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have
established a legal protectorate over the holy places, and even, in time,
himself to have made the pilgrimage thither. To the Franks of later generations
their right to rule in Jerusalem had been acknowledged and endorsed.
     
    Charlemagne and
Palestine
    The eastern Christians were more nearly
interested in the renascence of Byzantine power. In the early ninth century the
Empire had still been on the defensive. Sicily and Crete were lost to the
Moslems; and almost every year saw some great Arab raid into the heart of Asia
Minor. In the middle of the century, largely owing to the prudent economies of
the Empress-Regent Theodora, the Byzantine navy was reorganized and
re-equipped. Thanks to its strength, Byzantine dominion over southern Italy and
Dalmatia was soon reaffirmed. Early in the tenth century the Abbasid Caliphate
began rapidly to decline. Local dynasties arose, of which the chief were the
Hamdanids of Mosul and Aleppo and the Ikshids of Egypt. The former were fine
fighters and fervent Moslems, and for a time formed a bulwark against Byzantine
aggression. But they could not stop the decay of Moslem power. Rather, they
added to it by encouraging civil wars. In the course of these civil wars the
Ikshids won control of Palestine and southern Syria. The Byzantines were quick
to take advantage of the situation. Their offensive was cautious at first; but
by 945, in spite of the prowess of the Hamdanid prince, Saif ad-Daula, their
general, John Curcuas, had won for the Empire towns and districts in upper
Mesopotamia that had not seen a Christian army for three centuries. After 960,
when the great soldier, Nicephorus Phocas, took command of the imperial army,
things moved faster. In 961 Nicephorus recaptured Crete. In 962 he campaigned
on the Cilician frontier and took Anazarbus and Marash (Germanicia) thus
isolating Moslem Cilicia. In 963 Nicephorus was engaged at home, planning the coup
d’etat that brought him, with the help of the army and the Empress-Regent,
to the throne. In 964 he returned to the East. In 965 he completed the conquest
of Cilicia; and an expedition sent to Cyprus re-established absolute Byzantine
control of the island. In 966 he campaigned on the middle Euphrates, to cut
communications between Aleppo and Mosul. The whole Christian East was aroused
and saw deliverance at hand. The Patriarch John of Jerusalem wrote to him,
urging him to hasten down to Palestine. But such treason proved for once too
much for the patience of the Moslems. John was arrested and burnt at the stake
by the furious population.
    John’s hopes were premature. In 967 and 968
Nicephorus was busy on his northern frontier. But in 969 he led his army
southward again, right into the heart of Syria. He marched up the Orontes
valley, capturing and sacking, one after the other, the great towns of Shaizar,
Hama and Homs, and crossing to the coast to the suburbs of Tripoli. He then
returned northward, leaving Tortosa, Jabala and Lattakieh in flames behind him,
while his lieutenants besieged Antioch and Aleppo. The ancient metropolis of
Antioch was taken in October. Aleppo surrendered at the end of the year.
    Antioch, where the Christians probably
outnumbered the Moslems, was absorbed into the Empire; and it seems that the
Moslems were obliged to emigrate from its territory. Aleppo, which was almost
entirely a Moslem city, became a vassal state. The treaty made with its ruler
carefully delineated the frontier between the new imperial province and the
tributary towns. The ruler of Aleppo was to be nominated by the Emperor. The
vassal state was to pay heavy taxes, from which the Christians were to be
exempt, directly to the imperial treasury. Special privileges and protection
was to be given to imperial merchants and caravans. These humiliating terms
seemed to foreshadow the end of Moslem power in Syria.
     
    The Emperor John
Tzimisces
    Before Aleppo had fallen the Emperor was
murdered in Constantinople by his Empress and her lover, his