39b'

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

power of its assailants, or at best submitting to the most arbitrary and impe-rious measures which they should think proper to impose.

After the death of Constans, who was murdered in a bath at Syracuse *, inrevenge for the various, and dreadful acts of oppression, which he was in thedaily habit of exercising towards the people, the Saracens again united theirarms in consequence of some violence offered to one, or other of their garrisons.Africa, which was the first unhappy object of their vengeance, was dreadfullyravaged, and the fury of the assailants imperfectly glutted, though the blood ofmultitudes was shed to allay it, and the plunder of the cities, with the captureof more than fourscore thousand prisoners, who became slaves, might have beenconsidered as a sufficient peace-offering to their ferocity and avarice. Sicily, inthe following year,' became the scene of their devastations. After having inthe most outrageous manner committed the most unqualified depredations, andhearly desolated the whole island, they proceeded, with a similar intention, toCilicia. After passing the winter at Smyrna, they entered Thrace in themonth of April, 672 : from thence they proceeded towards Constantinople, thesiege of which city was immediately undertaken. The attempt, however, wascontinued for a very short space of time only, ere the approach of winter ren-dered it necessary for the assailants to retire to Cyzicus, and wait the return ofa more favourable season for the renewal of their hostile operations. Theevents of the second year were no more favourable to conquest than thoseof the first had been ; and a similar repetition, during a long, and, accordingto some authors, reiterated campaign seven times renewed -|-, proved equallyinauspicious to the Saracen cause.

, It was on this occasion that the Greek fire as it was called by some, andby -others the sea fire, on account of its possessing the wonderful and destructive

property

* * About the year 668, twenty years after the conquest of Cyprus by Mathuvias.

f Others insist, that a peace was concluded between the Romans and the Saracens after the fourthyear of the siege.

J The following particular account is given by Mr. Gibbon of this extraordinary and destructivecomposition.—“ In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be chiefly ascribed to the"noveltv, the terrors, and the real efficacy of the Greek fire. The important secret of compounding anddirecting this artificial flame, was imparted by Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis, in Syria, who desertedfrom the service of the caliph, to that of the emperor. The skill of a chymist and engineer was equi-valent to the succour of fleets and armies, and this discovery or improvement of the military art wasfortunately reserved for the distressful period when the degenerate Romans of the East were incapable

of