 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Volume 5, Chapter 56, Part 3. Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tom Cray, had been long detained in Normandy by his own his age. He accepted the welcome summons fully in camp and deserved at the first esteem and afterwards the envy of his elder brother. Their valor and ambition were equal, but the youth, the beauty, the elegant manners 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 Melfi. 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 Scilla and Sharibdis, 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 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 capital, 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 discomforture of so 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 countrymen 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 island of the Mediterranean, and his administration displays a liberal and enlightened mind above the limits of his age and education. The Muslims were maintained in the free enjoyment of their religion and property. A philosopher and physician of Massara, of the race of Muhammad, harangued the conqueror, and was invited to court. His geography of the seven climates was translated into Latin, and Roger, after a diligent 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 benefits, 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. 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 partner of his humble fortune, he had been divorced under the pretense of consanguinity, and her son, Bohemond, was destined 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 secession of their son, Roger. Their five daughters were given in honorable nepotels, and one of them was betrothed in a tender age to Constantine, a beautiful youth, the son and heir of the Emperor Michael. But the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution. The imperial family of Dukas 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 tears and acclamations of the people, and Pope Gregory VII 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 of the East. Yet this Michael, by the confession of the Greeks and Latins, was a pageant and an imposter, 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 knot 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 unknown 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 violence 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 nights 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, or 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 inclined towards each other. The space between Brindosium and Orazio, the Roman passage, is no more than one hundred miles. At the last station of Otranto it is contracted to fifty, and this narrow distance had suggested to Pyrus and Pompeii the sublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. Before the general embarkation the Norman duke dispatched Bohemond with fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu to survey the opposite coast and to secure a harbor in the neighborhood of Valona for the landing of the troops. They passed and landed without perceiving an enemy, and this successful experiment displayed the neglect and decay of the naval power of the Greeks. The islands of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the arms or the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu. I used the modern appellation to the Siege of Duraso. That city, the western key of the empire, was guarded by ancient renown and recent fortifications by George Paleogius, a patrician victorious in the Oriental Wars, and a numerous garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who in every age have maintained the character of soldiers. In the prosecution of his enterprise the courage of Gwiskard was assailed by every form of danger and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year, as his fleet passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow unexpectedly arose, the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the Acroserunian rocks. The sails, the masts, and the oars, were shattered or torn away. The sea and shore were covered with the fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies, and the greatest part of the provisions were either drowned or damaged. The Ducal Galley was laboriously rescued from the waves, and Robert halted seven days on the adjacent cape to collect the relics of his loss and to revive the drooping spirits of his soldiers. The Normans were no longer the bold and experienced mariners who 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 hostile approach of the Medicians, who had been solicited by the prayers and promises of the Byzantine court. The first day's action was not disadvantageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth 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 archers, the weight of their javelins, and the borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulean and Ragoosian 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 seasonable relief was poured into Duraso, 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 pestilential 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 Apulea and Sicily he battered or scarred or sapped the walls of Duraso, but his industry and valor were encountered by equal valor and more perfect industry. A movable turret of the 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 drawbridge 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 scepter to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious captain and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess Anne, his daughter and historian, observes in her affected style that even Hercules was an equal to a double combat, and on this principle she approves a hasty peace with the Turks which allowed her father to undertake in person the relief of Duraso. On his accession Alexius found the camp without soldiers and the treasury without money, yet such were the vigor and activity of his measures that in six months he assembled an army of seventy thousand men and performed a march of five hundred miles. His troops were levied in Europe and Asia from Peloponnesius to the Black Sea. His majesty was displayed in the silver arms and rich trappings of the companies of horse guards, and the emperor was attended by a train of nobles and princes, some of whom in rapid succession 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 pregnant with disorder and mischief, and their importunate clamors for speedy and decisive action soon disconcerted the prudence of Alexius, who might have surrounded and starved the besieging army. The enumeration of provinces recalls a sad comparison 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 youth resolved to desert a land of slavery. The sea was open to their escape, and in their love of pilgrimage they visited every coast that afforded any hope of liberty and revenge. They were entertained in the service of the Greek emperor, and their first station was in a new city on the Asiatic shore. But Alexia soon recalled them to the defense of his person and palace, and bequeathed to his successors the inheritance of their faith and valor. 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 Poletians or Manicheans of Thrace and Bulgaria, and these heretics united with the patience of martyrdom and the spirit and discipline of active valor. The treaty with the Sultan had procured a supply of some thousand Turks, and the arrows of the Skithian horse were oppressed 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 as the means of escape, let us burn our vessels and our package, and give battle on this spot, as if it were the place of our nativity and our burial. The resolution was unanimously approved, and without confining himself to his lines, Guiskard 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 conscious, perhaps, that on the same ground Caesar and Pompey had formerly disputed the empire of the world. Against the advice of his wisest captains, Alexius resolved to risk the event of a general action, and exhorted the garrison of Dorazo to assist their own deliverance by a well-timed sally from the town. He marched in two columns to surprise the Normans before daybreak on two different sides. His light 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 strangers made a deep and bloody impression on the army of Guiskard, which was now reduced to fifteen thousand men. The Lombards and Calabrians, anonymously 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 palace, less skillful in arts, but not less terrible in arms. And the Athenian goddess, though wounded by an arrow, she stood her ground and strove by her exhortation and example to rally the flying troops. Her female voice was seconded by the more powerful voice and arms of the Norman Duke as common action as he was magnanimous in counsel. Wither, he cried aloud, whether do you fly, your enemy is implacable, and death is less grievous than servitude. The moment was decisive, as the Varangians advanced before the battle-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 deplored 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. 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 Lichnodus. The victorious Robert reproached the tardy and feeble pursuit which had suffered the escape of so illustrious surprise, 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. The Plain of Duraza was stained with noble and royal blood, and the end of the imposter Michael was more honorable than his life. It is more probable that Guiscard was not affected by the loss of a costly pageant which had only merited the contempt and derision of the Greeks. After their defeat they still preserved in the defense of Durazo, and a Venetian commander supplied the place of George Paleogis, who had been imprudently called away from his station. The tents of the beseechers were converted into barracks to sustain the inclemency 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 the Venetian noble who sold the city for a rich and honorable marriage. At the dead 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 their streets three days against an enemy already master of the rampart, and near seven months elapsed between the first investment and the final surrender of the place. From Durazo the Norman Duke advanced into the heart of Epirus, or Albania, traversed the first mountains of Thessaly, surprised 300 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 their 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 re-passed 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 Caterpillar and the Locust, the last of whom devours whatever has escaped the teeth of the former. After winning two battles 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 prudence 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 desertion of the Manicheans was supplied by some tribes of Moldavia. A reinforcement 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 ambiscades 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 Bohemond 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 count 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 to Italy and was embraced by a father who esteemed his merit and sympathized in his misfortune. of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry III IV, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the West. The epistle of the Greek monarch to his brother is filled with the warmest confessions 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 Norman Robert. The lists of his presence 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 Apulean 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 Durazo, but the influence of his arms or name in the hasty return of Robert was a full equivalent for the Grecian bribe. Henry was the severe adversary of the Normans, the allies and vassals of Gregory VII, his implacable foe. The long quarrel of the throne and Mitri had been recently kindled by the zeal and ambition of that haughty priest. The king and the pope had degraded each other and each had sealed 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 fortified 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, fifty hostages were delivered into his hands. The anti-pope, Clement III, was consecrated in the Lateran, the grateful Pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican, and the Emperor Henry fixed his residence in the capital as the lawful successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the nephew of Gregory. The pope himself 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 Guise Card was urged by the obligation of his oath, by his interest more potent than oaths, by the love of fame and his enmity of 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 required his presence in Lombardy, exhorted the Romans to preserve in their allegiance, and hastily retreated three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three years, the son of Tom Cray of Hoteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the pope and of compelling the two emperors of the east and west to fly before his victorious arms. But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the aid of the emperors of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or scaled, but the imperial faction was still powerful and active. On the third day the people rose in a furious tumult, and a hasty word of the conqueror in his defense or revenge was the signal of fire and pillage. The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger and auxiliaries of his brother embraced this verification of rifling and profaning the Holy City of Persians. Many thousands of the citizens in the site and by the allies of their spiritual father were exposed to violation, captivity, or death, and a spacious quarter of the city from the Lateran to the Coliseum was consumed by the flames and devoted to perpetual solitude. From a city where he was now hated and might be no longer feared, Gregory retired to end his days in the Palace of Salerno. The artful Pontiff might flatter the vanity of Guiscard with the hope of a Roman or imperial crown, but this dangerous measure, which would have inflamed the ambition of the Norman, must forever have alienated the most faithful princes of Germany. The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in a season of repose, but in the same year the flight of the German Emperor, the Indefatigable Robert, resumed the design of his eastern conquests. The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had promised to his valour the kingdoms of Greece and Asia. His troops were assembled in arms, flushed with success and eager for action. Their numbers in the language of Homer are compared by Anna to a swarm of bees. Yet the utmost and moderate limits of the powers of Guiscard have be defined. They were contained on the second occasion in 120 vessels, and as the season was far advanced, the harbor of Brondusium was preferred to the open road of Otranto. Alexius, apprehensive of a second attack, had assiduously labored to restore the naval forces of the Empire and obtained from the Republic of Venice an important port of Constantinople and a tribute to St. Mark, the more acceptable, as it was the produce of attacks on their rivals at Amalfi. By the Union of the Greeks and Venetians the Adriatic was covered by the ships of Constantinople, and the port of Constantinople was the port of Constantinople, and the port of Constantinople was the port of Constantinople, and the port of Constantinople was the port of Sorbetians, the Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet, but their own neglect or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind or the shelter of a mist, opened a free passage, and the Norman troops were safely disembarked on the coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and well-appointed galleys their Intrepid Duke immediately sought the enemy, and though more accustomed to fight on horseback, he trusted his own life and the and the lives of his brother and two sons, to the event of a naval combat. The dominion of the sea was disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Isle of Corfu. In the two former, the skill and numbers of the Allies were superior, but in the third the Normans obtained a final and complete victory. The light brigantines of the Greeks were scattered in an anonymous flight. The nine castles of the Venetians maintained a more obstinate conflict. Seven were sunk, two were taken, two thousand five hundred captives implored in vain the mercy of the victor, and the daughter of Alexius deplores the loss of thirteen thousand of his subjects or allies. The want of experience had been supplied by the genius of Gleescard, and each evening, when he had sounded a retreat, he calmly explored the causes of his repulse, and invented new methods how to remedy his own defects and to baffle the advantages of the enemy. The winter season suspended his progress. With the return of spring he again aspired to the conquest of Constantinople, but instead of traversing the hills of Epirus he turned his arms against Greece and the islands, where the spoils would repay the labor, and where the land and sea forces might pursue their joint operations with vigor and effect. But in the Isle of Cephalonia his projects were fatally blasted by an epidemical disease. Robert himself, in the seventieth year of his age, expired in his tent, and a suspicion of poison was imputed by public rumour to his wife or to the Greek emperor. This premature death might allow a boundless scope for the imagination of his future exploits, and the event sufficiently declared that the Norman greatness was founded on his life. Without the appearance of an enemy, a victorious army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation, and Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his deliverance. The galley which transported the remains of Guiscard was shipwrecked on the Italian shore, but the Duke's body was recovered from the sea and deposited in the sepulcher of Venusia, a place more illustrious for the birth of Horus than for the burial of the Norman heroes. Roger, his second son and successor, immediately sunk to the humble station of a Duke of Apulia. The esteem or partiality of his father left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword. The national tranquility was disturbed by his claims, till the first crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory and conquest. Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulcher. The male line of Robert Guiscard was extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the second generation, but his younger brother became the father of a line of kings, and the son of the Great Count was endowed with the name the Conquests and the spirit of the First Roger. The heir of that Norman adventurer was born in Sicily, and at the age of only four years he succeeded to the sovereignty of the island. A lot, which reason might envy, could she indulge for a moment the visionary, though virtuous wish of dominion. Had Roger been content with his fruitful patrimony, a happy and grateful people might have blessed their benefactor, and if a wise administration could have restored the prosperous times of the Greek colonies, the opulence and power of Sicily might have equalled the widest scope that could be acquired and desolated by the sword of war. But the ambition of the Great Count was ignorant of these noble pursuits. It was gratified by the vulgar means of violence and artifice. He sought to obtain the undivided possession of Palermo, of which, when moiety had been ceded to the elder branch, struggled to enlarge his Calabrian limits beyond the measure of former treaties, and impatiently watched the declining health of his cousin William of Apulia, the grandson of Robert. On the first intelligence of his premature death, Roger sailed from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor in the bay of Salerno, received after ten days' negotiation an oath of fidelity from the Norman capital, commanded the submission of the barons, and extorted a legal investiture from the reluctant popes, who could not long endure either the friendship or enmity of a powerful vassal. The sacred spot of Benevento was respectfully spared as the patrimony of St. Peter, but the reduction of Capua and Naples completed the design of his uncle Guiscard, and the sole inheritance of the Norman conquests was possessed by the victorious Roger. A conscious superiority of power and merit prompted him to disdain the titles of Duke and of Count, and the Isle of Sicily, with a third, perhaps, of the continent of Italy, might form the basis of a kingdom which would only yield to the monarchies of France and England. The chiefs of the nation who attended his coronation 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 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, but his own legitimacy was attacked by the adverse election of Innocent II, 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 Lothair II 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. Under 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 gonfannon, 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 vanquished in disease and desertion. 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 IX, the feeble, though haughty pontiff, became the 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 so 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 Fatime 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 Xerides, 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, 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 Muslims themselves. The capital of the Xerides was named Africa from the country, and Mahadia 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 instruments of mischief. The sovereign had fled. The Moorish governor refused to capitulate, declined the last and irresistible assault, and secretly escaping with the Muslim 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, Saffax, Caspia, Bona, and a long tract of the sea coast. 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 transmorine 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. 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 vanity of the new monarch, and the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated according to the laws of nations by the sufferings of a guiltless people. With the 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 secrete 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 eminence, abundantly watered by the classic fountain of Pyrene, 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 skillful 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 VII was intercepted by the Greeks, who basely violated the laws of honor and religion. The fortunate encounter of 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. In the absence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were left without defense and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy and people, for the soldiers had followed the standard of manual, 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 immense 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 gardens and pointed with silver or most probably with fire the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. This playful outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, manual 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 the squadrons and those of Venice, but I know not by what favorable allowance of transports, victualers, and penises 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 defense, Corfu implored the clemency of her lawful sovereign, nor could a ship, a soldier of the Norman Prince, be found and less as a captive within the limits of the Eastern Empire. The prosperity and the health of Roger were already in a declining state. While he listened in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or defeat, the invincible manual, the foremost in every assault, was celebrated by the Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or the Hercules of the Age. A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having repelled the insolence of a barbarian. It was the right in duty, it might be the interest and glory of Manuel to restore the ancient majesty of the empire, to recover the provinces of Italy and Sicily, and to chastise this pretended king, the grandson of a Norman vassal. The natives of Calabria were still attached to the Greek language and worship, which had been inexorably proscribed by the Latin clergy. After the loss of her dukes, Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of Sicily. The founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword, and the death had abated the fear without healing the discontent of his subjects. The feudal government was always pregnant with the seeds of rebellion, and a nephew of Roger himself invited the enemies of his family and nation. The majesty of the purple and a series of Hungarian and Turkish wars prevented Manuel from embarking his person in the Italian expedition to the brave and noble Paleogis, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch entrusted a fleet and army. This siege of Bari was his first exploit, and in every operation gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory. Salerno and some places along the western coast maintained their fidelity to the Norman king, but he lost in two campaigns the greater part of his continental possessions, and the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and falsehood, was content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all the walls of the palace. The prejudices of the Latins were gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of the German Caesars, but the successor of Constantine soon renounced this anonymous pretense, claimed the indefeasible dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the barbarians beyond the Alps. By the artful speeches, liberal gifts, and unbounded promises of their eastern ally, the free cities were encouraged to preserve in their generous struggle against the despotism of Frederick Barbarossa. The walls of Milan were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel, and he poured, says the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose attachment to the Greeks was fortified by the jealous enmity of the Venetians. The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it an important garrison in the heart of Italy. It was twice besieged by the arms of Frederick. The imperial forces were twice repulsed by the spirit of freedom. That spirit was animated by the ambassador of Constantinople, and the most intrepid patriots, the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and honors of the Byzantine court. The pride of Manuel disdained and rejected a barbarian colleague. His ambition was excited by the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of establishing, in the west as in the east, his lawful title of sole emperor of the Romans. With this view he solicited the alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch. The splendid nuppetals of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of that powerful family, and his royal standard, or the image, was entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. During the quarrel between Frederick and Alexander III, the pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassadors of Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long-promised union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal court, and extorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just provocation, the favorable moment, to humble the savage insolence of the Alemani, and to acknowledge the true representative of Constantine and Augustus. But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence of Alexander III, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution, nor could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the Latin name. After the reunion with Frederick, he spoke a more preemptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople and Rome. The free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and without preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the enmity of Venice. By his own avarice, or the complaints of his subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the persons and confiscate the effects of the Venetian merchants. This violation of the public faith exasperated a free and commercial people. One hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many days. They swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece, but after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement inglorious to the empire insufficient for the republic, and a complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria, but that his forces were inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily. His prophecy was soon verified. The death of Paleogis devolved the military command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military talents. The Greeks were oppressed by land and sea, and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their conqueror. Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had landed a second army on the Italian shore. He respectfully addressed the new Justinian, solicited a peace or truce of thirty years, accepted as a gift the regal title, and acknowledged himself the military vassal of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Caesar acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman army, and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that period the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind. The sword of William II, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race, and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians expatiate on the rapid progress of the four Counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks accuse and magnify the wanton and sacrilegious cruelties that were perpetrated in the sac of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those invincible but unsuspecting warriors who were destroyed by the arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud in songs of triumph the repeated victories of their countrymen on the sea of Marmosa or Prapontis, on the banks of the Strymon and under the walls of Durasso. A revolution which punished the crimes of Andronicus had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of the successful insurgents. Ten thousand were slain in battle, and Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was the extent of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans. Before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were lost or degraded in foreign servitude, and the successors of Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy. The scepter of Roger successfully devolved to his son and grandson. They might be confounded under the name of William. They are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and the good, but these epithets, which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by the danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valor of his race, but his temper was slothful, his manners were disillute, his passions headstrong and mischievous, and the monarch is responsible not only for his personal vices, but for those of Macho, the great admiral, who abused the confidence and conspired against the life of his benefactor. From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of oriental manners, the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem of a sultan, and a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs, who openly professed or secretly cherished the religion of Muhammad. An eloquent historian of the times has delineated the misfortunes of his country, the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Macho, the revolt and punishment of his assassins, the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself, the private feuds that arose from the public confusion, and the various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo, the island, and the continent during the reign of William I and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and beauty of William II endeared him to the nation. The factions were reconciled, the laws were revived, and from the manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancre of Hoteville was extinct in the person of the second William, but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful prince of the age, and Henry VI, the son of Frederick Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the imperial crown and the inheritance of his wife, against the unanimous wish of a free people, this inheritance could only be 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 a 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 treasures, 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 repine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. In this extremity, 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, for in the levity of the Apuleans, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope. Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina, if they destroy with fire the fruitful region so often wasted by the fires of Mount Etna, what resource will be left for the interior parts of the island, these noble cities which should never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a barbarian? Katana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake. The ancient virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude, but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Syracans. 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 Syracans, 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 a hopeless and inevitable servitude. We must not forget that a priest here prefers his country to his religion, and that the Muslims 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 Tancre, 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 Apulean 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 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 prevent the dangerous union of the German Empire with the kingdom 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 III had kicked away the imperial crown from the head of the prostrate Henry, 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 establishment in Sicily, listened to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure. 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 Frederick II, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nassara in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman Church, the emperor 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. All the calamities which the prophetic order had deplored were surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated the royal sepultures 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. The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both sexes were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps, and on the slightest rumour 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 newborn son of an emperor so famous in the next age under the name of Frederick II. Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the Duchy of Normandy. The scepter 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. The Turks of the House of Seljuk. Their revolt against Mahmud, Conqueror of Hindustan. Talgrus subdues Persia and protects the Caliphs. Defeat and captivity of the emperor Romanus Diogenes by Alp Urslan. Power and magnificence of Malik Shah. Conquest of Asia Minor and Syria. State and oppression of Jerusalem. Pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre. 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 Oksus 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 Samarkand 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 Mahmud, or Mahmud, the Ghaznavide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia, one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father, Sebek Teji, was the slave of the slave of the slave of the commander of the faithful. But in this descent of servitude the first degree was merely titular, since it was filled by the sovereign of Transoxiana and Corosan, who still paid a nominal allegiance to the caliph of Baghdad. The second rank was that of a minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanids, who broke by his revolt the bonds of political slavery. But the third step was a state of real and domestic servitude in the family of that rebel, from which Sebek Teji, by his courage and dexterity, ascended to the supreme command of the city and provinces of Ghazna, as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master. The falling dynasty of the Samanids was at first protected, and at last overthrown by their servants, and in the public disorders the fortune of Mahmud continually increased. From him the title of Sultan was first invented, and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighborhood of Isophan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the principal source of his fame and riches was the holy war which he waged against the Gentus of Hindustan. In this foreign narrative I may not consume a page, and a volume would scarcely suffice to recapitulate the battles and sieges of his twelve expeditions. Never was the Muslim hero dismayed by the inclemency of the seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers, the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the formidable array of their elephants at war. The Sultan of Ghazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander. After a march of three months over the hills of Kashmir and Tibet, he reached the famous city of Kenog. On the upper Ganges, and in a naval combat on one of the branches of the Indus, he fought and vanquished four thousand boats of the natives. Delhi, Lahore, and Multan were compelled to open their gates. The fertile kingdom of Ghazarat attracted his ambition and tempted his stay, and his avarice indulged the fruitless project of discovering the golden and aromatic isles of the southern ocean. On payment of a tribute the Rajas preserved their dominions, the people their lives and fortunes, but to the religion of Hindustan the zealous Muslim was cruel and inexorable. Many hundred temples or pagodas were leveled to the ground, many thousand idols were demolished, and the servants of the Prophet were stimulated and rewarded by the precious materials of which they were composed. The pagoda of Somnat was situated on the promontory of Ghazarat, in the neighborhood of Dew, one of the last remaining possessions of the Portuguese. It was endowed with the revenue of two thousand villages, two thousand Brahmins were consecrated to the service of the deity, whom they washed each morning and evening in water from the distant Ganges. The subordinate ministers consisted of three hundred musicians, three hundred barbers, and five hundred dancing girls, conspicuous for their birth or beauty. Three sides of the temple were protected by the ocean, the narrow isthmus was fortified by a natural or artificial precipice, and the city and adjacent country were peopled by a nation of fanatics. They confessed the sins and the punishment of Kinog and Delhi, but if the impious strangers should presume to approach their holy precincts he would surely be overwhelmed by a blast of the divine vengeance. By this challenge the faith of Mahmud was animated to a personal trial of the strength of this Indian deity. Fifty thousand of his worshipers were pierced by the spear of the Muslims. The walls were scaled, the sanctuary was profaned, and the conqueror aimed a blow of his iron mace at the head of the idol. The trembling Brahmins are said to have offered ten million sterling for his ransom, and it was urged by the wisest counsellors that the destruction of a stone image would not change the hearts of the gentoes and that such a sum might be dedicated to the relief of the true believers. Your reasons, replied the sultan, are specious and strong, but never in the eyes of posterity shall Mahmud appear as a merchant of idols. He repeated his blows, and a treasure of pearls and rubies concealed in the belly of the statue explained in some degree the devout prodigality of the Brahmins. The fragments of the idol were distributed to Ghazna, Mecca, and Medina. Baghdad listened to the edifying tale, and Mahmud was saluted by the caliph with the title of guardian of the fortune and faith of Muhammad. In the paths of blood, and such is the history of nations, I cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or virtue. The name of Mahmud, the Ghaznavide, is still venerable in the east. His subjects enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and peace, his vices were concealed by the veil of religion, and two familiar examples will testify his justice and magnanimity. One, as he sat in the divan, an unhappy subject bowed before the throne to accuse the insolence of a Turkish soldier who had driven him from his house in bed. Suspend your clamors, said Mahmud, inform me of his next visit, and our self in person will judge and punish the offender. The sultan followed his guide, invested the house with his guards, and extinguished the torches, pronounced the death of the criminal who had been seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of his sentence the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in prayer, and rising from the ground demanded some homely fare, which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger. The poor man, whose injury he had avenged, was unable to suppress his astonishment and curiosity, and the courteous monarch condescended to explain the motives of this singular behavior. I had reason to suspect that none except one of my sons could dare to perpetrate such an outrage, and I extinguished the lights that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer was a thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender, and so painful was my anxiety that I had passed three days without food since the first moment of your complaint. II. The sultan of Ghazna had declared war against the dynasty of the Boids, the sovereigns of the western Persia. He was disarmed by an epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his invasion till the manhood of her son. During the life of my husband, said the artful regent, I was ever apprehensive of your ambition. He was a prince and a soldier worthy of your arms. He is now no more, his scepter has passed to a woman and a child, and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! And yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty. This was the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of Mahmud, and never has that passion been more richly satiated. The orientals exceeded the measure of credibility in the account of millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity of man has never accumulated. In the magnitude of pearls, diamonds, and rubies such as have never been produced by the workmanship of nature. Yet the soil of Hindustan is impregnated with precious minerals. Her trade in every age has attracted the gold and silver of the world, and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of the Muhammedin conquerors. His behavior in the last days of his life evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast and various chambers of the treasury of Ghazna, burst into tears, and again closed the doors, without bestowing any portion of the wealth which he could no longer hope to preserve. The following day he reviewed the state of his military force, one hundred thousand foot, fifty-five thousand horse, and thirteen hundred elephants of battle. He again wept the instability of human greatness, and his grief was embittered by the hostile progress of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his Persian kingdom. In the modern depopulation of Asia the regular operation of government and agriculture is confined to the neighborhood of cities, and the distant country is abandoned to the pastoral tribes of Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens. Of the last mentioned people, two considerable branches extend on either side of the Caspian Sea. The western colony can muster forty thousand soldiers. The eastern, less obvious to the traveler, but more strong and populous, has increased to the number of one hundred thousand families. In the midst of civilized nations they preserve the manners of the Scythian Desert, remove their encampments with a change of seasons, and feed their cattle among the ruins of palaces and temples. Their flocks and herds are their only riches. Their tents, either black or white, according to the color of the banner, are covered with felt, and of a circular form. Their winter apparel is a sheepskin, a robe of cloth or cotton, or summer garment. The features of the men are harsh and ferocious. The countenance of their women is soft and pleasing. Their wandering life maintains the spirit and exercise of arms. They fight on horseback, and their courage is displayed in frequent contests with each other and with their neighbors. For the license of pasture they pay a slight tribute to the sovereign of the land, but the domestic jurisdiction is in the hands of the chiefs and elders. The first emigration of the eastern Turkmens, the most ancient of the race, may be ascribed to the tenth century of the Christian era. In the decline of the Caliphs and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier of the Yaksirksies was often violated. In each invasion, after the victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe, embracing the Muhammadan faith, obtained a free encampment on the spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transaksania and Charisma. The Turkish slaves who aspired to the throne encouraged these emigrations which recruited their armies, awed their subjects and rivals, and protected the frontier against the wilder natives of Turkestan, and this policy was abused by Mahmud, the Ghaznavide, beyond the example of former times. He was admonished of his error by the chief of the race of Seljuk, who dwelt in the territory of Bukhara. The Sultan had inquired what supply of men he could furnish for military interests. If you send, replied Ishmael, one of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of your servants will mount on horseback. And if that number, continued Mahmud, should not be sufficient, send this second arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand more. But, said the Ghaznavide, dissembling his anxiety, if I should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred tribes, dispatch my bow was the last reply of Ishmael, and as it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two hundred thousand horse. The apprehension of such formidable friendship induced Mahmud to transport the most obnoxious tribes into the heart of Korasan, where they would be separated from their brethren of the river Oksus, and enclosed on all sides by the walls of obedient cities. But the face of the country was an object of temptation rather than terror, and the vigor of government was relaxed by the absence and death of the sultan of Ghazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers, the bands of robbers were collected into an army of conquerors, as far as Isiphan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory inroads, and the Turkmens were not ashamed or afraid to measure their courage in numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia. Masud, the son and successor of Mahmud, had too long neglected the advice of his wisest Omras. Your enemies, they repeatedly urged, were in their origin as warm advance. They are now little snakes, and unless they be instantly crushed, they will acquire the venom and magnitude of serpents. After some alternatives of truce and hostility, after the repulse or partial success of his lieutenants, the sultan marched in person against the Turkmens, who attacked him on all sides with barbarous shouts and irregular onset. Masud, says the Persian historian, plunged singly to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, exhibiting such acts of gigantic force and valor as never a king had before displayed. A few of his friends, roused by his words and actions, and that innate horror which inspires the brave, seconded their lord so well, that wheresoever he turned his fatal sword the enemies were mowed down or retreated before him. But now when victory seemed to blow on his standard, misfortune was active behind it, for when he looked round, he beheld almost his whole army, accepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths of flight. The Ghaznavide was abandoned by the cowardice or treachery of some generals of Turkish race, and this memorable day of Zendikon founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings. The victorious Turkmens immediately proceeded to the election of a king, and if the probable tale of a Latin historian deserves any credit, they determined by lot the choice of their new master. A number of arrows were successively inscribed with the name of a tribe, a family, and a candidate. They were drawn from the bundle by the hand of a child, and the important prize was obtained by Togro Beg, the son of Michael, the son of Seljuk, whose surname was immortalized in the greatness of his posterity. The sultan Mahmud, who valued himself in his skill in national genealogy, professed his ignorance of the family of Seljuk, yet the father of that race appears to have been a chief of power and renown. For a daring intrusion into the harem of his prince, Seljuk was banished from Turkestan. With a numerous tribe of his friends and vassals, he passed the Yuxarcsis, and came to the neighborhood of Samarkand, embraced the religion of Muhammad, and acquired the crown of martyrdom in a war against the infidels. His age of a hundred and seven years surpassed the life of his son, and Seljuk adopted the care of his two grandsons, Togro and Jafar, the eldest of whom, at the age of forty-five, was invested with the title of sultan in the royal city of Nisheber. The blind determination of chance was justified by the virtues of the successful candidate. It would be superfluous to praise the valour of a Turk, and the ambition of Togro was equal to his valor. By his arms the Ghaznavides were expelled from the eastern kingdoms of Persia, and gradually driven to the banks of the Indus, in search of a softer and more wealthy conquest. In the west he annihilated the dynasty of the Boides, and the scepter of Iraq passed from the Persian to the Turkish nation. The princes who had felt, or who feared, the Seljukian arrows bowed their heads in the dust. By the conquest of Azerbaijan or Medea he approached the Roman confines, and the shepherd presumed to dispatch an ambassador, or herald, to demand the tribute and obedience of the emperor of Constantinople. In his own dimensions Togro was the father of his soldiers and people. By a firm and equal administration Persia was relieved from the evils of anarchy, and the same hands which had been imbued in blood became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmens continued to dwell in the tents of their ancestors, and from the oxes to the Euphrates these military colonies were protected and propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court and the city were refined by business and softened by pleasure. They imitated the dress, the language, and manners of Persia, and the royal palaces of Nisheber and Rey displayed the order and magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honors of the state, and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced with fervor and sincerity the religion of Muhammad. The northern swarms of barbarians who overspread both Europe and Asia have been irreconcilably separated by the consequences of a similar conduct. Among the Muslims, as among the Christians, their vague and local traditions have yielded to the reason and authority of the prevailing system, to the fame of antiquity and the consent of nations. But the triumph of the Quran is more pure and meritorious, as it was not assisted by any visible splendor of worship which might allure the pagans by some resemblance of idolatry. The first of the Seljukian sultans was conspicuous by his zeal and faith. Each day he repeated the five prayers which are enjoined to the true believers. Of each week the first two days were consecrated by an extraordinary fast, and in every city a mosque was completed before Togro presumed to lay the foundations of a palace. With the belief of the Quran the son of Seljuk imbibed a lively reverence for the successor of the prophet. But that sublime character was still disputed by the caliphs of Baghdad in Egypt, and each of the rivals was solicitous to prove his title in the judgment of the strong, though illiterate barbarians. Mahmood the Geznavide had declared himself in favour of the line of Abbas, and had treated with indignity the robe of honour which was presented by the Fatimid ambassador. Yet the ungrateful Hashemite had changed with the change of fortune. He applauded the victory of Zendikan and named the Seljukian Sultan his temporal vice-region over the Muslim world. As Togro executed and enlarged this important trust, he was called to the deliverance of the caliph Qayyim and obeyed the holy summons, which gave a new kingdom to his arms. In the palace of Baghdad the commander of the faithful still slumbered, a venerable phantom. His servant or master, the prince of the Boids, could no longer protect him from the insolence of meaner tyrants, and the Euphrates and Tigris were oppressed by the revolt of the Turkish and Arabian Amirs. The presence of a conqueror was implored as a blessing, and the transient mischiefs of fire and sword were excused as the sharp but salutary remedies which alone could restore the health of the Republic. At the head of an irresistible force the Sultan of Persia marched from Hamadan. The proud were crushed, the prostrate were spared, the prince of the Boids disappeared, the heads of the most obstinate rebels were laid at the feet of Togro, and he inflicted a lesson of obedience on the people of Mosul and Baghdad. After the chastisement of the guilty and the restoration of peace the royal shepherd accepted the reward of his labors, and the solemn comedy represented the triumph of religious prejudice over barbarian power. The Turkish Sultan embarked on the Tigris, landed at the gate of Raqqa, and made his public entry on horseback. At the palace gate he respectfully dismounted and walked on foot, preceded by his amirs without arms. The caliph was seated behind his black veil, the black garment of the Abbasids was cast over his shoulders, and he held in his hand the staff of the Apostle of God. The conqueror of the East kissed the ground, stood some time in a modest posture, and was led towards the throne by the vizier and interpreter. After Togro had seated himself on another throne his commission was publicly read, which declared him the temporal lieutenant of the vicar of the prophet. He was successively invested with seven robes of honor, and presented with seven slaves, the natives of the seven climates of the Arabian Empire. His mystic veil was perfumed with musk, two crowns were placed on his head, two cimitars were girded to his side as the symbols of a double reign over the East and West. After this inauguration the Sultan was prevented from prostrating himself a second time, but he twice kissed the hand of the commander of the faithful, and his titles were proclaimed by the voice of the heralds and the applause of the Muslims. In a second visit to Baghdad the Seljukian prince again rescued the Kali from his enemies, and devoutly, on foot, led the bridle of his mule from the prison to the palace. Their alliance was cemented by the marriage of Togro's sister with the successor of the prophet. Without reluctance he had introduced a Turkish virgin into his harem, but Qayyam proudly refused his daughter to the Sultan, disdain to mingle the blood of the Hashemites with the blood of Assythian Shepherd, and protracted the negotiation many months, till the gradual diminution of his revenue admonished him that he was still in the hands of a master. The royal nuptials were followed by the death of Trogro himself, as he left no children his nephew Alp Arslan succeeded to the title and prerogatives of Sultan, and his name, after that of the Caliph, was pronounced in the public prayers of the Muslims. Yet in this revolution the Abbasids acquired a larger measure of liberty and power. On the throne of Asia the Turkish monarchs were less jealous of the domestic administration of Baghdad, and the commanders of the faithful were relieved from the ignomious fexations to which they had been exposed by the presence and poverty of the Persian dynasty. CHAPTER 57 THE TURKS, PART II Since the fall of the Caliphs, the discord and degeneracy of the Saracens respected the Asiatic provinces of Rome, which, by the victories of Nisophorus, Zameskis, and Basil, had been extended as far as Antioch and the eastern boundaries of Armenia. Twenty-five years after the death of Basil, his successors were suddenly assaulted by an unknown race of barbarians, who united the Scythian Valor with the fanaticism of new proselytites, and the art and riches of a powerful monarchy. The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles, from Taurus to Azerom, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Yet the arms of Togrol did not make any deep or lasting impression on the Greek Empire. The torrent rolled away from the open country, the Sultan retired without glory or success from the siege of an Armenian city. The obscure hostilities were continued or suspended with a vicissitude of events, and the bravery of the Macedonian legions renewed the fame of the conqueror of Asia. The name of Alp Arslan, the valiant lion, is expressive of the popular idea of the perfection of a man, and the successor of Togrol displayed the fierceness and generosity of the royal animal. He passed the Euphrates at the head of the Turkish cavalry, and entered Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia, to which he had been attracted by the fame and wealth of the Temple of St. Basil. The solid structure resisted the destroyer, but he carried away the doors of the shrine encrusted with golden pearls, and profane the relics of the Totolar Saint, whose mortal frailties were now covered by the venerable rust of antiquity. The final conquest of Armenia and Georgia was achieved by Alp Arslan. In Armenia, the title of a kingdom and the spirit of a nation were annihilated. The artificial fortifications were yielded by the mercenaries of Constantinople, by strangers without faith, veterans without pay or arms, and recruits without experience or discipline. The loss of this important frontier was the news of a day, and the Catholics were neither surprised nor displeased, that a people so deeply infected with the Nestorian and Eutychian errors had been delivered by Christ and his mother into the hands of the infidels. The woods and valleys of Mount Caucasus were more strenuously defended by the native Georgians or Iberians, but the Turkish Sultan and his son Malik were indefatagable in this holy war. Their captives were compelled to promise a spiritual as well as temporal obedience, and instead of their collars and bracelets, an iron horseshoe, a badge of ignomy, was imposed on the infidels who still adhered to the worship of their fathers. The change, however, was not sincere or universal, and through ages of servitude the Georgians have maintained the succession of their princes and bishops. But a race of men, whom nature has cast in her most perfect mold, is degraded by poverty, ignorance, and vice. Their profession, and still more their practice of Christianity is an empty name, and if they have emerged from heresy, it is only because they are too illiterate to remember a metaphysical creed. The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmoud the Gauzinvide was not imitated by Alp Arslan, and he attacked without scruple the Greek Empress Eudosha and her children. His alarming progress compelled her to give herself and her scepter to the hand of a soldier, and Romanus Diogenes was invested with the Imperial Purple. His patriotism, and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople within two months after his accession, and the next campaign he most scandalously took the field during the Holy Festival of Easter. In the palace, Diogenes was no more than the husband of Eudosha. In the camp he was the Emperor of the Romans, and he sustained that character with feeble resources and invincible courage. By his spirit and success the soldiers were taught to act. The subjects to hope and the enemies to fear. The Turks had penetrated into the heart of Fyrgia, but the Sultan himself had resigned to his emirs the prosecution of the war, and their numerous detachments were scattered over Asia in the security of conquest. Layed in with spoil and careless of discipline, they were separately surprised and defeated by the Greeks. The activity of the Emperor seemed to multiply his presence, and while they heard of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy felt his sword on the hills of Trebizond. In three laborious campaigns the Turks were driven beyond the Euphrates. In the fourth and last Romanus undertook the deliverance of Armenia. The desolation of the land obliged him to transport a supply of two months' provisions, and he marched forwards to the siege of Maliskurd, an important fortress midway between the modern cities of Azarum and Venn. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand men. The troops of Constantinople were reinforced by the disorderly multitudes of Fyrgia and Cappadocia, but the real strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the legions of Macedonia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria, the Uzi, a Moldavian horde who were themselves of the Turkish race, and above all the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant Ursel of Baleol, the kinsmen or father of the Scottish kings, and were allowed to excel in the exercise of arms or, according to the Greek style, in the practice of the phiric dance. On the report of this bold invasion, which threatened his hereditary dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at the head of forty thousand horse. His rapid and skillful evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the Greeks, and in the defeat of Basiliacius, one of their principal generals, he displayed the first example of his valor and clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had separated his forces after the reduction of Malus Curd. It was in vain that he attempted to recall the mercenary Franks. They refused to obey his summons. He disdained to await their return. The desertion of the Uzi filled his mind with anxiety and suspicion, and against the most salutary advice he rushed forward to speedy and decisive action. Had he listened to the fair proposals of the sultan, Romanus might have secured a retreat, perhaps a peace, but in these overtures he suppressed the fear or weakness of the enemy, and his answer was conceived in the tone of insult and defiance. If the barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans, and surrender his city in palace of rey as a pledge of his sincerity. Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he wept the death of so many faithful Muslims, and after a devout prayer proclaimed a free permission to all who were desirous of retiring from the field. With his own hands he tied up his horse's tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and scimitar, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be the place of his burial. The sultan himself had affected to cast away his missile weapons, but his hopes of victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent. Instead of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian tactics, Romulus led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and pressed with vigor and impatience the artful and yielding resistance of the barbarians. In this delsatorian fruitless combat he spent the greater part of a summer's day, till prudence and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is always perilous in the face of an active foe, and no sooner had the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a rival prince who disgraced his birth in the purple of the Caesars. The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on this moment of confusion and lassitude, and the horns of their formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the destruction of the army and pillage of the camp it would be needless to mention the number of the slain or captives. The Byzantine riders deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl. They forgot to mention that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed. As long as a hope survived, Romulus attempted to rally and save the relics of his army. When the center, the imperial station, was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him, his horse was slain, the emperor was wounded, yet he stood alone and intrepid till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a slave and a soldier, a slave who had seen him on the throne of Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been excused on the promise of some signal service. Dispoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romulus spent a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a disorderly crowd of the meaner barbarians. In the morning the royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his fortune till the identity of the person was ascertained by the report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of Balsalasius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was led into the Turkish Divan, and commanded to kiss the ground before the Lord of Asia. He reluctantly obeyed, and Alp Arslan, starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the neck of the Roman emperor. But the fact is doubtful, and if, in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with the national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the ground, and thrice-classing his hand with tender sympathy assured him that his life and dignity should be inviolate in the hands of a prince who had learned to respect the majesty of his equals and the vicissitudes of fortune. From the Divan Romanus was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was served with pomp and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who twice each day seated him in the place of honor at his own table. In a free and familiar conversion of eight days, not a word, not a look of insult escaped from the conqueror, but he severely censured the unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the hour of danger, and gently admonished his antagonist of some errors which he had committed in the management of the war. In the preliminaries of negotiation Alp Arslan asked him what treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of the emperor displayed the freedom of his mind. If you are cruel, said he, you will take my life. If you listen to pride you will drag me at your chariot-wheels. If you consult your interest you will accept a ransom and restore me to my country. And what, continued the sultan, would have been your own behavior had fortune smiled on your arms. The reply of the Greek betrays a sentiment which prudence and even gratitude should have taught him to suppress. Had I vanquished, he fiercely said, I would have inflicted on thy body many a stripe. The Turkish conqueror smiled at the insolence of his captive, observed that the Christian law inculcated the love of enemies and forgiveness of injuries, and nobly declared that he would not imitate an example which he condemned. After mature deliberation Alp Arslan dictated the terms of liberty and peace, a ransom of a million, an annual tribute of three hundred and sixty thousand pieces of gold, the marriage of the royal children, and the deliverance of all the Muslims who were in the power of the Greeks. Romanus, with a sigh, subscribed this treaty, so disgraceful to the majesty of the empire. He was immediately invested with a Turkish robe of honor, his nobles and patricians were restored to their sovereign, and the sultan, after a courteous embrace, dismissed him with rich presence and a military guard. No sooner did he reach the confines of the empire than he was informed that the palace and provinces had disclaimed their allegiance to a captive, a sum of two hundred thousand pieces was painfully collected, and the fallen monarch transmitted this part of his ransom with a sad confession of his impotence and disgrace. The generosity, or perhaps the ambition of the sultan, prepared to espouse the cause of his ally, but his designs were prevented by the defeat, imprisonment, and death of Romanus Diogenes. In the Treaty of Peace it does not appear that Alp Arslan extorted any province or city from the captive emperor, and his revenge was satisfied with the trophies of his victory and the spoils of Anatolia from Antioch to the Black Sea. The fairest part of Asia was subject to his laws, twelve hundred princes, or the sons of princes, stood before his throne, and two hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The sultan disdained to pursue the fugitive Greeks, but he meditated the more glorious conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of the house of Seljuk. He moved from Baghdad to the banks of the Auxes, a bridge was thrown over the river, and twenty days were consumed in the passage of his troops. But the progress of the great king was retarded by the governor of Bersam, and Joseph, the Charismian, presumed to defend his fortress against the powers of the east. When he was produced a captive in the royal tent, the sultan, instead of praising his valor, severely reproached his obstinate folly, and the insolent replies of the rebel provoked a sentence that he should be fastened to four stakes, and left to expire in that painful situation. At this command the desperate Charismian, drawing a dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne. The guards raised their battle-axes, their zeal was checked by Alb Arslan, the most skillful archer of the age. He drew his bow, but his foot slipped. The arrow glanced aside, and he received in his breast the dagger of Joseph, who was instantly cut in pieces. The wound was mortal, and the Turkish prince bequeathed a dying admonition to the pride of kings. "'In my youth,' said Alb Arslan, I was advised by a sage to humble myself before God, to distrust my own strength, and never to despise the most contemptible foe. I have neglected these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit of my armies. The earth seemed to tremble under my feet. And I said in my heart, Surely thou art the king of the world, the greatest and most invincible of warriors. These armies are no longer mine, and in the confidence of my personal strength I now fall by the hand of an assassin.' Alb Arslan possessed the virtues of a Turk and a Muslim. His voice and stature commanded the reverence of mankind. His face was shaded with long whiskers, and his ample turban was fashioned in the shape of a crown. The remains of the sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty, and the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription. O ye who have seen the glory of Alb Arslan exalted to the heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it buried in the dust. The annihilation of the inscription and the tomb itself more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness. During the life of Alb Arslan, his eldest son had been acknowledged as the future sultan of the Turks. On his father's death the inheritance was disputed by an uncle, a cousin, and a brother. They drew their cemeteries and assembled their followers, and the triple victory of Malik Shah established his own reputation and the right of primogeniture. In every age and more especially in Asia the thirst of power has inspired the same passions and occasioned the same disorders, but from the long series of civil war it would not be easy to extract a sentiment more pure and magnanimous than is contained in the saying of the Turkish prince. On the eve of battle he performed his devotions at Thos before the tomb of the Imam Reza. As the sultan rose from the ground he asked his vizier Nizam who had knelt beside him what had been the object of his secret petition. That your arms may be crowned with victory was the prudent and most probably the sincere answer of the minister. For my part, replied the generous Malik, I implored the Lord of Hosts that he would take from me my life and crown if my brother be more worthy than myself to reign over the Muslims. The favorable judgment of heaven was ratified by the caliph, and for the first time the sacred title of Commander of the Faithful was communicated to a barbarian. But this barbarian, by his personal merit and the extent of his empire, was the greatest prince of his age. After the settlement of Persia and Syria he marched at the head of innumerable armies to achieve the conquest of Turkestan which had been undertaken by his father. In his passage of the oxes the boatmen who had been employed in transporting some troops complained that their payment was assigned on the revenues of Antioch. The sultan frowned at this preposterous choice but he smiled at the artful flattery of his vizier. It was not to postpone their reward that I selected those remote places but to leave a memorial to posterity that under your reign Antioch and the oxes were subject to the same sovereign. But this description of his limits was unjust and parsimonious. Beyond the oxes he reduced to his obedience the cities of Bokhara, Charisma, and Samarkand, and crushed each rebellious slave or independent savage who dared to resist. Malik passed the Sihon or Yuxarch seas the last boundary of Persian civilization. The hordes of Turkestan yielded to his supremacy, his name was inserted on the coins and in the prayers of Kashgar, a Tartar kingdom on the extreme borders of China. From the Chinese frontier he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or feudatory sway to the west and south. As far as the mountains of Georgia, the neighborhood of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of residing himself to the luxury of his harem, the shepherd king, both in peace and war, was in action and in the field. By the perpetual motion of the royal camp each province was successively blessed with his presence, and he is said to have perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions which surpassed the aegiatic reign of Cyrus and the Caliphs. Of these pilgrimages the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of Mecca. The freedom and safety of the caravans were protected by his arms, the citizens and pilgrims were enriched by the profusion of his alms, and the desert was cheered by the places of relief and refreshment which he instituted for the use of his brethren. Hunting was the pleasure and even the passion of the sultan, and his train consisted of forty-seven thousand horses. But after the massacre of a Turkish chaise for each piece of game he bestowed a piece of gold on the poor, a slight atonement at the expense of the people for the cost and mischief of the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of his reign the cities of Asia were adorned with palaces and hospitals, with mosques and colleges, few departed from his devan without reward, and none without justice. The language and literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk, and if Malik emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself his palace might resound with the songs of a hundred poets. The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the reformation of the calendar which was affected by a general assembly of the astronomers of the east. By a law of the prophet the Muslims are confined to the irregular course of the lunar months. In Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolution of the sun has been known and celebrated as an annual festival. But after the fall of the Medjian Empire the intercalculation had been neglected. The fractions of minutes and hours were multiplied into days, and the date of the springs was removed from the sign of Aries to that of Pisces. The reign of Malik was illustrated by the Galilean era, and all errors, either past or future, were corrected by a computation of time, which surpasses the Julian and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian style. In a period when Europe was plunged into the deepest barbarism the light and splendor of Asia may be ascribed to the docility rather than the knowledge of the Turkish conquerors. An ample share of their wisdom and virtue is due to a Persian vizier who ruled the empire under the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son. Nizam, one of the most illustrious ministers of the east, was honored by the caliph as an oracle of religion and science. He was trusted by the sultan as the faceful vice-region of his power and justice. After an administration of thirty years, the fame of the vizier, his wealth, and even his services were transformed into crimes. He was overthrown by the insidious arts of a woman and a rival, and his fall was hastened by a rast declaration that his cap and ink-corn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine decree with the throne and die-dem of the sultan. At the age of ninety-three years the venerable statesman was dismissed by his master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic. The last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder of Malik's life was short and inglorious. From Issafan, the scene of this disgraceful transaction, the sultan moved to Baghdad, with the design of transplanting the caliph and affixing his own residence in the capital of the Muslim world. The feeble successor of Muhammad obtained a respite of ten days, and before the expiration of the term the barbarian was summoned by the angel of death. His ambassadors at Constantinople had asked in marriage a Roman princess, but the proposal was decently eluded, and the daughter of Alexias, who might herself have been the victim, expresses her abhorrence of his unnatural conjunction. The daughter of the sultan was bestowed on the caliph Muktadi, with the imperious condition that renouncing the society of his wives and concupines he should forever confine himself to this honorable alliance.