Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/345

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 323 cares, we may forgive Alexius^ if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre ; but, by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne ; but he had promised to assist their enterpi-ise in person, or, at least, with his troops and treasures ; his base retreat dissolved their obligations ; and the sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the kingdom of Jerusalem ; " but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent in his possession, and more accessible to his arms. The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or dispersed ; the principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond : his ransom had oppressed him with a heavy debt ; and his Norman followers were insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this distress, Bohe- mond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred, of arming the West against the Byzantine empire, and of executing the design which he inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard. His embarkation was clandestine ; and, if we may credit a tale of the Princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin.^ But his reception in France was dignified by the public applause and his marriage with the king's daughter ; his return was glorious, since the bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command ; and he repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of Europe.^ The strength of Durazzo and prudence of Alexius, the progress of famine and approach of winter, eluded his ambitious hopes ; and the venal confederates were seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace ^ suspended the fears of the Greeks ; and they ^The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominal dependence ; and in the dates of their inscriptions (one is still legible in the church of Bethlem) they respectfully placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor (Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville, xxvii. p. 319). •'Anna Comnena adds that, to complete the imitation, he was shut up with a dead cock ; and condescends to wonder how the barbarian could endure the con- finement and putrefaction. This absurd tale is unknown to the Latins. o 0oiiAj)<; [Anna, xii. c. 9, cp. ii. c. 9], in the Byzantine Geography, must mean England ; yet we are more credibly informed that our Henry I. would not suffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom (Uucange, Not. ad Alexiad, p. 41). ^The copy of the treaty (.-Mexiad, 1. xiii. p. 406-416 [c. 12]) is an original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a good map oif the principality of Antioch.