Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/351

 OF THE KOMAN EMPIEE 329 had been crowned at Rome was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble appellation of Hex, or prince of the Alemanni ; and the vain and feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of the greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with hatred and suspicion the Latin pilgrims, the Greek emperors maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac Angelus complained that by his friendship for the great Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks ; and a mosque was founded at Constanti- nople for the public exercise of the religion of Mahomet. -^ III. The swarms that followed the fii-st crusade were desti'oyed Turkish in Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows : and "" ^* the princes only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accom- plish their lamentable pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of their knowledge and humanity : of their knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia and Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem ; of their humanity, from the massacre of the Chris- tian people, a friendly city, who came out to meet them with palms and crosses in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and imprudent ; but the event of the second crusade was still more ruinous to Christendom ; and the Greek Manuel is accused by his own subjects of giving season- able intelligence to the sultan, and treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the common foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were retarded by jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus when he was met by the [October, returning emperor, who had lost the greatest part of his army in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the Maeander.^^ The contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad : the desertion of his independent vassals reduced him to his hereditary troops ; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the pilgrimage of Palestine. ^^ Without studying 129, 130), see the views of a pope and a cadhi on this singular toleration. 22 [This is quite inaccurate. At Nicaea, Conrad divided his army. About 15,000 took the coast route under Bishop Otto of Freising, the king's brother. Conrad himself proceeded to DoryhKum with the main army ; but after a march of eleven days want of supplies forced him to turn back. The enemy harassed the retreat, and 30,000 Germans are said to have perished. Conrad met the French army at Nicasa.] 23 [This, too, is an inaccui ate account. Louis proceeded westward to Lopadium, where he waited for Conrad, and the two kings advanced together (by Adramyttium, Pergamuin, and Smyrna) to Ephesus, where they spent Christ-
 * i In the epistles of Innocent III. (xiii. p. 184), and the History of Bohadin (p.