gloss · the reading room

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · ¶179

After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual supremacy of the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience broke forth in the province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of Aglab, the lieutenant of the vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed to the dynasty of the Aglabites the inheritance of his name and power. The indolence or policy of the caliphs dissembled the injury and loss, and pursued only with poison the founder of the Edrisites, who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on the shores of the Western ocean. In the East, the first dynasty was that of the Taherites; the posterity of the valiant Taher, who, in the civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served with too much zeal and success the cause of Almamon, the younger brother. He was sent into honorable exile, to command on the banks of the Oxus; and the independence of his successors, who reigned in Chorasan till the fourth…
Read in context ›

Edward Gibbon · Project Gutenberg #735 (Milman edition) — public domain
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.