Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/237

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 215 Greek monarch entrusted a fleet and army ; the siege of Bari was his first exploit ; and, in every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory. Salemo, and some places along the Western coast, maintained their fidelity to the Norman king ; but he lost in two campaigns the greater part of his con- tinental possessions ; and the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and falsehood, was content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all the walls of the palace. The his design of preiudices of the Latins were gratified bv a genuine or fictitious itai? and the 1 *f cf J r* _ Western em- donation under the seal of the German Caesars : ^■'^ but the sue- pire. a.d. ' 1155-1174, <Sc. cessor of Constantine soon renounced this ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the barbarians beyond the Alps. By the art- ful speeches, liberal gifts, and unbounded promises of their Eastern ally, the free cities were encouraged to persevere in their generous struggle against the despotism of Fredei'ic Bar- barossa ; the walls of Milan were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel ; and he poured, says the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose attachment to the Greeks was for- tified by the jealous enmity of the Venetians.^-'" The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it an important garrison in the heart of Italy ; it was tw^ce besieged by the arms of Frederic ; the Imperial forces were twice repulsed by the spirit of freedom ; that spirit was animated by the ambassador of Constantinople ; and the most intrepid patriots, the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and honours of the Byzantine court. ^"^^ The pride of Manuel disdained and rejected a barbarian colleague ; his ambition was excited by the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of establishing, in the West, as in the East, his lawful title of sole emperor of the Romans. With this view, he solicited the alliance of the people and the 1^ The Latin, Otho (de Gestis Frederici I. 1. ii. c. 30, p. 734), attests the forgery ; the Greek, Cinnamus (1. i. c. 4, p. 78), claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of the Greeks. 1*^ Quod Anconitani Grascum imperium nimis diligerent. . . Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love, perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the emjjeror ; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus (1. iv. c. 14, p. 98). i'^ Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona: the first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, torn. x. p. 39, &c. ), the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian, archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office (p. 76, &c. ). It is of the second siege that we possess an origmal narrative, which he has published in his great collection (tom. vi. p. 921-946).