His death, A. D. 1085; July 17. Reign and ambition of count of Sicily, 1101-1154, 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 rumour, 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 shipwrecked 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). Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike Roger, great and soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert Guiscard was extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in A. D. the second generation; but his younger brother became the faFeb. 26. ther 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, an (92) The most authentic writers, William of Apulia (1. v. 277.), Jeffrey Malaterra (1. 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 Maimsbury (1. 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 Wiscar, among the knights of Henry I., who ascended the throne fifteen years after the duke of Apulia's death. (93) The joyful Anna Comnena scatters some flowers over the grave of an enemy (Alexiad, 1. v. p. 162-166.): and his best praise is the esteem and envy of William the Conqueror, the sovereign of his family. Græcia (says Malaterra) hostibus recedentibus libera læta quievit: Apulia tota sive Calabria turbatur. is one of the last lines of the Apulian's poem (1. v. p. 278.). William of Malmsbury (1. iii. p. 107.) inserts an epitaph on Guiscard, which is not worth transcribing. (95) 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. 1.) are unworthy of his age and genius. (96) See Giannone (tom. ii. p. 88-93.), and the historians of the first crusade. (97) The reign of Roger, and the Norman kings of Sicily, fills four 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. 175-222.) I find an useful abstract of Capacelatro, a modern Neapolitan, who has composed, in two volumes, the history of his country from Roger I. to Frederic II. inclusive. 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 were 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 Se (98) 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) 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. Cœnobii Telesini Abbatis de Rebus gestis Regis Rogerii, lib. iv. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 607–645.). (100) 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 honoured, or debased by a papal crown. (101) 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 charter of Messina (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 340. Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. p. 467, 468.). Duke of A. D. 1127. Sicily, Dec. 25 A. D. 1139, July 25. First king of cond; and while Anacletus sat in the Vatican, the successful fugitive A. D. 1130, 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 flag-staff, 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. His conquests 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 ardour 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 (102) Roger corrupted the second person of Lothaire's army, who sounded, or rather cried, a retreat; for the Germans (says Cinnamus, 1. iii. c. i. p. 51.) are ignorant of the use of trumpets. Most ignorant himself! * (103) See De Guignes, Hist. Générale des Huns, tom. i. p. 369-373. and Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique, &c. sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. it. p. 70-144. Their common original appears to be Novairi. * Cinnamus says nothing of their ignorance. ἤ τι ἄλλο τοιοῦτον, ἀλλὰ βάρβαρός τις The signal for retreat was οὐ σάλπιγγος ἠχὴ, καὶ ἀξύνετος τρόπος.-Μ. 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 harbour 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 lieutetenants 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. of Greece, Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had relin- His invasion quished, above sixty years, their hostile designs against the empire A. D. 1146. 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 favour (104) 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 peremit. (105) 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 Abbé de Vertot. The possession and defence of the place was offered by Charles V. and wisely declined by the knights of Malta. (106) Pagi has accurately marked the African conquests of Roger; and his criticism was supplied by his friend the Abbé de Longuerue, with some Arabic memorials (A. D. 1147, No. 26, 27. A. D. 1148. No. 16. A. D. 1153, No. 16.). A proud inscription, which denotes, that the Norman conquerors were still discriminated from their (108) Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori Script. tom. vii. p. 270, 271.) ascribes these losses to the neglect or treachery of the admiral Majo. able 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 a 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 labour (their sole labour) 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 His admiral capable of using. The progress of this naval armament was marked Lo by two conspicuous events, the rescue of the king of France, and of France: 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 honour and religion. The fortunate encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and after a free and honourable entertainment in the court of Sicily, insults Con- Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris (110). In the abstantinople. sence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were left without defence and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy delivers (109) 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. 1. 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 (1. iii. c. 2-5.) and Nicetas (in Manuel. 1. iii. c. 1-6.). (110) To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue, I apply the rap' bλiyov H10ɛ toũ ál☎vai, of Cinnamus, 1. 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. |