3«4 Outlmes of European History The Moham- medans attack Italy and southern France prosperous and serve to explain the dark period of two hundred years which followed the break-up of Charlemagne's empire. We know how the Mohammedans had got possession of northern Africa and then conquered Spain, and how Charles Martel had frustrated their attempt to add Gaul to their pos- sessions. But this rebuff did not end their attacks on southern Europe. They got control of the Island of Sicily shortly after KiG. 150. Amphitheater at Arles in the Middle Ages The great Roman amphitheater at Aries (built probably in the first or second century) is about fifteen hundred feet in circumference. During the eighth century, when the Mohammedans were invading southern France, it was converted into a fortress. Many of the inhabitants settled inside its walls, and towers were constructed, which still stand. The pic- ture shows it before the dwellings were removed, about 1830 Slavs and Hungarians Charlemagne's death, and then began to terrorize Italy and southern France. Even Rome itself suffered from them. The accompanying picture shows how the people of Aries, in southern France, built their houses inside the old Roman amphitheater in order to protect themselves from these Moham- medan invaders. On the east the German rulers had constantly to contend with the Slavs. Charlemagne had defeated them in his time, as
