Chapter 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.]