At the nuptials of the same prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on the head of the bride, and a lottery of lands and houses displayed the capricious bounty of fortune.

The glories of the court were brightened, rather than impaired, in the decline of the empire, and a Greek ambassador might admire, or pity, the magnificence of the feeble Moctader.

"The caliph's whole army," says the historian Abulfeda, "both horse and foot, was under arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty thousand men.

His state officers, the favorite slaves, stood near him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and gems.

Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of them white, the remainder black.