Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/321

 or THE ROMAN EMPIRE 299 tended his conquests over the hills of Armenia and the plain of Mesopotamia, and founded the fii'st principality of the Franks or Latins, which subsisted fifty-four years beyond the ['«i7forty-aixj Euphrates. ^2 Before the Franks could enter Syria, the summer, and even siege of ,1 ■',, /■ 4 • 1 Antioch. A.D. the autumn, were completely wasted : the siege oi Antioch, or ic97, October the separation and repose of the army during the winter season, June 3 was strongly debated in their council ; the love of arms and the holy sepulchre urged them to advance, and reason perhaps was on the side of resolution, since every hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader and multiplies the resources of defensive war. The capital of Syria was protected by the river Orontes, and the iron bridge of nine arches derives its name from the massy gates of the two towers which are constructed at either end.^-" They were opened by the sword of the duke of Normandy : his victory gave entrance to three hundred thousand crusaders, an account which may allow some scope for losses and desertion, but which clearly detects much exaggeration in the review of Nice. In the description of Antioch ^* it is not easy to define a middle term between her ancient magnificence, under the successors of Alexander and Augustus, and the modern aspect of Turkish desolation. The Tetrapolis, or four cities, if they retained their name and position, must have left a large vacuity in a circumference of twelve miles ; and that measure, as well as the number of four hundred towers, are not perfectly consistent with the five gates, so often mentioned in the history- of the siege. Yet Antioch must have still flourished as a great and populous capital. At the head of the Turkish emirs, Baghisian, a veteran chief, commanded in the place ; his [TagMaiyan] garrison was composed of six or seven thousand horse and fifteen or twenty thousand foot : one hundred thousand Moslems are said to have fallen by the sword, and their numbers were pro- bably inferior to the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, who had been no more than fourteen years the slaves of the house of Seljuk. From the remains of a solid and stately wall it appears to have arisen to the height of threescore feet in the valleys ; 3- See de Guignes, Hist, des Huns, torn. i. p. 456. [Edessa was taken in 1144 by Imad ad-din Zangl.] ^ [About 3i hrs. east of Antioch. See Hagenmeyer's note on Gesta Fr. xii. i. Compare Le Strange, Palestine under the MusUms, p. 60.] Otter (Voyage en Turquie, &c., torn. i. p. 81, &c. ), the Turkish geographer (in Otter's notes), the Index Geographicus of Schultens (ad calcem Bohadin. Vit. Saladin.), and Abulfeda (Tabula Syrire, p. 115-116, vers. Reiske). [Le Strange, Palestine under the Muslims, p. 367-377.]
 * X^ .^ o -' 21 A D, 1098
 * • For Antioch, see Pococke (Description of the East, vol. ii. p. i. p. 188-193),