Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/188

168 THE DECLINE AND FALL competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds^ which the invaders were not capable of healing by the union and tranquillity of a perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo, and were entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of Naples ; the more formid- able fleets were prepared on the African coast ; and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes tempted to assist or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In the revolution of human events, a new ambuscade was concealed in the Caudine forks, the fields of Cannee were bedewed a second time with the blood of the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the en- trance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations provoked the resentment, and conciliated the union, of the two emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian, the first of his race, and Lewis, the great- grandson of Charlemagne ; * and each party supplied the defi- ciencies of his associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian campaign ; and the Latin arms would have been insufficient, if his superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of Conquest of the Franks, and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks ; and. Ban. -^iJ-STi^^^j, ^ defence of four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis, who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East and West ; but their recent amity was soon embittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the ti-iumph ; extolled the gi*eatness of their powers, and affected to deride the intemperance and sloth of the handful of barbarians who appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince. His reply is expressed with the elo- quence of indignation and truth : " We confess the magnitude of your preparations," says the great-grandson of Charlemagne, old duchy of Beneventum was represented by three independent states. For the history of Salerno see Schipa, Storia del principato Longobardo in Salerno, in the Arch, storico per le cose pro v. Nap., 12 (1887).] •• See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, 1. ii. c. xi. in Vit. Basil, c. 55, p. 181.