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[69] Vasco de Gama is, in a great measure, though not exclusively, the
hero of the Lusiad.

[70] King Sebastian, who came to the throne in his minority. Though the
warm imagination of Camoens anticipated the praises of the future hero,
the young monarch, like Virgil's Pollio, had not the happiness to fulfil
the prophecy. His endowments and enterprising genius promised, indeed, a
glorious reign. Ambitious of military laurels, he led a powerful army
into Africa, on purpose to replace Muley Hamet on the throne of Morocco,
from which he had been deposed by Muley Molucco. On the 4th of August,
1578, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he gave battle to the usurper
on the plains of Alcazar. This was that memorable engagement, to which
the Moorish Emperor, extremely weakened by sickness, was carried in his
litter. By the impetuosity of the attack, the first line of the Moorish
infantry was broken, and the second disordered. Muley Molucco on this
mounted his horse, drew his sabre, and would have put himself at the
head of his troops, but was prevented by his attendants. His emotion of
mind was so great that he fell from his horse, and one of his guards
having caught him in his arms, conveyed him to his litter, where,
putting his finger on his lips to enjoin them silence, he immediately
expired. Hamet Taba stood by the curtains of the carriage, opened them
from time to time, and gave out orders as if he had received them from
the Emperor. Victory declared for the Moors, and the defeat of the
Portuguese was so total, that not above fifty of their whole army
escaped. Hieron de Mendoca and Sebastian de Mesa relate, that Don
Sebastian, after having two horses killed under him, was surrounded and
taken; but the party who had secured him, quarrelling among themselves
whose prisoner he was, a Moorish officer rode up and struck the king a
blow over the right eye, which brought him to the ground; when,
despairing of ransom, the others killed him. About twenty years after
this fatal defeat there appeared a stranger at Venice, who called
himself Sebastian, King of Portugal, whom he so perfectly resembled,
that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign.
He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles,
in which he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed
his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar.
It was objected, that the
successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been
owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the
battle. To this he replied, that his _valet de chambre_ had produced
that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the
same motive, and Mesa and Baena confess, that some of this nobility,
after their return to Portugal acknowledged that the corpse was so
disfigured with wounds that it was impossible to know it. He showed
natural marks on his body, which many remembered on the person of the
king whose name he assumed. He entered into a minute detail of the
transactions that had passed between himself and the republic, and
mentioned the secrets of several conversations with the Venetian
ambassadors in the palace of Lisbon. He fell into the hands of the
Spaniards, who conducted him to Naples, where they treated him with the
most barbarous indignities. After they had often exposed him, mounted on
an ass, to the cruel insults of the brutal mob, he was shipped on board
a galley, as a slave. He was then carried to St. Lucar, from thence to a
castle in the heart of Castile, and never was heard of more. The
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede. To the last he maintained the
truth of his assertions: a word never slipped from his lips which might
countenance the charge of imposture, or justify the cruelty of his
persecutors.

[71] Portugal, when Camoens wrote his Lusiad, was at the zenith of its
power and splendour. The glorious successes which had attended the arms
of the Portuguese in Africa, had gained them the highest military
reputation. Their fleets covered the ocean. Their dominions and
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent. From the Red Sea to China and Japan, they were sole
masters of the riches of the East; and in America, the fertile and
extensive regions of Brazil completed their empire.

[72] Lusitania is the Latin name of a Roman province which comprised the
greater part of the modern kingdom of Portugal, besides a considerable
portion of Leon and Spanish Estremadura.