All became the prey of the conqueror. The value of the booty was immense. Hardly a patrician family could be found in all Sicily which did not mourn the captivity of some relative or friend. The children of nobles who traced their genealogy to the most brilliant epoch of Roman grandeur were ruthlessly consigned to the guard-rooms and the harems of Moorish captains. The loss of Castrogiovanni was the greatest calamity which had befallen the Sicilians since the Saracens first landed on the island. The customary changes instituted by the latter on the capture of a city were perfected without delay, the churches were purified and turned into mosques, the estates of the vanquished were partitioned among the principal officers, the tribute of the surviving citizens was regulated, the slaves were apportioned among their new masters, and the plunder was classified and divided according to the regulations of Islam. The boundless exultation of the victors led them to set apart, in addition to the usual fifth of the spoil due to the Sultan, a portion of the richest booty and a number of the most beautiful captives for the Khalif of Bagdad, whose supremacy was not acknowledged by the Moorish princes of the West. Thus in the hour of triumph these sanguinary fanatics, many of whom recognized no law but that of force, and no faith save the idolatrous worship proscribed by the Koran, could forget the national hatred engendered by generations of hostility and the acrimony of religious controversy, in their magnanimous desire to honor the Successor of the Prophet, the most exalted potentate of the Mohammedan world.