The vessels used in their first onslaught were in the form of canoes, scraped out of the long stem of a beech or willow tree. “This slight and narrow foundation,” says Gibbon, “was raised and continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length of sixty, and the height of about twelve feet. These boats were built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast, to move with sails and oars, and to contain from forty to seventy men, with their arms and provisions of fresh water and salt fish.”[355] In their first enterprise, and with an insignificant fleet of two hundred vessels, the Russians, under the princes of Kief, passed the Straits without opposition, and occupied for a short time the port of Constantinople, from which, however, they soon retreated. In the second, they do not appear to have met with any better success; and the third, though chosen when the Greeks were greatly harassed, and when the naval powers of the empire were employed against the Saracens, proved most disastrous to the Russians. “Fifteen broken and decayed galleys were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire, usually planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers.”[356]
A.D. 865.
A.D. 904.
A.D. 941.
These attempts at naval invasion continued at long intervals, and with varied success; but the fourth and last, ending in the destruction of twenty-four of the Greek galleys, was brought to a close by treaty. The Greeks found that, though victorious, every advantage lay on the side of the Russians; their savage enemy gave no quarter; their poverty promised no spoil; while their impenetrable retreats deprived the conqueror of the hopes of revenge. The Greeks were, therefore, not unwilling to grant liberal terms to their invaders, the terror these attacks caused being increased by a supposed prophecy. “By the vulgar of every rank,” remarks Gibbon, “it was asserted and believed that an equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should become masters of Constantinople,”[357]—a belief which, as we know, was still largely shared in, even so recently as the Crimean war of 1854-6.
The Normans and their expeditions.
A.D. 918.
Towards the decline of the Saracen empires, the Greeks had to contend with the Normans or Northmen, a race as daring and adventurous as the Russians, and much more skilled in sea-faring pursuits. This remarkable people had recently left their frozen homes in Norway and adventured upon unknown and distant oceans, penetrating as far as the Mediterranean with numerous fleets, and rendering themselves more dreaded by their maritime genius than the Russians or Saracens had ever been. Ravaging Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy, after an infinite series of piratical exploits, they compelled Charles the Simple to cede and assign to them the large territory now known as Normandy; and, following up this success by various adventures in the south of Europe, obtained for themselves a great name and influence. Thus the Norman kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, during the eleventh century, played an important part in the drama of the history of Italy and of the eastern empire.
Establish themselves in Italy, A.D. 1016.
It is not our intention in this work to follow the Normans in their conquests or defeats, except in so far as these bear on their maritime exploits, and on their connection, limited though this may be, with commerce. At first, a large number of them appear to have earned their daily subsistence by the sword, having constantly mixed themselves up in the domestic quarrels then incessantly raging between the rulers and people of the southern states of Italy; till at length, chiefly through the aid of the Duke of Naples, whose cause they had espoused, they secured their first settlement in Italy. Within eight miles of his residence, he built and fortified for their use the town of Aversa, granting to them, also, a considerable tract of the fertile country in the vicinity, over which they were vested with complete control. Year by year numerous pilgrims from all parts of Europe, but especially from the north, found shelter under the independent standard of Aversa, and were quickly assimilated with the manners and language of the Gallic colony. But the Norman power soon extended far beyond the infant and limited colony of Aversa, and embraced the whole of the territory, which for centuries, and, indeed, until the last few years, was known as the kingdom of Naples. Within that territory, thirty miles from Naples, stood the commercially celebrated republic of Amalfi.