Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/412

384 After Sikard's death the Duchy of Benevento was divided into two principalities; Radelchis resided in Benevento and Sikonolf in Salerno, and the two were constantly fighting. This self-destruction on the part of the sole great power of Southern Italy was of course in the highest degree welcome to the Saracens. Sikard died in 839, and immediately afterwards the Saracens of Sicily were once more in Calabria. They even advanced as far as Apulia, and though the conquest of Bari was not at first attained, Taranto fell and was not relieved even with the help of the Venetians, whom the Byzantines had called to their assistance (840). The victorious Muslims pushed forward to the Adriatic, burned Ossero on the island of Cherso, and Ancona, and even appeared temporarily in the neighbourhood of Venice, whose trading ships they captured. In 842 also the Venetians suffered a further defeat. Bari, which was to be the main base of the Saracens for thirty years, had already fallen (probably 841). Radelchis, pressed hard by Sikonolf, had called the masters of Sicily to his assistance, and they had begun by taking Bari from their ally. Radelchis had of course in his distress to accept this with a good grace and come to terms with these strange and unruly allies. The Saracens under the Berber Khalfūn advanced from Bari as a base against Sikonolf, but after a bloody battle they were driven back on Bari, which in the meantime they had converted into a strong fortress. As the Muslims constantly received reinforcements this one victory served Sikonolf but little; and Radelchis too, especially after he had received (in 842), whether he liked it or not, his infidel allies under the leadership of Masar into his capital, Benevento, became the puppet of the Saracens, who ravaged the whole country with their despotism and cruelty — a terrible scourge for friend and foe alike.

In spite of all such misfortunes however Radelchis was of course under the circumstances victorious over his adversary. As Sikonolf could not help himself in any other way, he too sought Saracen allies. He is said to have applied to the Spaniards, whose numerous raids into Provence, Northern Italy, and in fact as far afield as Switzerland do not come within the scope of this chapter. It is moreover much more probable that Sikonolf did not draw his auxiliaries directly from the Iberian peninsula, but from Crete, where a Muslim robber-State had been in existence since 826, founded there by Spanish Saracens who had been expelled for mutiny from their country. With these new troops, who were more easily governed, as they had no neighbouring great power on whose support they could calculate, Sikonolf succeeded in defeating his opponent and locking him up in Benevento. He was however unable to take the town owing to difficulties in his own camp, and so everything remained in the same state as before. Masar with his Saracens swept through the whole country, plundering as he went, and undertook expeditions far towards the north.

These advances however of the Saracens, starting from Bari and