a hero. In one day he is said to have slain above forty of the Barbarians with his own hand; he returned to the camp, dragging along four Turkish prisoners, whom he had tied to the rings of his saddle: he was ever the foremost to provoke or to accept a single combat; and the gigantic champions who encountered his arm were transpierced by the lance, or cut asunder by the sword, of the invincible Manuel. The story of his exploits, which appear as a model or a copy of the romances of chivalry, may induce a reasonable suspicion of the veracity of the Greeks: I will not, to vindicate their credit, endanger my own; yet I may observe, that, in the long series of their annals, Manuel is the only prince who has been the subject of similar exaggeration. With the valour of a soldier, he did not unite the skill or prudence of a general: his victories were not productive of any permanent or useful conquest; and his Turkish laurels were blasted in his last unfortunate campaign, in which he lost his army in the mountains of Pisidia, and owed his deliverance to the generosity of the sultan. But the most singular feature in the character of Manuel is the contrast and vicissitude of labour and sloth, of hardiness and effeminacy. In war he seemed ignorant of peace, in peace he appeared incapable of war. In the field he slept in the sun or in the snow, tired in the longest marches the strength of his men and horses, and shared with a smile the abstinence or diet of the camp. No sooner did he return to Constantinople than he resigned himself to the arts and pleasures of a life of luxury the expense of his dress, his table, and his palace, surpassed the measure of his predecessors; and whole summer days were idly wasted in the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and dissolute prince exhausted the revenue CHAP. XLIV. CHAP. XLIV. Roger the Norman invades Greece, and multiplied the taxes; and Manuel, in the distress of his last Turkish camp, endured a bitter reproach from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he quenched his thirst, he complained that the water of a fountain was mingled with Christian blood. "It "is not the first time," exclaimed a voice from the crowd, "that you have drank, O emperor! the blood "of your Christian subjects." Manuel Comnenus was twice married, to the virtuous Bertha or Irene, of Germany, and to the beauteous Maria, a French or Latin princess of Antioch. The only daughter of his first wife was destined for Bela, a Hungarian prince, who was educated at Constantinople under the name of Alexius; and the consummation of their nuptials might have transferred the Roman sceptre to a race of free and warlike Barbarians. But as soon as Maria of Antioch had given a son and heir to the empire, the presumptive rights of Bela were abolished, and he was deprived of his promised bride; but the Hungarian prince resumed his name and the kingdom of his fathers, and displayed such virtues as might excite the regret and envy of the Greeks. The son of Maria was named Alexius; and, at the age of ten years, he ascended the Byzantine throne, after his father's decease had closed the glories of the Comnenian line. Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had relinquished, above sixty years, their hostile A. D. 1146. designs against the empire of the East. The policy of Roger, king of Sicily, 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 favourable event. But the contemptuous treatment of his ambassadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch; and the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated by the XLIV. sufferings of a guiltless people*. With a fleet of seventy CHAP. 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. 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 Pirene; an impregnable fortress, if the want of courage could be balanced by any advantages of art or nature. As soon as the besiegers had surmounted the labour (their sole labour) of climbing the hill, their general, from the commanding eminence, admired his own victory. The silk weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily, composed the most valuable part of the spoil, and in comparing the skilful industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice of the soldier, he was heard to exclaim that the distaff and loom were the only weapons which the Greeks were capable of using. The His admiral pro- delivers gress of this naval armament was marked by two Louis VII. conspicuous events, the rescue of the king of France, and the insult of the Byzantine capital. In his return by sea, from an unfortunate crusade, Louis the The silence of the Sicilian historians, who end too soon or begin too late, must be supplied by Otho of Frisingen, a German (de Gestis Frederici I. 1, c. 33. in Muratori Script. tom. vi. p. 668), the Venetian Andrew Dandulus (Id. tom. xii. p. 282, 283), and the Greek writers, Cinnamus (1. iii. c. 2—5) and Nicetas (in Manuel 1. iii. c. 1—6). of France. stantinople. CHAP. seventh was intercepted by the Greeks, who basely XLIV. violated the laws of honour and religion. The fortunate encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and after a free and honourable entertainment in the court of Sicily, Louis continued his Insults Con- journey to Rome and Paris. In the absence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were left without defence and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy and people, for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel, were astonished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line of galleys, which boldly cast anchor in the front of the Imperial city. The forces of the Sicilian admiral were inadequate to the siege or assault of an 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 royal gardens, and pointed with silver, or more probably with fire, the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the The empe- Cæsars. This playful outrage of the pirates of Sicily, repulses the who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel A.D. 1148 affected to despise, while his martial spirit, and the forces of the empire, were awakened to revenge. The Archipelago and Ionian sea were covered with his squadrons and those of Venice; but I know not by what favourable allowance of transports, victuallers, and pinnaces, our reason, or even our fancy, can be reconciled to the stupendous account of fifteen hundred vessels, which is proposed by a Byzantine historian. These operations were directed with prudence and energy: in his homeward voyage George lost nineteen of his galleys, which were separated and taken after an obstinate defence, Corfu implored the clemency of her lawful sovereign; nor could a ship, a soldier of the Norman prince be found, unless as a captive, within the limits of the Eastern empire. The ror Manuel Normans, -1149. XLIV. prosperity and the health of Roger were already in CHAP. a declining state: while he listened in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or defeat, the invincible Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was celebrated by the Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or Hercules of the age. Apulia and A.D. 1155. A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied He reduces with having repelled the insolence of a Barbarian. It Calabria, was the right and 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 his 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 Palæologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch intrusted a fleet and army: the 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 *For the invasion of Italy, which is almost overlooked by Nicetas, see the more polite history of Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 1—15. p. 78--101). |