quotidie innumerae tribulationes premunt.--Vacua jam ardet Roma. Quid autem ista de hominibus dicimus? Cum ruinis crebrescentibus ipsa quoque destrui aedificia videmus. Postquam defecerunt homines etiam parietes cadunt. Jam ecce desolata, ecce contrita, ecce gemitibus oppressa est,_ &c. All this was spoken by _Gregory_ to the people of _Rome_, who were witnesses of the truth of it. Thus by _the plagues of the four winds_, the Empire of the _Greeks_ was shaken, and the Empire of the _Latins_ fell; and _Rome_ remained nothing more than the capital of a poor dukedom, subordinate to _Ravenna_, the seat of the Exarchs. The fifth trumpet sounded to the wars, which the _King of the_ South, as he is called by _Daniel_, made _in the time of the end_, in _pushing at the King who did according to his will_. This plague began with the _opening of the bottomless pit_, which denotes the letting out of a false religion: the _smoke which came out of the pit_, signifying the multitude which embraced that religion; and the _locusts which came out of the smoke_, the armies which came out of that multitude. This pit was opened, to let out smoke and locusts into the regions of the four monarchies, or some of them. _The King of these locusts_ was the _Angel of the bottomless pit_, being chief governor as well in religious as civil affairs, such as was the Caliph of the _Saracens_. Swarms of locusts often arise in _Arabia faelix_, and from thence infest the neighbouring nations: and so are a very fit type of the numerous armies of _Arabians_ invading the _Romans_. They began to invade them A.C. 634, and to reign at _Damascus_ A.C. 637. They built _Bagdad_ A.C. 766, and reigned over _Persia_, _Syria_, _Arabia_, _Egypt_, _Africa_ and _Spain_. They afterwards lost _Africa_ to _Mahades_, A.C. 910; _Media_, _Hircania_, _Chorasan_, and all _Persia_, to the _Dailamites_, between the years 927 and 935; _Mesopotamia_ and _Miafarekin_ to _Nasiruddaulas_, A.C. 930; _Syria_ and _Egypt_ to _Achsjid_, A.C. 935, and now being in great distress, the Caliph of _Bagdad_, A.C. 936, surrendred all the rest of his temporal power to _Mahomet_ the son of _Rajici_, King of _Wasit_ in _Chaldea_, and made him Emperor of Emperors. But _Mahomet_ within two years lost _Bagdad_ to the _Turks_; and thenceforward _Bagdad_ was sometimes in the hands of the _Turks_, and sometimes in the hands of the _Saracens_, till _Togrul-beig_, called also _Togra_, _Dogrissa_, _Tangrolipix_, and _Sadoc_, conquered _Chorasan_ and _Persia_; and A.C. 1055, added _Bagdad_ to his Empire, making it the seat thereof. His successors _Olub-Arflan_ and _Melechschah_, conquered the regions upon _Euphrates_; and these conquests, after the death of _Melechschah_, brake into the kingdoms of _Armenia_, _Mesopotamia_, _Syria_, and _Cappadocia_. The whole time that the Caliphs of the _Saracens_ reigned with a temporal dominion at _Damascus_ and _Bagdad_ together, was 300 years, viz. from the year 637 to the year 936 inclusive.