had explored the ocean from Greenland to Mount Atlas, and who smiled at the petty dangers of the Mediterranean. They had wept during the tempest; they were alarmed by the hos tile approach of the Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and promises of the Byzantine court. The first day' action was not disadvantageous to Bohemond, a beardles youth,68 who led the naval powers of his father. All night the galleys of the republic lay on their anchors in the form of a crescent; and the victory of the second day was decided by the dexterity of their evolutions, the station of their ar chers, the weight of their javelins, and the borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulian and Ragusian vessels fled to the shore, several were cut from their cables, and dragged away by the conqueror; and a sally from the town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents of the Norman duke. A season. able relief was poured into Durazzo, and as soon as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute and provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pesti lential disease; five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death; and the list of burials (if all could obtain a decent burial) amounted to ten thousand persons. Under these calamities, the mind of Guiscard alone was firm and invincible, and while he collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered, or scaled, or sapped, the walls of Durazzo. But his industry and valor were encountered by equal valor and more perfect industry. A movable turret, of a size and capacity to contain five hundred soldiers, had been rolled forwards to the foot of the rampart: but the descent of the door or draw. bridge was checked by an enormous beam, and the wooden structure was constantly consumed by artificial flames. While the Roman empire was attacked by the Turks in the East, and the Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess Anne, his daughter and historias, observes, in her affected style, that even Hercules was unequal to a double combat; and, on this principle she ap. Ο Τῶν δὲ εἰς τον πώγωνα αὐτοῦ ἐφυβρισάντων, (Alexias, l. iv. p. 106.) Yet the Normans shaved, and the Venetians wore, their beards: they must have derided the no beard of Bohemond; a harsh interpretsticn! (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p. 283.) proves a hasty peace with the Turks, which allowed her father to undertake in person the relief of Durazzo. On his accession, Alexius found the camp without soldiers, and the treasury without money; yet such were the vigor and ac tivity of his measures, that in six months he assembled an army of seventy thousand men,69 and performed a march of five hundred miles. His troops were levied in Europe and Asia, from Peloponnesus to the Black Sea; his majesty was displayed in the silver arms and rich trappings of the com panies of Horse-guards; and the emperor was attended by a train of nobles and princes, some of whom, in rapid succes sion, had been clothed with the purple, and were indulged by the lenity of the times in a life of affluence and dignity. Their youthful ardor might animate the multitude; but their love of pleasure and contempt of subordination were preg nant with disorder and mischief; and their importunate clamors for speedy and decisive action disconcerted the prudence of Alexius who might have surrounded and starved the besieging army The enumeration of provinces recalls a sad com. parison of the past and present limits of the Roman world : the raw levies were drawn together in haste and terror; and the garrisons of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, had been purchased by the evacuation of the cities which were immediately occupied by the Turks. The strength of the Greek army consisted in the Varangians, the Scandinavian guards, whose numbers were recently augmented by a colony of exiles and volunteers from the British Island of Thule. Under the yoke of the Norman conqueror, the Danes and English were oppressed and united a band of adventurous youths resolved to desert a land of slavery; the sea was open to their escape; and, in their long pilgrimage, they visited every coast that afforded any hope of liberty and revenge. They were en tertained in the service of the Greek emperor; and their Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. ix. p. 136, 137) observes, that some authors (Petrus Diacon. Chron. Casinen. 1. iii. c. 49) compose the Greek army of 170,000 men, but that the hundred may be struck off, and that Malaterra reckons only 70,000; a slight inattention. The passage to which he alludes is in the Chronicle of Lupus Protospata, (Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 45.) Malaterra (1. iv. c. 27) speaks in high, but indefinite terms of the emperor, cum copiis innumerabilibus: like the Apulian poet, (1. iv. p. 272 ›) – More locustarum montes et plana teguntur. first station was in a new city c1 the Asiatic shore. but Al xius soon recalled them to the defence of his person and palace; and bequeathed to his successors the inheritance of their faith and valor.70 The name of a Norman invader revived the memory of their wrongs: they marched with alacrity against the national foe, and panted to regain in Epirus the glory which they had lost in the battle of Hastings. The Varangians were supported by some companies of Franks or Latins; and the rebels, who had fled to Constantinople from the tyranny of Guiscard, were eager to signalize their zeal and gratify their revenge. In this emergency, the emperor had not disdained the impure aid of the Pauli cians or Manichæans of Thrace and Bulgaria; and these her. etics united with the patience of martyrdom the spirit and discipline of active valor.71 The treaty with the sultan had procured a supply of some thousand Turks; and the arrows of the Scythian horse were opposed to the lances of the Norman cavalry. On the report and distant prospect of these formidable numbers, Robert assembled a council of his principal officers. "You behold," said he, "your danger: it is urgent and inevitable. The hills are covered with arms and standards; and the emperor of the Greeks is accustomed to wars and triumphs. Obedience and union are our only safety; and I am ready to yield the command to a more worthy leader." The vote and acclamation even of his secret enemies, assured him, in that perilous moment, of their esteem and confidence; and the duke thus continued: "Let us trust in the rewards of victory, and deprive cowardice of the means of escape. Let us burn our vessels and our baggage, and give battle on this spot, as if it were the place of our nativity and our burial." The resolution was unanimous ly approved; and, without confining himself to his lines, Guiscard awaited in battle-array the nearer approach of the enemy. His rear was covered by a small river; his right wing extended to the sea; his left to the hills: nor was he 70 See William of Malmsbury, de Gestis Anglorum, 1. ii. p. 92. Alexius fidem Anglorum suspiciens præcipuis familiaritatibus suis eos applicabat, amorem eorum filio transcribens. Ordericus Vitalis (Hist. Eccles. 1. iv. p. 508, 1. vii. p. 641) relates their emigration from England, and their service in Greece. See the Apulian, (l. i. p. 256.) The character and the story of these Manichæans has been the subject of the livth chapter. conscious, perhaps, that on the same ground Cæsar and Pompey had formerly disputed the empire of the world.72 Against the advice of his wisest captains, Alexius resolved to risk the event of a general action, and exhorted the garrison of Durazzo to assist their own deliverance by a well-t. ned sally from the town. He marched in two columns to surprise the Normans before daybreak on two different sides: his light cavalry was scattered over the plain; the archers formed the second line; and the Varangians claimed the honors of the vanguard. In the first onset, the battle-axes of the stranger made a deep and bloody impression on the army of Guiscard, which was now reduced to fifteen thousand men. The Lom bards and Calabrians ignominiously turned their backs; they fled towards the river and the sea; but the bridge had been broken down to check the sally of the garrison, and the coast was lined with the Venetian galleys, who played their engines among the disorderly throng. On the verge of ruin, they were saved by the spirit and conduct of their chiefs. Gaita, the wife of Robert, is painted by the Greeks as a warlike Amazon, a second Pallas; less skilful in arts, but not less terrible in arms, than the Athenian goddess: though wounded by an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove, by her exhortation and example, to rally the flying troops.74 Her female voice was seconded by the more powerful voice and arm of the Norman duke, as calm in action as he was magnanimous in council: "Whither," he cried aloud, "whither do ye fly? 73 73 See the simple and masterly narrative of Cæsar himself, (Comment. de Bell. Civil. iii. 41-75.) It is a pity that Quintus Ìcilius (M. Guichard) did not live to analyze these operations, as he has done the campaigns of Africa and Spain. 73 Παλλάς άλλη κὰν μὴ ' Αθήνη, which is very properly translated by the President Cousin, (Hist. de Constantinople, tom. iv. p. 131, in 12mo.,) qui combattoit comme une Pallas, quoiqu'elle ne fût pas aussi savante que celle d'Athenes. The Grecian goddess was composed of two discordant characters, of Neith, the work woman of Sais in Egypt, and of a virgin Amazon of the Tritonian lake in Libya, (Banier, Mythologie, tom. iv. p. 1—31, in 12mo.) 74 Anna Comnena (1. iv. p. 116) admires, with some degree of terror, her masculine virtues. They were more familiar to the Latins; and though the Apulian (1. iv. p. 273) mentions her presence and her wound, he represents her as far less intrepid. Uxor in hoc bello Roberti forte sagitta Quâdam læsa fuit: quo vulnere territa nullam The last is an unlucky word for a female prisoner. 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.75 Alexius was not deficient in the duties of a soldier or a general; but he no sooner beheld the slaugh ter of the Varangians, and the flight of the Turks, than he despised his subjects, and despaired of his fortune. The 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 stanlards 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: 76 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 afflicted by the loss of a costly pageant, which had merited only the con tempt and derision of the Greeks. After their defeat, they > 7ο Απὸ τῆς τοῦ ̔Ρομπερτοῦ προηγησαμένης μάχης, γινώσκων τὴν πρώτης κατὰ τῶν ἐναντίων ἱππασίαν τῶν Κελτῶν ἀνύποιστον, (Anna, l. v. p. 133;) and elsewhere, καὶ γὰρ Κελτὸς ἀνὴρ πᾶς ἐποχούμενος μὲν ἀνύποιστος την ὁρμὴν, καὶ τὴν θέαν ἐστίν, (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 Apu lian more than 5000, (1. iv. p. 273.) Their modesty is singular and andable: they might with so little trouble have slain two or three riads of schismatics and infidels : |