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ousy of Pisa; but the poverty of one thousand yet dignified by the remains of au arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal merchants.

Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long detained in Normandy by his own and his father' age. He accepted the welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved at first the esteem, and after wards the envy, of his elder brother. Their valor and am ition were equal; but the youth, the beauty, the elegant nanners, of Roger engaged the disinterested love of the soldiers and people. So scanty was his allowance for himself and forty followers, that he descended from conquest to robbery, 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 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 fabulous dangers of

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Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed ipso ita præcipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quantâ angustiâ a profundâ paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (1. 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 Pater culus may be observed of Augustus and Tiberius.

53 Duo sibi proficua deputans animæ scilicet et corporis si terram Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret, (Galfrid Malaterra, l. 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. 514546.)

* Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the commencement a the 18th century, when it was visited by Brenckmann, (Brenckmann d Rep. Amalph. Diss. i. c 23.) At present it has six or eight thousand Hist. des Rep. tom. i. p. 304.--G

Scylla and Charybdis; landed with only sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the Saracens to the gates of Messina. and safely returned 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 related with pleasure, that, by the distress of the siege, himself, and the countess his wife, had been reduced 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 meanest trophy might be left in the hands of the miscreants. In the siege of Trani, three hundred Normans 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 foremost 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 insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their knights, the soldiers of honorable 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 valor, arms, and reputation, the discomfiture of sc many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily derived a frequent and powerful succor from their country men 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 generous 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

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64 See the word Milites in the Latin Glossary of Ducange

55 Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra, that the Arabs had troduced into Sicily the use of camels (1. i. c. 33) and of carrierpigeons, (c 42;) and that the bite of the tarantula provokes a windy lieposition, quæ per anum inhoneste crepitando emergit; a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole Norman army in their camp nea Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an etymology not unworthy of the xith century: Messanu is divided from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were sent in tribute to Rome, (1 ii. c. 1.)

land of the Mediterranean; and his administration displays a liberal and enlightened mind, above the limits of his age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free enjoyment 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 dili gent perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the Grecian Ptolemy." A remnant of Christian natives 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 was 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 perpetual legates of the Holy See.58

To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than beneficial: the possession of Apulia and 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

See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, l. ii. c. 45, and Fiannone, who remarks the general toleration of the Saracens, (tom P

John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophus Arabibus, c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xiii. p. 278, 272. This philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa, A. H. 516, A. D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance to the Sherif a. Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia Nubiensis, see preface p. 88, 90, 170) to Roger, king of Sicily, A. H. 541, A. D. 1153, (D'Her belot, Bibliothèque 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.

58 Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics, (1. iv. c. 7,) and produces the original of the bull, (1. iv. c. 29.) Giannone gives & rati nal idea of this privilege, and the tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily, (tom. ii. p. 95-102;) and St. Marc (Abrégé, tom. iii. p. 217801, 1st column) labors the case with the diligence of a Sicilian law. yer.

In the first expedition of Robert against the Greeks, I foliow

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partner of his humble fortune, he had been divorced under the pretence of consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was des tined to imitate, rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno; the Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger; their five daughters were given in honorable nuptials, and one of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a beautiful youth, the son and hei! of the emperor Michael. 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 valor of the Normans and the treasures

Anna Comnena, (the ist, iiid, ivth, and vth books of the Alexiad,) Wil liam Appulus, (1. ivth and vth, 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.

60 One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo, or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble, (Gulielm. Appul. I. iii. p. 267,) in the xith century, and whose ancestors in the xth and ixth 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.

61 Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric nuptials, (L. i. p. 28,) was betrothed as her husband; he was ayalpa pooss

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χρυσοῦ γένους ἄπορον, &c. (p. 27.) Else where the describes the red and white of his skin, his hawk's eyes, &c., L. iii. p. 71.

62 Anna Comnena, l. i. p. 28, 29. Gulielm. Appul. 1. iv p. 271. Galfrid Malaterra, l. iii. c. 13, p. 579, 580. Malaterra is more caution

in his stye; but the Apulian is bold and positive.

Meritus se Michaelem

Vapora a Danais quidam seductor ad illum.

As Gregory VII bad believed, Jaronius almost alone, recog: izes the amperor Miol-ze: (A. D. SC, Ao. 44.)

VOL. V.-16

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 color 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 ardor of the Latins was much inferior to their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to enjoy the harvest of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known and un

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

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

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Ipse armatæ militiæ non plusquam Mccc milites secum habuisse, ab eis qui eidem negotio interfuerunt attestatur. (Malaterra, 1. 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.

4 Eis Toiάcura Yudas, 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 Brevs Normannicum, (Muratori, Scriptores, tom. v. p. 278.) I have endeas ored 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

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