The cruelty with which the ascendency of each triumphant faction was celebrated familiarized the Sicilians with scenes of blood, and impressed itself indelibly upon the national character, while the innate love of rapine, common to Arab and Berber alike, still survives in the irrepressible brigandage of to-day. The greatest opportunity ever afforded the Moslems for the conquest and conversion of Europe was lost by the irresolution of the Sultans of Africa, and by the perpetual discord which exhausted the strength and dissipated the resources of Sicily. After acknowledgment in turn of the suzerainty of Aghlabite, Abbaside, and Fatimite princes, the mutual persecution of religious sects, and the long toleration of the feuds of antagonistic races, the Sicilian emirate finally attained to independence, based upon the law of hereditary succession. But this new political condition brought no peace to the unhappy island. Every captain of banditti, every ambitious courtier, considered himself eligible to a dignity which could claim in reality no better title than that given by the sword. The country was divided into numerous states agitated by petty jealousies and incapable of concerted action in an hour of national peril. The city of Syracuse, which had been partially rebuilt and, despite the unsettled affairs of the times, had once more become an important seaport, was in the year 1060 the capital of Ibn-Thimna, who exercised a nominal authority over the larger portion of the island. A domestic quarrel brought him in collision with Ibn-Hawwasci, the governor of Castrogiovanni; a battle was fought, the army of Ibn-Thimna was destroyed, and the conqueror succeeded to the dignity and the dominions of his vanquished rival. Consumed with hatred and regardless of consequences, Ibn-Thimna then solicited the aid of a band of adventurers whose prowess was widely renowned throughout Europe, and the exploits of whose ancestors in former ages had caused them to be considered the scourge of civilization and the implacable enemies of the human race.