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 or THE ROMAN EMPIRE 171 Byzantine fleets from the fortresses and coasts of Italy ; but a sense of interest was more prevalent than superstition or resent- ment, and the caliph of Egypt had transported forty thousand Moslems to the aid of his Christian ally. The successors of Basil amused themselves with the belief that the conquest of Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved, by the justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and the gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and oppression. A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth into the palace of Constantinople ; and the illusions of flattery were dispelled by the easy and rapid success of the Norman adventurers. The revolution of human aftairs had produced in Apulia and Anecaotea Calabria a melancholy contrast between the age of Pythagoras and the tenth century of the Christian aera. At the former period, the coast of Great Greece (as it was then styled) was planted with free and opulent cities : these cities were peopled with soldiers, artists and philosophers ; and the military strength of Tarentum, Sybaris, or Crotona was not inferior to that of a powerful kingdom. At the second aera, these once-flourishing provinces were clouded with ignorance, impoverished by tyranny, and depopulated by barbarian war ; nor can we severely accuse the exaggeration of a contemporary that a fair and ample district was reduced to the same desolation which had covered the earth after the general deluge.^'^ Among the hostilities of the Arabs, the Franks, and the Greeks, in the southern Italy, I shall select two or three anecdotes expressive of their national manners. 1 . It was the amusement of the Saracens to profane, as well as to a.d. sts pillage, the monasteries and churches. At the siege of Salerno, a Musulman chief spread his couch on the communion-table, and on that altar sacrificed each night the virginity of a Christian nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the roof was accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head ; and the death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ, which was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful spouse. 1^ 2. The Saracens besieged the cities of Beneventum a.d. st '"Calabriam adeunt, eamque inter .se divisam reperientes funditus depopuiati sunt (or depopularunt), ita ut deserta sit vclut in diluvio. Such is the text of Herempert, or Erchenipert, according to the two editions of Carraccioh (Rer. Italic. Script, torn. v. p. 23), and of Caniillo Pellegrino (toni. ii. p. 246). Both were ex- tremely scarce, when they were reprinted by Muratori. '1 Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 874, No. 2) has drawn this story from a Ms. of Erchenipert, who died at Capua only fifteen years after the event. But the