LV. The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part III…

LV. The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part III

But the same communication which had been opened for the benefit, was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was various, but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same in these naval expeditions. 56 The Russian traders had seen the magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of the Caesars. A marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which their climate denied; they coveted the works of art, which they were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase; the Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure, and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt in the northern isles of the ocean. 57 The image of their naval armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same seas for a similar purpose. 58 The Greek appellation of monoxyla, or single canoes, might justly be applied to the bottom of their vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech or willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length of sixty, and the height of about twelve, feet. These boats were built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men, with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but when the national force was exerted, they might arm against Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigor to prevent, perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their first enterprise 59 under the princes of Kiow, they passed without opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in the absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus. Through a crowd of perils, he landed at the palace-stairs, and immediately repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary. 60 By the advice of the patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn from the sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable tempest, which determined the retreat of the Russians, was devoutly ascribed to the mother of God. 61 The silence of the Greeks may inspire some doubt of the truth, or at least of the importance, of the second attempt by Oleg, the guardian of the sons of Ruric. 62 A strong barrier of arms and fortifications defended the Bosphorus: they were eluded by the usual expedient of drawing the boats over the isthmus; and this simple operation is described in the national chronicles, as if the Russian fleet had sailed over dry land with a brisk and favorable gale. The leader of the third armament, Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a moment of weakness and decay, when the naval powers of the empire were employed against the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the instruments of defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water; and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his disgrace and claim his revenge. 63 After a long peace, Jaroslaus, the great grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But in the rashness of pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks was encompassed by an irresistible multitude of boats and men; their provision of fire was probably exhausted; and twenty-four galleys were either taken, sunk, or destroyed. 64

56 (return) [ The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth, xth, and xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals, especially those of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their testimonies are collected in the Russica of Stritter, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 939-1044.]

57 (return) [ Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]

58 (return) [ See Beauplan, (Description de l’Ukraine, p. 54-61: ) his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except the circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for modern Cosacks.]

59 (return) [ It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265-391.) After disentangling some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the years 864 or 865, a date which might have smoothed some doubts and difficulties in the beginning of M. Leveque’s history.]

60 (return) [ When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently ripe.]

61 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini Continuator in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162.]

62 (return) [ See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque’s Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 74-80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75-79) uses his advantage to disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the siege of Kiow by the Hungarians.]

63 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p. 263, 264 Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588, 589. Cedren tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and Liutprand, l. v. c. 6, who writes from the narratives of his father-in-law, then ambassador at Constantinople, and corrects the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.]

64 (return) [ I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758, 759) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more weighty and credible as they draw near to their own times.]

Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks; their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the hoary sages. “Be content,” they said, “with the liberal offers of Caesar; is it not far better to obtain without a combat the possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of water, and a common death hangs over our heads.” 65 The memory of these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By the vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should become masters of Constantinople. 66 In our own time, a Russian armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date unquestionable.

65 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 87.]

66 (return) [ This brazen statue, which had been brought from Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P. p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri, Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100. They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is immaterial.]

By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and as they fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions must often have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the Scythian hordes. Yet their growing towns, however slight and imperfect, presented a shelter to the subject, and a barrier to the enemy: the monarchy of Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed the dominion of the North; and the nations from the Volga to the Danube were subdued or repelled by the arms of Swatoslaus, 67 the son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric. The vigor of his mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a military and savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually slept on the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was coarse and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, 68 his meat (it was often horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals. The exercise of war gave stability and discipline to his army; and it may be presumed, that no soldier was permitted to transcend the luxury of his chief. By an embassy from Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, he was moved to undertake the conquest of Bulgaria; and a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of gold was laid at his feet to defray the expense, or reward the toils, of the expedition. An army of sixty thousand men was assembled and embarked; they sailed from the Borysthenes to the Danube; their landing was effected on the Maesian shore; and, after a sharp encounter, the swords of the Russians prevailed against the arrows of the Bulgarian horse. The vanquished king sunk into the grave; his children were made captive; and his dominions, as far as Mount Haemus, were subdued or ravaged by the northern invaders. But instead of relinquishing his prey, and performing his engagements, the Varangian prince was more disposed to advance than to retire; and, had his ambition been crowned with success, the seat of empire in that early period might have been transferred to a more temperate and fruitful climate. Swatoslaus enjoyed and acknowledged the advantages of his new position, in which he could unite, by exchange or rapine, the various productions of the earth. By an easy navigation he might draw from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and hydromed: Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the spoils of the West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and the foreign luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain. The bands of Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the standard of victory; and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed his trust, assumed the purple, and promised to share with his new allies the treasures of the Eastern world. From the banks of the Danube the Russian prince pursued his march as far as Adrianople; a formal summons to evacuate the Roman province was dismissed with contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that Constantinople might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a master.

67 (return) [ The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or Sphendosthlabus, is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M. Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 94-107.)]

68 (return) [ This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth book of the Iliad, (205-221,) in the minute detail of the cookery of Achilles. By such a picture, a modern epic poet would disgrace his work, and disgust his reader; but the Greek verses are harmonious—a dead language can seldom appear low or familiar; and at the distance of two thousand seven hundred years, we are amused with the primitive manners of antiquity.]

Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John Zimisces, 69 who, in a diminutive body, possessed the spirit and abilities of a hero. The first victory of his lieutenants deprived the Russians of their foreign allies, twenty thousand of whom were either destroyed by the sword, or provoked to revolt, or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but seventy thousand Barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had been recalled from the new conquests of Syria, prepared, with the return of the spring, to march under the banners of a warlike prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the injured Bulgaria. The passes of Mount Haemus had been left unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was formed of the immortals, (a proud imitation of the Persian style;) the emperor led the main body of ten thousand five hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow and cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or Peristhlaba, 70 in two days; the trumpets sounded; the walls were scaled; eight thousand five hundred Russians were put to the sword; and the sons of the Bulgarian king were rescued from an ignominious prison, and invested with a nominal diadem. After these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired to the strong post of Drista, on the banks of the Danube, and was pursued by an enemy who alternately employed the arms of celerity and delay. The Byzantine galleys ascended the river, the legions completed a line of circumvallation; and the Russian prince was encompassed, assaulted, and famished, in the fortifications of the camp and city. Many deeds of valor were performed; several desperate sallies were attempted; nor was it till after a siege of sixty-five days that Swatoslaus yielded to his adverse fortune. The liberal terms which he obtained announce the prudence of the victor, who respected the valor, and apprehended the despair, of an unconquered mind. The great duke of Russia bound himself, by solemn imprecations, to relinquish all hostile designs; a safe passage was opened for his return; the liberty of trade and navigation was restored; a measure of corn was distributed to each of his soldiers; and the allowance of twenty-two thousand measures attests the loss and the remnant of the Barbarians. After a painful voyage, they again reached the mouth of the Borysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted; the season was unfavorable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and oppressed by the neighboring tribes with whom the Greeks entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. 71 Far different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviors of ancient Rome. But the merit of the victory was attributed by the pious emperor to the mother of God; and the image of the Virgin Mary, with the divine infant in her arms, was placed on a triumphal car, adorned with the spoils of war, and the ensigns of Bulgarian royalty. Zimisces made his public entry on horseback; the diadem on his head, a crown of laurel in his hand; and Constantinople was astonished to applaud the martial virtues of her sovereign. 72

69 (return) [ This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I may be indulged in the question in the play, “Pray, which of you is the interpreter?” From the context, they seem to signify Adolescentulus, (Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar. Graec. p. 1570.) * Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives another derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag, which means a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the East. He was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written in Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr’s Byzant. Hist.—M.]

70 (return) [ In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus and the Lower Danube, it appears to fill the ground, or at least the station, of Marcianopolis. The situation of Durostolus, or Dristra, is well known and conspicuous, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]

71 (return) [ The political management of the Greeks, more especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]

72 (return) [ In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968-973) is more authentic and circumstantial than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660-683) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 205-214.) These declaimers have multiplied to 308,000 and 330,000 men, those Russian forces, of which the contemporary had given a moderate and consistent account.]

Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on the conversion of the Russians. 73 Those fierce and bloody Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of Russian Christianity. 74 A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the superior majesty of the purple. 75 In the sacrament of baptism, she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater; and the father, who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife, was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult. Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep, though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people: the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to baptize: and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St. Sophia: the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. 76 But the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the brother of his spouse; but the brazen gates were transported, as it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church as a trophy of his victory and faith. 77 At his despotic command, Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long adored, was dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy Barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of Wolodomir had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his boyars. In the next generation, the relics of Paganism were finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave, and sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.

73 (return) [ Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut. It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the Russian nation, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian idolaters. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists.]

74 (return) [ M. Levesque has extracted, from old chronicles and modern researches, the most satisfactory account of the religion of the Slavi, and the conversion of Russia, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 35-54, 59, 92, 92, 113-121, 124-129, 148, 149, &c.)]

75 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15, p. 343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of Barbarians the Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an Athenian magistrate, with a female termination, which would have astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]

76 (return) [ See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri, (Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione Russorum.)]

77 (return) [ Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein (apud Pagi tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir’s baptism and marriage; and both the tradition and the gates are still preserved at Novogorod. Yet an observing traveller transports the brazen gates from Magdeburgh in Germany, (Coxe’s Travels into Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes an inscription, which seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not confound this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula, with a new city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth of the Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable interview of the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]

In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian aera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia. 78 The triumphs of apostolic zeal were repeated in the iron age of Christianity; and the northern and eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion, more different in theory than in practice, from the worship of their native idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks both of Germany and Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the Barbarians: poverty, hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missionaries; their courage was active and patient; their motive pure and meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the proud and wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first conversions were free and spontaneous: a holy life and an eloquent tongue were the only arms of the missionaries; but the domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced by the miracles and visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper of the chiefs was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest. The leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and saints, 79 held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith on their subjects and neighbors; the coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to the Gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard of the cross; and the reign of idolatry was closed by the conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth century. Yet truth and candor must acknowledge, that the conversion of the North imparted many temporal benefits both to the old and the new Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species, could not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace; and the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the calamities of hostile contention. But the admission of the Barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare their brethren and cultivate their possessions. 80 The establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were introduced into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety of the Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the Greeks, to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the dome and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the churches of Kiow and Novogorod: the writings of the fathers were translated into the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble youths were invited or compelled to attend the lessons of the college of Jaroslaus. It should appear that Russia might have derived an early and rapid improvement from her peculiar connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which at that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to a hasty decline: after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of Tartar servitude. 81 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms, which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed, it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of the popes; 82 but they were united in language and religious worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world.

78 (return) [ Consult the Latin text, or English version, of Mosheim’s excellent History of the Church, under the first head or section of each of these centuries.]

79 (return) [ In the year 1000, the ambassadors of St. Stephen received from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a diadem of Greek workmanship. It had been designed for the duke of Poland: but the Poles, by their own confession, were yet too barbarous to deserve an angelical and apostolical crown. (Katona, Hist. Critic Regum Stirpis Arpadianae, tom. i. p. 1-20.)]

80 (return) [ Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen, (A.D. 1080,) of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa ferocissima Danorum, &c., natio..... jamdudum novit in Dei laudibus Alleluia resonare..... Ecce populus ille piraticus ..... suis nunc finibus contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis semper inaccessa propter cultum idolorum... praedicatores veritatis ubique certatim admittit, &c., &c., (de Situ Daniae, &c., p. 40, 41, edit. Elzevir; a curious and original prospect of the north of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity.)]

81 (return) [ The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of empire in the xivth century. See the 1st and 2d volumes of Levesque’s History, and Mr. Coxe’s Travels into the North, tom. i. p. 241, &c.]

82 (return) [ The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam, &c., which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of the pope and the independence of the crown, (Katona, Hist. Critica, tom. i. p. 20-25, tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.)]

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LVI. The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I

The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First Adventures And Settlement Of The Normans.—Character And Conquest Of Robert Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia—Deliverance Of Sicily By His Brother Roger.—Victories Of Robert Over The Emperors Of The East And West.—Roger, King Of Sicily, Invades Africa And Greece.—The Emperor Manuel Comnenus.— Wars Of The Greeks And Normans.—Extinction Of The Normans.

The three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy. 1 The southern provinces, which now compose the kingdom of Naples, were subject, for the most part, to the Lombard dukes and princes of Beneventum; 2 so powerful in war, that they checked for a moment the genius of Charlemagne; so liberal in peace, that they maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two philosophers and grammarians. The division of this flourishing state produced the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and the thoughtless ambition or revenge of the competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years, Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds, which the invaders were not capable of healing by the union and tranquility of a perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo, and were entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of Naples: the more formidable fleets were prepared on the African coast; and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes tempted to assist or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In the revolution of human events, a new ambuscade was concealed in the Caudine Forks, the fields of Cannae were bedewed a second time with the blood of the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations provoked the resentment, and conciliated the union of the two emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian, the first of his race, and Lewis the great-grandson of Charlemagne; 3 and each party supplied the deficiencies of his associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian campaign; and the Latin arms would have been insufficient if his superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks, and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis, who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but their recent amity was soon imbittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the triumph; extolled the greatness of their powers, and affected to deride the intemperance and sloth of the handful of Barbarians who appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince. His reply is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: “We confess the magnitude of your preparation,” says the great-grandson of Charlemagne. “Your armies were indeed as numerous as a cloud of summer locusts, who darken the day, flap their wings, and, after a short flight, tumble weary and breathless to the ground. Like them, ye sunk after a feeble effort; ye were vanquished by your own cowardice; and withdrew from the scene of action to injure and despoil our Christian subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why were we few? Because, after a tedious expectation of your arrival, I had dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band of warriors to continue the blockade of the city. If they indulged their hospitable feasts in the face of danger and death, did these feasts abate the vigor of their enterprise? Is it by your fasting that the walls of Bari have been overturned? Did not these valiant Franks, diminished as they were by languor and fatigue, intercept and vanish the three most powerful emirs of the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall of the city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be delivered; and, if we command the sea, the Island of Sicily may be rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother,” accelerate (a name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek,) “accelerate your naval succors, respect your allies, and distrust your flatterers.” 4

1 (return) [ For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books of Sigonius de Regno Italiae, (in the second volume of his works, Milan, 1732;) the Annals of Baronius, with the criticism of Pagi; the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo edition) of the Annali d’ Italia of Muratori, and the 2d volume of the Abrege Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which, under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and industry. But my long-accustomed reader will give me credit for saying, that I myself have ascended to the fountain head, as often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first volumes of Muratori’s great collection of the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum.]

2 (return) [ Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum, in his two books Historia Principum Longobardorum, in the Scriptores of Muratori tom. ii. pars i. p. 221-345, and tom. v. p 159-245.]

3 (return) [ See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, l. ii. c xi. in Vit Basil. c. 55, p. 181.]

4 (return) [ The oriental epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51-71,) from the Vatican Ms. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian of Salerno.] These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the death of Lewis, and the decay of the Carlovingian house; and whoever might deserve the honor, the Greek emperors, Basil, and his son Leo, secured the advantage, of the reduction of Bari. The Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount Garganus to the Bay of Salerno, leaves the far greater part of the kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire. Beyond that line, the dukes or republics of Amalfi 5 and Naples, who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in the neighborhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua, 6 were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world, and too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth, as the metropolis of the new theme or province of Lombardy: the title of patrician, and afterwards the singular name of Catapan, 7 was assigned to the supreme governor; and the policy both of the church and state was modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople. As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the forces of Germany, which descended from the Alps under the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and barons, escaped with honor from the bloody field of Crotona. On that day the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the valor of the Saracens. 8 These corsairs had indeed been driven by the Byzantine fleets from the fortresses and coasts of Italy; but a sense of interest was more prevalent than superstition or resentment, and the caliph of Egypt had transported forty thousand Moslems to the aid of his Christian ally. The successors of Basil amused themselves with the belief, that the conquest of Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved by the justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and the gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and oppression. A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth into the palace of Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery were dispelled by the easy and rapid success of the Norman adventurers.

5 (return) [ See an excellent Dissertation de Republica Amalphitana, in the Appendix (p. 1-42) of Henry Brencman’s Historia Pandectarum, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.)]

6 (return) [ Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and protection prinminibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos oppugnare dispono.... Nova (potius nota) res est quod eorum patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt, (Liutprand, in Legat. p. 484.) Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this change in the style of the anonymous Chronicle. On the rational ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria.]

7 (return) [ See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange (catapanus,) and his notes on the Alexias, (p. 275.) Against the contemporary notion, which derives it from juxta omne, he treats it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc has accurately observed (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924) that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy.]

8 (return) [ (the Lombards), (Leon. Tactic. c. xv. p. 741.) The little Chronicle of Beneventum (tom. ii. pars i. p. 280) gives a far different character of the Greeks during the five years (A.D. 891-896) that Leo was master of the city.]

The revolution of human affairs had produced in Apulia and Calabria a melancholy contrast between the age of Pythagoras and the tenth century of the Christian aera. At the former period, the coast of Great Greece (as it was then styled) was planted with free and opulent cities: these cities were peopled with soldiers, artists, and philosophers; and the military strength of Tarentum; Sybaris, or Crotona, was not inferior to that of a powerful kingdom. At the second aera, these once flourishing provinces were clouded with ignorance impoverished by tyranny, and depopulated by Barbarian war; nor can we severely accuse the exaggeration of a contemporary, that a fair and ample district was reduced to the same desolation which had covered the earth after the general deluge. 9 Among the hostilities of the Arabs, the Franks, and the Greeks, in the southern Italy, I shall select two or three anecdotes expressive of their national manners. 1. It was the amusement of the Saracens to profane, as well as to pillage, the monasteries and churches. At the siege of Salerno, a Mussulman chief spread his couch on the communion-table, and on that altar sacrificed each night the virginity of a Christian nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the roof was accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head; and the death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ, which was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful spouse. 10 2. The Saracens besieged the cities of Beneventum and Capua: after a vain appeal to the successors of Charlemagne, the Lombards implored the clemency and aid of the Greek emperor. 11 A fearless citizen dropped from the walls, passed the intrenchments, accomplished his commission, and fell into the hands of the Barbarians as he was returning with the welcome news. They commanded him to assist their enterprise, and deceive his countrymen, with the assurance that wealth and honors should be the reward of his falsehood, and that his sincerity would be punished with immediate death. He affected to yield, but as soon as he was conducted within hearing of the Christians on the rampart, “Friends and brethren,” he cried with a loud voice, “be bold and patient, maintain the city; your sovereign is informed of your distress, and your deliverers are at hand. I know my doom, and commit my wife and children to your gratitude.” The rage of the Arabs confirmed his evidence; and the self-devoted patriot was transpierced with a hundred spears. He deserves to live in the memory of the virtuous, but the repetition of the same story in ancient and modern times, may sprinkle some doubts on the reality of this generous deed. 12 3. The recital of a third incident may provoke a smile amidst the horrors of war. Theobald, marquis of Camerino and Spoleto, 13 supported the rebels of Beneventum; and his wanton cruelty was not incompatible in that age with the character of a hero. His captives of the Greek nation or party were castrated without mercy, and the outrage was aggravated by a cruel jest, that he wished to present the emperor with a supply of eunuchs, the most precious ornaments of the Byzantine court. The garrison of a castle had been defeated in a sally, and the prisoners were sentenced to the customary operation. But the sacrifice was disturbed by the intrusion of a frantic female, who, with bleeding cheeks dishevelled hair, and importunate clamors, compelled the marquis to listen to her complaint. “Is it thus,” she cried, “ye magnanimous heroes, that ye wage war against women, against women who have never injured ye, and whose only arms are the distaff and the loom?” Theobald denied the charge, and protested that, since the Amazons, he had never heard of a female war. “And how,” she furiously exclaimed, “can you attack us more directly, how can you wound us in a more vital part, than by robbing our husbands of what we most dearly cherish, the source of our joys, and the hope of our posterity? The plunder of our flocks and herds I have endured without a murmur, but this fatal injury, this irreparable loss, subdues my patience, and calls aloud on the justice of heaven and earth.” A general laugh applauded her eloquence; the savage Franks, inaccessible to pity, were moved by her ridiculous, yet rational despair; and with the deliverance of the captives, she obtained the restitution of her effects. As she returned in triumph to the castle, she was overtaken by a messenger, to inquire, in the name of Theobald, what punishment should be inflicted on her husband, were he again taken in arms. “Should such,” she answered without hesitation, “be his guilt and misfortune, he has eyes, and a nose, and hands, and feet. These are his own, and these he may deserve to forfeit by his personal offences. But let my lord be pleased to spare what his little handmaid presumes to claim as her peculiar and lawful property.” 14

9 (return) [ Calabriam adeunt, eamque inter se divisam reperientes funditus depopulati sunt, (or depopularunt,) ita ut deserta sit velut in diluvio. Such is the text of Herempert, or Erchempert, according to the two editions of Carraccioli (Rer. Italic. Script. tom. v. p. 23) and of Camillo Pellegrino, (tom. ii. pars i. p. 246.) Both were extremely scarce, when they were reprinted by Muratori.]

10 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 874, No. 2) has drawn this story from a Ms. of Erchempert, who died at Capua only fifteen years after the event. But the cardinal was deceived by a false title, and we can only quote the anonymous Chronicle of Salerno, (Paralipomena, c. 110,) composed towards the end of the xth century, and published in the second volume of Muratori’s Collection. See the Dissertations of Camillo Pellegrino, tom. ii. pars i. p. 231-281, &c.]

11 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 58, p. 183) is the original author of this story. He places it under the reigns of Basil and Lewis II.; yet the reduction of Beneventum by the Greeks is dated A.D. 891, after the decease of both of those princes.]

12 (return) [ In the year 663, the same tragedy is described by Paul the Deacon, (de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 7, 8, p. 870, 871, edit. Grot.,) under the walls of the same city of Beneventum. But the actors are different, and the guilt is imputed to the Greeks themselves, which in the Byzantine edition is applied to the Saracens. In the late war in Germany, M. D’Assas, a French officer of the regiment of Auvergne, is said to have devoted himself in a similar manner. His behavior is the more heroic, as mere silence was required by the enemy who had made him prisoner, (Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV. c. 33, tom. ix. p. 172.)]

13 (return) [ Theobald, who is styled Heros by Liutprand, was properly duke of Spoleto and marquis of Camerino, from the year 926 to 935. The title and office of marquis (commander of the march or frontier) was introduced into Italy by the French emperors, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 545-732 &c.)]

14 (return) [ Liutprand, Hist. l. iv. c. iv. in the Rerum Italic. Script. tom. i. pars i. p. 453, 454. Should the licentiousness of the tale be questioned, I may exclaim, with poor Sterne, that it is hard if I may not transcribe with caution what a bishop could write without scruple What if I had translated, ut viris certetis testiculos amputare, in quibus nostri corporis refocillatio, &c.?]

The establishment of the Normans in the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily 15 is an event most romantic in its origin, and in its consequences most important both to Italy and the Eastern empire. The broken provinces of the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, were exposed to every invader, and every sea and land were invaded by the adventurous spirit of the Scandinavian pirates. After a long indulgence of rapine and slaughter, a fair and ample territory was accepted, occupied, and named, by the Normans of France: they renounced their gods for the God of the Christians; 16 and the dukes of Normandy acknowledged themselves the vassals of the successors of Charlemagne and Capet. The savage fierceness which they had brought from the snowy mountains of Norway was refined, without being corrupted, in a warmer climate; the companions of Rollo insensibly mingled with the natives; they imbibed the manners, language, 17 and gallantry, of the French nation; and in a martial age, the Normans might claim the palm of valor and glorious achievements. Of the fashionable superstitions, they embraced with ardor the pilgrimages of Rome, Italy, and the Holy Land. 171 In this active devotion, the minds and bodies were invigorated by exercise: danger was the incentive, novelty the recompense; and the prospect of the world was decorated by wonder, credulity, and ambitious hope. They confederated for their mutual defence; and the robbers of the Alps, who had been allured by the garb of a pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm of a warrior. In one of these pious visits to the cavern of Mount Garganus in Apulia, which had been sanctified by the apparition of the archangel Michael, 18 they were accosted by a stranger in the Greek habit, but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a fugitive, and a mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was Melo; a noble citizen of Bari, who, after an unsuccessful revolt, was compelled to seek new allies and avengers of his country. The bold appearance of the Normans revived his hopes and solicited his confidence: they listened to the complaints, and still more to the promises, of the patriot. The assurance of wealth demonstrated the justice of his cause; and they viewed, as the inheritance of the brave, the fruitful land which was oppressed by effeminate tyrants. On their return to Normandy, they kindled a spark of enterprise, and a small but intrepid band was freely associated for the deliverance of Apulia. They passed the Alps by separate roads, and in the disguise of pilgrims; but in the neighborhood of Rome they were saluted by the chief of Bari, who supplied the more indigent with arms and horses, and instantly led them to the field of action. In the first conflict, their valor prevailed; but in the second engagement they were overwhelmed by the numbers and military engines of the Greeks, and indignantly retreated with their faces to the enemy. 1811 The unfortunate Melo ended his life a suppliant at the court of Germany: his Norman followers, excluded from their native and their promised land, wandered among the hills and valleys of Italy, and earned their daily subsistence by the sword. To that formidable sword the princes of Capua, Beneventum, Salerno, and Naples, alternately appealed in their domestic quarrels; the superior spirit and discipline of the Normans gave victory to the side which they espoused; and their cautious policy observed the balance of power, lest the preponderance of any rival state should render their aid less important, and their service less profitable. Their first asylum was a strong camp in the depth of the marshes of Campania: but they were soon endowed by the liberality of the duke of Naples with a more plentiful and permanent seat. Eight miles from his residence, as a bulwark against Capua, the town of Aversa was built and fortified for their use; and they enjoyed as their own the corn and fruits, the meadows and groves, of that fertile district. The report of their success attracted every year new swarms of pilgrims and soldiers: the poor were urged by necessity; the rich were excited by hope; and the brave and active spirits of Normandy were impatient of ease and ambitious of renown. The independent standard of Aversa afforded shelter and encouragement to the outlaws of the province, to every fugitive who had escaped from the injustice or justice of his superiors; and these foreign associates were quickly assimilated in manners and language to the Gallic colony. The first leader of the Normans was Count Rainulf; and, in the origin of society, preeminence of rank is the reward and the proof of superior merit. 19 1911

15 (return) [ The original monuments of the Normans in Italy are collected in the vth volume of Muratori; and among these we may distinguish the poems of William Appulus (p. 245-278) and the history of Galfridus (Jeffrey) Malaterra, (p. 537-607.) Both were natives of France, but they wrote on the spot, in the age of the first conquerors (before A.D. 1100,) and with the spirit of freemen. It is needless to recapitulate the compilers and critics of Italian history, Sigonius, Baronius, Pagi, Giannone, Muratori, St. Marc, &c., whom I have always consulted, and never copied. * Note: M. Goutier d’Arc has discovered a translation of the Chronicle of Aime, monk of Mont Cassino, a contemporary of the first Norman invaders of Italy. He has made use of it in his Histoire des Conquetes des Normands, and added a summary of its contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was supposed to have been entirely lost.—M.]

16 (return) [ Some of the first converts were baptized ten or twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one hundred captives. But in a generation or two, the national change was pure and general.]

17 (return) [ The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans of Bayeux on the sea-coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem (Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiae suae principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica, suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit. Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640-1656) has given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians and lawyers.]

171 (return) [ A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet of Saracens. Gainar, the Lombard prince of Salerno wished to retain them in his service and take them into his pay. They answered, “We fight for our religion, and not for money.” Gaimar entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans with Italy. See Histoire des Conquetes des Normands par Goutier d’Arc, l. i. c. i., Paris, 1830.—M.]

18 (return) [ See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d’Italia, p. 250) and Baronius, (A.D. 493, No. 43.) If the archangel inherited the temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the soothsayer, (Strab. Geograph l. vi. p. 435, 436,) the Catholics (on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of their superstition.]

1811 (return) [ Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique d’Aime, tom. i. p. 21 quoted by M Goutier d’Arc, p. 42.—M.]

19 (return) [ See the first book of William Appulus. His words are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters:—

Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos Confugiebat eum gratanter suscipiebant: Moribus et lingua quoscumque venire videbant Informant propria; gens efficiatur ut una. And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy:— Pars parat, exiguae vel opes aderant quia nullae: Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant.]

1911 (return) [ This account is not accurate. After the retreat of the emperor Henry II. the Normans, united under the command of Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when Pandulf IV., prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a foreign dominion he retired to Aversa; and when, with the assistance of the Greeks and that of the citizens faithful to their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and reentered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into a count’s fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf. Hist. des Rep. Ital. tom. i. p. 267]

Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian emperors had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but their efforts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the distance and the sea. Their costly armaments, after a gleam of success, added new pages of calamity and disgrace to the Byzantine annals: twenty thousand of their best troops were lost in a single expedition; and the victorious Moslems derided the policy of a nation which intrusted eunuchs not only with the custody of their women, but with the command of their men 20 After a reign of two hundred years, the Saracens were ruined by their divisions. 21 The emir disclaimed the authority of the king of Tunis; the people rose against the emir; the cities were usurped by the chiefs; each meaner rebel was independent in his village or castle; and the weaker of two rival brothers implored the friendship of the Christians. In every service of danger the Normans were prompt and useful; and five hundred knights, or warriors on horseback, were enrolled by Arduin, the agent and interpreter of the Greeks, under the standard of Maniaces, governor of Lombardy. Before their landing, the brothers were reconciled; the union of Sicily and Africa was restored; and the island was guarded to the water’s edge. The Normans led the van and the Arabs of Messina felt the valor of an untried foe. In a second action the emir of Syracuse was unhorsed and transpierced by the iron arm of William of Hauteville. In a third engagement, his intrepid companions discomfited the host of sixty thousand Saracens, and left the Greeks no more than the labor of the pursuit: a splendid victory; but of which the pen of the historian may divide the merit with the lance of the Normans. It is, however, true, that they essentially promoted the success of Maniaces, who reduced thirteen cities, and the greater part of Sicily, under the obedience of the emperor. But his military fame was sullied by ingratitude and tyranny. In the division of the spoils, the deserts of his brave auxiliaries were forgotten; and neither their avarice nor their pride could brook this injurious treatment. They complained by the mouth of their interpreter: their complaint was disregarded; their interpreter was scourged; the sufferings were his; the insult and resentment belonged to those whose sentiments he had delivered. Yet they dissembled till they had obtained, or stolen, a safe passage to the Italian continent: their brethren of Aversa sympathized in their indignation, and the province of Apulia was invaded as the forfeit of the debt. 22 Above twenty years after the first emigration, the Normans took the field with no more than seven hundred horse and five hundred foot; and after the recall of the Byzantine legions 23 from the Sicilian war, their numbers are magnified to the amount of threescore thousand men. Their herald proposed the option of battle or retreat; “of battle,” was the unanimous cry of the Normans; and one of their stoutest warriors, with a stroke of his fist, felled to the ground the horse of the Greek messenger. He was dismissed with a fresh horse; the insult was concealed from the Imperial troops; but in two successive battles they were more fatally instructed of the prowess of their adversaries. In the plains of Cannae, the Asiatics fled before the adventurers of France; the duke of Lombardy was made prisoner; the Apulians acquiesced in a new dominion; and the four places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were alone saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this aera we may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon eclipsed the infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts 24 were chosen by the popular suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were the motives of their choice. The tributes of their peculiar districts were appropriated to their use; and each count erected a fortress in the midst of his lands, and at the head of his vassals. In the centre of the province, the common habitation of Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of the republic; a house and separate quarter was allotted to each of the twelve counts: and the national concerns were regulated by this military senate. The first of his peers, their president and general, was entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was conferred on William of the iron arm, who, in the language of the age, is styled a lion in battle, a lamb in society, and an angel in council. 25 The manners of his countrymen are fairly delineated by a contemporary and national historian. 26 “The Normans,” says Malaterra, “are a cunning and revengeful people; eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness of nature and passion. Their princes affect the praises of popular munificence; the people observe the medium, or rather blond the extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and in their eager thirst of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress, the exercises of hunting and hawking 27 are the delight of the Normans; but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil and absence of a military life.” 28

20 (return) [ Liutprand, in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has illustrated this event from the Ms. history of the deacon Leo, (tom. iv. A.D. 965, No. 17-19.)]

21 (return) [ See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253.]

22 (return) [ Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war, and the conquest of Apulia, (l. i. c. 7, 8, 9, 19.) The same events are described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741-743, 755, 756) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 237, 238;) and the Greeks are so hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial enough.]

23 (return) [ Lydia: consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4, with Delisle’s map.]

24 (return) [ Omnes conveniunt; et bis sex nobiliores,

Quos genus et gravitas morum decorabat et aetas, Elegere duces. Provectis ad comitatum His alii parent. Comitatus nomen honoris Quo donantur erat. Hi totas undique terras Divisere sibi, ni sors inimica repugnet; Singula proponunt loca quae contingere sorte Cuique duci debent, et quaeque tributa locorum. And after speaking of Melphi, William Appulus adds, Pro numero comitum bis sex statuere plateas, Atque domus comitum totidem fabricantur in urbe.

Leo Ostiensis (l. ii. c. 67) enumerates the divisions of the Apulian cities, which it is needless to repeat.]

25 (return) [ Gulielm. Appulus, l. ii. c 12, according to the reference of Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 31,) which I cannot verify in the original. The Apulian praises indeed his validas vires, probitas animi, and vivida virtus; and declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his merits, (l. i. p. 258, l. ii. p. 259.) He was bewailed by the Normans, quippe qui tanti consilii virum, (says Malaterra, l. i. c. 12, p. 552,) tam armis strenuum, tam sibi munificum, affabilem, morigeratum, ulterius se habere diffidebant.]

26 (return) [ The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix.... adulari sciens.... eloquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, p. 550,) are expressive of the popular and proverbial character of the Normans.]

27 (return) [ The hunting and hawking more properly belong to the descendants of the Norwegian sailors; though they might import from Norway and Iceland the finest casts of falcons.]

28 (return) [ We may compare this portrait with that of William of Malmsbury, (de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 101, 102,) who appreciates, like a philosophic historian, the vices and virtues of the Saxons and Normans. England was assuredly a gainer by the conquest.]

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LVI. The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part II

The Normans of Apulia were seated on the verge of the two empires; and, according to the policy of the hour, they accepted the investiture of their lands, from the sovereigns of Germany or Constantinople. But the firmest title of these adventurers was the right of conquest: they neither loved nor trusted; they were neither trusted nor beloved: the contempt of the princes was mixed with fear, and the fear of the natives was mingled with hatred and resentment. Every object of desire, a horse, a woman, a garden, tempted and gratified the rapaciousness of the strangers; 29 and the avarice of their chiefs was only colored by the more specious names of ambition and glory. The twelve counts were sometimes joined in the league of injustice: in their domestic quarrels they disputed the spoils of the people: the virtues of William were buried in his grave; and Drogo, his brother and successor, was better qualified to lead the valor, than to restrain the violence, of his peers. Under the reign of Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this adherent mischief, more grievous than a flight of Barbarians; 30 and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with the most lofty titles 31 and the most ample commission. The memory of his father might recommend him to the Normans; and he had already engaged their voluntary service to quell the revolt of Maniaces, and to avenge their own and the public injury. It was the design of Constantine to transplant the warlike colony from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of Greece, as the first-fruits of the Imperial bounty. But his arts were baffled by the sense and spirit of the conquerors of Apulia: his gifts, or at least his proposals, were rejected; and they unanimously refused to relinquish their possessions and their hopes for the distant prospect of Asiatic fortune. After the means of persuasion had failed, Argyrus resolved to compel or to destroy: the Latin powers were solicited against the common enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the two emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was occupied by Leo the Ninth, a simple saint, 32 of a temper most apt to deceive himself and the world, and whose venerable character would consecrate with the name of piety the measures least compatible with the practice of religion. His humanity was affected by the complaints, perhaps the calumnies, of an injured people: the impious Normans had interrupted the payment of tithes; and the temporal sword might be lawfully unsheathed against the sacrilegious robbers, who were deaf to the censures of the church. As a German of noble birth and royal kindred, Leo had free access to the court and confidence of the emperor Henry the Third; and in search of arms and allies, his ardent zeal transported him from Apulia to Saxony, from the Elbe to the Tyber. During these hostile preparations, Argyrus indulged himself in the use of secret and guilty weapons: a crowd of Normans became the victims of public or private revenge; and the valiant Drogo was murdered in a church. But his spirit survived in his brother Humphrey, the third count of Apulia. The assassins were chastised; and the son of Melo, overthrown and wounded, was driven from the field, to hide his shame behind the walls of Bari, and to await the tardy succor of his allies.

29 (return) [ The biographer of St. Leo IX. pours his holy venom on the Normans. Videns indisciplinatam et alienam gentem Normannorum, crudeli et inaudita rabie, et plusquam Pagana impietate, adversus ecclesias Dei insurgere, passim Christianos trucidare, &c., (Wibert, c. 6.) The honest Apulian (l. ii. p. 259) says calmly of their accuser, Veris commiscens fallacia.]

30 (return) [ The policy of the Greeks, revolt of Maniaces, &c., must be collected from Cedrenus, (tom. ii. p. 757, 758,) William Appulus, (l. i. p 257, 258, l. ii. p. 259,) and the two Chronicles of Bari, by Lupus Protospata, (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 42, 43, 44,) and an anonymous writer, (Antiquitat, Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. i. p 31-35.) This last is a fragment of some value.]

31 (return) [ Argyrus received, says the anonymous Chronicle of Bari, Imperial letters, Foederatus et Patriciatus, et Catapani et Vestatus. In his Annals, Muratori (tom. viii. p. 426) very properly reads, or interprets, Sevestatus, the title of Sebastos or Augustus. But in his Antiquities, he was taught by Ducange to make it a palatine office, master of the wardrobe.]

32 (return) [ A Life of St. Leo IX., deeply tinged with the passions and prejudices of the age, has been composed by Wibert, printed at Paris, 1615, in octavo, and since inserted in the Collections of the Bollandists, of Mabillon, and of Muratori. The public and private history of that pope is diligently treated by M. de St. Marc. (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 140-210, and p. 25-95, second column.)]

But the power of Constantine was distracted by a Turkish war; the mind of Henry was feeble and irresolute; and the pope, instead of repassing the Alps with a German army, was accompanied only by a guard of seven hundred Swabians and some volunteers of Lorraine. In his long progress from Mantua to Beneventum, a vile and promiscuous multitude of Italians was enlisted under the holy standard: 33 the priest and the robber slept in the same tent; the pikes and crosses were intermingled in the front; and the martial saint repeated the lessons of his youth in the order of march, of encampment, and of combat. The Normans of Apulia could muster in the field no more than three thousand horse, with a handful of infantry: the defection of the natives intercepted their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable of fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the hostile approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or reluctance before their spiritual father. But the pope was inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the diminutive stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed that death or exile was their only alternative. Flight they disdained, and, as many of them had been three days without tasting food, they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honorable death. They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and in the centre, Richard count of Aversa, and Robert the famous Guiscard, attacked, broke, routed, and pursued the Italian multitudes, who fought without discipline, and fled without shame. A harder trial was reserved for the valor of Count Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right wing. The Germans 34 have been described as unskillful in the management of the horse and the lance, but on foot they formed a strong and impenetrable phalanx; and neither man, nor steed, nor armor, could resist the weight of their long and two-handed swords. After a severe conflict, they were encompassed by the squadrons returning from the pursuit; and died in the ranks with the esteem of their foes, and the satisfaction of revenge. The gates of Civitella were shut against the flying pope, and he was overtaken by the pious conquerors, who kissed his feet, to implore his blessing and the absolution of their sinful victory. The soldiers beheld in their enemy and captive the vicar of Christ; and, though we may suppose the policy of the chiefs, it is probable that they were infected by the popular superstition. In the calm of retirement, the well-meaning pope deplored the effusion of Christian blood, which must be imputed to his account: he felt, that he had been the author of sin and scandal; and as his undertaking had failed, the indecency of his military character was universally condemned. 35 With these dispositions, he listened to the offers of a beneficial treaty; deserted an alliance which he had preached as the cause of God; and ratified the past and future conquests of the Normans. By whatever hands they had been usurped, the provinces of Apulia and Calabria were a part of the donation of Constantine and the patrimony of St. Peter: the grant and the acceptance confirmed the mutual claims of the pontiff and the adventurers. They promised to support each other with spiritual and temporal arms; a tribute or quitrent of twelve pence was afterwards stipulated for every ploughland; and since this memorable transaction, the kingdom of Naples has remained above seven hundred years a fief of the Holy See. 36

33 (return) [ See the expedition of Leo XI. against the Normans. See William Appulus (l. ii. p. 259-261) and Jeffrey Malaterra (l. i. c. 13, 14, 15, p. 253.) They are impartial, as the national is counterbalanced by the clerical prejudice]

34 (return) [ Teutonici, quia caesaries et forma decoros

Fecerat egregie proceri corporis illos Corpora derident Normannica quae breviora Esse videbantur.

The verses of the Apulian are commonly in this strain, though he heats himself a little in the battle. Two of his similes from hawking and sorcery are descriptive of manners.]

35 (return) [ Several respectable censures or complaints are produced by M. de St. Marc, (tom. ii. p. 200-204.) As Peter Damianus, the oracle of the times, has denied the popes the right of making war, the hermit (lugens eremi incola) is arraigned by the cardinal, and Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1053, No. 10-17) most strenuously asserts the two swords of St. Peter.]

36 (return) [ The origin and nature of the papal investitures are ably discussed by Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 37-49, 57-66,) as a lawyer and antiquarian. Yet he vainly strives to reconcile the duties of patriot and Catholic, adopts an empty distinction of “Ecclesia Romana non dedit, sed accepit,” and shrinks from an honest but dangerous confession of the truth.]

The pedigree of Robert of Guiscard 37 is variously deduced from the peasants and the dukes of Normandy: from the peasants, by the pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; 38 from the dukes, by the ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. 39 His genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or middle order of private nobility. 40 He sprang from a race of valvassors or bannerets, of the diocese of Coutances, in the Lower Normandy: the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat: his father Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke; and his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights. Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him the father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was insufficient for this numerous and daring progeny; they saw around the neighborhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and resolved to seek in foreign wars a more glorious inheritance. Two only remained to perpetuate the race, and cherish their father’s age: their ten brothers, as they successfully attained the vigor of manhood, departed from the castle, passed the Alps, and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were prompted by native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren, and the three first in seniority, William, Drogo, and Humphrey, deserved to be the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the new republic. Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage; and even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army: his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of life, he maintained the patient vigor of health and the commanding dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long and of a flaxen color, his eyes sparkled with fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historians: they may observe that Robert, at once, and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed; and that in the close of that memorable day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valor from the warriors of the two armies. 41 His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of greatness, he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard 42 was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of military frankness: in his highest fortune, he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers; and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might distribute with a liberal, hand: his primitive indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty, to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful: the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim; and his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia; but they guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring youth was driven forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives, it is not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labors which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard; and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character of Normans.

37 (return) [ The birth, character, and first actions of Robert Guiscard, may be found in Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, 4, 11, 16, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40,) William Appulus, (l. ii. p. 260-262,) William Gemeticensis, or of Jumieges, (l. xi. c. 30, p. 663, 664, edit. Camden,) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. i. p. 23-27, l. vi. p. 165, 166,) with the annotations of Ducange, (Not. in Alexiad, p. 230-232, 320,) who has swept all the French and Latin Chronicles for supplemental intelligence.]

38 (return) [ (a Greek corruption), and elsewhere, (l. iv. p. 84,). Anna Comnena was born in the purple; yet her father was no more than a private though illustrious subject, who raised himself to the empire.]

39 (return) [ Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 2) forgets all his original authors, and rests this princely descent on the credit of Inveges, an Augustine monk of Palermo in the last century. They continue the succession of dukes from Rollo to William II. the Bastard or Conqueror, whom they hold (communemente si tiene) to be the father of Tancred of Hauteville; a most strange and stupendous blunder! The sons of Tancred fought in Apulia, before William II. was three years old, (A.D. 1037.)]

40 (return) [ The judgment of Ducange is just and moderate: Certe humilis fuit ac tenuis Roberti familia, si ducalem et regium spectemus apicem, ad quem postea pervenit; quae honesta tamen et praeter nobilium vulgarium statum et conditionem illustris habita est, “quae nec humi reperet nec altum quid tumeret.” (Wilhem. Malmsbur. de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 107. Not. ad Alexiad. p. 230.)]

41 (return) [ I shall quote with pleasure some of the best lines of the Apulian, (l. ii. p. 270.)

Pugnat utraque manu, nec lancea cassa, nec ensis Cassus erat, quocunque manu deducere vellet. Ter dejectus equo, ter viribus ipse resumptis Major in arma redit: stimulos furor ipse ministrat. Ut Leo cum frendens, &c. - — — — — — - Nullus in hoc bello sicuti post bella probatum est Victor vel victus, tam magnos edidit ictus.]

42 (return) [ The Norman writers and editors most conversant with their own idiom interpret Guiscard or Wiscard, by Callidus, a cunning man. The root (wise) is familiar to our ear; and in the old word Wiseacre, I can discern something of a similar sense and termination. It is no bad translation of the surname and character of Robert.]

As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey, the tender age of his sons excluded them from the command; they were reduced to a private estate, by the ambition of their guardian and uncle; and Guiscard was exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia and general of the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should raise him forever above the heads of his equals.

By some acts of rapine or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal excommunication; but Nicholas the Second was easily persuaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of the Holy See; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was convened at Melphi; and the count interrupted an important enterprise to guard the person and execute the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on Robert and his posterity the ducal title, 43 with the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens. 44 This apostolic sanction might justify his arms; but the obedience of a free and victorious people could not be transferred without their consent; and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been illustrated by the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph, he assembled his troops, and solicited the Normans to confirm by their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of Christ: the soldiers hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke; and the counts, his former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and secret indignation. After this inauguration, Robert styled himself, “By the grace of God and St. Peter, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily;” and it was the labor of twenty years to deserve and realize these lofty appellations. Such sardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem unworthy of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the nation; but the Normans were few in number; their resources were scanty; their service was voluntary and precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons: the twelve counts of popular election conspired against his authority; and against their perfidious uncle, the sons of Humphrey demanded justice and revenge. By his policy and vigor, Guiscard discovered their plots, suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile: but in these domestic feuds, his years, and the national strength, were unprofitably consumed. After the defeat of his foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of the sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defence; the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage. The resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months; the siege or blockade of Bari lasted near four years. In these actions the Norman duke was the foremost in every danger; in every fatigue the last and most patient. As he pressed the citadel of Salerno, a huge stone from the rampart shattered one of his military engines; and by a splinter he was wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari, he lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches, and thatched with straw; a perilous station, on all sides open to the inclemency of the winter and the spears of the enemy. 45

43 (return) [ The acquisition of the ducal title by Robert Guiscard is a nice and obscure business. With the good advice of Giannone, Muratori, and St. Marc, I have endeavored to form a consistent and probable narrative.]

44 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1059, No. 69) has published the original act. He professes to have copied it from the Liber Censuum, a Vatican Ms. Yet a Liber Censuum of the xiith century has been printed by Muratori, (Antiquit. Medii Aevi, tom. v. p. 851-908;) and the names of Vatican and Cardinal awaken the suspicions of a Protestant, and even of a philosopher.]

45 (return) [ Read the life of Guiscard in the second and third books of the Apulian, the first and second books of Malaterra.]

The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits of the present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by his arms have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred years. 46 The monarchy has been composed of the Greek provinces of Calabria and Apulia, of the Lombard principality of Salerno, the republic of Amalphi, and the inland dependencies of the large and ancient duchy of Beneventum. Three districts only were exempted from the common law of subjection; the first forever, the two last till the middle of the succeeding century. The city and immediate territory of Benevento had been transferred, by gift or exchange, from the German emperor to the Roman pontiff; and although this holy land was sometimes invaded, the name of St. Peter was finally more potent than the sword of the Normans. Their first colony of Aversa subdued and held the state of Capua; and her princes were reduced to beg their bread before the palace of their fathers. The dukes of Naples, the present metropolis, maintained the popular freedom, under the shadow of the Byzantine empire. Among the new acquisitions of Guiscard, the science of Salerno, 47 and the trade of Amalphi, 48 may detain for a moment the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faculties, jurisprudence implies the previous establishment of laws and property; and theology may perhaps be superseded by the full light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must alike implore the assistance of physic; and, if our diseases are inflamed by luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be more frequent in the ruder ages of society. The treasures of Grecian medicine had been communicated to the Arabian colonies of Africa, Spain, and Sicily; and in the intercourse of peace and war, a spark of knowledge had been kindled and cherished at Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and the women beautiful. 49 A school, the first that arose in the darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art: the conscience of monks and bishops was reconciled to that salutary and lucrative profession; and a crowd of patients, of the most eminent rank, and most distant climates, invited or visited the physicians of Salerno. They were protected by the Norman conquerors; and Guiscard, though bred in arms, could discern the merit and value of a philosopher. After a pilgrimage of thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian, returned from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the Arabians; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons, and the writings of the pupil of Avicenna. The school of medicine has long slept in the name of a university; but her precepts are abridged in a string of aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine verses, or Latin rhymes, of the twelfth century. 50 II. Seven miles to the west of Salerno, and thirty to the south of Naples, the obscure town of Amalphi displayed the power and rewards of industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrow extent; but the sea was accessible and open: the inhabitants first assumed the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures and productions of the East; and this useful traffic was the source of their opulence and freedom. The government was popular, under the administration of a duke and the supremacy of the Greek emperor. Fifty thousand citizens were numbered in the walls of Amalphi; nor was any city more abundantly provided with gold, silver, and the objects of precious luxury. The mariners who swarmed in her port, excelled in the theory and practice of navigation and astronomy: and the discovery of the compass, which has opened the globe, is owing to their ingenuity or good fortune. Their trade was extended to the coasts, or at least to the commodities, of Africa, Arabia, and India: and their settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. 51 After three hundred years of prosperity, Amalphi was oppressed by the arms of the Normans, and sacked by the jealousy of Pisa; but the poverty of one thousand 5111 fisherman is yet dignified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal merchants.

46 (return) [ The conquests of Robert Guiscard and Roger I., the exemption of Benevento and the xii provinces of the kingdom, are fairly exposed by Giannone in the second volume of his Istoria Civile, l. ix. x. xi and l. xvii. p. 460-470. This modern division was not established before the time of Frederic II.]

47 (return) [ Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 119-127,) Muratori, (Antiquitat. Medii Aevi, tom. iii. dissert. xliv. p. 935, 936,) and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,) have given an historical account of these physicians; their medical knowledge and practice must be left to our physicians.]

48 (return) [ At the end of the Historia Pandectarum of Henry Brenckmann, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.,) the indefatigable author has inserted two dissertations, de Republica Amalphitana, and de Amalphi a Pisanis direpta, which are built on the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has forgotten two most important passages of the embassy of Liutprand, (A.D. 939,) which compare the trade and navigation of Amalphi with that of Venice.]

49 (return) [ Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe,

Frugibus, arboribus, vinoque redundat; et unde Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt, Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum. —Gulielmus Appulus, l. iii. p. 367]

50 (return) [ Muratori carries their antiquity above the year (1066) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex Anglorum to whom they are addressed. Nor is this date affected by the opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier (Recherches de la France, l. vii. c. 2) and Ducange, (Glossar. Latin.) The practice of rhyming, as early as the viith century, was borrowed from the languages of the North and East, (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii. dissert. xl. p. 686-708.)]

51 (return) [ The description of Amalphi, by William the Apulian, (l. iii. p. 267,) contains much truth and some poetry, and the third line may be applied to the sailor’s compass:—

Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro Partibus innumeris: hac plurimus urbe moratur Nauta maris Caelique vias aperire peritus. Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe Regis, et Antiochi. Gens haec freta plurima transit. His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri. Haec gens est totum proore nobilitata per orbem, Et mercando forens, et amans mercata referre.]

5111 (return) [ Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the commencement of the 18th century, when it was visited by Brenckmann, (Brenckmann de Rep. Amalph. Diss. i. c. 23.) At present it has six or eight thousand Hist. des Rep. tom. i. p. 304.—G.]

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LVI. The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part III

Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long detained in Normandy by his own and his father’s age. He accepted the welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved at first the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder brother. Their valor and ambition were equal; but the youth, the beauty, the elegant manners, of Roger engaged the disinterested love of the soldiers and people. So scanty was his allowance for himself and forty followers, that he descended from conquest to robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft; and so loose were the notions of property, that, by his own historian, at his special command, he is accused of stealing horses from a stable at Melphi. 52 His spirit emerged from poverty and disgrace: from these base practices he rose to the merit and glory of a holy war; and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by the zeal and policy of his brother Guiscard. After the retreat of the Greeks, the idolaters, a most audacious reproach of the Catholics, had retrieved their losses and possessions; but the deliverance of the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of the Eastern empire, was achieved by a small and private band of adventurers. 53 In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open boat, the real and fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis; landed with only sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the Saracens to the gates of Messina and safely returned with the spoils of the adjacent country. In the fortress of Trani, his active and patient courage were equally conspicuous. In his old age he related with pleasure, that, by the distress of the siege, himself, and the countess his wife, had been reduced to a single cloak or mantle, which they wore alternately; that in a sally his horse had been slain, and he was dragged away by the Saracens; but that he owed his rescue to his good sword, and had retreated with his saddle on his back, lest the meanest trophy might be left in the hands of the miscreants. In the siege of Trani, three hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the island. In the field of Ceramio, fifty thousand horse and foot were overthrown by one hundred and thirty-six Christian soldiers, without reckoning St. George, who fought on horseback in the foremost ranks. The captive banners, with four camels, were reserved for the successor of St. Peter; and had these barbaric spoils been exposed, not in the Vatican, but in the Capitol, they might have revived the memory of the Punic triumphs. These insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their knights, the soldiers of honorable and equestrian rank, each of whom was attended by five or six followers in the field; 54 yet, with the aid of this interpretation, and after every fair allowance on the side of valor, arms, and reputation, the discomfiture of so many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily derived a frequent and powerful succor from their countrymen of Africa: in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted by the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible emulation. After a war of thirty years, 55 Roger, with the title of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his administration displays a liberal and enlightened mind, above the limits of his age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free enjoyment of their religion and property: 56 a philosopher and physician of Mazara, of the race of Mahomet, harangued the conqueror, and was invited to court; his geography of the seven climates was translated into Latin; and Roger, after a diligent perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the Grecian Ptolemy. 57 A remnant of Christian natives had promoted the success of the Normans: they were rewarded by the triumph of the cross. The island was restored to the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff; new bishops were planted in the principal cities; and the clergy was satisfied by a liberal endowment of churches and monasteries. Yet the Catholic hero asserted the rights of the civil magistrate. Instead of resigning the investiture of benefices, he dexterously applied to his own profit the papal claims: the supremacy of the crown was secured and enlarged, by the singular bull, which declares the princes of Sicily hereditary and perpetual legates of the Holy See. 58

52 (return) [ Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed ipso ita praecipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quanta angustia a profunda paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (l. i. c. 25) to the horse-stealing. From the moment (l. i. c. 19) that he has mentioned his patron Roger, the elder brother sinks into the second character. Something similar in Velleius Paterculus may be observed of Augustus and Tiberius.]

53 (return) [ Duo sibi proficua deputans animae scilicet et corporis si terran: Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret, (Galfrid Malaterra, l. ii. c. 1.) The conquest of Sicily is related in the three last books, and he himself has given an accurate summary of the chapters, (p. 544-546.)]

54 (return) [ See the word Milites in the Latin Glossary of Ducange.]

55 (return) [ Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra, that the Arabs had introduced into Sicily the use of camels (l. i. c. 33) and of carrier-pigeons, (c. 42;) and that the bite of the tarantula provokes a windy disposition, quae per anum inhoneste crepitando emergit; a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole Norman army in their camp near Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an etymology not unworthy of the xith century: Messana is divided from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were sent in tribute to Rome, (l. ii. c. 1.)]

56 (return) [ See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, l. ii. c. 45, and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of the Saracens, (tom ii. p. 72.)]

57 (return) [ John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophus Arabibus, c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa, A. H. 516, A.D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance to the Sherif al Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia Nubiensis, see preface p. 88, 90, 170) to Roger, king of Sicily, A. H. 541, A.D. 1153, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 786. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 188. Petit de la Croix, Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 535, 536. Casiri, Bibliot. Arab. Hispan. tom. ii. p. 9-13;) and I am afraid of some mistake.]

58 (return) [ Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics, (l. iv. c. 7,) and produces the original of the bull, (l. iv. c. 29.) Giannone gives a rational idea of this privilege, and the tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily, (tom. ii. p. 95-102;) and St. Marc (Abrege, tom. iii. p. 217-301, 1st column) labors the case with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.]

To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than beneficial: the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate to his ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create the first occasion of invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman empire of the East. 59 From his first wife, the partner of his humble fortune, he had been divorced under the pretence of consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate, rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno; the Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger; their five daughters were given in honorable nuptials, 60 and one of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael. 61 But the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the Imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the cloister; and Robert deplored, and resented, the disgrace of his daughter and the expulsion of his ally. A Greek, who styled himself the father of Constantine, soon appeared at Salerno, and related the adventures of his fall and flight. That unfortunate friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with the pomp and titles of Imperial dignity: in his triumphal progress through Apulia and Calabria, Michael 62 was saluted with the tears and acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory the Seventh exhorted the bishops to preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious work of his restoration. His conversations with Robert were frequent and familiar; and their mutual promises were justified by the valor of the Normans and the treasures of the East. Yet this Michael, by the confession of the Greeks and Latins, was a pageant and an impostor; a monk who had fled from his convent, or a domestic who had served in the palace. The fraud had been contrived by the subtle Guiscard; and he trusted, that after this pretender had given a decent color to his arms, he would sink, at the nod of the conqueror, into his primitive obscurity. But victory was the only argument that could determine the belief of the Greeks; and the ardor of the Latins was much inferior to their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to enjoy the harvest of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known and unknown dangers of a transmarine expedition. In his new levies, Robert exerted the influence of gifts and promises, the terrors of civil and ecclesiastical authority; and some acts of violence might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were pressed without distinction into the service of their unrelenting prince. After two years’ incessant preparations the land and naval forces were assembled at Otranto, at the heel, or extreme promontory, of Italy; and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights 63 of Norman race or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be swelled to thirty thousand 64 followers of every denomination. The men, the horses, the arms, the engines, the wooden towers, covered with raw hides, were embarked on board one hundred and fifty vessels: the transports had been built in the ports of Italy, and the galleys were supplied by the alliance of the republic of Ragusa.

59 (return) [ In the first expedition of Robert against the Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena, (the ist, iiid, ivth, and vth books of the Alexiad,) William Appulus, (l. ivth and vth, p. 270-275,) and Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 13, 14, 24-29, 39.) Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of them were eye-witnesses of the war.]

60 (return) [ One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo, or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble, (Gulielm. Appul. l. iii. p. 267,) in the xith century, and whose ancestors in the xth and ixth are explored by the critical industry of Leibnitz and Muratori. From the two elder sons of the marquis Azzo are derived the illustrious lines of Brunswick and Este. See Muratori, Antichita Estense.]

61 (return) [ Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric nuptials, (l. i. p. 23,) was betrothed as her husband. (p. 27.) Elsewhere she describes the red and white of his skin, his hawk’s eyes, &c., l. iii. p. 71.]

62 (return) [ Anna Comnena, l. i. p. 28, 29. Gulielm. Appul. l. iv p. 271. Galfrid Malaterra, l. iii. c. 13, p. 579, 580. Malaterra is more cautious in his style; but the Apulian is bold and positive.—Mentitus se Michaelem Venerata Danais quidam seductor ad illum. As Gregory VII had believed, Baronius almost alone, recognizes the emperor Michael. (A.D. No. 44.)]

63 (return) [ Ipse armatae militiae non plusquam MCCC milites secum habuisse, ab eis qui eidem negotio interfuerunt attestatur, (Malaterra, l. iii. c. 24, p. 583.) These are the same whom the Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) styles the equestris gens ducis, equites de gente ducis.]

64 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. i. p. 37;) and her account tallies with the number and lading of the ships. Ivit in Dyrrachium cum xv. millibus hominum, says the Chronicon Breve Normannicum, (Muratori, Scriptores, tom. v. p. 278.) I have endeavored to reconcile these reckonings.]

At the mouth of the Adriatic Gulf, the shores of Italy and Epirus incline towards each other. The space between Brundusium and Durazzo, the Roman passage, is no more than one hundred miles; 65 at the last station of Otranto, it is contracted to fifty; 66 and this narrow distance had suggested to Pyrrhus and Pompey the sublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. Before the general embarkation, the Norman duke despatched Bohemond with fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu, to survey the opposite coast, and to secure a harbor in the neighborhood of Vallona for the landing of the troops. They passed and landed without perceiving an enemy; and this successful experiment displayed the neglect and decay of the naval power of the Greeks. The islands of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the arms or the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu (I use the modern appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. That city, the western key of the empire, was guarded by ancient renown, and recent fortifications, by George Palaeologus, a patrician, victorious in the Oriental wars, and a numerous garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who, in every age, have maintained the character of soldiers. In the prosecution of his enterprise, the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of danger and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year, as his fleet passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow unexpectedly arose: the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the Acroceraunian rocks. 67 The sails, the masts, and the oars, were shattered or torn away; the sea and shore were covered with the fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies; and the greatest part of the provisions were either drowned or damaged. The ducal galley was laboriously rescued from the waves, and Robert halted seven days on the adjacent cape, to collect the relics of his loss, and revive the drooping spirits of his soldiers. The Normans were no longer the bold and experienced mariners who had explored the ocean from Greenland to Mount Atlas, and who smiled at the petty dangers of the Mediterranean. They had wept during the tempest; they were alarmed by the hostile approach of the Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and promises of the Byzantine court. The first day’s action was not disadvantageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth, 68 who led the naval powers of his father. All night the galleys of the republic lay on their anchors in the form of a crescent; and the victory of the second day was decided by the dexterity of their evolutions, the station of their archers, the weight of their javelins, and the borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulian and Ragusian vessels fled to the shore, several were cut from their cables, and dragged away by the conqueror; and a sally from the town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents of the Norman duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo, and as soon as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute and provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential disease; five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death; and the list of burials (if all could obtain a decent burial) amounted to ten thousand persons. Under these calamities, the mind of Guiscard alone was firm and invincible; and while he collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered, or scaled, or sapped, the walls of Durazzo. But his industry and valor were encountered by equal valor and more perfect industry. A movable turret, of a size and capacity to contain five hundred soldiers, had been rolled forwards to the foot of the rampart: but the descent of the door or drawbridge was checked by an enormous beam, and the wooden structure was constantly consumed by artificial flames.

65 (return) [ The Itinerary of Jerusalem (p. 609, edit. Wesseling) gives a true and reasonable space of a thousand stadia or one hundred miles which is strangely doubled by Strabo (l. vi. p. 433) and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. iii. 16.)]

66 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 6, 16) allows quinquaginta millia for this brevissimus cursus, and agrees with the real distance from Otranto to La Vallona, or Aulon, (D’Anville, Analyse de sa Carte des Cotes de la Grece, &c., p. 3-6.) Hermolaus Barbarus, who substitutes centum. (Harduin, Not. lxvi. in Plin. l. iii.,) might have been corrected by every Venetian pilot who had sailed out of the gulf.]

67 (return) [ Infames scopulos Acroceraunia, Horat. carm. i. 3. The praecipitem Africum decertantem Aquilonibus, et rabiem Noti and the monstra natantia of the Adriatic, are somewhat enlarged; but Horace trembling for the life of Virgil, is an interesting moment in the history of poetry and friendship.]

68 (return) [ (Alexias, l. iv. p. 106.) Yet the Normans shaved, and the Venetians wore, their beards: they must have derided the no beard of Bohemond; a harsh interpretation. (Duncanga ad Alexiad. p. 283.)]

While the Roman empire was attacked by the Turks in the East, east, and the Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess Anne, his daughter and historian, observes, in her affected style, that even Hercules was unequal to a double combat; and, on this principle, she approves a hasty peace with the Turks, which allowed her father to undertake in person the relief of Durazzo. On his accession, Alexius found the camp without soldiers, and the treasury without money; yet such were the vigor and activity of his measures, that in six months he assembled an army of seventy thousand men, 69 and performed a march of five hundred miles. His troops were levied in Europe and Asia, from Peloponnesus to the Black Sea; his majesty was displayed in the silver arms and rich trappings of the companies of Horse-guards; and the emperor was attended by a train of nobles and princes, some of whom, in rapid succession, had been clothed with the purple, and were indulged by the lenity of the times in a life of affluence and dignity. Their youthful ardor might animate the multitude; but their love of pleasure and contempt of subordination were pregnant with disorder and mischief; and their importunate clamors for speedy and decisive action disconcerted the prudence of Alexius, who might have surrounded and starved the besieging army. The enumeration of provinces recalls a sad comparison of the past and present limits of the Roman world: the raw levies were drawn together in haste and terror; and the garrisons of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, had been purchased by the evacuation of the cities which were immediately occupied by the Turks. The strength of the Greek army consisted in the Varangians, the Scandinavian guards, whose numbers were recently augmented by a colony of exiles and volunteers from the British Island of Thule. Under the yoke of the Norman conqueror, the Danes and English were oppressed and united; a band of adventurous youths resolved to desert a land of slavery; the sea was open to their escape; and, in their long pilgrimage, they visited every coast that afforded any hope of liberty and revenge. They were entertained in the service of the Greek emperor; and their first station was in a new city on the Asiatic shore: but Alexius soon recalled them to the defence of his person and palace; and bequeathed to his successors the inheritance of their faith and valor. 70 The name of a Norman invader revived the memory of their wrongs: they marched with alacrity against the national foe, and panted to regain in Epirus the glory which they had lost in the battle of Hastings. The Varangians were supported by some companies of Franks or Latins; and the rebels, who had fled to Constantinople from the tyranny of Guiscard, were eager to signalize their zeal and gratify their revenge. In this emergency, the emperor had not disdained the impure aid of the Paulicians or Manichaeans of Thrace and Bulgaria; and these heretics united with the patience of martyrdom the spirit and discipline of active valor. 71 The treaty with the sultan had procured a supply of some thousand Turks; and the arrows of the Scythian horse were opposed to the lances of the Norman cavalry. On the report and distant prospect of these formidable numbers, Robert assembled a council of his principal officers. “You behold,” said he, “your danger: it is urgent and inevitable. The hills are covered with arms and standards; and the emperor of the Greeks is accustomed to wars and triumphs. Obedience and union are our only safety; and I am ready to yield the command to a more worthy leader.” The vote and acclamation even of his secret enemies, assured him, in that perilous moment, of their esteem and confidence; and the duke thus continued: “Let us trust in the rewards of victory, and deprive cowardice of the means of escape. Let us burn our vessels and our baggage, and give battle on this spot, as if it were the place of our nativity and our burial.” The resolution was unanimously approved; and, without confining himself to his lines, Guiscard awaited in battle-array the nearer approach of the enemy. His rear was covered by a small river; his right wing extended to the sea; his left to the hills: nor was he conscious, perhaps, that on the same ground Caesar and Pompey had formerly disputed the empire of the world. 72

69 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ix. p. 136, 137) observes, that some authors (Petrus Diacon. Chron. Casinen. l. iii. c. 49) compose the Greek army of 170,000 men, but that the hundred may be struck off, and that Malaterra reckons only 70,000; a slight inattention. The passage to which he alludes is in the Chronicle of Lupus Protospata, (Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 45.) Malaterra (l. iv. c. 27) speaks in high, but indefinite terms of the emperor, cum copiisinnumerabilbus: like the Apulian poet, (l. iv. p. 272:) —More locustarum montes et pianna teguntur.]

70 (return) [ See William of Malmsbury, de Gestis Anglorum, l. ii. p. 92. Alexius fidem Anglorum suspiciens praecipuis familiaritatibus suis eos applicabat, amorem eorum filio transcribens. Odericus Vitalis (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. p. 508, l. vii. p. 641) relates their emigration from England, and their service in Greece.]

71 (return) [ See the Apulian, (l. i. p. 256.) The character and the story of these Manichaeans has been the subject of the livth chapter.]

72 (return) [ See the simple and masterly narrative of Caesar himself, (Comment. de Bell. Civil. iii. 41-75.) It is a pity that Quintus Icilius (M. Guichard) did not live to analyze these operations, as he has done the campaigns of Africa and Spain.]

Against the advice of his wisest captains, Alexius resolved to risk the event of a general action, and exhorted the garrison of Durazzo to assist their own deliverance by a well-timed sally from the town. He marched in two columns to surprise the Normans before daybreak on two different sides: his light cavalry was scattered over the plain; the archers formed the second line; and the Varangians claimed the honors of the vanguard. In the first onset, the battle-axes of the strangers made a deep and bloody impression on the army of Guiscard, which was now reduced to fifteen thousand men. The Lombards and Calabrians ignominiously turned their backs; they fled towards the river and the sea; but the bridge had been broken down to check the sally of the garrison, and the coast was lined with the Venetian galleys, who played their engines among the disorderly throng. On the verge of ruin, they were saved by the spirit and conduct of their chiefs. Gaita, the wife of Robert, is painted by the Greeks as a warlike Amazon, a second Pallas; less skilful in arts, but not less terrible in arms, than the Athenian goddess: 73 though wounded by an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove, by her exhortation and example, to rally the flying troops. 74 Her female voice was seconded by the more powerful voice and arm of the Norman duke, as calm in action as he was magnanimous in council: “Whither,” he cried aloud, “whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable; and death is less grievous than servitude.” The moment was decisive: as the Varangians advanced before the line, they discovered the nakedness of their flanks: the main battle of the duke, of eight hundred knights, stood firm and entire; they couched their lances, and the Greeks bore the furious and irresistible shock of the French cavalry. 75 Alexius was not deficient in the duties of a soldier or a general; but he no sooner beheld the slaughter of the Varangians, and the flight of the Turks, than he despised his subjects, and despaired of his fortune. The princess Anne, who drops a tear on this melancholy event, is reduced to praise the strength and swiftness of her father’s horse, and his vigorous struggle when he was almost overthrown by the stroke of a lance, which had shivered the Imperial helmet. His desperate valor broke through a squadron of Franks who opposed his flight; and after wandering two days and as many nights in the mountains, he found some repose, of body, though not of mind, in the walls of Lychnidus. The victorious Robert reproached the tardy and feeble pursuit which had suffered the escape of so illustrious a prize: but he consoled his disappointment by the trophies and standards of the field, the wealth and luxury of the Byzantine camp, and the glory of defeating an army five times more numerous than his own. A multitude of Italians had been the victims of their own fears; but only thirty of his knights were slain in this memorable day. In the Roman host, the loss of Greeks, Turks, and English, amounted to five or six thousand: 76 the plain of Durazzo was stained with noble and royal blood; and the end of the impostor Michael was more honorable than his life.

73 (return) [ It is very properly translated by the President Cousin, (Hist. de Constantinople, tom. iv. p. 131, in 12mo.,) qui combattoit comme une Pallas, quoiqu’elle ne fut pas aussi savante que celle d’Athenes. The Grecian goddess was composed of two discordant characters, of Neith, the workwoman of Sais in Egypt, and of a virgin Amazon of the Tritonian lake in Libya, (Banier, Mythologie, tom. iv. p. 1-31, in 12mo.)]

74 (return) [ Anna Comnena (l. iv. p. 116) admires, with some degree of terror, her masculine virtues. They were more familiar to the Latins and though the Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) mentions her presence and her wound, he represents her as far less intrepid. Uxor in hoc bello Roberti forte sagitta

Quadam laesa fuit: quo vulnere territa nullam. Dum sperabat opem, se poene subegerat hosti.

The last is an unlucky word for a female prisoner.]

75 (return) [ (Anna, l. v. p. 133;) and elsewhere, (p. 140.) The pedantry of the princess in the choice of classic appellations encouraged Ducange to apply to his countrymen the characters of the ancient Gauls.]

76 (return) [ Lupus Protospata (tom. iii. p. 45) says 6000: William the Apulian more than 5000, (l. iv. p. 273.) Their modesty is singular and laudable: they might with so little trouble have slain two or three myriads of schismatics and infidels!]

It is more than probable that Guiscard was not afflicted by the loss of a costly pageant, which had merited only the contempt and derision of the Greeks. After their defeat, they still persevered in the defence of Durazzo; and a Venetian commander supplied the place of George Palaeologus, who had been imprudently called away from his station. The tents of the besiegers were converted into barracks, to sustain the inclemency of the winter; and in answer to the defiance of the garrison, Robert insinuated, that his patience was at least equal to their obstinacy. 77 Perhaps he already trusted to his secret correspondence with a Venetian noble, who sold the city for a rich and honorable marriage. At the dead of night, several rope-ladders were dropped from the walls; the light Calabrians ascended in silence; and the Greeks were awakened by the name and trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they defended the streets three days against an enemy already master of the rampart; and near seven months elapsed between the first investment and the final surrender of the place. From Durazzo, the Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus or Albania; traversed the first mountains of Thessaly; surprised three hundred English in the city of Castoria; approached Thessalonica; and made Constantinople tremble. A more pressing duty suspended the prosecution of his ambitious designs. By shipwreck, pestilence, and the sword, his army was reduced to a third of the original numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers which had been produced by his absence: the revolt of the cities and barons of Apulia; the distress of the pope; and the approach or invasion of Henry king of Germany. Highly presuming that his person was sufficient for the public safety, he repassed the sea in a single brigantine, and left the remains of the army under the command of his son and the Norman counts, exhorting Bohemond to respect the freedom of his peers, and the counts to obey the authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod in the footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom devours whatever has escaped the teeth of the former. 78 After winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles, 79 which contained the treasure and magazines of the Byzantine camp. Yet a just praise must not be refused to the fortitude and prudence of Alexius, who bravely struggled with the calamities of the times. In the poverty of the state, he presumed to borrow the superfluous ornaments of the churches: the desertion of the Manichaeans was supplied by some tribes of Moldavia: a reenforcement of seven thousand Turks replaced and revenged the loss of their brethren; and the Greek soldiers were exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of ambuscades and evolutions. Alexius had been taught by experience, that the formidable cavalry of the Franks on foot was unfit for action, and almost incapable of motion; 80 his archers were directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the man; and a variety of spikes and snares were scattered over the ground on which he might expect an attack. In the neighborhood of Larissa the events of war were protracted and balanced. The courage of Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful; but his camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city was impregnable; and the venal or discontented counts deserted his standard, betrayed their trusts, and enlisted in the service of the emperor. Alexius returned to Constantinople with the advantage, rather than the honor, of victory. After evacuating the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who esteemed his merit, and sympathized in his misfortune.

77 (return) [ The Romans had changed the inauspicious name of Epidamnus to Dyrrachium, (Plin. iii. 26;) and the vulgar corruption of Duracium (see Malaterra) bore some affinity to hardness. One of Robert’s names was Durand, a durando: poor wit! (Alberic. Monach. in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 137.)]

78 (return) [ (Anna, l. i. p. 35.) By these similes, so different from those of Homer she wishes to inspire contempt as well as horror for the little noxious animal, a conqueror. Most unfortunately, the common sense, or common nonsense, of mankind, resists her laudable design.]

79 (return) [ Prodiit hac auctor Trojanae cladis Achilles. The supposition of the Apulian (l. v. p. 275) may be excused by the more classic poetry of Virgil, (Aeneid. ii. 197,) Larissaeus Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer.]

80 (return) [ The items which encumbered the knights on foot, have been ignorantly translated spurs, (Anna Comnena, Alexias, l. v. p. 140.) Ducange has explained the true sense by a ridiculous and inconvenient fashion, which lasted from the xith to the xvth century. These peaks, in the form of a scorpion, were sometimes two feet and fastened to the knee with a silver chain.]

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LVI. The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part IV

Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry the Third or Fourth, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the West. The epistle of the Greek monarch 81 to his brother is filled with the warmest professions of friendship, and the most lively desire of strengthening their alliance by every public and private tie. He congratulates Henry on his success in a just and pious war; and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Norman Robert. The lists of his presents expresses the manners of the age—a radiated crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a case of relics, with the names and titles of the saints, a vase of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more solid present, of one hundred and forty-four thousand Byzantines of gold, with a further assurance of two hundred and sixteen thousand, so soon as Henry should have entered in arms the Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath the league against the common enemy. The German, 82 who was already in Lombardy at the head of an army and a faction, accepted these liberal offers, and marched towards the south: his speed was checked by the sound of the battle of Durazzo; but the influence of his arms, or name, in the hasty return of Robert, was a full equivalent for the Grecian bribe. Henry was the severe adversary of the Normans, the allies and vassals of Gregory the Seventh, his implacable foe. The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and ambition of that haughty priest: 83 the king and the pope had degraded each other; and each had seated a rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy, to assume the Imperial crown, and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the church. 84 But the Roman people adhered to the cause of Gregory: their resolution was fortified by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany. In the fourth year he corrupted, as it is said, with Byzantine gold, the nobles of Rome, whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages, were delivered into his hands: the anti-pope, Clement the Third, was consecrated in the Lateran: the grateful pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican; and the emperor Henry fixed his residence in the Capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the nephew of Gregory: the pope himself was invested in the castle of St. Angelo; and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries and complaints; but, on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles: the most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse, and thirty thousand foot, was instantly assembled; and his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine favor. Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach; recollected some indispensable affairs that required his presence in Lombardy; exhorted the Romans to persevere in their allegiance; and hastily retreated three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three years, the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors, of the East and West, to fly before his victorious arms. 85 But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or scaled; but the Imperial faction was still powerful and active; on the third day, the people rose in a furious tumult; and a hasty word of the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage. 86 The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the holy city of the Christians: many thousands of the citizens, in the sight, and by the allies, of their spiritual father were exposed to violation, captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the Lateran to the Coliseum, was consumed by the flames, and devoted to perpetual solitude. 87 From a city, where he was now hated, and might be no longer feared, Gregory retired to end his days in the palace of Salerno. The artful pontiff might flatter the vanity of Guiscard with the hope of a Roman or Imperial crown; but this dangerous measure, which would have inflamed the ambition of the Norman, must forever have alienated the most faithful princes of Germany.

81 (return) [ The epistle itself (Alexias, l. iii. p. 93, 94, 95) well deserves to be read. There is one expression which Ducange does not understand. I have endeavored to grope out a tolerable meaning: The first word is a golden crown; the second is explained by Simon Portius, (in Lexico Graeco-Barbar.,) by a flash of lightning.]

82 (return) [ For these general events I must refer to the general historians Sigonius, Baronius, Muratori, Mosheim, St. Marc, &c.]

83 (return) [ The lives of Gregory VII. are either legends or invectives, (St. Marc, Abrege, tom. iii. p. 235, &c.;) and his miraculous or magical performances are alike incredible to a modern reader. He will, as usual, find some instruction in Le Clerc, (Vie de Hildebrand, Bibliot, ancienne et moderne, tom. viii.,) and much amusement in Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, Gregoire VII.) That pope was undoubtedly a great man, a second Athanasius, in a more fortunate age of the church. May I presume to add, that the portrait of Athanasius is one of the passages of my history (vol. ii. p. 332, &c.) with which I am the least dissatisfied? * Note: There is a fair life of Gregory VII. by Voigt, (Weimar. 1815,) which has been translated into French. M. Villemain, it is understood, has devoted much time to the study of this remarkable character, to whom his eloquence may do justice. There is much valuable information on the subject in the accurate work of Stenzel, Geschichte Deutschlands unter den Frankischen Kaisern—the History of Germany under the Emperors of the Franconian Race.—M.]

84 (return) [ Anna, with the rancor of a Greek schismatic, calls him (l. i. p. 32,) a pope, or priest, worthy to be spit upon and accuses him of scourging, shaving, and perhaps of castrating the ambassadors of Henry, (p. 31, 33.) But this outrage is improbable and doubtful, (see the sensible preface of Cousin.)]

85 (return) [

Sic uno tempore victi Sunt terrae Domini duo: rex Alemannicus iste, Imperii rector Romani maximus ille. Alter ad arma ruens armis superatur; et alter Nominis auditi sola formidine cessit.

It is singular enough, that the Apulian, a Latin, should distinguish the Greek as the ruler of the Roman empire, (l. iv. p. 274.)]

86 (return) [ The narrative of Malaterra (l. iii. c. 37, p. 587, 588) is authentic, circumstantial, and fair. Dux ignem exclamans urbe incensa, &c. The Apulian softens the mischief, (inde quibusdam aedibus exustis,) which is again exaggerated in some partial chronicles, (Muratori, Annali, tom. ix. p. 147.)]

87 (return) [ After mentioning this devastation, the Jesuit Donatus (de Roma veteri et nova, l. iv. c. 8, p. 489) prettily adds, Duraret hodieque in Coelio monte, interque ipsum et capitolium, miserabilis facies prostrates urbis, nisi in hortorum vinetorumque amoenitatem Roma resurrexisset, ut perpetua viriditate contegeret vulnera et ruinas suas.]

The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in a season of repose; but in the same year of the flight of the German emperor, the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of his eastern conquests. The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had promised to his valor the kingdoms of Greece and Asia; 88 his troops were assembled in arms, flushed with success, and eager for action. Their numbers, in the language of Homer, are compared by Anna to a swarm of bees; 89 yet the utmost and moderate limits of the powers of Guiscard have been already defined; they were contained on this second occasion in one hundred and twenty vessels; and as the season was far advanced, the harbor of Brundusium 90 was preferred to the open road of Otranto. Alexius, apprehensive of a second attack, had assiduously labored to restore the naval forces of the empire; and obtained from the republic of Venice an important succor of thirty-six transports, fourteen galleys, and nine galiots or ships of extra-ordinary strength and magnitude. Their services were liberally paid by the license or monopoly of trade, a profitable gift of many shops and houses in the port of Constantinople, and a tribute to St. Mark, the more acceptable, as it was the produce of a tax on their rivals at Amalphi. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians, the Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet; but their own neglect, or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind, or the shelter of a mist, opened a free passage; and the Norman troops were safely disembarked on the coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and well-appointed galleys, their intrepid duke immediately sought the enemy, and though more accustomed to fight on horseback, he trusted his own life, and the lives of his brother and two sons, to the event of a naval combat. The dominion of the sea was disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Isle of Corfu: in the two former, the skill and numbers of the allies were superior; but in the third, the Normans obtained a final and complete victory. 91 The light brigantines of the Greeks were scattered in ignominious flight: the nine castles of the Venetians maintained a more obstinate conflict; seven were sunk, two were taken; two thousand five hundred captives implored in vain the mercy of the victor; and the daughter of Alexius deplores the loss of thirteen thousand of his subjects or allies. The want of experience had been supplied by the genius of Guiscard; and each evening, when he had sounded a retreat, he calmly explored the causes of his repulse, and invented new methods how to remedy his own defects, and to baffle the advantages of the enemy. The winter season suspended his progress: with the return of spring he again aspired to the conquest of Constantinople; but, instead of traversing the hills of Epirus, he turned his arms against Greece and the islands, where the spoils would repay the labor, and where the land and sea forces might pursue their joint operations with vigor and effect. But, in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally blasted by an epidemical disease: Robert himself, in the seventieth year of his age, expired in his tent; and a suspicion of poison was imputed, by public rumor, to his wife, or to the Greek emperor. 92 This premature death might allow a boundless scope for the imagination of his future exploits; and the event sufficiently declares, that the Norman greatness was founded on his life. 93 Without the appearance of an enemy, a victorious army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation; and Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his deliverance. The galley which transported the remains of Guiscard was ship-wrecked on the Italian shore; but the duke’s body was recovered from the sea, and deposited in the sepulchre of Venusia, 94 a place more illustrious for the birth of Horace 95 than for the burial of the Norman heroes. Roger, his second son and successor, immediately sunk to the humble station of a duke of Apulia: the esteem or partiality of his father left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword.

The national tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the first crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory and conquest. 96

88 (return) [ The royalty of Robert, either promised or bestowed by the pope, (Anna, l. i. p. 32,) is sufficiently confirmed by the Apulian, (l. iv. p. 270.) —Romani regni sibi promisisse coronam Papa ferebatur. Nor can I understand why Gretser, and the other papal advocates, should be displeased with this new instance of apostolic jurisdiction.]

89 (return) [ See Homer, Iliad, B. (I hate this pedantic mode of quotation by letters of the Greek alphabet) 87, &c. His bees are the image of a disorderly crowd: their discipline and public works seem to be the ideas of a later age, (Virgil. Aeneid. l. i.)]

90 (return) [ Gulielm. Appulus, l. v. p. 276.) The admirable port of Brundusium was double; the outward harbor was a gulf covered by an island, and narrowing by degrees, till it communicated by a small gullet with the inner harbor, which embraced the city on both sides. Caesar and nature have labored for its ruin; and against such agents what are the feeble efforts of the Neapolitan government? (Swinburne’s Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 384-390.]

91 (return) [ William of Apulia (l. v. p. 276) describes the victory of the Normans, and forgets the two previous defeats, which are diligently recorded by Anna Comnena, (l. vi. p. 159, 160, 161.) In her turn, she invents or magnifies a fourth action, to give the Venetians revenge and rewards. Their own feelings were far different, since they deposed their doge, propter excidium stoli, (Dandulus in Chron in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 249.)]

92 (return) [ The most authentic writers, William of Apulia. (l. v. 277,) Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 41, p. 589,) and Romuald of Salerno, (Chron. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii.,) are ignorant of this crime, so apparent to our countrymen William of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) and Roger de Hoveden, (p. 710, in Script. post Bedam) and the latter can tell, how the just Alexius married, crowned, and burnt alive, his female accomplice. The English historian is indeed so blind, that he ranks Robert Guiscard, or Wiscard, among the knights of Henry I, who ascended the throne fifteen years after the duke of Apulia’s death.]

93 (return) [ The joyful Anna Comnena scatters some flowers over the grave of an enemy, (Alexiad, l. v. p. 162-166;) and his best praise is the esteem and envy of William the Conqueror, the sovereign of his family Graecia (says Malaterra) hostibus recedentibus libera laeta quievit: Apulia tota sive Calabria turbatur.]

94 (return) [ Urbs Venusina nitet tantis decorata sepulchris, is one of the last lines of the Apulian’s poems, (l. v. p. 278.) William of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) inserts an epitaph on Guiscard, which is not worth transcribing.]

95 (return) [ Yet Horace had few obligations to Venusia; he was carried to Rome in his childhood, (Serm. i. 6;) and his repeated allusions to the doubtful limit of Apulia and Lucania (Carm. iii. 4, Serm. ii. I) are unworthy of his age and genius.]

96 (return) [ See Giannone (tom. ii. p. 88-93) and the historians of the fire crusade.]

Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert Guiscard was extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the second generation; but his younger brother became the father of a line of kings; and the son of the great count was endowed with the name, the conquests, and the spirit, of the first Roger. 97 The heir of that Norman adventurer was born in Sicily; and, at the age of only four years, he succeeded to the sovereignty of the island, a lot which reason might envy, could she indulge for a moment the visionary, though virtuous wish of dominion. Had Roger been content with his fruitful patrimony, a happy and grateful people might have blessed their benefactor; and if a wise administration could have restored the prosperous times of the Greek colonies, 98 the opulence and power of Sicily alone might have equalled the widest scope that could be acquired and desolated by the sword of war. But the ambition of the great count was ignorant of these noble pursuits; it was gratified by the vulgar means of violence and artifice. He sought to obtain the undivided possession of Palermo, of which one moiety had been ceded to the elder branch; struggled to enlarge his Calabrian limits beyond the measure of former treaties; and impatiently watched the declining health of his cousin William of Apulia, the grandson of Robert. On the first intelligence of his premature death, Roger sailed from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor in the Bay of Salerno, received, after ten days’ negotiation, an oath of fidelity from the Norman capital, commanded the submission of the barons, and extorted a legal investiture from the reluctant popes, who could not long endure either the friendship or enmity of a powerful vassal. The sacred spot of Benevento was respectfully spared, as the patrimony of St. Peter; but the reduction of Capua and Naples completed the design of his uncle Guiscard; and the sole inheritance of the Norman conquests was possessed by the victorious Roger. A conscious superiority of power and merit prompted him to disdain the titles of duke and of count; and the Isle of Sicily, with a third perhaps of the continent of Italy, might form the basis of a kingdom 99 which would only yield to the monarchies of France and England. The chiefs of the nation who attended his coronation at Palermo might doubtless pronounce under what name he should reign over them; but the example of a Greek tyrant or a Saracen emir was insufficient to justify his regal character; and the nine kings of the Latin world 100 might disclaim their new associate, unless he were consecrated by the authority of the supreme pontiff. The pride of Anacletus was pleased to confer a title, which the pride of the Norman had stooped to solicit; 101 but his own legitimacy was attacked by the adverse election of Innocent the Second; and while Anacletus sat in the Vatican, the successful fugitive was acknowledged by the nations of Europe. The infant monarchy of Roger was shaken, and almost overthrown, by the unlucky choice of an ecclesiastical patron; and the sword of Lothaire the Second of Germany, the excommunications of Innocent, the fleets of Pisa, and the zeal of St. Bernard, were united for the ruin of the Sicilian robber. After a gallant resistance, the Norman prince was driven from the continent of Italy: a new duke of Apulia was invested by the pope and the emperor, each of whom held one end of the gonfanon, or flagstaff, as a token that they asserted their right, and suspended their quarrel. But such jealous friendship was of short and precarious duration: the German armies soon vanished in disease and desertion: 102 the Apulian duke, with all his adherents, was exterminated by a conqueror who seldom forgave either the dead or the living; like his predecessor Leo the Ninth, the feeble though haughty pontiff became the captive and friend of the Normans; and their reconciliation was celebrated by the eloquence of Bernard, who now revered the title and virtues of the king of Sicily.

97 (return) [ The reign of Roger, and the Norman kings of Sicily, fills books of the Istoria Civile of Giannone, (tom. ii. l. xi.-xiv. p. 136-340,) and is spread over the ixth and xth volumes of the Italian Annals of Muratori. In the Bibliotheque Italique (tom. i. p. 175-122,) I find a useful abstract of Capacelatro, a modern Neapolitan, who has composed, in two volumes, the history of his country from Roger Frederic II. inclusive.]

98 (return) [ According to the testimony of Philistus and Diodorus, the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse could maintain a standing force of 10,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 400 galleys. Compare Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 268, 435,) and his adversary Wallace, (Numbers of Mankind, p. 306, 307.) The ruins of Agrigentum are the theme of every traveller, D’Orville, Reidesel, Swinburne, &c.]

99 (return) [ A contemporary historian of the acts of Roger from the year 1127 to 1135, founds his title on merit and power, the consent of the barons, and the ancient royalty of Sicily and Palermo, without introducing Pope Anacletus, (Alexand. Coenobii Telesini Abbatis de Rebus gestis Regis Rogerii, lib. iv. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 607-645)]

100 (return) [ The kings of France, England, Scotland, Castille, Arragon, Navarre, Sweden, Denmark, and Hungary. The three first were more ancient than Charlemagne; the three next were created by their sword; the three last by their baptism; and of these the king of Hungary alone was honored or debased by a papal crown.]

101 (return) [ Fazellus, and a crowd of Sicilians, had imagined a more early and independent coronation, (A.D. 1130, May 1,) which Giannone unwillingly rejects, (tom. ii. p. 137-144.) This fiction is disproved by the silence of contemporaries; nor can it be restored by a spurious character of Messina, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. ix. p. 340. Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. p. 467, 468.)]

102 (return) [ Roger corrupted the second person of Lothaire’s army, who sounded, or rather cried, a retreat; for the Germans (says Cinnamus, l. iii. c. i. p. 51) are ignorant of the use of trumpets. Most ignorant himself! * Note: Cinnamus says nothing of their ignorance.—M]

As a penance for his impious war against the successor of St. Peter, that monarch might have promised to display the banner of the cross, and he accomplished with ardor a vow so propitious to his interest and revenge. The recent injuries of Sicily might provoke a just retaliation on the heads of the Saracens: the Normans, whose blood had been mingled with so many subject streams, were encouraged to remember and emulate the naval trophies of their fathers, and in the maturity of their strength they contended with the decline of an African power. When the Fatimite caliph departed for the conquest of Egypt, he rewarded the real merit and apparent fidelity of his servant Joseph with a gift of his royal mantle, and forty Arabian horses, his palace with its sumptuous furniture, and the government of the kingdoms of Tunis and Algiers. The Zeirides, 103 the descendants of Joseph, forgot their allegiance and gratitude to a distant benefactor, grasped and abused the fruits of prosperity; and after running the little course of an Oriental dynasty, were now fainting in their own weakness. On the side of the land, they were pressed by the Almohades, the fanatic princes of Morocco, while the sea-coast was open to the enterprises of the Greeks and Franks, who, before the close of the eleventh century, had extorted a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. By the first arms of Roger, the island or rock of Malta, which has been since ennobled by a military and religious colony, was inseparably annexed to the crown of Sicily. Tripoli, 104 a strong and maritime city, was the next object of his attack; and the slaughter of the males, the captivity of the females, might be justified by the frequent practice of the Moslems themselves. The capital of the Zeirides was named Africa from the country, and Mahadia 105 from the Arabian founder: it is strongly built on a neck of land, but the imperfection of the harbor is not compensated by the fertility of the adjacent plain. Mahadia was besieged by George the Sicilian admiral, with a fleet of one hundred and fifty galleys, amply provided with men and the instruments of mischief: the sovereign had fled, the Moorish governor refused to capitulate, declined the last and irresistible assault, and secretly escaping with the Moslem inhabitants abandoned the place and its treasures to the rapacious Franks. In successive expeditions, the king of Sicily or his lieutenants reduced the cities of Tunis, Safax, Capsia, Bona, and a long tract of the sea-coast; 106 the fortresses were garrisoned, the country was tributary, and a boast that it held Africa in subjection might be inscribed with some flattery on the sword of Roger. 107 After his death, that sword was broken; and these transmarine possessions were neglected, evacuated, or lost, under the troubled reign of his successor. 108 The triumphs of Scipio and Belisarius have proved, that the African continent is neither inaccessible nor invincible; yet the great princes and powers of Christendom have repeatedly failed in their armaments against the Moors, who may still glory in the easy conquest and long servitude of Spain.

103 (return) [ See De Guignes, Hist. Generate des Huns, tom. i. p. 369-373 and Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique, &c., sous la Domination des Arabes tom. ii. p. 70-144. Their common original appears to be Novairi.]

104 (return) [ Tripoli (says the Nubian geographer, or more properly the Sherif al Edrisi) urbs fortis, saxeo muro vallata, sita prope littus maris Hanc expugnavit Rogerius, qui mulieribus captivis ductis, viros pere mit.]

105 (return) [ See the geography of Leo Africanus, (in Ramusio tom. i. fol. 74 verso. fol. 75, recto,) and Shaw’s Travels, (p. 110,) the viith book of Thuanus, and the xith of the Abbe de Vertot. The possession and defence of the place was offered by Charles V. and wisely declined by the knights of Malta.]

106 (return) [ Pagi has accurately marked the African conquests of Roger and his criticism was supplied by his friend the Abbe de Longuerue with some Arabic memorials, (A.D. 1147, No. 26, 27, A.D. 1148, No. 16, A.D. 1153, No. 16.)]

107 (return) [ Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer. A proud inscription, which denotes, that the Norman conquerors were still discriminated from their Christian and Moslem subjects.]

108 (return) [ Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori, Script. tom. vii. p. 270, 271) ascribes these losses to the neglect or treachery of the admiral Majo.]

Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had relinquished, above sixty years, their hostile designs against the empire of the East. The policy of Roger solicited a public and private union with the Greek princes, whose alliance would dignify his regal character: he demanded in marriage a daughter of the Comnenian family, and the first steps of the treaty seemed to promise a favorable event. But the contemptuous treatment of his ambassadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch; and the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated, according to the laws of nations, by the sufferings of a guiltless people. 109 With the fleet of seventy galleys, George, the admiral of Sicily, appeared before Corfu; and both the island and city were delivered into his hands by the disaffected inhabitants, who had yet to learn that a siege is still more calamitous than a tribute. In this invasion, of some moment in the annals of commerce, the Normans spread themselves by sea, and over the provinces of Greece; and the venerable age of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, was violated by rapine and cruelty. Of the wrongs of Athens, no memorial remains. The ancient walls, which encompassed, without guarding, the opulence of Thebes, were scaled by the Latin Christians; but their sole use of the gospel was to sanctify an oath, that the lawful owners had not secreted any relic of their inheritance or industry. On the approach of the Normans, the lower town of Corinth was evacuated; the Greeks retired to the citadel, which was seated on a lofty eminence, abundantly watered by the classic fountain of Pirene; an impregnable fortress, if the want of courage could be balanced by any advantages of art or nature. As soon as the besiegers had surmounted the labor (their sole labor) of climbing the hill, their general, from the commanding eminence, admired his own victory, and testified his gratitude to Heaven, by tearing from the altar the precious image of Theodore, the tutelary saint. The silk weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily, composed the most valuable part of the spoil; and in comparing the skilful industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice of the soldier, he was heard to exclaim that the distaff and loom were the only weapons which the Greeks were capable of using. The progress of this naval armament was marked by two conspicuous events, the rescue of the king of France, and the insult of the Byzantine capital. In his return by sea from an unfortunate crusade, Louis the Seventh was intercepted by the Greeks, who basely violated the laws of honor and religion. The fortunate encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and after a free and honorable entertainment in the court of Sicily, Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris. 110 In the absence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were left without defence and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy and people (for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel) were astonished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line of galleys, which boldly cast anchor in the front of the Imperial city. The forces of the Sicilian admiral were inadequate to the siege or assault of an immense and populous metropolis; but George enjoyed the glory of humbling the Greek arrogance, and of marking the path of conquest to the navies of the West. He landed some soldiers to rifle the fruits of the royal gardens, and pointed with silver, or most probably with fire, the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. 111 This playful outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel affected to despise, while his martial spirit, and the forces of the empire, were awakened to revenge. The Archipelago and Ionian Sea were covered with his squadrons and those of Venice; but I know not by what favorable allowance of transports, victuallers, and pinnaces, our reason, or even our fancy, can be reconciled to the stupendous account of fifteen hundred vessels, which is proposed by a Byzantine historian. These operations were directed with prudence and energy: in his homeward voyage George lost nineteen of his galleys, which were separated and taken: after an obstinate defence, Corfu implored the clemency of her lawful sovereign; nor could a ship, a soldier, of the Norman prince, be found, unless as a captive, within the limits of the Eastern empire. The prosperity and the health of Roger were already in a declining state: while he listened in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or defeat, the invincible Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was celebrated by the Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or the Hercules of the age.

109 (return) [ The silence of the Sicilian historians, who end too soon, or begin too late, must be supplied by Otho of Frisingen, a German, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in Muratori, Script. tom. vi. p. 668,) the Venetian Andrew Dandulus, (Id. tom. xii. p. 282, 283) and the Greek writers Cinnamus (l. iii. c. 2-5) and Nicetas, (in Manuel. l. iii. c. 1-6.)]

110 (return) [ To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue I apply Cinnamus, l. ii. c. 19, p. 49. Muratori, on tolerable evidence, (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 420, 421,) laughs at the delicacy of the French, who maintain, marisque nullo impediente periculo ad regnum proprium reversum esse; yet I observe that their advocate, Ducange, is less positive as the commentator on Cinnamus, than as the editor of Joinville.]

111 (return) [ In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says Dandulus; but Nicetas (l. ii. c. 8, p. 66) transforms them, and adds, that Manuel styled this insult. These arrows, by the compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold.]

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LVI. The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V

A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having repelled the insolence of a Barbarian. It was the right and duty, it might be the interest and glory, of Manuel to restore the ancient majesty of the empire, to recover the provinces of Italy and Sicily, and to chastise this pretended king, the grandson of a Norman vassal. 112 The natives of Calabria were still attached to the Greek language and worship, which had been inexorably proscribed by the Latin clergy: after the loss of her dukes, Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of Sicily; the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and his death had abated the fear, without healing the discontent, of his subjects: the feudal government was always pregnant with the seeds of rebellion; and a nephew of Roger himself invited the enemies of his family and nation. The majesty of the purple, and a series of Hungarian and Turkish wars, prevented Manuel from embarking his person in the Italian expedition. To the brave and noble Palaeologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch intrusted a fleet and army: the siege of Bari was his first exploit; and, in every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory. Salerno, and some places along the western coast, maintained their fidelity to the Norman king; but he lost in two campaigns the greater part of his continental possessions; and the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and falsehood, was content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all the walls of the palace. The prejudices of the Latins were gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of the German Caesars; 113 but the successor of Constantine soon renounced this ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the Barbarians beyond the Alps. By the artful speeches, liberal gifts, and unbounded promises, of their Eastern ally, the free cities were encouraged to persevere in their generous struggle against the despotism of Frederic Barbarossa: the walls of Milan were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel; and he poured, says the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose attachment to the Greeks was fortified by the jealous enmity of the Venetians. 114 The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it an important garrison in the heart of Italy: it was twice besieged by the arms of Frederic; the imperial forces were twice repulsed by the spirit of freedom; that spirit was animated by the ambassador of Constantinople; and the most intrepid patriots, the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and honors of the Byzantine court. 115 The pride of Manuel disdained and rejected a Barbarian colleague; his ambition was excited by the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of establishing, in the West, as in the East, his lawful title of sole emperor of the Romans. With this view, he solicited the alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch; the splendid nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of that powerful family, 116 and his royal standard or image was entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. 117 During the quarrel between Frederic and Alexander the Third, the pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassadors of Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long-promised union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal court, and exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just provocation, the favorable moment, to humble the savage insolence of the Alemanni and to acknowledge the true representative of Constantine and Augustus. 118

112 (return) [ For the invasion of Italy, which is almost overlooked by Nicetas see the more polite history of Cinnamus, (l. iv. c. 1-15, p. 78-101,) who introduces a diffuse narrative by a lofty profession, iii. 5.]

113 (return) [ The Latin, Otho, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. ii. c. 30, p. 734,) attests the forgery; the Greek, Cinnamus, (l. iv. c. 1, p. 78,) claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of the Greeks.]

114 (return) [ Quod Ancontiani Graecum imperium nimis diligerent ... Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love, perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the emperor; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus, (l. iv. c. 14, p. 98.)]

115 (return) [ Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona; the first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, tom. x. p. 39, &c.;) the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian, archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office, (p. 76, &c.) It is of the second siege that we possess an original narrative, which he has published in his great collection, (tom. vi. p. 921-946.)]

116 (return) [ We derive this anecdote from an anonymous chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 874.)]

117 (return) [ Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 14, p. 99) is susceptible of this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more Greek.]

118 (return) [ Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa et tempos opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur; quoniam non ad Frederici Alemanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere, (Vit. Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniae, in Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. par. i. p. 458.) His second embassy was accompanied cum immensa multitudine pecuniarum.]

But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence of Alexander the Third, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution; 119 nor could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the Latin name. After the reunion with Frederic, he spoke a more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople and Rome. 120 The free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and without preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the enmity of Venice. 121 By his own avarice, or the complaints of his subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the persons, and confiscate the effects, of the Venetian merchants. This violation of the public faith exasperated a free and commercial people: one hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many days; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece: but after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement, inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic; and a complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; but that his forces were inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily. His prophecy was soon verified: the death of Palaeologus devolved the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land and sea; and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their conqueror. 122 Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully addressed the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty years, accepted as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. 123 The Byzantine Caesars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind: the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians 124 expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks 125 accuse and magnify the wanton and sacrilegious cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those invincible but unsuspecting warriors who were destroyed by the arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud, in songs of triumph, the repeated victories of their countrymen on the Sea of Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the walls of Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of Andronicus, had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of the successful insurgents: ten thousand were slain in battle, and Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was the event of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans: before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy.

119 (return) [ Nimis alta et perplexa sunt, (Vit. Alexandri III. p. 460, 461,) says the cautious pope.]

120 (return) [ (Cinnamus, l. iv. c. 14, p. 99.)]

121 (return) [ In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c.]

122 (return) [ This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno, (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198.) It is whimsical enough, that in the praise of the king of Sicily, Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and copious than Falcandus, (p. 268, 270.) But the Greek is fond of description, and the Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad.]

123 (return) [ For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas, (l. ii. c. 8.) It is difficult to affirm, whether these Greeks deceived themselves, or the public, in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the empire.]

124 (return) [ I can only quote, of original evidence, the poor chronicles of Sicard of Cremona, (p. 603,) and of Fossa Nova, (p. 875,) as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori’s historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam Andronici.... ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were.... decepti captique, by Isaac.]

125 (return) [ By the failure of Cinnamus to Nicetas (in Andronico, l.. c. 7, 8, 9, l. ii. c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, l. i. c. 1-4,) who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he survived the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery; but the fall of Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For the honor of learning I shall observe that Homer’s great commentator, Eustathias archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to desert his flock.]

The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and grandson: they might be confounded under the name of William: they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and the good; but these epithets, which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valor of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and conspired against the life, of his benefactor. From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of Oriental manners; the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem, of a sultan; and a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times 126 has delineated the misfortunes of his country: 127 the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself; the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo, the island, and the continent, during the reign of William the First, and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and beauty of William the Second, 128 endeared him to the nation: the factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancred of Hauteville was extinct in the person of the second William; but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful prince of the age; and Henry the Sixth, the son of Frederic Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the Imperial crown and the inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a free people, this inheritance could only be acquired by arms; and I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian Falcandus, who writes at the moment, and on the spot, with the feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman. “Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty, and educated in the arts and manners, of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the Barbarians with our treasures, and now returns, with her savage allies, to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry Barbarians: our opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. 129 In this extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act? By the unanimous election of a king of valor and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; 130 for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope. 131 Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength, of Messina, 132 might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount Aetna, 133 what resource will be left for the interior parts of the island, these noble cities which should never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a Barbarian? 134 Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake: the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; 135 but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety, they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.” 136 We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country to his religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily.

126 (return) [ The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viiith volume of Muratori’s Collection, (tom. vii. p. 259-344,) and preceded by a eloquent preface or epistle, (p. 251-258, de Calamitatibus Siciliae.) Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement, from the ist to the xiith century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and barren field on which his labors have been cast.]

127 (return) [ The laborious Benedictines (l’Art de verifier les Dates, p. 896) are of opinion, that the true name of Falcandus is Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucalt, a Frenchman by birth, and at length abbot of St. Denys, had followed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to the mother of William II., archbishop of Palermo, and great chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least educated, in the island.]

128 (return) [ Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins his history from the death and praises of William II. After some unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiae cultus tempore suo vigebat in regno; sua erat quilibet sorte contentus; (were they mortals?) abique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum, (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii p 939.)]

129 (return) [ Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarun tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinus et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum imgentibus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica foeditate contaminet .... Intuari mihi jam videor turbulentas bar barorum acies.... civitates opulentas et loca diuturna pace florentia, metu concutere, caede vastare, rapinis atterere, et foedare luxuria hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constupratae, matronae, &c.]

130 (return) [ Certe si regem non dubiae virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare.]

131 (return) [ In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciae reponendum.]

132 (return) [ Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, .... muriorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum.]

133 (return) [ Cum erudelitate piratica Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter aucbustos lapides, et Aethnae flagrant’s incendia, &c.]

134 (return) [ Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quae et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio praeminere, nefarium esset.... vel barbarorum ingressu pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description, of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo.]

135 (return) [ Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]

136 (return) [ The Normans and Sicilians appear to be confounded.]

The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the dangerous union of the German empire with the kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate Henry, 137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure: 138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou. 139 All the calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated the royal sepulchres, 1391 and explored the secret treasures of the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and jewels, however precious, might be easily removed; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of Sicily. 140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps; and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations.

137 (return) [ The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. x. p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome, exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father.]

138 (return) [ Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo, (Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom vi. p. 367, 368.)]

139 (return) [ For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the Annals of Muratori, (tom. x. p. 149, and A.D. 1223, 1247,) Giannone, (tom ii. p. 385,) and of the originals, in Muratori’s Collection, Richard de St. Germano, (tom. vii. p. 996,) Matteo Spinelli de Giovenazzo, (tom. vii. p. 1064,) Nicholas de Jamsilla, (tom. x. p. 494,) and Matreo Villani, (tom. xiv l. vii. p. 103.) The last of these insinuates that, in reducing the Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice than violence.]

1391 (return) [ It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in order to enable him to pay the “German” tribute exacted by the menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of the Life of Alexius, in Nicetas, p. 632, edit.—M.]

140 (return) [ Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec, (l. iv. c. 20:) Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis, gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold, (p. 746.) On these occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid in La Fontaine, “Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque.”]

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LVII. The Turks.—Part I

The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against Mahmud Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By Alp Arslan.—Power And Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia Minor And Syria.—State And Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To The Holy Sepulchre.

From the Isle of Sicily, the reader must transport himself beyond the Caspian Sea, to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans, against whom the first crusade was principally directed. Their Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved; but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia.

One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mahmud, 1 the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia, one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father Sebectagi was the slave of the slave of the slave of the commander of the faithful. But in this descent of servitude, the first degree was merely titular, since it was filled by the sovereign of Transoxiana and Chorasan, who still paid a nominal allegiance to the caliph of Bagdad. The second rank was that of a minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanides, 2 who broke, by his revolt, the bonds of political slavery. But the third step was a state of real and domestic servitude in the family of that rebel; from which Sebectagi, by his courage and dexterity, ascended to the supreme command of the city and provinces of Gazna, 3 as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master.

The falling dynasty of the Samanides was at first protected, and at last overthrown, by their servants; and, in the public disorders, the fortune of Mahmud continually increased. From him the title of Sultan 4 was first invented; and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighborhood of Ispahan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the principal source of his fame and riches was the holy war which he waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. In this foreign narrative I may not consume a page; and a volume would scarcely suffice to recapitulate the battles and sieges of his twelve expeditions. Never was the Mussulman hero dismayed by the inclemency of the seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers, the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the formidable array of their elephants of war. 5 The sultan of Gazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander: after a march of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached the famous city of Kinnoge, 6 on the Upper Ganges; and, in a naval combat on one of the branches of the Indus, he fought and vanquished four thousand boats of the natives. Delhi, Lahor, and Multan, were compelled to open their gates: the fertile kingdom of Guzarat attracted his ambition and tempted his stay; and his avarice indulged the fruitless project of discovering the golden and aromatic isles of the Southern Ocean. On the payment of a tribute, the rajahs preserved their dominions; the people, their lives and fortunes; but to the religion of Hindostan the zealous Mussulman was cruel and inexorable: many hundred temples, or pagodas, were levelled with the ground; many thousand idols were demolished; and the servants of the prophet were stimulated and rewarded by the precious materials of which they were composed. The pagoda of Sumnat was situate on the promontory of Guzarat, in the neighborhood of Diu, one of the last remaining possessions of the Portuguese. 7 It was endowed with the revenue of two thousand villages; two thousand Brahmins were consecrated to the service of the Deity, whom they washed each morning and evening in water from the distant Ganges: the subordinate ministers consisted of three hundred musicians, three hundred barbers, and five hundred dancing girls, conspicuous for their birth or beauty. Three sides of the temple were protected by the ocean, the narrow isthmus was fortified by a natural or artificial precipice; and the city and adjacent country were peopled by a nation of fanatics. They confessed the sins and the punishment of Kinnoge and Delhi; but if the impious stranger should presume to approach their holy precincts, he would surely be overwhelmed by a blast of the divine vengeance. By this challenge, the faith of Mahmud was animated to a personal trial of the strength of this Indian deity. Fifty thousand of his worshippers were pierced by the spear of the Moslems; the walls were scaled; the sanctuary was profaned; and the conqueror aimed a blow of his iron mace at the head of the idol. The trembling Brahmins are said to have offered ten millions 711 sterling for his ransom; and it was urged by the wisest counsellors, that the destruction of a stone image would not change the hearts of the Gentoos; and that such a sum might be dedicated to the relief of the true believers. “Your reasons,” replied the sultan, “are specious and strong; but never in the eyes of posterity shall Mahmud appear as a merchant of idols.” 712 He repeated his blows, and a treasure of pearls and rubies, concealed in the belly of the statue, explained in some degree the devout prodigality of the Brahmins. The fragments of the idol were distributed to Gazna, Mecca, and Medina. Bagdad listened to the edifying tale; and Mahmud was saluted by the caliph with the title of guardian of the fortune and faith of Mahomet.

1 (return) [ I am indebted for his character and history to D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533-537,) M. De Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173,) and our countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23-83.) In the two first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text, it is not easy to distinguish the version and the original. * Note: The European reader now possesses a more accurate version of Ferishta, that of Col. Briggs. Of Col. Dow’s work, Col. Briggs observes, “that the author’s name will be handed down to posterity as one of the earliest and most indefatigable of our Oriental scholars. Instead of confining himself, however, to mere translation, he has filled his work with his own observations, which have been so embodied in the text that Gibbon declares it impossible to distinguish the translator from the original author.” Preface p. vii.—M.]

2 (return) [ The dynasty of the Samanides continued 125 years, A.D. 847-999, under ten princes. See their succession and ruin, in the Tables of M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 404-406.) They were followed by the Gaznevides, A.D. 999-1183, (see tom. i. p. 239, 240.) His divisions of nations often disturbs the series of time and place.]

3 (return) [ Gaznah hortos non habet: est emporium et domicilium mercaturae Indicae. Abulfedae Geograph. Reiske, tab. xxiii. p. 349. D’Herbelot, p. 364. It has not been visited by any modern traveller.]

4 (return) [ By the ambassador of the caliph of Bagdad, who employed an Arabian or Chaldaic word that signifies lord and master, (D’Herbelot, p. 825.) It is interpreted by the Byzantine writers of the eleventh century; and the name (Soldanus) is familiarly employed in the Greek and Latin languages, after it had passed from the Gaznevides to the Seljukides, and other emirs of Asia and Egypt. Ducange (Dissertation xvi. sur Joinville, p. 238-240. Gloss. Graec. et Latin.) labors to find the title of Sultan in the ancient kingdom of Persia: but his proofs are mere shadows; a proper name in the Themes of Constantine, (ii. 11,) an anticipation of Zonaras, &c., and a medal of Kai Khosrou, not (as he believes) the Sassanide of the vith, but the Seljukide of Iconium of the xiiith century, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 246.)]

5 (return) [ Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 49) mentions the report of a gun in the Indian army. But as I am slow in believing this premature (A.D. 1008) use of artillery, I must desire to scrutinize first the text, and then the authority of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century. * Note: This passage is differently written in the various manuscripts I have seen; and in some the word tope (gun) has been written for nupth, (naphtha, and toofung) (musket) for khudung, (arrow.) But no Persian or Arabic history speaks of gunpowder before the time usually assigned for its invention, (A.D. 1317;) long after which, it was first applied to the purposes of war. Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 47, note.—M.]

6 (return) [ Kinnouge, or Canouge, (the old Palimbothra) is marked in latitude 27 Degrees 3 Minutes, longitude 80 Degrees 13 Minutes. See D’Anville, (Antiquite de l’Inde, p. 60-62,) corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennel (in his excellent Memoir on his Map of Hindostan, p. 37-43: ) 300] jewellers, 30,000 shops for the arreca nut, 60,000 bands of musicians, &c. (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274. Dow, vol. i. p. 16,) will allow an ample deduction. * Note: Mr. Wilson (Hindu Drama, vol. iii. p. 12) and Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek, vol. ii. p. 394) concur in identifying Palimbothra with the Patalipara of the Indians; the Patna of the moderns.—M.]

7 (return) [ The idolaters of Europe, says Ferishta, (Dow, vol. i. p. 66.) Consult Abulfeda, (p. 272,) and Rennel’s Map of Hindostan.]

711 (return) [ Ferishta says, some “crores of gold.” Dow says, in a note at the bottom of the page, “ten millions,” which is the explanation of the word “crore.” Mr. Gibbon says rashly that the sum offered by the Brahmins was ten millions sterling. Note to Mill’s India, vol. ii. p. 222. Col. Briggs’s translation is “a quantity of gold.” The treasure found in the temple, “perhaps in the image,” according to Major Price’s authorities, was twenty millions of dinars of gold, above nine millions sterling; but this was a hundred-fold the ransom offered by the Brahmins. Price, vol. ii. p. 290.—M.]

712 (return) [ Rather than the idol broker, he chose to be called Mahmud the idol breaker. Price, vol. ii. p. 289—M]

From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or virtue. The name of Mahmud the Gaznevide is still venerable in the East: his subjects enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and peace; his vices were concealed by the veil of religion; and two familiar examples will testify his justice and magnanimity.

I. As he sat in the Divan, an unhappy subject bowed before the throne to accuse the insolence of a Turkish soldier who had driven him from his house and bed. “Suspend your clamors,” said Mahmud; “inform me of his next visit, and ourself in person will judge and punish the offender.” The sultan followed his guide, invested the house with his guards, and extinguishing the torches, pronounced the death of the criminal, who had been seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare, which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger. The poor man, whose injury he had avenged, was unable to suppress his astonishment and curiosity; and the courteous monarch condescended to explain the motives of this singular behavior. “I had reason to suspect that none, except one of my sons, could dare to perpetrate such an outrage; and I extinguished the lights, that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer was a thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender; and so painful was my anxiety, that I had passed three days without food since the first moment of your complaint.”

II. The sultan of Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of the Bowides, the sovereigns of the western Persia: he was disarmed by an epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his invasion till the manhood of her son. 8 “During the life of my husband,” said the artful regent, “I was ever apprehensive of your ambition: he was a prince and a soldier worthy of your arms. He is now no more; his sceptre has passed to a woman and a child, and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty.” Avarice was the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. 811 The Orientals exceed the measure of credibility in the account of millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity of man has never accumulated; in the magnitude of pearls, diamonds, and rubies, such as have never been produced by the workmanship of nature. 9 Yet the soil of Hindostan is impregnated with precious minerals: her trade, in every age, has attracted the gold and silver of the world; and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of the Mahometan conquerors. His behavior, in the last days of his life, evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast and various chambers of the treasury of Gazna, burst into tears, and again closed the doors, without bestowing any portion of the wealth which he could no longer hope to preserve. The following day he reviewed the state of his military force; one hundred thousand foot, fifty-five thousand horse, and thirteen hundred elephants of battle. 10 He again wept the instability of human greatness; and his grief was imbittered by the hostile progress of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his Persian kingdom.

8 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 527. Yet these letters apothegms, &c., are rarely the language of the heart, or the motives of public action.]

811 (return) [ Compare Price, vol. ii. p. 295.—M]

9 (return) [ For instance, a ruby of four hundred and fifty miskals, (Dow, vol. i. p. 53,) or six pounds three ounces: the largest in the treasury of Delhi weighed seventeen miskals, (Voyages de Tavernier, partie ii. p. 280.) It is true, that in the East all colored stones are calied rubies, (p. 355,) and that Tavernier saw three larger and more precious among the jewels de notre grand roi, le plus puissant et plus magnifique de tous les rois de la terre, (p. 376.)]

10 (return) [ Dow, vol. i. p. 65. The sovereign of Kinoge is said to have possessed 2500 elephants, (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274.) From these Indian stories, the reader may correct a note in my first volume, (p. 245;) or from that note he may correct these stories.]

In the modern depopulation of Asia, the regular operation of government and agriculture is confined to the neighborhood of cities; and the distant country is abandoned to the pastoral tribes of Arabs, Curds, and Turkmans. 11 Of the last-mentioned people, two considerable branches extend on either side of the Caspian Sea: the western colony can muster forty thousand soldiers; the eastern, less obvious to the traveller, but more strong and populous, has increased to the number of one hundred thousand families. In the midst of civilized nations, they preserve the manners of the Scythian desert, remove their encampments with a change of seasons, and feed their cattle among the ruins of palaces and temples. Their flocks and herds are their only riches; their tents, either black or white, according to the color of the banner, are covered with felt, and of a circular form; their winter apparel is a sheep-skin; a robe of cloth or cotton their summer garment: the features of the men are harsh and ferocious; the countenance of their women is soft and pleasing. Their wandering life maintains the spirit and exercise of arms; they fight on horseback; and their courage is displayed in frequent contests with each other and with their neighbors. For the license of pasture they pay a slight tribute to the sovereign of the land; but the domestic jurisdiction is in the hands of the chiefs and elders. The first emigration of the Eastern Turkmans, the most ancient of the race, may be ascribed to the tenth century of the Christian aera. 12 In the decline of the caliphs, and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier of the Jaxartes was often violated; in each invasion, after the victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe, embracing the Mahometan faith, obtained a free encampment in the spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transoxiana and Carizme. The Turkish slaves who aspired to the throne encouraged these emigrations which recruited their armies, awed their subjects and rivals, and protected the frontier against the wilder natives of Turkestan; and this policy was abused by Mahmud the Gaznevide beyond the example of former times. He was admonished of his error by the chief of the race of Seljuk, who dwelt in the territory of Bochara. The sultan had inquired what supply of men he could furnish for military service. “If you send,” replied Ismael, “one of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of your servants will mount on horseback.”—“And if that number,” continued Mahmud, “should not be sufficient?”—“Send this second arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand more.”—“But,” said the Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, “if I should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred tribes?”—“Despatch my bow,” was the last reply of Ismael, “and as it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two hundred thousand horse.” The apprehension of such formidable friendship induced Mahmud to transport the most obnoxious tribes into the heart of Chorasan, where they would be separated from their brethren of the River Oxus, and enclosed on all sides by the walls of obedient cities. But the face of the country was an object of temptation rather than terror; and the vigor of government was relaxed by the absence and death of the sultan of Gazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of robbers were collected into an army of conquerors: as far as Ispahan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory inroads; and the Turkmans were not ashamed or afraid to measure their courage and numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia. Massoud, the son and successor of Mahmud, had too long neglected the advice of his wisest Omrahs. “Your enemies,” they repeatedly urged, “were in their origin a swarm of ants; they are now little snakes; and, unless they be instantly crushed, they will acquire the venom and magnitude of serpents.” After some alternatives of truce and hostility, after the repulse or partial success of his lieutenants, the sultan marched in person against the Turkmans, who attacked him on all sides with barbarous shouts and irregular onset. “Massoud,” says the Persian historian, 13 “plunged singly to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, exhibiting such acts of gigantic force and valor as never king had before displayed. A few of his friends, roused by his words and actions, and that innate honor which inspires the brave, seconded their lord so well, that wheresoever he turned his fatal sword, the enemies were mowed down, or retreated before him. But now, when victory seemed to blow on his standard, misfortune was active behind it; for when he looked round, be beheld almost his whole army, excepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths of flight.” The Gaznevide was abandoned by the cowardice or treachery of some generals of Turkish race; and this memorable day of Zendecan 14 founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings. 15

11 (return) [ See a just and natural picture of these pastoral manners, in the history of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c. vii. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 633, 634,) and a valuable note by the editor of the Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, p. 535-538.]

12 (return) [ The first emigration of the Turkmans, and doubtful origin of the Seljukians, may be traced in the laborious History of the Huns, by M. De Guignes, (tom. i. Tables Chronologiques, l. v. tom. iii. l. vii. ix. x.) and the Bibliotheque Orientale, of D’Herbelot, (p. 799-802, 897-901,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321-333,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 221, 222.)]

13 (return) [ Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 89, 95-98. I have copied this passage as a specimen of the Persian manner; but I suspect that, by some odd fatality, the style of Ferishta has been improved by that of Ossian. * Note: Gibbon’s conjecture was well founded. Compare the more sober and genuine version of Col. Briggs, vol. i. p. 110.-M.]

14 (return) [ The Zendekan of D’Herbelot, (p. 1028,) the Dindaka of Dow (vol. i. p. 97,) is probably the Dandanekan of Abulfeda, (Geograph. p. 345, Reiske,) a small town of Chorasan, two days’ journey from Maru, and renowned through the East for the production and manufacture of cotton.]

15 (return) [ The Byzantine historians (Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 766, 766, Zonaras tom. ii. p. 255, Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 21) have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place, of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to unravel) may inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it is told by their most eloquent predecessor.]

The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the election of a king; and, if the probable tale of a Latin historian 16 deserves any credit, they determined by lot the choice of their new master. A number of arrows were successively inscribed with the name of a tribe, a family, and a candidate; they were drawn from the bundle by the hand of a child; and the important prize was obtained by Togrul Beg, the son of Michael the son of Seljuk, whose surname was immortalized in the greatness of his posterity. The sultan Mahmud, who valued himself on his skill in national genealogy, professed his ignorance of the family of Seljuk; yet the father of that race appears to have been a chief of power and renown. 17 For a daring intrusion into the harem of his prince, Seljuk was banished from Turkestan: with a numerous tribe of his friends and vassals, he passed the Jaxartes, encamped in the neighborhood of Samarcand, embraced the religion of Mahomet, and acquired the crown of martyrdom in a war against the infidels. His age, of a hundred and seven years, surpassed the life of his son, and Seljuk adopted the care of his two grandsons, Togrul and Jaafar; the eldest of whom, at the age of forty-five, was invested with the title of Sultan, in the royal city of Nishabur. The blind determination of chance was justified by the virtues of the successful candidate. It would be superfluous to praise the valor of a Turk; and the ambition of Togrul 18 was equal to his valor. By his arms, the Gasnevides were expelled from the eastern kingdoms of Persia, and gradually driven to the banks of the Indus, in search of a softer and more wealthy conquest. In the West he annihilated the dynasty of the Bowides; and the sceptre of Irak passed from the Persian to the Turkish nation. The princes who had felt, or who feared, the Seljukian arrows, bowed their heads in the dust; by the conquest of Aderbijan, or Media, he approached the Roman confines; and the shepherd presumed to despatch an ambassador, or herald, to demand the tribute and obedience of the emperor of Constantinople. 19 In his own dominions, Togrul was the father of his soldiers and people; by a firm and equal administration, Persia was relieved from the evils of anarchy; and the same hands which had been imbrued in blood became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans 20 continued to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the royal palaces of Nishabur and Rei displayed the order and magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honors of the state; and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced, with fervor and sincerity, the religion of Mahomet. The northern swarms of Barbarians, who overspread both Europe and Asia, have been irreconcilably separated by the consequences of a similar conduct. Among the Moslems, as among the Christians, their vague and local traditions have yielded to the reason and authority of the prevailing system, to the fame of antiquity, and the consent of nations. But the triumph of the Koran is more pure and meritorious, as it was not assisted by any visible splendor of worship which might allure the Pagans by some resemblance of idolatry. The first of the Seljukian sultans was conspicuous by his zeal and faith: each day he repeated the five prayers which are enjoined to the true believers; of each week, the two first days were consecrated by an extraordinary fast; and in every city a mosch was completed, before Togrul presumed to lay the foundations of a palace. 21

16 (return) [ Willerm. Tyr. l. i. c. 7, p. 633. The divination by arrows is ancient and famous in the East.]

17 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 801. Yet after the fortune of his posterity, Seljuk became the thirty-fourth in lineal descent from the great Afrasiab, emperor of Touran, (p. 800.) The Tartar pedigree of the house of Zingis gave a different cast to flattery and fable; and the historian Mirkhond derives the Seljukides from Alankavah, the virgin mother, (p. 801, col. 2.) If they be the same as the Zalzuts of Abulghazi Bahadur Kahn, (Hist. Genealogique, p. 148,) we quote in their favor the most weighty evidence of a Tartar prince himself, the descendant of Zingis, Alankavah, or Alancu, and Oguz Khan.]

18 (return) [ By a slight corruption, Togrul Beg is the Tangroli-pix of the Greeks. His reign and character are faithfully exhibited by D’Herbelot (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 1027, 1028) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 189-201.)]

19 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 774, 775. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 257. With their usual knowledge of Oriental affairs, they describe the ambassador as a sherif, who, like the syncellus of the patriarch, was the vicar and successor of the caliph.]

20 (return) [ From William of Tyre I have borrowed this distinction of Turks and Turkmans, which at least is popular and convenient. The names are the same, and the addition of man is of the same import in the Persic and Teutonic idioms. Few critics will adopt the etymology of James de Vitry, (Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 11 p. 1061,) of Turcomani, quesi Turci et Comani, a mixed people.]

21 (return) [ Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. iii. p. 165, 166, 167. M. DeGognes Abulmahasen, an historian of Egypt.]

With the belief of the Koran, the son of Seljuk imbibed a lively reverence for the successor of the prophet. But that sublime character was still disputed by the caliphs of Bagdad and Egypt, and each of the rivals was solicitous to prove his title in the judgment of the strong, though illiterate Barbarians. Mahmud the Gaznevide had declared himself in favor of the line of Abbas; and had treated with indignity the robe of honor which was presented by the Fatimite ambassador. Yet the ungrateful Hashemite had changed with the change of fortune; he applauded the victory of Zendecan, and named the Seljukian sultan his temporal vicegerent over the Moslem world. As Togrul executed and enlarged this important trust, he was called to the deliverance of the caliph Cayem, and obeyed the holy summons, which gave a new kingdom to his arms. 22 In the palace of Bagdad, the commander of the faithful still slumbered, a venerable phantom. His servant or master, the prince of the Bowides, could no longer protect him from the insolence of meaner tyrants; and the Euphrates and Tigris were oppressed by the revolt of the Turkish and Arabian emirs. The presence of a conqueror was implored as a blessing; and the transient mischiefs of fire and sword were excused as the sharp but salutary remedies which alone could restore the health of the republic. At the head of an irresistible force, the sultan of Persia marched from Hamadan: the proud were crushed, the prostrate were spared; the prince of the Bowides disappeared; the heads of the most obstinate rebels were laid at the feet of Togrul; and he inflicted a lesson of obedience on the people of Mosul and Bagdad. After the chastisement of the guilty, and the restoration of peace, the royal shepherd accepted the reward of his labors; and a solemn comedy represented the triumph of religious prejudice over Barbarian power. 23 The Turkish sultan embarked on the Tigris, landed at the gate of Racca, and made his public entry on horseback. At the palace-gate he respectfully dismounted, and walked on foot, preceded by his emirs without arms. The caliph was seated behind his black veil: the black garment of the Abbassides was cast over his shoulders, and he held in his hand the staff of the apostle of God. The conqueror of the East kissed the ground, stood some time in a modest posture, and was led towards the throne by the vizier and interpreter. After Togrul had seated himself on another throne, his commission was publicly read, which declared him the temporal lieutenant of the vicar of the prophet. He was successively invested with seven robes of honor, and presented with seven slaves, the natives of the seven climates of the Arabian empire. His mystic veil was perfumed with musk; two crowns 231 were placed on his head; two cimeters were girded to his side, as the symbols of a double reign over the East and West. After this inauguration, the sultan was prevented from prostrating himself a second time; but he twice kissed the hand of the commander of the faithful, and his titles were proclaimed by the voice of heralds and the applause of the Moslems. In a second visit to Bagdad, the Seljukian prince again rescued the caliph from his enemies and devoutly, on foot, led the bridle of his mule from the prison to the palace. Their alliance was cemented by the marriage of Togrul’s sister with the successor of the prophet. Without reluctance he had introduced a Turkish virgin into his harem; but Cayem proudly refused his daughter to the sultan, disdained to mingle the blood of the Hashemites with the blood of a Scythian shepherd; and protracted the negotiation many months, till the gradual diminution of his revenue admonished him that he was still in the hands of a master. The royal nuptials were followed by the death of Togrul himself; 24 as he left no children, his nephew Alp Arslan succeeded to the title and prerogatives of sultan; and his name, after that of the caliph, was pronounced in the public prayers of the Moslems. Yet in this revolution, the Abbassides acquired a larger measure of liberty and power. On the throne of Asia, the Turkish monarchs were less jealous of the domestic administration of Bagdad; and the commanders of the faithful were relieved from the ignominious vexations to which they had been exposed by the presence and poverty of the Persian dynasty.

22 (return) [ Consult the Bibliotheque Orientale, in the articles of the Abbassides, Caher, and Caiem, and the Annals of Elmacin and Abulpharagius.]

23 (return) [ For this curious ceremony, I am indebted to M. De Guignes (tom. iii. p. 197, 198,) and that learned author is obliged to Bondari, who composed in Arabic the history of the Seljukides, tom. v. p. 365) I am ignorant of his age, country, and character.]

231 (return) [ According to Von Hammer, “crowns” are incorrect. They are unknown as a symbol of royalty in the East. V. Hammer, Osmanische Geschischte, vol. i. p. 567.—M.]

24 (return) [ Eodem anno (A. H. 455) obiit princeps Togrulbecus .... rex fuit clemens, prudens, et peritus regnandi, cujus terror corda mortalium invaserat, ita ut obedirent ei reges atque ad ipsum scriberent. Elma cin, Hist. Saracen. p. 342, vers. Erpenii. * Note: He died, being 75 years old. V. Hammer.—M.]

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