Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/258

 236 THE DECLINE AND FALL left the indiscreet princess to weep and to repent ; and, with a band of desperate adventurers, undertook the pilgrimage of Jerusalem. His birth, his martial renown, and professions of zeal announced him as the champion of the Cross; he soon captivated both the clergy and the king ; and the Greek prince was invested with the lordship of Berytus, on the coast of Phoenicia. In his neighbourhood resided a young and hand- some queen, of his own nation and family, great-grand-daughter of the Emperor Alexius, and widow of Baldwin the Third, king of Jerusalem. She visited and loved her kinsman. Theo- dora was the third victim of his amorous seduction ; and her shame was more public and scandalous than that of her pre- decessors. The emperor still thirsted for revenge ; and his subjects and allies of the Syrian frontier were repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out the eyes, of the fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe ; but the tender Theodora revealed his danger and accompanied his flight. The queen of Jerusalem was exposed to the East, his obse- quious concubine ; and two illegitimate children were the living monuments of her weakness. Damascus was his first refuge ; and in the character of the great Noureddin and his servant Saladin, the superstitious Greek might learn to revere the virtues of the Musulmans. As the friend of Noureddin he visited, most probably, Bagdad and the courts of Persia ; and, after a long circuit round the Caspian Sea and the moun- tains of Georgia, he finally settled among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies of his country. The sultan of Colonia afforded an hospitable retreat to Andronicus, his mis- tress, and his band of outlaws ; the debt of gratitude was paid by frequent inroads in the Roman province of Trebizond ; and he seldom returned without an ample harvest of spoil and of Christian captives. In the story of his adventures, he was fond of comparing himself to David, who escaped, by a long exile, the snares of the wicked. But the royal prophet (he presumed to add) was content to lurk on the borders of Judaea, to slay an Amalekite, and to threaten, in his miserable state, the life of the avaricious Nabal. The excursions of the Comnenian prince had a wider range ; and he had spread over the Eastern world the glory of his name and religion. By a sentence of the Greek church, the licentious rover had been separated from the faithful ; but even this excommunication may prove that he never abjured the profession of Christianity. His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret