LVII. and her children. His alarming progress compelled CHAP. her to give herself and her sceptre to the hand of a soldier; and Romanus Diogenes was invested with the imperial purple. His patriotism, and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople within two months after his accession; and the next campaign he most scandalously took the field during the holy festival of Easter. In the palace, Diogenes was no more than the husband of Eudocia: in the camp, he was the emperor of the Romans, and he sustained that character with feeble resources, and invincible courage. By his spirit and success, the soldiers were taught to act, the subjects to hope, and the enemies to fear. The Turks had penetrated into the heart of Phrygia; but the sultan himself had resigned to his emirs the prosecution of the war; and their numerous detachments were scattered over Asia in the security of conquest. Laden with spoil, and careless of discipline, they were separately surprised and defeated by the Greeks: the activity of the emperor seemed to multiply his presence; and while they heard of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy felt his sword on the hills of Trebizond. In three laborious campaigns, the Turks were driven beyond the Euphrates: in the fourth and last, Romanus undertook the deliverance of Armenia. The desolation of the land obliged him to transport a supply of two months' provisions; and he marched forwards to the siege of Malazkerd,a an important fortress in the midway between the modern cities of Arzeroum and Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand men. The troops of Constantinople were reinforced by the dis This city is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imperii, l. ii. c. 44. p. 119), and the Byzantines of the xith century, under the name of Mantzikierte, and by some is confounded with Theodosiopolis; but Delisle, in his notes and maps, has very properly fixed the situation. Abulfeda (Geograph. tab. xviii. p. 310) describes Malasgerd as a small town, built with black stone, supplied with water, without trees, &c. LVII. CHAP. orderly multitudes of Phrygia and Cappadocia; but the real strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the legions of Macedonia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria; the Uzi, a Moldavian horde, who were themselves of the Turkish race; and, above all, the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant Ursel of Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings, and were allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance. Defeat of the Romans, August. f On the report of this bold invasion, which threatA.D. 1071, ened his hereditary dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at the head of forty thousand horse." His rapid and skilful evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius, one of their principal generals, he displayed the first example of his valour and clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had separated his forces after the reduction of Malazkerd. It was in vain that he attempted to recal the mercenary Franks: they refused to obey his summons; he disdained to await their return: the desertion of the Uzi filled his mind with anxiety and suspicion; and against the most salutary advice he rushed for • The Uzi of the Greeks (Stritter, Memor. Byzant. tom. iii. p. 923-948) are the Gozz of the Orientals (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 522. tom. iii. p. 133, &c.) They appear on the Danube and the Volga, in Armenia, Syria, and Chorasan, and the name seems to have been extended to the whole Turkman race. Urselius (the Russelius of Zonaras) is distinguished by Jeffrey Malaterra (1. i. c. 33) among the Norman conquerors of Sicily, and with the surname of Baliol: and our own historians will tell how the Baliols came from Normandy to Durham, built Bernard's castle on the Tees, married an heiress of Scotland, &c. Ducange (Not. ad Nicephor. Bryennium, 1. ii. No 4) has laboured the subject in honour of the president de Bailleul, whose father had exchanged the sword for the gown. Elmacin (p. 343, 344) assigns this probable number, which is reduced by Abulpharagius to 15,000 (p. 227), and by D'Herbelot (p. 102) to 12,000 horse. But the same Elmacin gives 300,000 men to the emperor, of whom Abulpharagius says, cum centum hominum millibus, multisque equis et magnâ pompâ instructus. The Greeks abstain from any definition of numbers. LVII. wards to speedy and decisive action. Had he listened CHAP. to the fair proposals of the sultan, Romanus might have secured a retreat, perhaps a peace; but in these overtures he supposed the fear or weakness of the enemy, and his answer was conceived in the tone of insult and defiance. "If the barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans, and surrender his city and palace of Rei as a pledge of his sincerity." Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he wept the death of so many faithful Moslems; and, after a devout prayer, proclaimed a free permission to all who were desirous of retiring from the field. With his own hands he tied up his horse's tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and scimitar, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be the place of his burial. The sultan himself had affected to cast away his missile weapons; but his hopes of victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent. Instead of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian tactics, Romanus led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and pressed with vigour and impatience the artful and yielding resistance of the barbarians. In this desultory and fruitless combat he wasted the greater part of a summer's day, till prudence and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is always perilous in the face of an active foe; and no sooner had the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a rival prince, who h h The Byzantine writers do not speak so distinctly of the presence of the sultan ; he committed his forces to an eunuch, had retired to a distance, &c. Is it ignorance, or jealousy, or truth? LVII. CHAP. disgraced his birth and the purple of the Cæsars. The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on this moment of confusion and lassitude; and the horns of their formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the destruction of the army and pillage of the camp, it would be needless to mention the number of the slain or captives. The Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they forget to mention, that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed. Captivity and deliver As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted ance of the to rally and save the relics of his army. When the emperor. centre, the imperial station, was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him; his horse was slain; the emperor was wounded; yet he stood alone and intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a slave and a soldier; a slave who had seen him on the throne of Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been excused on the promise of some signal service. Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus spent a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a disorderly crowd of the meaner barbarians. In the morning the royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained by the report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of Ba iHe was the son of the Cæsar John Ducas, brother of the emperor Constantine (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165). Nicephorus Bryennius applauds his virtues and extenuates his faults (1. i. p. 30. 38. l. ii. p. 53). Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus, ου πάνυ δε φιλιως εχων προς βασιλεα. Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treason. i LVII. silacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his CHAP. unhappy sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was led into the Turkish divan, and commanded to kiss the ground before the lord of Asia. He reluctantly obeyed; and Alp Arslan, starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the neck of the Roman emperor. But the fact is doubtful; and if, in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with a national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the ground; and thrice clasping his hand with tender sympathy, assured him, that his life and dignity should be inviolate in the hands of a prince who had learned to respect the majesty of his equals and the vicissitudes of fortune. From the divan, Romanus was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was served with pomp and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who, twice each day, seated him in the place of honour at his own table. In a free and familiar conversation of eight days, not a word, not a look, of insult, escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in 'the hour of danger, and gently admonished his antagonist of some errors which he had committed in the management of the war. In the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp Arslan asked him what treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of the emperor displays the freedom of his mind. "If you are cruel," said he, "you will take my life; if you listen to pride, you will drag me at your chariot wheels; if you consult your interest, you will accept a ransom, and restore me to my country." "And what," continued the sultan, "would j This circumstance, which we read and doubt in Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by Nicephorus and Zonaras. VOL. VII. U |