Return of Ro of Bohemond. The emperor Henry III. in. A. D. 1081. traversed the first mountains of Thessaly; surprised | tented counts deserted his standard, betrayed their 1 Βρούχους και ακρίδας είπεν αν τις αυτούς πατέρα και ύιον. (Anna, 1. 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. k Prodiit hâc auctor Trojanæ cladis Achilles. The supposition of the Apulian (1. v. p. 275.) may be excused by the more classic poetry of Virgil, (Eneid II. 197.) Larissæus Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer. 1 The των πεδίλων προαλματα, which encumbered the knights on foot, have been ignorantly translated spurs. (Anna Comnena, Alexias, 1. v. p. 140.) Ducange has explained the true sense by a ridiculous and inconvenient fashion, which lasted from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. These peaks in the form of a scorpion, were sometimes two feet, and fastened to the knee with a silver chain. m The epistle itself (Alexias, 1. iii. p. 93, 94, 95.) well deserves to be read. There is one expression, αsροπέλεκυν δεδεμένον μετα χρυσαφίου, trusts, and enlisted in the service of the emperor. which Ducange does not understand. I have endeavoured to grope out n For these general events I must refer to the general historians Sigo- o The Lives of Gregory VII. are either legends or invectives: (St. Marc, Abregé, tom. iii. p. 235, &c.) and his miraculous or magical performances are alike incredible to a modern reader. He will, as usual, find some instruction in Le Clerc, (Vie de Hildebrand, Bibliot. ancienne et moderne, tom. viii.) and much amusement in Bayle. (Dictionnaire Critique, Gregoire VII.) That pope was undoubtedly a great man, a second Athanasius, in a more fortunate age of the church. May I presume to add, that the portrait of St. Athanasius is one of the passages of my history (p. 319, &c.) with which I am the least dissatisfied? p Anna, with the rancour of a Greek schismatic, calls him KATATTUSOS OUTOS Паnas, (l. i. p. 32.) a pope, or priest, worthy to be spit upon; 1 Besieges Rome, A. D. A. D. 1084. -24. sands of the citizens, in the sight, and by the allies, into Greece, October. solution was fortified by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of 1081-1084. 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 deli-31. vered 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, Guis-Gregory had promised to his valour the kingdoms card was urged by the obligation of his oath, by his of Greece and Asia; his troops were assembled in interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, arms, flushed with success and eager for action. and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the Their numbers, in the language of Homer, are comholy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the pared by Anna to a swarm of bees;" yet the utmost prince of the apostles: the most numerous of his and moderate limits of the powers of Guiscard have armies, six thousand horse, and thirty thousand foot, been already defined; they were contained on this was instantly assembled; and his march from Sa- second occasion in one hundred and twenty vessels; lerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and as the season was far advanced, the harbour of and the promise of the divine favour. Henry, in- Brundusium was preferred to the open road of vincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his ap- Otranto. Alexius, apprehensive of a second attack, proach; recollected some indispensable affairs that had assiduously laboured to restore the naval forces required his presence in Lombardy; exhorted the of the empire; and obtained from the republic of Romans to persevere in their allegiance; and hastily Venice an important succour of thirty-six transFlies before Ro- retreated three days before the entrance ports, fourteen galleys, and nine galleots or ships of bert; May. of the Normans. In less than three extraordinary strength and magnitude. Their seryears, the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the vices were liberally paid by the licence or monopoly glory of delivering the pope, and of compelling the of trade, a profitable gift of many shops and houses two emperors, of the east and west, to fly before his in the port of Constantinople, and a tribute to St. victorious arms. But the triumph of Robert was Mark, the more acceptable, as it was the produce clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the aid of of a tax on their rivals of Amalphi. By the union the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perof the Greeks and Venetians, the Adriatic was forated or scaled; but the imperial faction was still covered with a hostile fleet; but their own neglect, powerful and active; on the third day, the people or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind, or rose in a furious tumult; and a hasty word of the shelter of a mist, opened a free passage; and the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the the Norman troops were safely disembarked on the signal of fire and pillage. The Saracens of Sicily, coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and wellthe subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his bro-appointed galleys, their intrepid duke immediately ther, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and pro- sought the enemy, and though more accustomed to faning the holy city of the christians: many thou-fight on horseback, he trusted his own life, and the and accuses him of scourging, shaving, perhaps of castrating, the ambassadors of Henry, (p. 31. 33.) But this outrage is improbable and doubtful, (see the sensible preface of Cousin.) Sic uno tempore victi Sunt terræ Domini duo: rex Alemannicus iste, Alter ad arma ruens armis superatur; et alter It is singular enough, that the Apulian, a Latin, should distinguish the The narrative of Malaterra (1. iii. c. 37. p. 587, 588.) is authentic, circumstantial, and fair. Dux ignem exclamans urbe incensa, &c. The Apulian softens the mischief, (inde quibusdam ædibus exustis,) which is again exaggerated in some partial chronicles. (Muratori Annali, tom. ix. p. 147.) After mentioning this devastation, the Jesuit Donatus (de Romà veteri et nová, 1. iv. c. 8. p. 489.) prettily adds, Duraret hodieque in Calio monte interque ipsum et capitolium miserabilis facies prostrata urbis, nisi in hortorum vinetorumque amænitatem Roma resurrexisset ut perpetuâ viriditate contegeret vulnera et ruinas suas. t The royalty of Robert, either promised or bestowed by the pope, (Anna, l. i. p. 32.) is sufficiently confirmed by the Apulian, (1. iv. p. 270.) Romani regni sibi promisisse coronam : Papa ferebatur. Nor can I understand why Grester, and the other papal advocates, should be displeased with this new instance of apostolic jurisdiction. u See Homer, Iliad B. (I hate this pedantic mode of quotation by the letters of the Greek alphabet) 87, &c. His bees are the image of a disorderly, crowd: their discipline and public works seem to be the ideas of a later age. (Virgil. Æneid. 1. i.) x Guilielm. Apulus, 1. v. p. 276. The admirable port of Brundusium was double; the outward harbour was a gulf covered by an island, and narrowing by degrees, till it communicated by a small gullet with the inner harbour, which embraced the city on both sides. Cæsar and nature have laboured for its ruin; and against such agents, what are the feeble efforts of the Neapolitan government? (Swinburne's Travels in the two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 384-390.) 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 island of Corfu in the two former, the skill and number 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 labour, and where the land and sea forces might pursue their joint operations with vigour 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 rumour, to his wife, or to the 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.a 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," 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 His death, Greek emperor. y William of Apulia (1. v. p. 276.) describes the victory of the Normans, and forgets the two previous defeats, which are diligently recorded by Anna Comnena, (1. vi. p. 159, 160, 161.) In her turn, she invents or magnifies a fourth action, to give the Venetians revenge and rewards. Their own feelings were far different, since they deposed their doge, propter excidium stoli. (Dandulus in Chron. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 249.) z The most authentic writers, William of Apulia, (1. v. 277.) Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 41. p. 589.) and Romuald of Salerno, (Chron. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii.) are ignorant of this crime, so apparent to our countrymen William of Malmsbury, (l. iii. p. 107.) and Roger de Hoveden: (p. 710. in Script. post Bedam :) and the latter can tell, how the just Alexius married, crowned, and burnt alive, his female accomplice. The English historian is indeed so blind, that he ranks Robert Guiscard, or Wiscard, among the knights of Henry I. who ascended the throne fifteen years after the duke of Apulia's death. a 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. b Urbs Venusina nitet tantis decorata sepulchris, 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." Reign and am. bition of Roger, great count of A. D. 1101-1154. Feb. 26. Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male Sicily, 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 prema- Duke of Apulia, ture death, Roger sailed from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor in the bay of Salerno, received, after ten days' negociation, 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 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. A. D. 1127. e 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. d See Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 88-93.) and the historians of the first crusade. e 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. 136340.) and is spread over the ninth and tenth volumes of the Italian Annals of Muratori. In the Bibliotheque Italique (tom. i. p. 175—222.) I find a useful abstract of Capecelatro, a modern Neapolitan, who has composed, in two volumes, the history of his country from Roger I. to Frederic II. inclusive. f 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. 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 kingdoms 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 might disclaim their new associate, unless he were consecrated by the authority of the supreme pontiff. The pride of First king of Anacletus was pleased to confer a Sicily, title, which the pride of the Norman had stooped to solicit; but his own A. D. 1130. Dec. 26 A. D. 1139. July 25. 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 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: 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 in As a penance for this 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: 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.) h The kings of France, England, Scotland, Castile, 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. i 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.) k 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! 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 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 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, 1 See De Guigues, Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. i. p. 369–372. and Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique, &c. sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 70-144. Their common original appears to be Novairi. m 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. n See the geography of Leo Africanus, (in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 74. verso, fol. 75. recto,) and Shaw's Travels, (p. 110.) the seventh book of Thuanus, and the eleventh 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. evacuated, or lost, under the troubled reign of his successor,q 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. His invasion of Greece, A. D. 1146. 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 favourable 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 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 4 Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori Script. tom. vii. p. 270, 271.) ascribes these losses to the neglect or treachery of the admiral Majo. 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 Dandolus, (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.) s To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue, I apply the rap' ¿Aɩyov nλbe toυ áλovar, of Cinnamus, 1. ii. c. 19, p. 49. Muratori, on of France: were capable of using. The progress His admiral deof this naval armament was marked livers Louis VII. 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 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, Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris. In the absence of insults Constantinople. 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 more probably with fire, the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the Cæsars. This playful outrage of The emperor the pirates of Sicily, who had sur- the Normans, prised an unguarded moment, Ma- A. D. 1148, 1149, nuel 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 favourable 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 Hercules of the age. Manuel repulses A prince of such a temper could not He reduces Apube satisfied with having repelled the lia and Calabria, A. D. 1155. insolence of a barbarian. It was the 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. t In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says Dandolus; but Nicetas, l. ii. c. 8. p. 66. transforms them into Beλn apjévτeous exovra ατράκτους, and adds, that Manuel styled this insult παιγνιον, and γέλωτα . . . . . ληςεύοντα. These arrows, by the compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold. |