troops, augmenting his forces, received in the great cities, or shut out with indignities, now on friendly terms, now at bitter feud with Hussein, his ally. In one of these contests he was wounded severely in the hand, and in another in the foot, which gave him the sobriquet of Timur Lenk, that is, Timour the Lame, corrupted into Tamerlane. At length, he grew to be more powerful than his colleague, whose jealousy, avarice, and bad qualities estranged the affection both of his troops and generals, while Timour's valor, affability, and equity captivated every heart.

Hussein, becoming jealous, attempted in every way to put Timour in the wrong, and adopted such unjustifiable measures, that Timour felt obliged to declare war against him. Being taken prisoner in Balkh, and led to Timour, the recollection of their ancient friendship melted his rival to tears, and he could only say, "I renounce my right to his life." At despotic courts there are always those ready to execute the wishes without waiting for the words of a king; some of these followed Hussein out and killed him. Tamerlane was at last confirmed, by the khan of Zagatai, in his hereditary principality of Kech, and intrusted with a battalion of ten thousand horse. Not long after, by an election to the office of khan, he found himself at the head of an empire which he afterward augmented by victories that placed him among the most renowned of conquerors.

Being driven from his inheritance, the principality of Kech, while yet a youth, Tamerlane distinguished himself by his intrepidity in several petty encounters as an adventurer, following his fortunes from place to place. He did his country good service by expelling from it a powerful army of the Getes, who invaded it from the north. With a mere handful of valiant men, aided by the stratagem of numerous camp fires on the mountains, he defeated their vast army in a desperate onset. On another occasion, he struck a panic into his foes, and took a fortified city with a small troop, whom he had ordered to tie long branches to the sides of their horses. The dust thus raised gave his

• Sherefeddin Ali, of Yezd, and a contemporary.

same heart with the most self-sufficient arrogance toward his fellow-creatures, trampling on every thing they held dear, and causing, by his flagitious ambition, the violent deaths, with more or less of misery, of millions of the human race. Such "scourges of God"

*It is told of him, that once, after three times suffering most disastrous defeats, fleeing for bare life, and abandoned by all, he had taken refuge, almost broken-hearted, in a ruined building. Sunk in despondency, he was brooding over his desperate fortunes, when his eye rested on an ant who was laboring to carry a grain to her magazine, up the opposite wall. Ninety-nine times had she essayed the labor in vain, her endeavor. The indomitable patience and perseverance but at the hundredth persevering effort, she accomplished of so trifling an insect for a paltry grain, shamed the discouragement of him who had empires at stake. He rose from the ground, braced to new energy, a new man, hazarded the fortune of another battle, and was victorious.

have not orderly, proportionate, and harmonious characters and their mission is to reduce to chaos, not to evolve order; to destroy, overturn, and unsettle, that the foundations of future progress may be laid broader, deeper, and better. The elements being more diverse, and embracing a greater multitude of particulars, may thus contribute to a wider harmony and a higher order of things.

The philanthropic mind needs some such consoling views to enable it to wade, with less disgust, through the seas of blood and misery with which these fierce and countless nomads of Asia have repeatedly flooded the earth. Tamerlane entertained, and actually expressed, the idea, that it was "neither consistent nor proper that the earth should be shared between two monarchs." His first object, therefore, was universal dominion. To live in the memory and esteem of future ages was his second wish; and this seems to have been associated in his half-enlightened mind, with the purpose of propagating what he conceived to be the true religion.

Among the early exploits of Tamerlane, it is related that once, after waiting in vain for confederates who failed to join him, he fled from the hills of Samarcand into the desert, with only sixty horsemen. He was overtaken and attacked by a thousand Getes, whom he repulsed with incredible slaughter, and forced from his

enemies the remark, prophetic of the future," Timour is a wonderful man: fortune and the divine favor are with him." Reduced to ten, his little band lost three more by desertion: he wandered in the desert, was plunged sixty-two days in a dungeon, swam the Oxus, and led the life of an outlaw; but adversity taught him valuable lessons.

Returning to his native country, certain partisans eagerly sought him, to join him in the desert. He presented himself as a guide to three chiefs, and he thus describes their recognition: "When their eyes fell upon me, they were overwhelmed with joy; and they alighted from their horses; and they came and kneeled; and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse, and took each of them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of the first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with gold, I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I clothed in my own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of prayer was arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and came to my dwelling; and I collected my people and made a feast." The touching simplicity and natural pathos of this narration is only equalled in Scripture. The scene reminds one of Esau, Jacob, and Abraham, or of David and Jonathan, in its patriarchal and primitive tone.

CHAPTER CCXII.

A. D. 1369 to A. D. 1405.

Tamerlane's Conquests - His and Death.

Government

TAMERLANE placed twenty-seven crowns upon his head successively, and made thirty-five campaigns. On the death of his khan, he was elected, as before remarked, to the empire, by the couroultai or diet. He soon united to the patrimony of Zagatai, previously described, the dependent countries of Kharasm and Kandahar, and then turned to Persia. Since Abusaid's death, that unhappy land had been without a lawful sovereign; indeed, for forty years, peace and justice had been banished from its borders. Its petty tyrants were conquered in detail. One of them brought his peace

offering of silks, horses, and jewels, composed, after the Tartar custom, each of nine pieces; there were but eight slaves in the present. "I myself am the ninth," said the servile prince; and Tamerlane rewarded the orientalism with a smile.

The valiant prince of Fars, in a battle under the walls of Shiraz, broke the main body of the emperor's horse, thirty thousand strong, with three or four thousand soldiers. Tamerlane remained near the standard with but fourteen or fifteen guards, where he received on his helmet two weighty strokes of a cimeter; but he was not beaten down. His Mongols rallied, and after a severe struggle were victorious. The head of the brave prince of Fars was thrown at Tamerlane's feet, who afterwards took care to extirpate the prince's familyevery male of so formidable a race! Advancing to the Persian Gulf, the conqueror compelled Ormuz, the island

409

On the side of Tartary, Tamerlane passed the Jaxartes, adding a broad strip of territory, north of it, to his domains, by conquering a large part of Kipzak. On the side of Cashgar, he subdued that kingdom, marching seven times into the heart of the country, and once nearly fifteen hundred miles to the north-east of Samarcand. On this side lay the Ouigoor kingdom, which, with that of Thibet, south of it, separated his empire from the Ming empire of China, and the remnant of that of the Mongols to the north of China.

66

The contest with the Kipzak empire is interesting. Tamerlane had protected its fugitive prince, and restored him to his throne; but the prince, after ten years, forgot these benefits, and marched against the 'usurper of the rights of the house of Zingis," as he called his benefactor. On the west of the Caspian, he entered Persia through the gates of Derbend, with ninety thousand horse. On the east of that sea and the Aral, gathering together the innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passed the Jaxartes, burned the palaces of Tamerlane, and compelled him, amid the snows of winter, to contend for Samarcand and his life. After a mild expostulation, continues a historian, and a glorious victory, Tamerlane resolved on revenge; and by the east and the west of the Caspian and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak with such a mighty army, that thirteen miles were measured from his right to his left wing. In a march of five months, they rarely beheld the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence was often trusted to the fortune of the chase.

At length, the armies met: the standard-bearer of Kipzak treacherously reversed the imperial standard, thus discouraging his troops, and Tamerlane was victorious. Thus, in the words of the conqueror, did the Kipzak prince give the tribe of the son of Zingis" to the winds of desolation." After burning several capitals, taking prisoner a duke of Russia, terrifying Moscow and Novgorod, and reducing Azof to ashes, the Mongols returned loaded with an immense spoil of precious furs, linens, and ingots of gold and silver. (A. D. 1383.)

In 1398, Tamerlane proposed to invade India. His soldiers murmured against the dangers and hardships of such a campaign; and talked with fear of the "rivers, mountains, deserts, soldiers in armor, elephants, destroyers of men." But the frown of their emperor was more terrible than all these, and he knew the real weakness and anarchy of Hindostan. The invading army had ninety-two squadrons of horse, and moved in three divisions. In crossing the Hindoo Mountains, at their terrible pass, multitudes of men and horses perished in the snow. At five several places, the emperor was let down a precipice on a portable scaffold, by ropes one hundred and fifty cubits long. Crossing the Indus at Attok, he advanced by a circuitous route to Delhi, a great city, which had flourished for three centuries under Mahometan kings. The weak sultan was inveigled from his strong castle and city, and came out into the plain with ten thousand cuirassiers, forty thousand foot guards, and one hundred and twenty elephants, whose tusks were armed with sharp and pointed daggers. Against these, Tamerlane

Among the incidents of this wanton inroad, in which millions perished, it is related that a city of the Ghebers, or fire-worshippers, was bargaining for its ransom; but during the delay, a breach in the walls was effected, through which the ruthless troops entered. The dispersed Ghebers themselves set fire to their houses, threw their wives, their children, and all their wealth into the flames, and perished to the last man, bravely defending themselves on the smoking ruins. Such was the fanatical butchery practised upon these ancient sectaries, the Ghebers, that it seemed a hunt, rather than a war. Those who fled to the mountains and caverns, where they thought themselves inaccessible, were dismayed to see wooden trunks suspended to iron chains at the entrance of their retreats, pouring forth fierce soldiers, who pursued them into the darkness of their caves with relentless carnage.

Previous to the battle at Delhi, Tamerlane was told that his camp was filled with prisoners, chiefly Ghebers and idolaters, - the garrisons of the cities he had taken, who, during the engagement, might escape to the enemy. "Let them be put to death," said this devout butcher of his race; and in less than an hour, upwards of one hundred thousand wretched victims were massacred. It is scarcely possible to conceive of the prodigious booty amassed by this uninterrupted plunder and devastation of the richest country in the world. Every soldier was. loaded with diamonds and jewels, and dragged in his train a multitude of slaves, of which the meanest in the ranks claimed some scores.

Insurrections in Persia called Tamerlane away from the further prosecution of this ghazi, or "holy war," as he termed it, his antagonists being chiefly non-Mahometans. After quelling the disturbances in Persia, he marched to other religious massacres in Georgia. Here his conscience did not oblige him to make nice distinctions, as all were Christians, and therefore proper victims. His soldiery scoured the rocks and caverns of Georgia, in chase of the Christians, as they had already hunted down the Ghebers, and with the same success. Tired with murderous brutality, the devastators at last accepted tribute, instead of exterminating their opponents. The whole territory of Georgia would have bowed to the yoke, had not a quarrel, rather of pique than interest, made Tamerlane turn his banners against Bajazet, emperor of the Turks.

He first, however, entered Syria, and, with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings, destroyed Damascus, and made himself master of Bagdad. These transactions we have elsewhere al luded to. The soldiers were commanded to bring each of them a head: towers of human heads were then constructed here, as had been the barbarian's custom elsewhere. At one time, he precipitated four thousand soldiers, together with their horses, into the moat of a city he had taken, who were all buried alive. In an expedition against the Getes, he once took two thousand prisoners, and had them piled upon one another alive, with bricks and mortar between, to construct