acquired by arms; and I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian Falcandus, who writes at the moment, and on the spot, with the feelings of patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman. "Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty, and educated in the arts and manners, of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the Barbarians with our treas ures, and now returns, with her savage allies, to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry Barbarians: our opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citi. zens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons.129 In this extremty (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act? By the unanimous election of a king of valor and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; 130 for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope.131 Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength, of Messina,132 might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire the fruitfu region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount Etna.133 what resource will be left for the interior parts of the island these noble cities which should never be violated by the hostile 129 Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarum tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinus et moribus informata, andem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum ingenti bus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica foeditate contaminet Intueri mihi jam videor turbulentas barbarorum acies civitates opulentas et loca diuturnâ pace florenkia, metà concutere, cæde vastare, rapinis atterere, et fœdare luxuriá : hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constupratæ, matronæ, &c. ... 130 Certe si regem non dubiæ virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis ot perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare. 11 In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum rerum studiis aguntur nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciæ reponendum. 133 Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, cum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum. 133 Cam crudelitate piraticà Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter mbustos lapides, et Ethnæ flagrantis incendia, &o footsteps of a Barbarian? 134 Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake: the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; 135 but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety, they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude." 136 We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country to his religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily. The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the kingdom of his widow and infant son 134 Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quæ et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio præminere, nefarium esset vel barbarorum ingressu pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description, of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo. 135 Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt. 136 At vero, quia difficile est Christianos in tanto rerum turbine, sublato regis timore Saracenos non opprimere, si Saraceni injuriis fatigati ab eis cœperint dissidere, et castella forte maritima vel montanas munitiones occupaverint; ut hinc cum Theutonicis summâ virtute pugnandum, illinc Saracenis crebris insultibus occurrendum, quid putas acturi sunt Siculi inter has depressi angustias, et velut inter malleum et incudem multo cum discrimine constituti? hoc utique agent quod poterunt, ut se Barbaris miserabili conditione dedentes, in eorum se conferant potestatem. O utinam plebis et procerum, Christianorum et Saracenorum vota conveniant; ut regem sibi concorditer eligentes, barbaros totis viribus, toto conamine, totisque desideriis proturbare contendant. The Normans and Sicilians appear to be confounded fell without a struggle; and Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven to pre vent the dangerous union of the German empire with the king. dom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate Henry,137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who enjoyed a beneficial trade and establish ment in Sicily, listened to the promise of his boundless grati tude and speedy departure: 138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to abolish the privileges and to seize the property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the em peror and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou.139 137 The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d' Italia, tom. x. p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome, exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father. 138 Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo, (Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 367, 368.) 139 For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the Annals of Muraɔri, (tom. x. p. 149, and A. D. 1223, 1247,) Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 885,) and of the originals, in Muratori's Collection, Richard de St. Germano, (tom. vii. p. 996,) Matteo Spinelli de Giovenazzo. (tom. vii. 1064,) Nicholas de Jamsilla, (tom. x. p. 494,) and Matteo Villani, xiv. 1. vii p. 103.) The last of these insinuates that in re All the calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated the royal sepulchres, and explored the secret treasures of the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and jewels, however precious, might be easily removed; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of Sicily.140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both sexes, were sepa、 rately confined in the fortresses of the Alps; and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations ducing the Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice than violence. 140 Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec, (1. iv. c. 20:) Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis, gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold, (p. 746.) On these occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid in La Fontaine, "Je veudrois bien avoir ce qui manque." It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs of the Roman em perors, even of Constantine himself, were violated and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexis Comnenus, in order to enable him to pay the "German" tribute exacted by the menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of the Life of Alexius, in Nicetas, p. 632, edit. Bonn -M CHAPTER LVII. THE TURKS OF THE HOUSE OF SELJUK. THEIR REVOLT AGAINST MAHMUD CONQUEROR OF HINDOSTAN. AND CAPTIVITY OF THE EMPEROR ROMANUS DIOGENES BY ALP ARSLAN. POWER AND MAGNIFICENCE OF MALEK SHAH. CONQUEST OF ASIA MINOR AND SYRIA. AND OPPRESSION OF JERUSALEM. STATE PILGRIMAGES TO THE FROM the Isle of Sicily, the reader must transport himself beyond the Caspian Sea, to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans, against whom the first crusade was principally directed. Their Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved; but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia. One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mahmud,1 the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern I am indebted for his character and history to D'Herbelct, (Bibliothèque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533–537,) M. De Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173,) and our countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23—83.) In the two first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the translator of the Persian Ferisha; but in his florid text, it is not easy to distinguish the version and the original.* *The European reader now possesses a more accurate version of Ferish |