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
PalÊologus, 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. 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. After winning two battles
against the emperor, he descended into the plain of Thessaly, and
besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles, 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 ManichÊans was supplied by some tribes of Moldavia: a
reÎnforcement 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; 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.
Chapter 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 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, 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: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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; 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; 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 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. 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. 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. 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, a place more illustrious for the birth of Horace 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.
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. 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, 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 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 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; 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: 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.
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, 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, 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
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; 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. After his death, that sword was broken; and these
transmarine possessions were neglected, evacuated, or lost, under the
troubled reign of his successor. 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.
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. 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. 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 CÊsars. 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.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.--Part V.