Instead of enlarging his conquests, the king of Aethiopia was incapable of defending his possessions.

Abrahah, [9912] the slave of a Roman merchant of Adulis, assumed the sceptre of the Homerites,; the troops of Africa were seduced by the luxury of the climate; and Justinian solicited the friendship of the usurper, who honored with a slight tribute the supremacy of his prince.

After a long series of prosperity, the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the gates of Mecca; and his children were despoiled by the Persian conqueror; and the Aethiopians were finally expelled from the continent of Asia.

This narrative of obscure and remote events is not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire.

If a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the world.
[100] [1001] [Footnote 92: See Buffon, Hist.