Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/244

 222 THE DECLINE AND FALL serve only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese^ who enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicil}^, listened to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure : ^''' their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the harbour of Palermo ; and the first act of this govern- ment was to abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was de- feated by the discord of the Christians and Mahometans : they fought in the capital ; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their surviving brethren foi-tified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the enemies of Christ ; and this national colony maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou.^^'^ All the calam- ities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He vio- lated the royal sepulchres, and explored the secret treasures of the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom : the pearls and jewels, however precious, might be easily removed ; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of Sicily. ^^''' The young king, his mother and sisters, and the nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses of the Alps ; and, on the slightest rumour of rebellion, the captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her countiy ; and the heiress of the Norman line i''" Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo (Caflf^ri, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, torn. vi. p. 367, 368). 15^ For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the Annals of Muratori (torn. .. p. 149, and A.D. 1223, 1247), Giannone (torn. ii. p. 385), and of the originals, in Mura- tori's Collection, Richard de St. Germano (torn. vii. p. 996), Matteo Spinelli de Giovenazzo (torn. ii. p. 1064), Nicholas de Jamsilla (toni. .x. p. 494), and Matteo Villani (torn. xiv. 1. vii. p. 103). The last of these insinuates that, in reducing the Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice than violence. 1^^ Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec (1. iv. c. 20). Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum pretiosorum et geniniarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis gloriose ad terram suam redient. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions the violation of the royal tomb and corpses, computes the spoil of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold (p. 746). On these occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid in La Fontaine, " Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque ".