Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/214

192 THE DECLINE AND FALL siege^ himself and the countess his wife had been reduced to a single cloak or mantle, which they wore alternately ; that in a sally his horse had been slain, and he was dragged away by the Saracens ; but that he owed his rescue to his good sword, and had retreated with his saddle on his back, lest the meanest trophy might be left in the hands of the miscreants. In the [Troina] siegc of Trani, three hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the island. In the field of Ceramio,'^'* fifty thousand [AD. loes] horse and foot were overthrown by one hundred and thirty-six Christian soldiers, without reckoning St. George, who fought on horseback in the foremost ranks. The captive banners, with four camels, were reserved for the successors of St. Peter ; and had these barbaric spoils been exposed not in the Vatican, but in the Capitol, they might have revived the memory of the Punic triumphs. These insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their knights, the soldiers of honourable and equestrian rank, each of whom was attended by five or six followers in the field ; '^'•* yet, with the aid of this interpretation, and after every fair allowance on the side of valour, arms, and reputation, the discomfiture of so many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily derived a frequent and powerful succour from [AD. 10712] their countrymen of Africa : in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted by the galleys of Pisa ; and, in the hour of action, the envy of the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible emulation. After a war of thirty years," Roger, with the title of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most fruitful island of the Mediterranean ; and his administration displays a liberal and enlightened mind above the limits of his age and education. The Moslems were main- tained in the free enjoyment of their religion and j)roperty ; "^ a philosopher and physician of Mazara, of the race of Mahomet, harangued the conqueror, and was invited to- court ; his geo- ® [The fortress of Cerami was not far from Troina.] '■ See the word militcs in the Latin Glossary of Ducangc. ™ Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra that the Arabs had introduced into Sicily the use of camels (1. i. c. 33) and of carrier piijeons (c. 42), and that the bile of the tarantula provokes a windy disposition, qiuf per anum inhoneste crepitando emergit : a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole Norman army in thoir camp near Palermo (c. 36). I shall add an etymology not unworthy of the eleventh century : Alessana is derived from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were sent in tribute to Rome (1. ii. c. i). "^ See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, 1. ii. c. 45, and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of the Saracens (tom. ii. p. 72).