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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 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. 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 valor 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 knights were slain in this memorable day. In the Roman host, the loss of Greeks, Turks, and English, amounted to five or six thousand: 7 the plain of Durazzo was stained with noble and royal blood; and the end of the impostor Michael was more honorable than his life.

It is more than probable that Guiscard was not afficted by the loss of a costly pageant, which had merited only the contempt and derision of the Greeks. After their defeat, they

16 ̓Απὸ τῆς τοῦ Ρομπερτοῦ προηγησαμένης μάχης, γινώσκων τὴν πρώτην κατὰ τῶν ἐναντίων ἱππασίαν τῶν Κελτῶν ἀνύποιστοι, (Anna, l. v. p. 183 ;) and elsewhere, καὶ γὰρ Κελτὸς ἀνὴρ πᾶς ἐποχούμενος μὲν ἀνύποιστος τὴν ὁρμὴν, καὶ Tǹv þéav čoriv, (p. 140.) The pedantry of the princess in the choice of classic appellations encouraged Ducange to apply to his countrymen the characters of the ancient Gauls.

76 Lupus Protospata (tom. iii. p. 45) says 6000; William the Apulian more than 5000, (1. iv. p. 273.) Their modesty is sirgular and laudable: they might with so little trouble have slain tv or three myriads of schismatics and infidels!

still persevered in the defence of Durazzo; and a Venetian commander supplied the place of George Palæologus, who had been imprudently called away from his station. The tents of the besiegers were converted into barracks, to sustain the incremency of the winter; and in answer to the defiance of the garrison, Robert insinuated, that his patience was at least equal to their obstinacy." Perhaps he already trusted to his secret correspondence with a Venetian noble, who sold the city for a rich and honorable marriage. At the deal 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 defended the streets three days against an enemy already master of the ampart; and near seven months elapsed between the first investment and the final surrender of the place. From Durazzo, che Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus or Albania traversed the first mountains of Thessaly; surprised three hundred English in the city of Castoria; approached Thessalonica; and made Constantinople tremble. A more pressing duty suspended the prosecution of his ambitious designs. By shipwreck, pestilence, and the sword, his army was reduced to a third of the original numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers which had been produced by his absence: the revolt of the cities and barons of Apulia; the distress of the pope; and the approach or invasion of Henry king of Germany. Highly presuming that his person was sufficient for the public safety, he repassed the sea in a single brigantine, and left the remains of the army under the command of his son and the Norman counts, exhorting Bohemond to respect the freedom of his peers, and the counts to obey the authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod in the footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom devours whatever has escaped the teeth of the former.78 After winning two battles

"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, à durando: poor wit! (Alberic. Monach. in Chron. apud Muratori Annali d' Italia, tom. ix. p. 137.)

ti

78 Βρουχους καὶ ἀκρίδας εἶπεν ἄν τις αὐτούς πατέρα καὶ υΐον, (Anna P. 35.) By these similes, so different from those of Homer ahe

against the emperor, he descended into the plain of Thessaly and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles," which contained the treasure and magazines of the Byzantine camp. Yet a just praise must not be refused to the fortitude and pru dence of Alexius, who bravely struggled with the calamities of the times. In the poverty of the state, he presumed to borrow the superfluous ornaments of the churches: the de sertion of the Manichæans was supplied by some tribes of Mollavia: a reënforcement of seven thousand Turks replaced and revenged the loss of their brethren; and the Greek soldiers were exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of ambuscades and evolutions. Alexius had been taught by experience, that the formidable cavalry of the Franks on foot was unfit for action, and almost incapable of motion; " his archers were directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the man; and a variety of spikes and snares were scattered over the ground on which he might expect an attack. In the neighborhood of Larissa the events of war were protracted and balanced. The courage of Buhemond was always conspicuous, and often successful; but his camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city was impregnable; and the venal or discontented counts deserted his standard, betrayed their trusts, and enlisted in the service of the emperor. Alexius returned to Constantinople with the advantage, rather than the honor, of victory. After evacuating the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who esteemed his merit, and sympathized in his misfortune.

80

Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of

wishes to inspire contempt as well as horror for the little noxious ani mal, a conqueror. Most unfortunately, the common sense, or com nor nonsense, of mankind, resists her laudable design.

79

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, (Æneid. ii. 197,) Larissæus Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer.

80 The Tv Tedidov páduara, 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 xith to the xvth century These peaks, in the form of a scorpion, were sometimes two feet and fastened to the knee with a silver chain,

Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry the Third or Fourth, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the West. The epistle of the Greek monarch 81 to his brother is filled with the warmest professions of friendship, and the most lively desire of strengthening their alliance by every public and private tie. He congratulates Henry on his success in a just and pious war; and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Nor man Robert. The lists of his presents expresses the manners of the age-a radiated crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a case of relics, with the names and titles of the saints, a vase of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more solid present, of one hundred and forty-four thousand Byzantines of gold, with a further assurance of two hundred and sixteen thousand, so soon as Henry should have entered in arms the Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath the league against the common enemy. The German," who was already in Lombardy at the head of an army and a faction, accepted these liberal offers, and marched towards the south: his speed was checked by the sound of the battle of Durazzo; but the influence of his arms, or name, in the hasty return of Robert, was a ful. equivalent for the Grecian bribe. Henry was the severe adversary of the Normans, the allies and vassals of Gregory the Seventh, his implacable foe. The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and ambition of that haughty priest: the king and the pope had

83

The episth itself (Alexias, 1. iii. p. 93, 94, 95) well deserves to be read. There is one expression, ἀστροπέλεκυν δεδεμένων μετὰ χρυσαφίου, which Ducane does not understand. I have endeavored to grope out a tolerable wearing : χρυσάφιον is a golden crown; άστροπέλεκυς is ex plained by Zion Portius, (in Lexico Græco-Barbar.,) by κɛρavvis, pnario, a fish of lightning.

82 For these general events I must refer to the general historians Sigonius Baronius, Muratori, Mosheim, St. Marc, &c.

83 Tre lives of Gregory VII. are either legends or invectives, (St. Marc, Abrégé, tom. iii. p. 235, &c.;) and his miraculous or magical performances are alike incredible to a modern reader. He will, as asual, find some instruction in Le Clerc, (Vie de Hildebrand, Bibliot cier.ne et moderne, tom. viii.,) and much amusement in Bayle, (Dic tionnaire 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 Athanasius is one of the

degraded each other; and each had seated a rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy, to assume the Imperial crown, and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the church." But the Roman people adhered to the cause of Gregory: their resolution was forti fied by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of 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 delivered 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 him self 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, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles: the most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse, and thirty thousand foot, was instantly assembled; and his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine favor. Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach; recollected some indispensable affairs that

passages of my history (vol. ii. p. 332, &c.) with which I am the least dissatisfied!*

84 Anna, with the rancor of a Greek schismatic, calls him «α¬áτ TUOTOS oros Iláras, (l. i. p. 32,) a pope, or priest, worthy to be spit upor and accuses him of scourging, shaving, and perhaps of casti at ing the ambassadors of Henry, (p. 31, 33.) But this outrage is im probable and doubtful, (see the sensible preface of Cousin.)

There is a fair life of Gregory VII. by Voigt, (Weimar. 1815,) which has been translated into French. M. Villemain, it is understood, has devoted much time to the study of this remarkable character, to whom his eloquence may do justice. There is much valuable information can the subject in the accurate work of Stenzel, Geschichte Deutschlands unter den Fränkischen Kaisern-the History of Germany under the Emperor of the Franconian Race.-M.

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