the grave of an enemy, (Alexiad, l. v. p. 162 – 166;) and his best praise is the esteem and envy of William the Conqueror, the sovereign of his family Graecia (says Malaterra) hostibus recedentibus libera laeta quievit: Apulia tota sive Calabria turbatur.]
[Footnote 94: Urbs Venusina nitet tantis decorata sepulchris, is one of the last lines of the Apulian’s poems, (l. v. p. 278.) William of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) inserts an epitaph on Guiscard, which is not worth transcribing.]
[Footnote 95: Yet Horace had few obligations to Venusia; he was carried to Rome in his childhood, (Serm. i. 6;) and his repeated allusions to the doubtful limit of Apulia and Lucania (Carm. iii. 4, Serm. ii. I) are unworthy of his age and genius.]
[Footnote 96: See Giannone (tom. ii. p. 88 – 93) and the historians of the fire crusade.]
Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre. 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. ^97 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, ^98 the opulence and power of Sicily alone 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 one 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 ^99 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 ^100 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; ^101 but his own legitimacy was attacked by the adverse election of Innocent the Second; 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 Lothaire the Second 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. After 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 gonfanon, 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 vanished in disease and desertion: ^102 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 the Ninth, 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.
[Footnote 97: The reign of Roger, and the Norman kings of Sicily, fills books of the Istoria Civile of Giannone, (tom. ii. l. xi. – xiv. p. 136 – 340,) and is spread over the ixth and xth volumes of the Italian Annals of Muratori. In the Bibliotheque Italique (tom. i. p. 175 – 122,) I find a useful abstract of Capacelatro, a modern Neapolitan, who has composed, in two volumes, the history of his country from Roger Frederic II. inclusive.]
[Footnote 98: According to the testimony of Philistus and Diodorus, the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse could maintain a standing force of 10,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 400 galleys. Compare Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 268, 435,) and his adversary Wallace, (Numbers of Mankind, p. 306, 307.) The ruins of Agrigentum are the theme of every traveller, D’Orville, Reidesel, Swinburne, &c.]
[Footnote 99: A contemporary historian of the acts of Roger from the year 1127 to 1135, founds his title on merit and power, the consent of the barons, and the ancient royalty of Sicily and Palermo, without introducing Pope Anacletus, (Alexand. Coenobii Telesini Abbatis de Rebus gestis Regis Rogerii, lib. iv. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 607 – 645)]
[Footnote 100: The kings of France, England, Scotland, Castille, Arragon, Navarre, Sweden, Denmark, and Hungary. The three first were more ancient than Charlemagne; the three next were created by their sword; the three last by their baptism; and of these the king of Hungary alone was honored or debased by a papal crown.]
[Footnote 101: Fazellus, and a crowd of Sicilians, had imagined a more early and independent coronation, (A.D. 1130, May 1,) which Giannone unwillingly rejects, (tom. ii. p. 137 – 144.) This fiction is disproved by the silence of contemporaries; nor can it be restored by a spurious character of Messina, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. ix. p. 340. Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. p. 467, 468.)]
[Footnote 102: Roger corrupted the second person of Lothaire’s army, who sounded, or rather cried, a retreat; for the Germans (says Cinnamus, l. iii. c. i. p. 51) are ignorant of the use of trumpets. Most ignorant himself!
Note: Cinnamus says nothing of their ignorance. – M]
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 Fatimite 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 Zeirides, ^103 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, ^104 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 Moslems themselves. The capital of the Zeirides was named Africa from the country, and Mahadia ^105 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 Moslem 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, Safax, Capsia, Bona, and a long tract of the sea-coast; ^106 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. ^107 After his death, that sword was broken; and these transmarine possessions were neglected, evacuated, or lost, under the troubled reign of his successor. ^108 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.
[Footnote 103: See De Guignes, Hist. Generate des Huns, tom. i. p. 369 – 373 and Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique, &c., sous la Domination des Arabes tom. ii. p. 70 – 144. Their common original appears to be Novairi.]
[Footnote 104: Tripoli (says the Nubian geographer, or more properly the Sherif al Edrisi) urbs fortis, saxeo muro vallata, sita prope littus maris Hanc expugnavit Rogerius, qui mulieribus captivis ductis, viros pere mit.]
[Footnote 105: See the geography of Leo Africanus, (in Ramusio tom. i. fol. 74 verso. fol. 75, recto,) and Shaw’s Travels, (p. 110,) the viith book of Thuanus, and the xith of the Abbe de Vertot. The possession and defence of the place was offered by Charles V. and wisely declined by the knights of Malta.]
[Footnote 106: Pagi has accurately marked the African conquests of Roger and his criticism was supplied by his friend the Abbe de Longuerue with some Arabic memorials, (A.D. 1147, No. 26, 27, A.D. 1148, No. 16, A.D. 1153, No. 16.)]
[Footnote 107: Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer. A proud inscription, which denotes, that the Norman conquerors were still discriminated from their Christian and Moslem subjects.]
[Footnote 108: Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori, Script. tom. vii. p. 270, 271) ascribes these losses to the neglect or treachery of the admiral Majo.]
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. ^109 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 secreted 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 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 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 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 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 the Seventh 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. ^110 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 most probably with fire, the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. ^111 This playful outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel 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 favorable 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 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 Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was celebrated by the Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or the Hercules of the age.
[Footnote 109: 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. l. i. c. 33, in Muratori, Script. tom. vi. p. 668,) the Venetian Andrew Dandulus, (Id. tom. xii. p. 282, 283) and the Greek writers Cinnamus (l. iii. c. 2 – 5) and Nicetas, (in Manuel. l. iii. c. 1 – 6.)]
[Footnote 110: To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue I apply Cinnamus, l. ii. c. 19, p. 49. Muratori, on tolerable evidence, (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 420, 421,) laughs at the delicacy of the French, who maintain, marisque nullo impediente periculo ad regnum proprium reversum esse; yet I observe that their advocate, Ducange, is less positive as the commentator on Cinnamus, than as the editor of Joinville.]
[Footnote 111: In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says Dandulus; but Nicetas (l. ii. c. 8, p. 66) transforms them, and adds, that Manuel styled this insult. These arrows, by the compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold.]
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.
Part V.
A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having repelled the insolence of a Barbarian. It 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. ^112 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 Palaeologus, 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 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; ^113 but the successor of Constantine soon renounced this ignominious pretence, 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 persevere in their generous struggle against the despotism of Frederic 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. ^114 The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it an important garrison in the heart of Italy: it was twice besieged by the arms of Frederic; 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. ^115 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, ^116 and his royal standard or image was entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. ^117 During the quarrel between Frederic and Alexander the Third, 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 exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just provocation, the favorable moment, to humble the savage insolence of the Alemanni and to acknowledge the true representative of Constantine and Augustus. ^118
[Footnote 112: For the invasion of Italy, which is almost overlooked by Nicetas see the more polite history of Cinnamus, (l. iv. c. 1 – 15, p. 78 – 101,) who introduces a diffuse narrative by a lofty profession, iii. 5.]
[Footnote 113: The Latin, Otho, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. ii. c. 30, p. 734,) attests the forgery; the Greek, Cinnamus, (l. iv. c. 1, p. 78,) claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of the Greeks.]
[Footnote 114: Quod Ancontiani Graecum imperium nimis diligerent … Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love, perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the emperor; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus, (l. iv. c. 14, p. 98.)]
[Footnote 115: Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona; the first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, tom. x. p. 39, &c.;) the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian, archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office, (p. 76, &c.) It is of the second siege that we possess an original narrative, which he has published in his great collection, (tom. vi. p. 921 – 946.)]
[Footnote 116: We derive this anecdote from an anonymous chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 874.)]
[Footnote 117: Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 14, p. 99) is susceptible of this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more Greek.]
[Footnote 118: Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa et tempos opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur; quoniam non ad Frederici Alemanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere, (Vit. Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniae, in Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. par. i. p. 458.) His second embassy was accompanied cum immensa multitudine pecuniarum.]
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 the Third, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution; ^119 nor could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the Latin name. After the reunion with Frederic, 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. ^120 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. ^121 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 Palaeologus 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. ^122 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. ^123 The Byzantine Caesars 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 sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians ^124 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 ^125 accuse and magnify 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 successors of Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy.
[Footnote 119: Nimis alta et perplexa sunt, (Vit. Alexandri III. p. 460, 461,) says the cautious pope.]
[Footnote 120: (Cinnamus, l. iv. c. 14, p. 99.)]
[Footnote 121: In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c.]
[Footnote 122: This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno, (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198.) It is whimsical enough, that in the praise of the king of Sicily, Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and copious than Falcandus, (p. 268, 270.) But the Greek is fond of description, and the Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad.]
[Footnote 123: For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas, (l. 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.]
[Footnote 124: 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. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam Andronici …. ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were …. decepti captique, by Isaac.]
[Footnote 125: By the failure of Cinnamus to Nicetas (in Andronico, l. . c. 7, 8, 9, l. ii. c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, l. i. c. 1 – 4,) who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he survived the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery; but the fall of Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For the honor of learning I shall observe that Homer’s great commentator, Eustathias archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to desert his flock.]
The sceptre of Roger successively 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 danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valor of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for those of Majo, 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 Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times ^126 has delineated the misfortunes of his country: ^127 the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Majo; 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 the First, and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and beauty of William the Second, ^128 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 Tancred of Hauteville 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 the Sixth, the son of Frederic 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 rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. ^129 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; ^130 for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope. ^131 Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength, of Messina, ^132 might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount Aetna, ^133 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? ^134 Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake: the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; ^135 but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety, they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.” ^136 We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country to his religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily.
[Footnote 126: The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viiith volume of Muratori’s Collection, (tom. vii. p. 259 – 344,) and preceded by a eloquent preface or epistle, (p. 251 – 258, de Calamitatibus Siciliae.) Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement, from the ist to the xiith century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and barren field on which his labors have been cast.]
[Footnote 127: The laborious Benedictines (l’Art de verifier les Dates, p. 896) are of opinion, that the true name of Falcandus is Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucalt, a Frenchman by birth, and at length abbot of St. Denys, had followed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to the mother of William II., archbishop of Palermo, and great chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least educated, in the island.]
[Footnote 128: Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins his history from the death and praises of William II. After some unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiae cultus tempore suo vigebat in regno; sua erat quilibet sorte contentus; (were they mortals?) abique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum, (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii p 939.)]
[Footnote 129: Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarun tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinus et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum imgentibus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica foeditate contaminet …. Intuari mihi jam videor turbulentas bar barorum acies …. civitates opulentas et loca diuturna pace florentia, metu concutere, caede vastare, rapinis atterere, et foedare luxuria hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constupratae, matronae, &c.]
[Footnote 130: Certe si regem non dubiae virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare.]
[Footnote 131: In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciae reponendum.]
[Footnote 132: Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, …. muriorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum.]
[Footnote 133: Cum erudelitate piratica Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter aucbustos lapides, et Aethnae flagrant’s incendia, &c.]
[Footnote 134: Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quae et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio praeminere, nefarium esset …. vel barbarorum ingressu pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description, of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo.]
[Footnote 135: Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]
[Footnote 136: The Normans and Sicilians appear to be confounded.]
The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the kingdom of his widow and infant son 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 the Third had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate Henry, ^137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure: ^138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the 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. ^139 All the calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated the royal sepulchres, ^* and explored the secret treasures of the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and jewels, however precious, might be easily removed; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of Sicily. ^140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps; and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations.
[Footnote 137: The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. x. p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome, exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father.]
[Footnote 138: Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo, (Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom vi. p. 367, 368.)]
[Footnote 139: For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the Annals of Muratori, (tom. x. p. 149, and A.D. 1223, 1247,) Giannone, (tom ii. p. 385,) and of the originals, in Muratori’s Collection, Richard de St. Germano, (tom. vii. p. 996,) Matteo Spinelli de Giovenazzo, (tom. vii. p. 1064,) Nicholas de Jamsilla, (tom. x. p. 494,) and Matreo Villani, (tom. xiv l. vii. p. 103.) The last of these insinuates that, in reducing the Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice than violence.]
[Footnote *: It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in order to enable him to pay the “German” tribute exacted by the menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of the Life of Alexius, in Nicetas, p. 632, edit. – M.]
[Footnote 140: Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec, (l. iv. c. 20:) Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis, gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold, (p. 746.) On these occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid in La Fontaine, “Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque.”]
Chapter LVII: The Turks.
Part I.
The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk. – Their Revolt Against Mahmud Conqueror Of Hindostan. – Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The Caliphs. – Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By Alp Arslan. – Power And Magnificence Of Malek 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 Oxus and the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia.
One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mahmud, ^1 the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia, one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father Sebectagi 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 Chorasan, who still paid a nominal allegiance to the caliph of Bagdad. The second rank was that of a minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanides, ^2 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 Sebectagi, by his courage and dexterity, ascended to the supreme command of the city and provinces of Gazna, ^3 as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master.
The falling dynasty of the Samanides 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 ^4 was first invented; and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighborhood of Ispahan, 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 Gentoos of Hindostan. 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 Mussulman 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 of war. ^5 The sultan of Gazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander: after a march of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached the famous city of Kinnoge, ^6 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, Lahor, and Multan, were compelled to open their gates: the fertile kingdom of Guzarat 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 the payment of a tribute, the rajahs preserved their dominions; the people, their lives and fortunes; but to the religion of Hindostan the zealous Mussulman was cruel and inexorable: many hundred temples, or pagodas, were levelled with 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 Sumnat was situate on the promontory of Guzarat, in the neighborhood of Diu, one of the last remaining possessions of the Portuguese. ^7 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 Kinnoge and Delhi; but if the impious stranger 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 worshippers were pierced by the spear of the Moslems; 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 millions ^* 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 Gentoos; 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 Gazna, Mecca, and Medina. Bagdad listened to the edifying tale; and Mahmud was saluted by the caliph with the title of guardian of the fortune and faith of Mahomet.
[Footnote 1: I am indebted for his character and history to D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533 – 537,) M. De Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155 – 173,) and our countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23 – 83.) In the two first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text, it is not easy to distinguish the version and the original.
Note: The European reader now possesses a more accurate version of Ferishta, that of Col. Briggs. Of Col. Dow’s work, Col. Briggs observes, “that the author’s name will be handed down to posterity as one of the earliest and most indefatigable of our Oriental scholars. Instead of confining himself, however, to mere translation, he has filled his work with his own observations, which have been so embodied in the text that Gibbon declares it impossible to distinguish the translator from the original author.” Preface p. vii. – M.]
[Footnote 2: The dynasty of the Samanides continued 125 years, A.D. 847 – 999, under ten princes. See their succession and ruin, in the Tables of M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 404 – 406.) They were followed by the Gaznevides, A.D. 999 – 1183, (see tom. i. p. 239, 240.) His divisions of nations often disturbs the series of time and place.]
[Footnote 3: Gaznah hortos non habet: est emporium et domicilium mercaturae Indicae. Abulfedae Geograph. Reiske, tab. xxiii. p. 349. D’Herbelot, p. 364. It has not been visited by any modern traveller.]
[Footnote 4: By the ambassador of the caliph of Bagdad, who employed an Arabian or Chaldaic word that signifies lord and master, (D’Herbelot, p. 825.) It is interpreted by the Byzantine writers of the eleventh century; and the name (Soldanus) is familiarly employed in the Greek and Latin languages, after it had passed from the Gaznevides to the Seljukides, and other emirs of Asia and Egypt. Ducange (Dissertation xvi. sur Joinville, p. 238 – 240. Gloss. Graec. et Latin.) labors to find the title of Sultan in the ancient kingdom of Persia: but his proofs are mere shadows; a proper name in the Themes of Constantine, (ii. 11,) an anticipation of Zonaras, &c., and a medal of Kai Khosrou, not (as he believes) the Sassanide of the vith, but the Seljukide of Iconium of the xiiith century, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 246.)]
[Footnote 5: Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 49) mentions the report of a gun in the Indian army. But as I am slow in believing this premature (A.D. 1008) use of artillery, I must desire to scrutinize first the text, and then the authority of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century.
Note: This passage is differently written in the various manuscripts I have seen; and in some the word tope (gun) has been written for nupth, (naphtha, and toofung (musket) for khudung, (arrow.) But no Persian or Arabic history speaks of gunpowder before the time usually assigned for its invention, (A.D. 1317;) long after which, it was first applied to the purposes of war. Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 47, note. – M.]
[Footnote 6: Kinnouge, or Canouge, (the old Palimbothra) is marked in latitude 27 Degrees 3 Minutes, longitude 80 Degrees 13 Minutes. See D’Anville, (Antiquite de l’Inde, p. 60 – 62,) corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennel (in his excellent Memoir on his Map of Hindostan, p. 37 – 43: ) 300 jewellers, 30,000 shops for the arreca nut, 60,000 bands of musicians, &c. (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274. Dow, vol. i. p. 16,) will allow an ample deduction.
Note: Mr. Wilson (Hindu Drama, vol. iii. p. 12) and Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek, vol. ii. p. 394) concur in identifying Palimbothra with the Patalipara of the Indians; the Patna of the moderns. – M.]
[Footnote 7: The idolaters of Europe, says Ferishta, (Dow, vol. i. p. 66.) Consult Abulfeda, (p. 272,) and Rennel’s Map of Hindostan.]
[Footnote *: Ferishta says, some “crores of gold.” Dow says, in a note at the bottom of the page, “ten millions,” which is the explanation of the word “crore.” Mr. Gibbon says rashly that the sum offered by the Brahmins was ten millions sterling. Note to Mill’s India, vol. ii. p. 222. Col. Briggs’s translation is “a quantity of gold.”
The treasure found in the temple, “perhaps in the image,” according to Major Price’s authorities, was twenty millions of dinars of gold, above nine millions sterling; but this was a hundred-fold the ransom offered by the Brahmins. Price, vol. ii. p. 290. – M.]
[Footnote *: Rather than the idol broker, he chose to be called Mahmud the idol breaker. Price, vol. ii. p. 289 – M]
From 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 Gaznevide 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. I. 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 and bed. “Suspend your clamors,” said Mahmud; “inform me of his next visit, and ourself in person will judge and punish the offender.” The sultan followed his guide, invested the house with his guards, and extinguishing 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 Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of the Bowides, 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. ^8 “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 sceptre 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.” Avarice was the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. ^* The Orientals exceed 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. ^9 Yet the soil of Hindostan 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 Mahometan 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 Gazna, 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. ^10 He again wept the instability of human greatness; and his grief was imbittered by the hostile progress of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his Persian kingdom.
[Footnote 8: D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 527. Yet these letters apothegms, &c., are rarely the language of the heart, or the motives of public action.]
[Footnote *: Compare Price, vol. ii. p. 295. – M]
[Footnote 9: For instance, a ruby of four hundred and fifty miskals, (Dow, vol. i. p. 53,) or six pounds three ounces: the largest in the treasury of Delhi weighed seventeen miskals, (Voyages de Tavernier, partie ii. p. 280.) It is true, that in the East all colored stones are calied rubies, (p. 355,) and that Tavernier saw three larger and more precious among the jewels de notre grand roi, le plus puissant et plus magnifique de tous les rois de la terre, (p. 376.)]
[Footnote 10: Dow, vol. i. p. 65. The sovereign of Kinoge is said to have possessed 2500 elephants, (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274.) From these Indian stories, the reader may correct a note in my first volume, (p. 245;) or from that note he may correct these stories.]
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, Curds, and Turkmans. ^11 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 traveller, 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 sheep-skin; a robe of cloth or cotton their 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 Turkmans, the most ancient of the race, may be ascribed to the tenth century of the Christian aera. ^12 In the decline of the caliphs, and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier of the Jaxartes was often violated; in each invasion, after the victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe, embracing the Mahometan faith, obtained a free encampment in the spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transoxiana and Carizme. 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 Gaznevide 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 Bochara. The sultan had inquired what supply of men he could furnish for military service. “If you send,” replied Ismael, “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 Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, “if I should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred tribes?” – “Despatch my bow,” was the last reply of Ismael, “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 Chorasan, where they would be separated from their brethren of the River Oxus, 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 Gazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of robbers were collected into an army of conquerors: as far as Ispahan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory inroads; and the Turkmans were not ashamed or afraid to measure their courage and numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia. Massoud, the son and successor of Mahmud, had too long neglected the advice of his wisest Omrahs. “Your enemies,” they repeatedly urged, “were in their origin a swarm of ants; 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 Turkmans, who attacked him on all sides with barbarous shouts and irregular onset. “Massoud,” says the Persian historian, ^13 “plunged singly to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, exhibiting such acts of gigantic force and valor as never king had before displayed. A few of his friends, roused by his words and actions, and that innate honor 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, be beheld almost his whole army, excepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths of flight.” The Gaznevide was abandoned by the cowardice or treachery of some generals of Turkish race; and this memorable day of Zendecan ^14 founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings. ^15
[Footnote 11: See a just and natural picture of these pastoral manners, in the history of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c. vii. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 633, 634,) and a valuable note by the editor of the Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, p. 535 – 538.]
[Footnote 12: The first emigration of the Turkmans, and doubtful origin of the Seljukians, may be traced in the laborious History of the Huns, by M. De Guignes, (tom. i. Tables Chronologiques, l. v. tom. iii. l. vii. ix. x.) and the Bibliotheque Orientale, of D’Herbelot, (p. 799 – 802, 897 – 901,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321 – 333,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 221, 222.)]
[Footnote 13: Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 89, 95 – 98. I have copied this passage as a specimen of the Persian manner; but I suspect that, by some odd fatality, the style of Ferishta has been improved by that of Ossian.
Note: Gibbon’s conjecture was well founded. Compare the more sober and genuine version of Col. Briggs, vol. i. p. 110. – M.]
[Footnote 14: The Zendekan of D’Herbelot, (p. 1028,) the Dindaka of Dow (vol. i. p. 97,) is probably the Dandanekan of Abulfeda, (Geograph. p. 345, Reiske,) a small town of Chorasan, two days’ journey from Maru, and renowned through the East for the production and manufacture of cotton.]
[Footnote 15: The Byzantine historians (Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 766, 766, Zonaras tom. ii. p. 255, Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 21) have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place, of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to unravel) may inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it is told by their most eloquent predecessor.]
The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the election of a king; and, if the probable tale of a Latin historian ^16 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 Togrul 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 on 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. ^17 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 Jaxartes, encamped in the neighborhood of Samarcand, embraced the religion of Mahomet, 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, Togrul and Jaafar; the eldest of whom, at the age of forty-five, was invested with the title of Sultan, in the royal city of Nishabur. The blind determination of chance was justified by the virtues of the successful candidate. It would be superfluous to praise the valor of a Turk; and the ambition of Togrul ^18 was equal to his valor. By his arms, the Gasnevides 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 Bowides; and the sceptre of Irak 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 Aderbijan, or Media, he approached the Roman confines; and the shepherd presumed to despatch an ambassador, or herald, to demand the tribute and obedience of the emperor of Constantinople. ^19 In his own dominions, Togrul 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 imbrued in blood became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans ^20 continued to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the royal palaces of Nishabur and Rei 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 Mahomet. The northern swarms of Barbarians, who overspread both Europe and Asia, have been irreconcilably separated by the consequences of a similar conduct. Among the Moslems, 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 Koran 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 two first days were consecrated by an extraordinary fast; and in every city a mosch was completed, before Togrul presumed to lay the foundations of a palace. ^21
[Footnote 16: Willerm. Tyr. l. i. c. 7, p. 633. The divination by arrows is ancient and famous in the East.]
[Footnote 17: D’Herbelot, p. 801. Yet after the fortune of his posterity, Seljuk became the thirty-fourth in lineal descent from the great Afrasiab, emperor of Touran, (p. 800.) The Tartar pedigree of the house of Zingis gave a different cast to flattery and fable; and the historian Mirkhond derives the Seljukides from Alankavah, the virgin mother, (p. 801, col. 2.) If they be the same as the Zalzuts of Abulghazi Bahadur Kahn, (Hist. Genealogique, p. 148,) we quote in their favor the most weighty evidence of a Tartar prince himself, the descendant of Zingis, Alankavah, or Alancu, and Oguz Khan.]
[Footnote 18: By a slight corruption, Togrul Beg is the Tangroli-pix of the Greeks. His reign and character are faithfully exhibited by D’Herbelot (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 1027, 1028) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 189 – 201.)]
[Footnote 19: Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 774, 775. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 257. With their usual knowledge of Oriental affairs, they describe the ambassador as a sherif, who, like the syncellus of the patriarch, was the vicar and successor of the caliph.]
[Footnote 20: From William of Tyre I have borrowed this distinction of Turks and Turkmans, which at least is popular and convenient. The names are the same, and the addition of man is of the same import in the Persic and Teutonic idioms. Few critics will adopt the etymology of James de Vitry, (Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 11 p. 1061,) of Turcomani, quesi Turci et Comani, a mixed people.]
[Footnote 21: Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. iii. p. 165, 166, 167. M. DeGognes Abulmahasen, an historian of Egypt.]
With the belief of the Koran, 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 Bagdad and Egypt, and each of the rivals was solicitous to prove his title in the judgment of the strong, though illiterate Barbarians. Mahmud the Gaznevide had declared himself in favor of the line of Abbas; and had treated with indignity the robe of honor which was presented by the Fatimite ambassador. Yet the ungrateful Hashemite had changed with the change of fortune; he applauded the victory of Zendecan, and named the Seljukian sultan his temporal vicegerent over the Moslem world. As Togrul executed and enlarged this important trust, he was called to the deliverance of the caliph Cayem, and obeyed the holy summons, which gave a new kingdom to his arms. ^22 In the palace of Bagdad, the commander of the faithful still slumbered, a venerable phantom. His servant or master, the prince of the Bowides, 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 emirs. 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 Bowides disappeared; the heads of the most obstinate rebels were laid at the feet of Togrul; and he inflicted a lesson of obedience on the people of Mosul and Bagdad. After the chastisement of the guilty, and the restoration of peace, the royal shepherd accepted the reward of his labors; and a solemn comedy represented the triumph of religious prejudice over Barbarian power. ^23 The Turkish sultan embarked on the Tigris, landed at the gate of Racca, and made his public entry on horseback. At the palace-gate he respectfully dismounted, and walked on foot, preceded by his emirs without arms. The caliph was seated behind his black veil: the black garment of the Abbassides 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 Togrul 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 cimeters 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 heralds and the applause of the Moslems. In a second visit to Bagdad, the Seljukian prince again rescued the caliph 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 Togrul’s sister with the successor of the prophet. Without reluctance he had introduced a Turkish virgin into his harem; but Cayem proudly refused his daughter to the sultan, disdained to mingle the blood of the Hashemites with the blood of a Scythian 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 Togrul himself; ^24 ^! 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 Moslems. Yet in this revolution, the Abbassides acquired a larger measure of liberty and power. On the throne of Asia, the Turkish monarchs were less jealous of the domestic administration of Bagdad; and the commanders of the faithful were relieved from the ignominious vexations to which they had been exposed by the presence and poverty of the Persian dynasty.
[Footnote 22: Consult the Bibliotheque Orientale, in the articles of the Abbassides, Caher, and Caiem, and the Annals of Elmacin and Abulpharagius.]
[Footnote 23: For this curious ceremony, I am indebted to M. De Guignes (tom. iii. p. 197, 198,) and that learned author is obliged to Bondari, who composed in Arabic the history of the Seljukides, tom. v. p. 365) I am ignorant of his age, country, and character.]
[Footnote *: According to Von Hammer, “crowns” are incorrect. They are unknown as a symbol of royalty in the East. V. Hammer, Osmanische Geschischte, vol. i. p. 567. – M.]
[Footnote 24: Eodem anno (A. H. 455) obiit princeps Togrulbecus …. rex fuit clemens, prudens, et peritus regnandi, cujus terror corda mortalium invaserat, ita ut obedirent ei reges atque ad ipsum scriberent. Elma cin, Hist. Saracen. p. 342, vers. Erpenii.
Note: He died, being 75 years old. V. Hammer. – M.]
Chapter LVII: 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 Nicephorus, Zimisces, 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 proselytes, and the art and riches of a powerful monarchy. ^25 The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to Arzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Yet the arms of Togrul 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. ^26 The name of Alp Arslan, the valiant lion, is expressive of the popular idea of the perfection of man; and the successor of Togrul 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 incrusted with gold and pearls, and profaned the relics of the tutelar 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. ^27 The woods and valleys of Mount Caucasus were more strenuously defended by the native Georgians ^28 or Iberians; but the Turkish sultan and his son Malek were indefatigable 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 ignominy, 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 mould, 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. ^29
[Footnote 25: For these wars of the Turks and Romans, see in general the Byzantine histories of Zonaras and Cedrenus, Scylitzes the continuator of Cedrenus, and Nicephorus Bryennius Caesar. The two first of these were monks, the two latter statesmen; yet such were the Greeks, that the difference of style and character is scarcely discernible. For the Orientals, I draw as usuul on the wealth of D’Herbelot (see titles of the first Seljukides) and the accuracy of De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. l. x.)]
[Footnote 26: Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 791. The credulity of the vulgar is always probable; and the Turks had learned from the Arabs the history or legend of Escander Dulcarnein, (D’Herbelot, p. 213 &c.)]
[Footnote 27: (Scylitzes, ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 834, whose ambiguous construction shall not tempt me to suspect that he confounded the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies,) He familiarly talks of the qualities, as I should apprehend, very foreign to the perfect Being; but his bigotry is forced to confess that they were soon afterwards discharged on the orthodox Romans.]
[Footnote 28: Had the name of Georgians been known to the Greeks, (Stritter, Memoriae Byzant. tom. iv. Iberica,) I should derive it from their agriculture, (l. iv. c. 18, p. 289, edit. Wesseling.) But it appears only since the crusades, among the Latins (Jac. a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. c. 79, p. 1095) and Orientals, (D’Herbelot, p. 407,) and was devoutly borrowed from St. George of Cappadocia.]
[Footnote 29: Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 632. See, in Chardin’s Travels, (tom. i. p. 171 – 174,) the manners and religion of this handsome but worthless nation. See the pedigree of their princes from Adam to the present century, in the tables of M. De Guignes, (tom. i. p. 433 – 438.)]
The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmud the Gaznevide was not imitated by Alp Arslan; and he attacked without scruple the Greek empress Eudocia and her children. His alarming progress compelled her to give herself and her sceptre 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 Eudocia: 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 Phrygia; 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. Laden 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 Malazkerd, ^30 an important fortress in the midway between the modern cities of Arzeroum and Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand men. The troops of Constantinople were reenforced by the disorderly multitudes of Phrygia 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; ^31 and, above all, the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant Ursel of Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings, ^32 and were allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance.
[Footnote 30: This city is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat. Imperii, l. ii. c. 44, p. 119,) and the Byzantines of the xith century, under the name of Mantzikierte, and by some is confounded with Theodosiopolis; but Delisle, in his notes and maps, has very properly fixed the situation. Abulfeda (Geograph. tab. xviii. p. 310) describes Malasgerd as a small town, built with black stone, supplied with water, without trees, &c.]
[Footnote 31: The Uzi of the Greeks (Stritter, Memor. Byzant. tom. iii. p. 923 – 948) are the Gozz of the Orientals, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 522, tom. iii. p. 133, &c.) They appear on the Danube and the Volga, and Armenia, Syria, and Chorasan, and the name seems to have been extended to the whole Turkman race.]
[Footnote 32: Urselius (the Russelius of Zonaras) is distinguished by Jeffrey Malaterra (l. i. c. 33) among the Norman conquerors of Sicily, and with the surname of Baliol: and our own historians will tell how the Baliols came from Normandy to Durham, built Bernard’s castle on the Tees, married an heiress of Scotland, &c. Ducange (Not. ad Nicephor. Bryennium, l. ii. No. 4) has labored the subject in honor of the president de Bailleul, whose father had exchanged the sword for the gown.]
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. ^33 His rapid and skilful evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius, 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 Malazkerd. 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 forwards 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 supposed 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 and palace of Rei as a pledge of his sincerity.” Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he wept the death of so many faithful Moslems; 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 cimeter, 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. ^34 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 desultory and 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 and the purple of the Caesars. ^35 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 writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they forgot to mention, that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed.
[Footnote 33: Elmacin (p. 343, 344) assigns this probable number, which is reduced by Abulpharagius to 15,000, (p. 227,) and by D’Herbelot (p. 102) to 12,000 horse. But the same Elmacin gives 300,000 met to the emperor, of whom Abulpharagius says, Cum centum hominum millibus, multisque equis et magna pompa instructus. The Greeks abstain from any definition of numbers.]
[Footnote 34: The Byzantine writers do not speak so distinctly of the presence of the sultan: he committed his forces to a eunuch, had retired to a distance, &c. Is it ignorance, or jealousy, or truth?]
[Footnote 35: He was the son of Caesar John Ducas, brother of the emperor Constantine, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165.) Nicephorus Bryennius applauds his virtues and extenuates his faults, (l. i. p. 30, 38. l. ii. p. 53.) Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus. Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treason.]
As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted to rally and save the relics of his army. When the centre, 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.
Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus 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 Basilacius, 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. ^36 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 clasping 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 conversation 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 displays 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, ^37 the marriage of the royal children, and the deliverance of all the Moslems, 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 presents 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. ^38
[Footnote 36: This circumstance, which we read and doubt in Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by Nicephorus and Zonaras.]
[Footnote *: Elmacin gives 1,500,000. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuz-zuge, vol. l. p. 10. – M.]
[Footnote 37: The ransom and tribute are attested by reason and the Orientals. The other Greeks are modestly silent; but Nicephorus Bryennius dares to affirm, that the terms were bad and that the emperor would have preferred death to a shameful treaty.]
[Footnote 38: The defeat and captivity of Romanus Diogenes may be found in John Scylitzes ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 835 – 843.
Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 281 – 284. Nicephorus Bryennius, l. i. p. 25 – 32. Glycas, p. 325 – 327. Constantine Manasses, p. 134. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 343 344. Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 227. D’Herbelot, p. 102, 103. D Guignes, tom. iii. p. 207 – 211. Besides my old acquaintance Elmacin and Abulpharagius, the historian of the Huns has consulted Abulfeda, and his epitomizer Benschounah, a Chronicle of the Caliphs, by Abulmahasen of Egypt, and Novairi of Africa.]
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 Bagdad to the banks of the Oxus; 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 Berzem; and Joseph the Carizmian 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 Carizmian, drawing a dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne: the guards raised their battle-axes; their zeal was checked by Alp Arslan, the most skilful 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 Alp 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.” ^39 Alp Arslan possessed the virtues of a Turk and a Mussulman; 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: ^40 “O ye who have seen the glory of Alp 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.
[Footnote 39: This interesting death is told by D’Herbelot, (p. 103, 104,) and M. De Guignes, (tom. iii. p. 212, 213.) from their Oriental writers; but neither of them have transfused the spirit of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen p. 344, 345.)]
[Footnote 40: A critic of high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,) who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in this sublime inscription at the words “repair to Maru,” since the reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse the inscription.]
During the life of Alp 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 cimeters, and assembled their followers; and the triple victory of Malek Shah ^41 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 the battle, he performed his devotions at Thous, before the tomb of the Imam Riza. 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 Malek, “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 Moslems.” 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 Oxus, 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 miled 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 Oxus were subject to the same sovereign.” But this description of his limits was unjust and parsimonious: beyond the Oxus, he reduced to his obedience the cities of Bochara, Carizme, and Samarcand, and crushed each rebellious slave, or independent savage, who dared to resist. Malek passed the Sihon or Jaxartes, 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 Cashgar, 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 resigning 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 Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs. Of these expeditions, 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 chase, 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 moschs and colleges; few departed from his Divan without reward, and none without justice. The language and literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk; ^42 and if Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself, ^43 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 effected by a general assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet, the Moslems 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; ^44 but after the fall of the Magian empire, the intercalation 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 Malek was illustrated by the Gelalaean aera; 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. ^45
[Footnote 41: The Bibliotheque Orientale has given the text of the reign of Malek, (p. 542, 543, 544, 654, 655;) and the Histoire Generale des Huns (tom. iii. p. 214 – 224) has added the usual measure of repetition emendation, and supplement. Without those two learned Frenchmen I should be blind indeed in the Eastern world.]
[Footnote 42: See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir William Jones’s History of Nadir Shah, and the articles of the poets, Amak, Anvari, Raschidi, &c., in the Bibliotheque Orientale. ]
[Footnote 43: His name was Kheder Khan. Four bags were placed round his sopha, and as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls of gold and silver to the poets, (D’Herbelot, p. 107.) All this may be true; but I do not understand how he could reign in Transoxiana in the time of Malek Shah, and much less how Kheder could surpass him in power and pomp. I suspect that the beginning, not the end, of the xith century is the true aera of his reign.]
[Footnote 44: See Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 235.]
[Footnote 45: The Gelalaean aera (Gelaleddin, Glory of the Faith, was one of the names or titles of Malek Shah) is fixed to the xvth of March, A. H. 471, A.D. 1079. Dr. Hyde has produced the original testimonies of the Persians and Arabians, (de Religione veterum Persarum, c. 16 p. 200 – 211.)]
In a period when Europe was plunged in 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 faithful vicegerent 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 rash declaration, that his cap and ink-horn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine decree with the throne and diadem 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 Malek’s life was short and inglorious. From Ispahan, the scene of this disgraceful transaction, the sultan moved to Bagdad, with the design of transplanting the caliph, and of fixing his own residence in the capital of the Moslem world. The feeble successor of Mahomet 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 Alexius, who might herself have been the victim, expresses her abhorrence of his unnatural conjunction. ^46 The daughter of the sultan was bestowed on the caliph Moctadi, with the imperious condition, that, renouncing the society of his wives and concubines, he should forever confine himself to this honorable alliance.
[Footnote *: He was the first great victim of his enemy, Hassan Sabek, founder of the Assassins. Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 95. – M.]
[Footnote 46: She speaks of this Persian royalty. Anna Comnena was only nine years old at the end of the reign of Malek Shah, (A.D. 1092,) and when she speaks of his assassination, she confounds the sultan with the vizier, (Alexias, l. vi. p. 177, 178.)]
Chapter LVII: The Turks.
Part III.
The greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the person of Malek Shah. His vacant throne was disputed by his brother and his four sons; ^! and, after a series of civil wars, the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and principal branch of the house of Seljuk. The three younger dynasties were those of Kerman, of Syria, and of Roum: the first of these commanded an extensive, though obscure, ^47 dominion on the shores of the Indian Ocean: ^48 the second expelled the Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus; and the third, our peculiar care, invaded the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. The generous policy of Malek contributed to their elevation: he allowed the princes of his blood, even those whom he had vanquished in the field, to seek new kingdoms worthy of their ambition; nor was he displeased that they should draw away the more ardent spirits, who might have disturbed the tranquillity of his reign. As the supreme head of his family and nation, the great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his royal brethren: the thrones of Kerman and Nice, of Aleppo and Damascus; the Atabeks, and emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia, erected their standards under the shadow of his sceptre: ^49 and the hordes of Turkmans overspread the plains of the Western Asia.
After the death of Malek, the bands of union and subordination were relaxed and finally dissolved: the indulgence of the house of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms; and, in the Oriental style, a crowd of princes arose from the dust of their feet. ^50
[Footnote !: See Von Hammer, Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 16. The Seljukian dominions were for a time reunited in the person of Sandjar, one of the sons of Malek Shah, who ruled “from Kashgar to Antioch, from the Caspian to the Straits of Babelmandel.” – M.]
[Footnote 47: So obscure, that the industry of M. De Guignes could only copy (tom. i. p. 244, tom. iii. part i. p. 269, &c.) the history, or rather list, of the Seljukides of Kerman, in Bibliotheque Orientale. They were extinguished before the end of the xiith century.]
[Footnote 48: Tavernier, perhaps the only traveller who has visited Kerman, describes the capital as a great ruinous village, twenty-five days’ journey from Ispahan, and twenty-seven from Ormus, in the midst of a fertile country, (Voyages en Turquie et en Perse, p. 107, 110.)]
[Footnote 49: It appears from Anna Comnena, that the Turks of Asia Minor obeyed the signet and chiauss of the great sultan, (Alexias, l. vi. p. 170;) and that the two sons of Soliman were detained in his court, p. 180.)]
[Footnote 50: This expression is quoted by Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gestis p. 160) from some poet, most probably a Persian.]
A prince of the royal line, Cutulmish, ^* the son of Izrail, the son of Seljuk, had fallen in a battle against Alp Arslan and the humane victor had dropped a tear over his grave. His five sons, strong in arms, ambitious of power, and eager for revenge, unsheathed their cimeters against the son of Alp Arslan. The two armies expected the signal when the caliph, forgetful of the majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his venerable mediation. “Instead of shedding the blood of your brethren, your brethren both in descent and faith, unite your forces in a holy war against the Greeks, the enemies of God and his apostle.” They listened to his voice; the sultan embraced his rebellious kinsmen; and the eldest, the valiant Soliman, accepted the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from Arzeroum to Constantinople, and the unknown regions of the West. ^51 Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates; the Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighborhood of Kutaieh in Phrygia; and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as the Hellespont and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the empire, the peninsula of Asia Minor had been exposed to the transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and Saracens; but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for the Turkish sultan; and his arms were introduced by the Greeks, who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudocia had trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the provinces of the East and West were lost in the same month by a double rebellion: of either chief Nicephorus was the common name; but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguish the European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their promises, were weighed in the Divan; and, after some hesitation, Soliman declared himself in favor of Botoniates, opened a free passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and joined the banner of the Crescent to that of the Cross. After his ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari; and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the defeat and captivity of his rival, Bryennius. But the conquest of Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia: Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue