Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/225

 i OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 203 Constantinople with the advantage, rather than the honour, of victory. After evacuating the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who esteemed his merit and sympathized in his misfortune. Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of The emperor Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry, the Third or [iv] invited Fourth, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the a^d. losi^^ West. The epistle of the Greek monarch ''•' to his brother is filled with the warmest professions of friendship, and the most lively desire of strengthening their alliance by every public and private tie. He congratulates Henry on his success in a just and pious war, and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Norman Robert. The list of his presents expresses the manners of the age, a radiated crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a case of relics with the names and titles of the saints, a vase of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more solid present, of one hundred and forty-four thousand Byzantines of gold, with a further assurance of two hundred and sixteen thousand, so soon as Henry should have entered in arms the Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath the league against the common enemy. The German,^"'" who was already in Lombardy at the head of an army and a faction, accepted these liberal offers and marched towards the south : his speed was checked by the sound of the battle of Durazzo ; but the influ- ence of his arms or name, in the hasty return of Robert, was a full equivalent for the Grecian bribe. Henry was the severe adver- sary of the Normans, the allies and vassals of Gregory the Seventh, his implacable foe. The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and ambition of that haughty priest : ^^^'^ the king and the pope had degraded each ^The epistle itself (Alexias, 1. iii. p. 93, 94, 95 [c. 10]) well deserves to be read. There is one expression, acrrpoTreKeKw £t£tMe''o»' iJifTo. xpu<ra<iiov, which Ducange does not understand ; I have endeavoured to grope out a tolerable meaning ; ^pva-d-^Loy, is a golden crown ; io-TpoTreAeicuy, is explained by Simon Fortius (in Lexico Greeco- Barbar. ) by xepauros, Trprjcmjp, a flash of lightning. [Heinemann has shown that this letter reached Henry IV. at Rome in June, 1081 (op. cit. p. 396-8). The embassy is mentioned in Benzo's Panegyricus rhythmicus, probably composed at end of 1081 (printed in Pertz, Mon. xi. p. 591 sqq.].' i<Tor these general events I must refer to the general historians Sigonius, Baronius, Muratori, Mosheim, St. Marc, <S:c. 1*^ The lives of Gregor- VII. are either legends or invectives (St. Marc, Abr(5g(5, torn. iii. p. 235, &c. ), and his miraculous or magical performances are alike in-