A.D. 1156.] PEACE WITH THE NORMANS. 351 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 Palæologus devolved the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land and sea; and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their conqueror.* Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully addressed the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty years; accepted as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. The Byzantine Cæsars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind; the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks § accuse and magnify * 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 (1. 4, c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and more copious than Falcandus (p. 268-270). But the Greek is fond of description, and the Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad. For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (1. 4, c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas (1. 2, c. 8). It is difficult to affirm, whether these Greeks deceived themselves or the public, in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the empire. I can only quote of original evidence the poor chronicles of Sicard of Cremona (p. 603) and of Fossa Nova (p. 875), as they are published in the seventh tome of Muratori's historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam Andronici ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were capti aut confusi decepti captique, by Isaac. By the failure of Cinnamus, we are now 352 WILLIAM THE BAD, KING OF SICILY. [CH. LVI. 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. : 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 valour 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 haram, of a sultan; and a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs, who openly reduced to Nicetas (in Andronico, 1. 1, c. 7—9; 1. 2, c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, 1. 1, 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 honour of learning, I shall observe that Homer's great commentator, Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to desert his flock. A.D. 1166-1189.] WILLIAM THE GOOD. 353 professed, or secretly cherished, the religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times* has delineated the misfortunes of his country:† 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, 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 *The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the seventh volume of Muratori's Collection (tom. vii. p. 259-344), and preceded by an elegant preface or epistle (p. 251-258) de Calamitatibus Siciliæ. Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement from the first to the twelfth 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 labours have been cast. The laborious Benedictines (l'Art de Vérifier les Dates, p. 896) are of opinion, that the true name of Falcandus, is Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucault, 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. arch bishop 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. 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 justitiæ cultus tempore suo vigebat in regno; suâ erat quilibet sorte contentus; (were they mortals ?) ubique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum. (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 969.) VOL. VI. 2 A 354 LAMENTATION OF THE [CH. LVI. 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.* In this extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act? By the unanimous election of a king, of valour and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved ;† for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope. Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina,§ might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of mount Etna,¶ what * Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarum tuaram affluentiâ diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinis et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura discessit: et nunc cum ingentibus copiis revertitur, ut pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta Barbaricâ fœditate contaminet Intueri mihi jam videor turbulentas Barbarorum acies civitates opulentas et loca diuturnâ pace florentia, metû concutere, cæde vastare, rapinis atterere, et fœdare luxuriâ: hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi, virgines constupratæ, matronæ, &c. + Certe si regem non dubiæ virtutis elegerint, nec a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare. In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciæ reponendum. ... rerum § Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas, murorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum. Cum crudelitate piraticâ Theutonum confligat atrocitas, et inter ambustos lapides, et Ethnæ flagrantis incendia, &c. A.D. 1166-1189.] HISTORIAN FALCANDUS. 355 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 ?* Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake; the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude;† but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of Christians and 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." 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. 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 * Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor illustrat, quæ et toti regno sigulari meruit privilegio præeminere, nefarium esset ... vel Barbarorum ingressû pollui. I wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description of the palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo. Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt. At vero, quia difficile est Christianos in tanto rerum turbine, sublato regis timore Saracenos non opprimere, si Saraceni injuriis fatigati ab eis cœperint dissidere, et castella forte maritima vel montanas munitiones occupaverint; ut hinc cum Theutonicis summâ virtute pugnandum, illinc Saracenis crebris insultibus occurrendum, quid putas acturi sunt Siculi inter has depressi angustias, et velut inter malleum et incudem multo cum discrimine constituti? hoc utique agent quod poterunt, ut se Barbaris miserabili conditione dedentes, in eorum se conferant potestatem. O utinam plebis et procerum, Christianorum et Saracenorum vota conveniant; ut regem sibi concorditer eligentes, Barbaros totis viribus, toto conamine, totisque desideriis |