Whatever one may think of the condition of Sicily under Arab rule, the
proceedings of these strangers was wholly deplorable so far as the
mainland of Italy was concerned. They sacked and burnt wherever they
went; the sea-board of the Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Adriatic was
depopulated of its inhabitants, who fled inland; towns and villages
vanished from the face of the earth, and the richly cultivated land
became a desert; they took 17,000 prisoners from Reggio on a single
occasion--13,000 from Termula; they reduced Matera to such distress,
that a mother is said to have slaughtered and devoured her own child.
Such was their system on the mainland, where they swarmed. Their numbers
can be inferred from a letter written in 871 by the Emperor Ludwig II
to the Byzantine monarch, in which he complains that "Naples has become
a second Palermo, a second Africa," while three hundred years later, in
1196, the Chancellor Konrad von Hildesheim makes a noteworthy
observation, which begins: "In Naples I saw the Saracens, who with their
spittle destroy venomous beasts, and will briefly set forth how they
came by this virtue. . . ." [Footnote: He goes on to say, "Paulus
Apostolus naufragium passus, apud Capream insulam applicuit _[sic]_ quae
in Actibus Apostolorum Mitylene nuncupatur, et cum multis allis evadens,
ab indigenis tcrrae benigne acceptatus est." Then follows the episode of
the fire and of the serpent which Paul casts from him; whereupon the
Saracens, naturally enough, begin to adore him as a saint. In recompense
for this kind treatment Paul grants to them and their descendants the
power of killing poisonous animals in the manner aforesaid--i.e. with
their spittle--a superstition which is alive in south Italy to this day.
These gifted mortals are called Sanpaulari, or by the Greek word
Cerauli; they are men who are born either on St. Paul's night (24-25
January) or on 29 June. Saint Paul, the "doctor of the Gentiles," is a
great wizard hereabouts, and an invocation to him runs as follows:
"Saint Paul, thou wonder-worker, kill this beast, which is hostile to