Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/219

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIKI^: 197 the victory of the second day was decided by the dexterity of their evohitioiis, the station of their archers, the weight of their javelins, and the borrowed aid of the (Jreel-: fire. 'I"he Apulian and Ra,<ijiisian vessels fled to the shore, several were cut from their cables and dragged away by tin; concjnrror ; and a sally from the town carried slati<.«;htcr and dismay to the tents of the Norman duke. A seasonable- reliii" was ])oured into Dura/zo, and, as soon as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and maritime towns withdrew froni the cann) the supply of tribute and provision. Tliat camp was soon alHicted with a pestilential disease ; five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death ; and the list of burials (if all could obtain a decent burial) amounted to ten thousand persons. Under thesi' calami- ties, tile mind of (ruiscard alone was firm and invincible : and, while he collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered, or scaled, or sapped, the walls of Dura//o. Hut his industry and valour were encountered by equal valour and nu)re perfect in- dustry. A moveable turret, of a size and capacity to contain five hundred soldiers, had beeii rolled forwards to the foot of the ramj)art ; but the descent of the door or draw-!)ridge was checked by an enormous beam, and the wooden structure was instantly consumed by artificial flames. While the Koinaii empire was attacked by the Turks in the The army .and F^ast and the Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael ^nperoi- surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious ApHi-"sep captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The prin- cess Anne, his daughter and historian, observes, in iier affected style, that even Ilercuk's as uiuHjual to a doid^le (•ond)at ; and, on this principle, she approves an hasty peace with the Turks, which allowed her father to undertake in person the relief of Durazzo. On his accession, yMexius found the camp without soldiers, and the treasury without money ; yet such were the vigour .and activity of his measures that, in six months, he as- sembled .-in army of seventy thous.ind nun,*^" and p.crformed a march of five hundred miles. His troops were levied in J^kn-ope ■"" Muratoii (Annali d'ltalia, toin. ix. p. 136, 137) oljservus lli;il .some authors (I'c-trus Diacoii. Cliion. Casinen. 1. iii. c. 49) c'om[jsc tln' Clrcck army of 170,000 men, but that tlic hiaidred may be struck off, ruxl that Malaterr.i reckons only 70,000: a slij.,'lit iiiatti'iition. The passtige to which he alludi's is in the Chronicle of Lupus I'rcHospata (.Script. Ital. torn. v. |). 45). Malalerra (1. iv. c. 27) speaks in high, but iiuleliiiitc, terms of the empcroi', cum eopiis innunicial lilibiis ; like the Apulian poet (1. iv. p. 272). Moi'e locustaruni nidules cl plana IciMinlur.