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By Root 22295 0

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