XLIV. His design of acquiring Italy and the Western empire, 1174, &c. CHAP. three hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on the walls of the palace. The prejudices of the Latins were gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of the German Cæsars; but the successor of Constantine soon renounced this ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible dominion of Italy, A.D. 1155. 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 persevere 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 honours 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 nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of that powerful family, and his royal standard or image was entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. During the quarrel between Frederick and Alexander the third, XLIV. the pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassa- CHAP. dors of Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long promised union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal court, and exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just provocation, the favourable moment, to humble the savage insolence of the Alemanni, and to acknowledge the true representative of Constantine and Augustus. his designs. But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, Failure of soon escaped from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence of Alexander the third, 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 his reunion with Frederick, he spoke a more peremptory 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 CHAP. quell any domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; XLIV. but that his forces were inadequate to resist the im the Nor mans, pending attack of the king of Sicily. His prophecy was soon verified: the death of Palæologus devolved the 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 Peace with a peace or truce of thirty years accepted as a gift; the regal title; and acknowledged himself the miliA.D. 1156. tary vassal of the Roman empire *. The Byzantine Cæsars 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 the second, 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 soveLast war of reigns as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians † the Greeks and Nor mans, A. D. 1185. 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 For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 15. p. 101-102) and Nicetas (1. ii. c. .8). It is difficult to affirm, whether these Greeks deceived themselves or the public in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the empire. + I can only quote of original evidence the poor chronicles of Sicard of Cremona (p. 603) and of Fossa Nova (p. 875), as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori's historians. XLIV. the king of Sicily. The Greeks accuse and magnify CHAP. the wanton and sacrilegious cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack 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 Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the walls of Durazzo. 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 event 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 succèssors of Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy. of the Nor That monarchy was indeed of no long continuance. Extinction The sceptre of Roger descended to his son, who was mans in generally styled William the Bad, and his grandson, Sicily. who was as generally known by the name of William the Good. During the reign of that amiable prince Sicily enjoyed twenty-three years of peace, justice, and happiness. At his death the legitimate male line of Tancred of Hauteville became extinct; but Constantia, the aunt of the second William and daughter of Roger, had married Henry the sixth, the son of Frederic Barbarossa. That powerful monarch claimed the crown as the inheritance of his wife. The Sicilians resisted his claim, and placed By the failure of Cinnamus we are reduced to Nicetas (in Andronicus, 1. 1. c. 7, 8, 9. l. ii. c. 1. in Isaac Angelo, 1. 1. c. 1-4), who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he survived the emperor, he is above flattery: but the fall of Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For the honour of learning I shall observe that Homer's great commentator, Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to desert his flock. XLIV. CHAP. the sceptre in the hands of Tancred the grandson of the first king, but whose birth was illegitimate. His civil and military virtues shone without a blemish; and during four years he defended the monarchy against the power of Germany. But his short reign was then terminated by his death, and the kingdom of his widow and son fell without a struggle into the hands of Henry, by whom Sicily was oppressed; and the young king, with his mother and sisters, were at first imprisoned, and afterwards deprived of life or of their eyes. Ten years after this revolution the French monarchs annexed the duchy of Normandy to their crown. The sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted by a grand-daughter of William the Conqueror to the house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans who had raised so many trophies in France and England, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were lost either in victory or servitude among the vanquished nations. I return from this digression to the history of the emperors of Constantinople. The fraternal concord of the two sons of the great Alexius had been sometimes clouded by oppositions of passion and interest. By ambition, Isaac the Sebastocrator was excited to flight and rebellion, from which he was reclaimed by the firmness and clemency of John the Handsome. The errors of Isaac, the father of the emperors of Trebizond, were short and venial; but John, the elder of his sons, renounced for ever his religion, provoked by a real or imaginary insult of his uncle. He escaped from the Roman to the Turkish camp. His apostasy was rewarded with the sultan's daughter, the title of Chelebi or Noble, and the inheritance of a princely estate. In the fifteenth century, Mahomet the second boasted of his imperial descent from the Comnenian family. Andronicus, the younger brother of John, son of Isaac, and grandson of |