The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbors of Palermo, Biserta, and Tunis; a hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and Campania were attacked and pillaged; nor could the suburbs of Rome be defended by the name of the Caesars and apostles.

Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet.

But the caliphs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads.
In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn and mournful recollection.

A fleet of Saracens from the African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the Christian world.

The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and temples of St.Peter and St.Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and of the Ostian way.