Gibbon, in his narrative of these great events, makes this remark: "A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire--a repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland." INSULT TO ROME.

It is not necessary for me to add to this sketch of the military diffusion of Mohammedanism, the operations of the Saracens on the Mediterranean Sea, their conquest of Crete and Sicily, their insult to Rome.

It will be found, however, that their presence in Sicily and the south of Italy exerted a marked influence on the intellectual development of Europe.
Their insult to Rome! What could be more humiliating than the circumstances under which it took place (A.D.

846)?
An insignificant Saracen expedition entered the Tiber and appeared before the walls of the city.

Too weak to force an entrance, it insulted and plundered the precincts, sacrilegiously violating the tombs of St.Peter and St.Paul.
Had the city itself been sacked, the moral effect could not have been greater.