87 ([return])
[ After mentioning this devastation, the Jesuit Donatus (de Roma veteri et nova, l. iv. c. 8, p. 489) prettily adds, Duraret hodieque in Coelio monte, interque ipsum et capitolium, miserabilis facies prostrates urbis, nisi in hortorum vinetorumque amoenitatem Roma resurrexisset, ut perpetua viriditate contegeret vulnera et ruinas suas.]
The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in a season of repose; but in the same year of the flight of the German emperor, the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of his eastern conquests. The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had promised to his valor the kingdoms of Greece and Asia; [88] his troops were assembled in arms, flushed with success, and eager for action. Their numbers, in the language of Homer, are compared by Anna to a swarm of bees; [89] yet the utmost and moderate limits of the powers of Guiscard have been already defined; they were contained on this second occasion in one hundred and twenty vessels; and as the season was far advanced, the harbor of Brundusium [90] was preferred to the open road of Otranto. Alexius, apprehensive of a second attack, had assiduously labored to restore the naval forces of the empire; and obtained from the republic of Venice an important succor of thirty-six transports, fourteen galleys, and nine galiots or ships of extra-ordinary strength and magnitude. Their services were liberally paid by the license or monopoly of trade, a profitable gift of many shops and houses in the port of Constantinople, and a tribute to St. Mark, the more acceptable, as it was the produce of a tax on their rivals at Amalphi. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians, the Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet; but their own neglect, or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind, or the shelter of a mist, opened a free passage; and the Norman troops were safely disembarked on the coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and well-appointed galleys, their intrepid duke immediately sought the enemy, and though more accustomed to fight on horseback, he trusted his own life, and the lives of his brother and two sons, to the event of a naval combat. The dominion of the sea was disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Isle of Corfu: in the two former, the skill and numbers of the allies were superior; but in the third, the Normans obtained a final and complete victory. [91] The light brigantines of the Greeks were scattered in ignominious flight: the nine castles of the Venetians maintained a more obstinate conflict; seven were sunk, two were taken; two thousand five hundred captives implored in vain the mercy of the victor; and the daughter of Alexius deplores the loss of thirteen thousand of his subjects or allies. The want of experience had been supplied by the genius of Guiscard; and each evening, when he had sounded a retreat, he calmly explored the causes of his repulse, and invented new methods how to remedy his own defects, and to baffle the advantages of the enemy. The winter season suspended his progress: with the return of spring he again aspired to the conquest of Constantinople; but, instead of traversing the hills of Epirus, he turned his arms against Greece and the islands, where the spoils would repay the labor, and where the land and sea forces might pursue their joint operations with vigor and effect. But, in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally blasted by an epidemical disease: Robert himself, in the seventieth year of his age, expired in his tent; and a suspicion of poison was imputed, by public rumor, to his wife, or to the Greek emperor. [92] This premature death might allow a boundless scope for the imagination of his future exploits; and the event sufficiently declares, that the Norman greatness was founded on his life. [93] Without the appearance of an enemy, a victorious army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation; and Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his deliverance. The galley which transported the remains of Guiscard was ship-wrecked on the Italian shore; but the duke’s body was recovered from the sea, and deposited in the sepulchre of Venusia, [94] a place more illustrious for the birth of Horace [95] than for the burial of the Norman heroes. Roger, his second son and successor, immediately sunk to the humble station of a duke of Apulia: the esteem or partiality of his father left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword.
The national tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the first crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory and conquest. [96]
88 ([return])
[ The royalty of Robert, either promised or bestowed by the pope, (Anna, l. i. p. 32,) is sufficiently confirmed by the Apulian, (l. iv. p. 270.) —Romani regni sibi promisisse coronam Papa ferebatur. Nor can I understand why Gretser, and the other papal advocates, should be displeased with this new instance of apostolic jurisdiction.]
89 ([return])
[ See Homer, Iliad, B. (I hate this pedantic mode of quotation by letters of the Greek alphabet) 87, &c. His bees are the image of a disorderly crowd: their discipline and public works seem to be the ideas of a later age, (Virgil. Aeneid. l. i.)]
90 ([return])
[ Gulielm. Appulus, l. v. p. 276.) The admirable port of Brundusium was double; the outward harbor was a gulf covered by an island, and narrowing by degrees, till it communicated by a small gullet with the inner harbor, which embraced the city on both sides. Caesar and nature have labored for its ruin; and against such agents what are the feeble efforts of the Neapolitan government? (Swinburne’s Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 384-390.]