nation at Palermo might doubtless pronounce under what name he should reign over them; but the example of a Greek tyrant or a Saracen emir was 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;10 but his own 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 flagstaff, 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 :10 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

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 thei sword; the three last by their baptism; and of these the king 01 Hungary alone was honored 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 character of Messina, (Muratori, Annali d' Italia, tom. ix. p. 340. Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. p. 467, 468.)

102 Roger corrupted the second person of Lothaire's army, whe Loun led, or rather cried, a retreat; for the Germans (says Cinnamus, Lic. i p. 51) are ignorant of the use of trumpets. Most ignorant himself!*

Cinnamus says nothing of their ignorance. The signal for retreat was οὐ σάλπιγγος ἠχὴ, ἢ τὶ ἄλλα τοιοῦτον, ἀλλὰ βάρβαρες τις καὶ ἀξύνετος τρόπος.

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.

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 ardor a vow o 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 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, 10 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"

103 See De Guignes, Hist. Générale des Huns, tom. i. p. 369-378 and Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique, &c., sous la Domination des Arabes tom. ii. p. 70-144. Their common original appears to be Novairi.

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 pere mit.

See the geography of Leo Africanus, (in Ramusio tom. i. fol. 74 verso, fol. "5, recto,) and Shaw's Travels, (p. 110,) the viith book of

from the Arabian founder: it is strongly built on a neck of land, but the imperfection of the harbor 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 instru ments of mischief: the sovereign had fled, the Moorish gov ernor 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; 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.' After his death, that sword was broken; and these transmarine possessions were neglected, evacuated, or lost, under the troubled reign of his successor. 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.

108

107

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 favorable event. But the contemptuous treatment of his ambassadors exasperated the

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.)

167

Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer.

A proud inscription, which denotes, that the Norman conquerors were still disc irinated from their Christian and Moslem subjects.

103 Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori, Script. tom. vii. p. 27, 271) ascribes these losses to the neglect or treachery of the dmiral Majo.

vanity of the new monarch; and the insolence of the By. zantine 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 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 labor (their sole labor) 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 capable of using. The progress of this naval armament was marked 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 honor and religion. The fortunate encounter of

109 The silence of the Sicilian historians, who end too soon, or be gin 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. Li 1-6.)

the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive, and after a free and honorable entertainment in the court of Sicily, Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris.110 In the absence of 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 im mense 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 most probably with fire, the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. This play. ful outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel 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 favorable 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

:

110 To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue I apply the Taρ öλíyov 0ε T ára, 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 ther advocate, Ducange, is less positive as the commentator on Cinnamus, than as the editor of Joinville.

11 In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says Dandulus; but Nicetas (1. ii. c. 8, p. 66) transforms them into Béλn apyvpéOVS EXOUTC irpákovs, and adds, that Manuel styled this insult raiyvov, ani γέλωτα . . Anorεvovтa. These arrows, by the compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold.