Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/552

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530 APPENDIX (1260) as the ambassador of the Sultan Baybars to King JIanfred. He was a teacher of Abu-1-Fida, who lauds his wide knowledge. He wrote a history of the Ayyiibid lords of Egypt. The work which Reinaiid used for Miehaud's Bibliotheque des Croisades is either part of this history or a separate work. Abu-l-Fida, bom at Damascus a. d. 1273, belonged to the family of the lords of Hamah (a side branch of the Ayyubids). He was present at the conquest of Tri- polis in A.D. 1289 and at the siege of Acre (which fell a.d. 1291) ; and he joined in the military expeditions of his cousin Mahmud II. of Hamah. He took part also in the expeditions of the Egyptian Sultan, to whom he was always loyal. In a.d. 1310 he received himself the title of sultan, as lord of Hamah. But in this new dignity, which he was reluctant to accept, he used to go every year to Cairo to present gifts to his liege lord. He died in a. d. 1332, having ruled Hamah for eleven 3"ears. His great work, Compendium historiae generis humani, came down to A.D. 1329. (The first or pre-Moliammadan part has been edited with Lat. tr. by Fleischer in 1831 : the second, or Life of Jlohammad — ed. by Gagnier, 1723 — was translated into French by M. des Vergers, 1837.) The post-Moham- madan part of this work was edited by Reiske in 5 vols, under the title Annales Moslemici, with Lat. transl. (1789-1794) ; Gibbon had access to extracts in the Auctarium to the Vita Saladini of Schultens (1732). A resume of Abii-1-Fida's account of the Crusades will be found in vol. i. of the Recueil, Hist. Or. [F. "Wilken, Commentatio de beUorum cura ex Abulf. hist. 1798.] A large number of extracts from Armenian writers, bearing on the Crusades, are published with French translation by Dulaurier in the Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Doc. Arm. tome i. Among these is the Chronological Table (a.d. 1076-1307) of Haitum (p. 469 sqc/.), who belonged to the family of the princes of Lampron, and became Coimt of Courcy (Gorigos). He became a monk of the Praemonstratensian order in 1305 and went to Cyprus. He visited Clement V. at Avignon, and Gibbon refers to the History of the Tartars, which he dictated, at the Pope's request, in French to Nicolas Falconi, who immediately translated it into Latin. This work of " Haythonus " is extant in both forms. Among the other sources included in this collection of Dulaurier may be mentioned : a rhymed chronicle on the kings of Little Armenia, by Vahram of Edessa, of the 13th cent. (p. 493 sqq.) ; works of St. Xarses of Lampron (born 1153) ; extracts from Cyriac ( Guiragos) of Gautzac (born 1201-2), who wrote a history of Armenia ^ from the time of Gregory Illuminator to 1269-70. There are also extracts from the chronicle of Samuel of Aui, which reached from the beginning of the world to 1177-8 (p. 447 sgq.), and from its eojitiuuation up to 1339-40 : this chronicle was published in a Latin translation b3- ]Mai and Zohrab, 1818, which is reprinted in Migne's Patr. Gr. 19, p. 599 sgq. But the best known of these Armenian authors is jMatthew of Edessa, whose chronicle covers a centui-y and three quarters (a.d. 96.1-1136). VTe know nothing of the author's life, except that he flourished in the first quarter of the I2th century. His worjs is interesting as well as valuable ; his style simple, without elegance and art ; for he was a man without much cidture and had probably read little. He depended much on oral informa- tion (derived from "old men"); but he has preserved a couple of original documents (one of them is a letter of the Emperor Tzimisces to an Armenian king, c. 16). He is an ardent Armenian patriot ; he hates the Greeks as well as the Turks, and he is. not without good cause, bitter against the Frank conquerors. [French translation by Dulaurier (along with the Continuation by the priest Gregory to a.d. 1164), 1858, in the Bibliotheque hist. Armenienne. Extracts in the Recueil, p. 1 sqq.} Modern "Works. Finlay, History of Greece, vols, ii.-iv. ; Hopf, Griechische Geschichte (in Ersch und Gruber, Enzj-klopiidie, sub Grieclienland) ; Gregoro- ^ This has been translated (along with a tenth century historian, Uchtanes of Edessa) by Brosset, 1870-1.