Amalphi.

Salerno, the republic of Amalphi, and the inland | aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine verses, or Latin rhymes, of the twelfth century.d Trade of 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 due 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.e 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 fishermen is yet dignified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal merchants.

dependencies of the large and ancient duchy of Beneventum. Three districts only were exempted from the common law of subjection; the first for ever, and 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, and the trade of Amalphi, may detain for a moment the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faSchool of Salerno. culties, 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. 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 pilgrim-lowers, that he descended from conquest to robbery, age 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

a Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 119-127.) Muratori, (Antiquitat. medii Evi, tom. iii. dissert. xliv. p. 935, 936.) and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Lettetura Italiana,) have given an historical account of these physicians; their medical knowledge and practice must be left to our physiciaus.

b At the end of the Historia Pandectarum of Henry Brenckman, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722. in 4to,) the indefatigable author has inserted two dissertations, de Republicà Amalphitana, and de Amalphi à Pisanis direptâ, which are built on the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has forgotten two most important passages of the eni bassy of Liutprand, (A. D. 969.) which compare the trade and naviga. tion of Amalphi with that of Venice.

Urbs Latii non est hâc delitiosior urbe,
Frugibus, arboribus, vino redundat; et unde
Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.
(Gulielmus Apulus, 1. iii. p. 267.)

d Muratori carries their antiquity above the year (1066.) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex Anglorum to whom they are addressed.

Conquest of Sicily by Count Roger,

A. D. 1060-1090.

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 valour 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 fol

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. 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

Nor is this date affected by the opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier, (Recherches de la France, 1. vii. c. 2.) and Ducange. (Glossar. Latin.) The practice of rhyming, as early as the seventh century, was borrowed from the languages of the north and east. (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii. dissert. xl. p. 686-708.)

e 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: hâc plurimus urbe moratur
Nauta maris cælique vias aperire peritus.

Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe

Regis, et Antiochi. Gens hæc freta plurima transit.
His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.

Hæc gens est totum prope nobilitate per orbem,
Et mercanda ferens, et amans mercata referre.

f Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed ipso ita præcipiente ad

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. In the first attempt,
Roger braved, in an open boat, the real and fabu-
lous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis; landed with
only sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the
Saracens to the gates of Messina; and safely re-
turned 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 re-
lated with pleasure, that by the distress of the siege,
himself, and the countess his wife, had been re-
duced 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 mean-
est trophy might be left in the hands of the mis-
creants. In the siege of Trani, three hundred Nor-
mans 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 fore-petual legates of the holy see."
most 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 insuf-
ficient numbers of the Normans most probably de-
note their knights, the soldiers of honourable and
equestrian rank, each of whom was attended by
five or six followers in the field; yet, with the aid
of this interpretation, and after every fair allowance
on the side of valour, arms, and reputation, the dis-
comfiture of so many myriads will reduce the pru-
dent reader to the alternative of a miracle or a fable.
The Arabs of Sicily derived a frequent and power-
ful succour 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 ge-
nerous and invincible emulation. After a war of
thirty years, Roger, with the title of great count,
obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most
fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his ad-
ministration displays a liberal and enlightened
mind above the limits of his age and education.
The Moslems were maintained in the free enjoy-
ment of their religion and property; 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. A remnant of christian na-
tives 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 were 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 per-

huc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quantâ angustiâ a profunda paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (I. i. c. 25.) to the horse-stealing. From the moment (1. 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,

Duo sibi proficua deputans animæ scilicit et corporis si terram Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret. (Galfrid Malaterra, 1. 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.) h See the word milites, in the Latin Glossary of Ducange.

i 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, quæ per anum inhoneste crepitando, emergit: a symptom most ridicu Jously felt by the whole Norman army in their camp near Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an etymology not unworthy of the eleventh cen. tury: Messana is derived from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were sent in tribute to Rome, (l. ii. c. 1.)

k See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, 1. ii. c. 45. and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of the Saracens, (tom. ii. p. 72.)

John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophis Arabibus, c. 14. apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa, A. H. 516. A. D. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance to the Sherif al

1122.

To Robert Guiscard the conquest of Robert invades Sicily was more glorious than benefi- the eastern em. pire, cial: the possession of Apulia and A. D. 1081. 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." From his first wife, the partner of his humble fortunes, 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 princess of Salerno; the Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger; their five daughters were given in honourable nuptials," and one of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael.P Edrissi, who presented his book, Geographia Nubiensis, (see preface, p. 88. 90. 170.) to Roger king of Sicily, A. H. 548. 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.

m Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics, (I. iv. c. 7.) and produces (the original of the bull, (1. 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 (Abregé, tom. iii. p. 217301. 1st column) labours the case with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.

n In the first expedition of Robert against the Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena, (the first, third, fourth, and fifth books of the Alexiad,) William Apulus, (l. iv. and v. p. 270-275.) and Jeffrey Malaterra, (1. iii. c. 13, 14. 24-29. 39.) Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of them were eye-witnesses of the war.

o One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo, or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble, (Gulielm. Apul. I. iii. p. 267.) in the eleventh century, and whose ancestors in the tenth and ninth 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.

P Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric nuptials, (1. i. p. 23.) was betrothed as her husband; he was ayaλua quoews,

Italy, and the galleys were supplied by the alliance of the republic of Ragusa.

Siege of Durazzo,
A. D. 1081.
June 17.

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; at the last station of Otranto, it is contracted to fifty;" 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 an harbour in the neighbourhood 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 Palæologus, a patrician, victorious in the oriental wars, and a numerous garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who, in every age, have maintained the cha

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 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 valour 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 colour 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 ardour of the Latins was much in-racter of soldiers. In the prosecution of his enterferior 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, of Norman race or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be swelled to thirty thousand 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

Venerat a Danais quidam seductor ad illum. As Gregory VII. had believed, Baronius, almost alone, recognizes the emperor Michael, (A. D. 1080. No. 44.)

Ipse armatæ militiæ 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 (1. iv. p. 273.) styles the equestris gens ducis, equites de gente ducis.

EL TRAKTA xiλiadas, says Anna Comnena; (Alexias, 1. 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

prise, the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every
form of danger and mischance.
In the most pro-
pitious 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. 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 expe-
rienced 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 Byzan-

Breve Normannicum. (Muratori, Scriptores, tom. v. p. 278.) I have endeavoured to reconcile these reckonings.

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 (1. vi. p. 433.) and Pliny. (Hist. Natur. iii. 16.)

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 Côtés de la Grece, &c. p. 3-6.) Hermolaus Barbarus, who substitutes centum, (Harduin, Not. Ixvi. in Plin. 1. iii.) might have been corrected by every Venetian pilot who had sailed out of the gulf.

Infames scopulos Acroceraunia, Horat. carm. i. 3. The præcipitem Africum decertantem Aquilonibus et rabiem Noti, and the monstra na tantia 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.

tine court. The first day's action was not disad- I the lenity of the times in a life of affluence and digvantageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth, 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 valour were encountered by equal valour 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 draw-bridge was checked by an enormous beam, and the wooden structure was instantly consumed by artificial flames.

The army and

emperor Alex

ins, ber.

nity. Their youthful ardour might animate the multitude; but their love of pleasure and contempt of subordination were pregnant with disorder and mischief; and their importunate clamours 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 valour. 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 emer

While the Roman empire was at march of the tacked by the Turks in the east, and the Normans in the west, the aged April-Septemsuccessor of Michael surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty.gency, the emperor had not disdained the impure 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 vigour and activity of his measures, that in six months he assembled an army of seventy thousand men," 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

3. Των δε εις τον πωγωνα αυτού εφυβρισαντων. (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! (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p. 283.)

z Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 136, 137.) observes, that some authors (Petrus Diacon. Chron. Casinen. I. iii. c. 49.) compose the Greek army of 170,000 men, but that the hundred may be struck off, and that Malaterra only reckons 70,000: a slight inattention. The passage to which be alludes, is in the Chronicle of Lupus Protospata. (Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 45.) Malaterra (1. iv. c. 27.) speaks in high, but indefinite,

aid of the Paulicians or Manichæans of Thrace
and Bulgaria; and these heretics' united with the
patience of martyrdom, the spirit and discipline of
active valour. The treaty with the sultan had pro-
cured 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 accus-
tomed 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 confi-
terms of the emperor, cum copiis innumerabilibus: like the Apulian
poet, (1. iv. p. 272.)
More locustarum montes et plana teguntur.

a See William of Malmsbury de Gestis Anglorum, l. ii. p. 92. Alexius fidem Anglorum suspiciens præcipuis familiaritatibus suis eos applicabat, amorem eorum filio transcribens. Odericus Vitalis (Hist. Eccles. 1. iv. p. 508. 1. vii. p. 641.) relates their emigration from England, and their service in Greece.

b See the Apulian, I. i. p. 256. The character and story of these Manichæans has been the subject of the fifty-fourth chapter.

dence; 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 Cæsar and Pompey had formerly disputed the empire of the world.c

Battle of Du.

razzo, A. D. 1081. October 18.

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 valour 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

Roman host, the loss of Greeks, Turks, and English, amounted to five or six thousand :5 the plain of Durazzo was stained with noble and royal blood; and the end of the impostor Michael was more honourable than his life.

Durazzo taken,
A. D. 1082.
Feb. 8.

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 day-break on two different sides: his light cavalry was scattered over the plain; the archers formed the second line; and the Varangians claim-knights were slain in this memorable day. In the ed the honours of the van-guard. 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; though wounded by an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove by her exhortation and example to rally the flying troops. 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 deplore the furious and irresistible shock of the French cavalry. Alexius was not deficient in the duties of a soldier e See the simple and masterly narrative of Cæsar himself. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. iii. 41-75.) It is a pity that Quintus Icilius (M. Guischard) did not live to analyze these operations, as he has done the campaigns of Africa and Spain.

ο Παλλάς άλλη και μη Αθήνη, which 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 fût pas aussi savante que celle d'Athenes. The Grecian goddess was composed of two discordant characters, of Neith, the work woman of Sais in Egypt, and of a virgin Amazon of the Tritonian lake in Libya. (Banier, My. thologie, tom. iv. p. 1–31. in 12mo.)

e Anna Comnenà (1. iv. p. 116.) admires, with some degree of terror, her masculine virtues. They were more familiar to the Latins; and though the Apulian (1. iv. p. 273.) mentions her presence and her wound, he represents her as far less intrepid.

Uxor in hoc bello Roberti forte sagittâ
Quâdam læsa fuit: quo vulnere territa, nullam

It is more than probable that Guis-
card 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 Palæologus, who had been impru-
dently called away from his station. The tents of
the besiegers were converted into barracks, to sus-
tain 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 obsti-
nacy. Perhaps he already trusted to his secret
correspondence with a Venetian noble, who sold
the city for a rich and honourable 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 de-
fended the street three days against an enemy al-
ready 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;

Dum sperabat opem, se pæne subegerat hosti.
The last is an unlucky word for a female prisoner.

* Απο της του Ρομπέρτου προηγησαμένης μάχης, γινώσκων την πρώτην κατα των εναντίων ἱππασίαν των Κελτων ανύποιςον: (Anna. l. v. p. 133.) and elsewhere και γαρ Κελτος ανήρ πας εποχουμένος μεν ανυποιτος την ορμήν, και την θεαν εσιν (p. 146.) The pedantry of the princess in the choice of classic appellations, encouraged Ducange to apply to his countrymen the characters of the ancient Gauls.

g Lupus Protospata (tom. iii. p. 45.) says 6000; William the Apulian more than 5000. (1. 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!

h The Romans had changed the inauspicious name of Epi-damnus 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.)