They oppose Rienzi in Arms,.................. Defeat and Death of the Colonna, 1355. Petrarch invites and upbraids the Emperor Charles IV., PROSPECT OP THE RUINS OF ROME IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.—FOUR II. The hostile Attacks of the Barbarians and Christians, III. The Use and Abuse of the Materials, IV. The Domestic Quarrels of the Romans, Final Conclusion, ......... 642 THE HISTORY ΟΡ THE DECLINE AND OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. CHAPTER LIX. PRESERVATION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE. r ST RICH. NUMBERS, PASSAGE. AND EVENT, OF THE SECOND AND THIRD Crusades. BERNARD, REIGN OF SALADIN IN EGYPT AND SYRIA. HIS CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM. NAVAL CRUSADES. ARD THE FIRST OF ENGLAND. - POPE INNOCENT THE THIRD; AND THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CRUSADES. THE EMPEROR FREDERIC THE SECOND. — LOUIS THE NINTH OF FRANCE ; AND THE TWO LAST CRUSADES. EXPULSION OF THE LAT INS OR FRANKS BY THE MAMELUKES. 1 In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps compare the emperor Alexius 1 to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subse quent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia Minor, Alexiad, 1. xi. p. 321-325, 1. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328-342; the war of Epirus, with tedious prolixity, 1. xii. xiii. p. 345-406; the death of Bohemond, 1. ziv p. 419. Franks. His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest of Nice; and from this threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with blind valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty Greek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the sea-coast were re called to the standard of the sultan. The Turks were driven from the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of Ephesus and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the flellespont to the banks of the Mæander, and the rocky shores of Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: the towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled with colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but, by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but he had promised to assist their enterprise in person, or, at least, with his troops and treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the kingdom of Jerusalem; 2 but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent in his possession, and more accessible to his arms. The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond: his ransom had oppressed him with heavy debt; and his Norman followers were insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of arming the West against the Byzantine empire; and of ex ecuting the design which he inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard. His embarkation was clan The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominal dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is still legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor, (Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville, xxvii. p. 319.) destine and, if we may credit a tale of the princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin.3 But his reception in France was dignified by the public applause, and his marriage with the king's daughter: his return was glorious, since the bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and he repassed the Adriatic at the heaa of five thousand horse and forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of Europe. The strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the progress of famine, and approach of winter, eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venal confederates were seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace 5 suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they were finally delivered by the death of an adversary, whom neither oaths could bind, nor dangers could appal, nor prosperity could satiate. His children succeeded to the principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were strictly defined, the homage was clear. ly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra were restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of Anatolia, they possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates. The Seljukian dynasty of Roum 6 was separated on all sides from the sea and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken by the victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the loss of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and in ? Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation, he was shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how the Barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This absurd tale is unknown to the Latins.* 'Arò vans, in the Byzantine geography, must mean England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not suf fer him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p. 41.) The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. 1. xiii. p. 406–416) is an original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch. A See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii, part ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians. The last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs of Roum. The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras, p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334. agree in this story with the princess Anne, except in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange has already quoted some instances where a similar stratagem had been adopted by Norman princes. On this author ty Wilken inclines to believe the fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14. — M. |