Frances Parkinson Keyes - "The Old Gray Homestead"

Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3"

Benjamin Disraeli - "Ixion In Heaven"

Alexis de Tocqueville et al - "American Institutions and Their Influence"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5




[Footnote 61: Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and
bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric
nuptials, (l. i. p. 23,) was betrothed as her husband. (p. 27.)
Elsewhere she describes the red and white of his skin, his hawk's
eyes, &c., l. iii. p. 71.]

[Footnote 62: Anna Comnena, l. i. p. 28, 29. Gulielm. Appul. l.
iv p. 271. Galfrid Malaterra, l. iii. c. 13, p. 579, 580.
Malaterra is more cautious in his style; but the Apulian is bold
and positive. - Mentitus se Michaelem Venerata Danais quidam
seductor ad illum.

As Gregory VII had believed, Baronius almost alone, recognizes
the emperor Michael. (A.D. No. 44.)]

[Footnote 63: Ipse armatae militiae non plusquam MCCC milites
secum habuisse, ab eis qui eidem negotio interfuerunt attestatur,
(Malaterra, l. iii. c. 24, p. 583.) These are the same whom the
Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) styles the equestris gens ducis, equites
de gente ducis.]

[Footnote 64: Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. i. p. 37;) and her
account tallies with the number and lading of the ships. Ivit in
Dyrrachium cum xv. millibus hominum, says the Chronicon Breve
Normannicum, (Muratori, Scriptores, tom. v. p. 278.) I have
endeavored to reconcile these reckonings.]

At the mouth of the Adriatic Gulf, the shores of Italy and
Epirus incline towards each other. The space between Brundusium
and Durazzo, the Roman passage, is no more than one hundred
miles; ^65 at the last station of Otranto, it is contracted to
fifty; ^66 and this narrow distance had suggested to Pyrrhus and
Pompey the sublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. Before the
general embarkation, the Norman duke despatched Bohemond with
fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu, to survey
the opposite coast, and to secure a harbor in the neighborhood of
Vallona for the landing of the troops. They passed and landed
without perceiving an enemy; and this successful experiment
displayed the neglect and decay of the naval power of the Greeks.
The islands of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the
arms or the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu
(I use the modern appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. That
city, the western key of the empire, was guarded by ancient
renown, and recent fortifications, by George Palaeologus, a
patrician, victorious in the Oriental wars, and a numerous
garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who, in every age, have
maintained the character of soldiers. In the prosecution of his
enterprise, the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of
danger and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year,
as his fleet passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow
unexpectedly arose: the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast
of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the
Acroceraunian rocks. ^67 The sails, the masts, and the oars, were
shattered or torn away; the sea and shore were covered with the
fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies; and the greatest
part of the provisions were either drowned or damaged. The ducal
galley was laboriously rescued from the waves, and Robert halted
seven days on the adjacent cape, to collect the relics of his
loss, and revive the drooping spirits of his soldiers. The
Normans were no longer the bold and experienced mariners who had
explored the ocean from Greenland to Mount Atlas, and who smiled
at the petty dangers of the Mediterranean. They had wept during
the tempest; they were alarmed by the hostile approach of the
Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and promises of
the Byzantine court. The first day's action was not
disadvantageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth, ^68 who led the
naval powers of his father. All night the galleys of the
republic lay on their anchors in the form of a crescent; and the
victory of the second day was decided by the dexterity of their
evolutions, the station of their archers, the weight of their
javelins, and the borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulian
and Ragusian vessels fled to the shore, several were cut from
their cables, and dragged away by the conqueror; and a sally from
the town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents of the Norman
duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo, and as soon
as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and
maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute and
provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential
disease; five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death;
and the list of burials (if all could obtain a decent burial)
amounted to ten thousand persons. Under these calamities, the
mind of Guiscard alone was firm and invincible; and while he
collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered, or
scaled, or sapped, the walls of Durazzo. But his industry and
valor were encountered by equal valor and more perfect industry.
A movable turret, of a size and capacity to contain five hundred
soldiers, had been rolled forwards to the foot of the rampart:
but the descent of the door or drawbridge was checked by an
enormous beam, and the wooden structure was constantly consumed
by artificial flames.

[Footnote 65: The Itinerary of Jerusalem (p. 609, edit.
Wesseling) gives a true and reasonable space of a thousand stadia
or one hundred miles which is strangely doubled by Strabo (l. vi.
p. 433) and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. iii. 16.)]

[Footnote 66: Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 6, 16) allows quinquaginta
millia for this brevissimus cursus, and agrees with the real
distance from Otranto to La Vallona, or Aulon, (D'Anville,
Analyse de sa Carte des Cotes de la Grece, &c., p. 3 - 6.)
Hermolaus Barbarus, who substitutes centum. (Harduin, Not. lxvi.
in Plin. l. iii.,) might have been corrected by every Venetian
pilot who had sailed out of the gulf.]

[Footnote 67: Infames scopulos Acroceraunia, Horat. carm. i. 3.
The praecipitem Africum decertantem Aquilonibus, et rabiem Noti
and the monstra natantia of the Adriatic, are somewhat enlarged;
but Horace trembling for the life of Virgil, is an interesting
moment in the history of poetry and friendship.]

[Footnote 68: (Alexias, l. iv. p. 106.) Yet the Normans shaved,
and the Venetians wore, their beards: they must have derided the
no beard of Bohemond; a harsh interpretation. (Duncanga ad
Alexiad. p. 283.)]

While the Roman empire was attacked by the Turks in the
East, east, and the Normans in the West, the aged successor of
Michael surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an
illustrious captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty.
The princess Anne, his daughter and historian, observes, in her
affected style, that even Hercules was unequal to a double
combat; and, on this principle, she approves a hasty peace with
the Turks, which allowed her father to undertake in person the
relief of Durazzo. On his accession, Alexius found the camp
without soldiers, and the treasury without money; yet such were
the vigor and activity of his measures, that in six months he
assembled an army of seventy thousand men, ^69 and performed a
march of five hundred miles. His troops were levied in Europe
and Asia, from Peloponnesus to the Black Sea; his majesty was
displayed in the silver arms and rich trappings of the companies
of Horse-guards; and the emperor was attended by a train of
nobles and princes, some of whom, in rapid succession, had been
clothed with the purple, and were indulged by the lenity of the
times in a life of affluence and dignity. Their youthful ardor
might animate the multitude; but their love of pleasure and
contempt of subordination were pregnant with disorder and
mischief; and their importunate clamors for speedy and decisive
action disconcerted the prudence of Alexius, who might have
surrounded and starved the besieging army. The enumeration of
provinces recalls a sad comparison of the past and present limits
of the Roman world: the raw levies were drawn together in haste
and terror; and the garrisons of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, had
been purchased by the evacuation of the cities which were
immediately occupied by the Turks. The strength of the Greek
army consisted in the Varangians, the Scandinavian guards, whose
numbers were recently augmented by a colony of exiles and
volunteers from the British Island of Thule. Under the yoke of
the Norman conqueror, the Danes and English were oppressed and
united; a band of adventurous youths resolved to desert a land of
slavery; the sea was open to their escape; and, in their long
pilgrimage, they visited every coast that afforded any hope of
liberty and revenge. They were entertained in the service of the
Greek emperor; and their first station was in a new city on the
Asiatic shore: but Alexius soon recalled them to the defence of
his person and palace; and bequeathed to his successors the
inheritance of their faith and valor. ^70 The name of a Norman
invader revived the memory of their wrongs: they marched with
alacrity against the national foe, and panted to regain in Epirus
the glory which they had lost in the battle of Hastings. The
Varangians were supported by some companies of Franks or Latins;
and the rebels, who had fled to Constantinople from the tyranny
of Guiscard, were eager to signalize their zeal and gratify their
revenge. In this emergency, the emperor had not disdained the
impure aid of the Paulicians or Manichaeans of Thrace and
Bulgaria; and these heretics united with the patience of
martyrdom the spirit and discipline of active valor. ^71 The
treaty with the sultan had procured a supply of some thousand
Turks; and the arrows of the Scythian horse were opposed to the
lances of the Norman cavalry. On the report and distant prospect
of these formidable numbers, Robert assembled a council of his
principal officers. "You behold," said he, "your danger: it is
urgent and inevitable. The hills are covered with arms and
standards; and the emperor of the Greeks is accustomed to wars
and triumphs. Obedience and union are our only safety; and I am
ready to yield the command to a more worthy leader." The vote and
acclamation even of his secret enemies, assured him, in that
perilous moment, of their esteem and confidence; and the duke
thus continued: "Let us trust in the rewards of victory, and
deprive cowardice of the means of escape. Let us burn our
vessels and our baggage, and give battle on this spot, as if it
were the place of our nativity and our burial." The resolution
was unanimously approved; and, without confining himself to his
lines, Guiscard awaited in battle-array the nearer approach of
the enemy. His rear was covered by a small river; his right wing
extended to the sea; his left to the hills: nor was he conscious,
perhaps, that on the same ground Caesar and Pompey had formerly
disputed the empire of the world. ^72

[Footnote 69: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. ix. p. 136, 137)
observes, that some authors (Petrus Diacon. Chron. Casinen. l.
iii. c. 49) compose the Greek army of 170,000 men, but that the
hundred may be struck off, and that Malaterra reckons only
70,000; a slight inattention. The passage to which he alludes is
in the Chronicle of Lupus Protospata, (Script. Ital. tom. v. p.
45.) Malaterra (l. iv. c. 27) speaks in high, but indefinite
terms of the emperor, cum copiisinnumerabilbus: like the Apulian
poet, (l. iv. p. 272: ) -

More locustarum montes et pianna teguntur.]

[Footnote 70: See William of Malmsbury, de Gestis Anglorum, l.
ii. p. 92. Alexius fidem Anglorum suspiciens praecipuis
familiaritatibus suis eos applicabat, amorem eorum filio
transcribens. Odericus Vitalis (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. p. 508, l.
vii. p. 641) relates their emigration from England, and their
service in Greece.]

[Footnote 71: See the Apulian, (l. i. p. 256.) The character and
the story of these Manichaeans has been the subject of the livth
chapter.]

[Footnote 72: See the simple and masterly narrative of Caesar
himself, (Comment. de Bell. Civil. iii. 41 - 75.) It is a pity
that Quintus Icilius (M. Guichard) did not live to analyze these
operations, as he has done the campaigns of Africa and Spain.]

Against the advice of his wisest captains, Alexius resolved
to risk the event of a general action, and exhorted the garrison
of Durazzo to assist their own deliverance by a well-timed sally
from the town. He marched in two columns to surprise the Normans
before daybreak on two different sides: his light cavalry was
scattered over the plain; the archers formed the second line; and
the Varangians claimed the honors of the vanguard. In the first
onset, the battle-axes of the strangers made a deep and bloody
impression on the army of Guiscard, which was now reduced to
fifteen thousand men. The Lombards and Calabrians ignominiously
turned their backs; they fled towards the river and the sea; but
the bridge had been broken down to check the sally of the
garrison, and the coast was lined with the Venetian galleys, who
played their engines among the disorderly throng. On the verge
of ruin, they were saved by the spirit and conduct of their
chiefs. Gaita, the wife of Robert, is painted by the Greeks as a
warlike Amazon, a second Pallas; less skilful in arts, but not
less terrible in arms, than the Athenian goddess: ^73 though
wounded by an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove, by her
exhortation and example, to rally the flying troops. ^74 Her
female voice was seconded by the more powerful voice and arm of
the Norman duke, as calm in action as he was magnanimous in
council: "Whither," he cried aloud, "whither do ye fly? Your
enemy is implacable; and death is less grievous than servitude."
The moment was decisive: as the Varangians advanced before the
line, they discovered the nakedness of their flanks: the main
battle of the duke, of eight hundred knights, stood firm and
entire; they couched their lances, and the Greeks deplore the
furious and irresistible shock of the French cavalry. ^75 Alexius
was not deficient in the duties of a soldier or a general; but he
no sooner beheld the slaughter of the Varangians, and the flight
of the Turks, than he despised his subjects, and despaired of his
fortune. The princess Anne, who drops a tear on this melancholy
event, is reduced to praise the strength and swiftness of her
father's horse, and his vigorous struggle when he was almost
overthrown by the stroke of a lance, which had shivered the
Imperial helmet. His desperate valor broke through a squadron of
Franks who opposed his flight; and after wandering two days and
as many nights in the mountains, he found some repose, of body,
though not of mind, in the walls of Lychnidus. The victorious
Robert reproached the tardy and feeble pursuit which had suffered
the escape of so illustrious a prize: but he consoled his
disappointment by the trophies and standards of the field, the
wealth and luxury of the Byzantine camp, and the glory of
defeating an army five times more numerous than his own. A
multitude of Italians had been the victims of their own fears;
but only thirty of his knights were slain in this memorable day.
In the Roman host, the loss of Greeks, Turks, and English,
amounted to five or six thousand: ^76 the plain of Durazzo was
stained with noble and royal blood; and the end of the impostor
Michael was more honorable than his life.

[Footnote 73: It is very properly translated by the President
Cousin, (Hist. de Constantinople, tom. iv. p. 131, in 12mo.,) qui
combattoit comme une Pallas, quoiqu'elle ne fut pas aussi savante
que celle d'Athenes. The Grecian goddess was composed of two
discordant characters, of Neith, the workwoman of Sais in Egypt,
and of a virgin Amazon of the Tritonian lake in Libya, (Banier,
Mythologie, tom. iv. p. 1 - 31, in 12mo.)]

[Footnote 74: Anna Comnena (l. iv. p. 116) admires, with some
degree of terror, her masculine virtues. They were more familiar
to the Latins and though the Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) mentions her
presence and her wound, he represents her as far less intrepid.

Uxor in hoc bello Roberti forte sagitta

Quadam laesa fuit: quo vulnere territa nullam.

Dum sperabat opem, se poene subegerat hosti.

The last is an unlucky word for a female prisoner.]

[Footnote 75: (Anna, l. v. p. 133;) and elsewhere, (p. 140.) The
pedantry of the princess in the choice of classic appellations
encouraged Ducange to apply to his countrymen the characters of
the ancient Gauls.]

[Footnote 76: Lupus Protospata (tom. iii. p. 45) says 6000:
William the Apulian more than 5000, (l. iv. p. 273.) Their
modesty is singular and laudable: they might with so little
trouble have slain two or three myriads of schismatics and
infidels!]

It is more than probable that Guiscard was not afflicted by
the loss of a costly pageant, which had merited only the contempt
and derision of the Greeks. After their defeat, they still
persevered in the defence of Durazzo; and a Venetian commander
supplied the place of George Palaeologus, who had been
imprudently called away from his station. The tents of the
besiegers were converted into barracks, to sustain the inclemency
of the winter; and in answer to the defiance of the garrison,
Robert insinuated, that his patience was at least equal to their
obstinacy. ^77 Perhaps he already trusted to his secret
correspondence with a Venetian noble, who sold the city for a
rich and honorable marriage. At the dead of night, several
rope-ladders were dropped from the walls; the light Calabrians
ascended in silence; and the Greeks were awakened by the name and
trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they defended the streets three
days against an enemy already master of the rampart; and near
seven months elapsed between the first investment and the final
surrender of the place. From Durazzo, the Norman duke advanced
into the heart of Epirus or Albania; traversed the first
mountains of Thessaly; surprised three hundred English in the
city of Castoria; approached Thessalonica; and made
Constantinople tremble. A more pressing duty suspended the
prosecution of his ambitious designs. By shipwreck, pestilence,
and the sword, his army was reduced to a third of the original
numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he was
informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers
which had been produced by his absence: the revolt of the cities
and barons of Apulia; the distress of the pope; and the approach
or invasion of Henry king of Germany. Highly presuming that his
person was sufficient for the public safety, he repassed the sea
in a single brigantine, and left the remains of the army under
the command of his son and the Norman counts, exhorting Bohemond
to respect the freedom of his peers, and the counts to obey the
authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod in the
footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by
the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom
devours whatever has escaped the teeth of the former. ^78 After
winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the
plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of
Achilles, ^79 which contained the treasure and magazines of the
Byzantine camp. Yet a just praise must not be refused to the
fortitude and prudence of Alexius, who bravely struggled with the
calamities of the times. In the poverty of the state, he
presumed to borrow the superfluous ornaments of the churches: the
desertion of the Manichaeans was supplied by some tribes of
Moldavia: a reenforcement of seven thousand Turks replaced and
revenged the loss of their brethren; and the Greek soldiers were
exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of
ambuscades and evolutions. Alexius had been taught by
experience, that the formidable cavalry of the Franks on foot was
unfit for action, and almost incapable of motion; ^80 his archers
were directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the
man; and a variety of spikes and snares were scattered over the
ground on which he might expect an attack. In the neighborhood
of Larissa the events of war were protracted and balanced. The
courage of Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful;
but his camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city
was impregnable; and the venal or discontented counts deserted
his standard, betrayed their trusts, and enlisted in the service
of the emperor. Alexius returned to Constantinople with the
advantage, rather than the honor, of victory. After evacuating
the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of
Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who
esteemed his merit, and sympathized in his misfortune.

[Footnote 77: The Romans had changed the inauspicious name of
Epi-damnus to Dyrrachium, (Plin. iii. 26;) and the vulgar
corruption of Duracium (see Malaterra) bore some affinity to
hardness. One of Robert's names was Durand, a durando: poor wit!

(Alberic. Monach. in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom.
ix. p. 137.)]

[Footnote 78: (Anna, l. i. p. 35.) By these similes, so different
from those of Homer she wishes to inspire contempt as well as
horror for the little noxious animal, a conqueror. Most
unfortunately, the common sense, or common nonsense, of mankind,
resists her laudable design.]

[Footnote 79: Prodiit hac auctor Trojanae cladis Achilles. The
supposition of the Apulian (l. v. p. 275) may be excused by the
more classic poetry of Virgil, (Aeneid. ii. 197,) Larissaeus
Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer.]

[Footnote 80: The items which encumbered the knights on foot,
have been ignorantly translated spurs, (Anna Comnena, Alexias, l.
v. p. 140.) Ducange has explained the true sense by a ridiculous
and inconvenient fashion, which lasted from the xith to the xvth
century. These peaks, in the form of a scorpion, were sometimes
two feet and fastened to the knee with a silver chain.]



Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.

Part IV.

Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of
Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry the Third or
Fourth, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the
West. The epistle of the Greek monarch ^81 to his brother is
filled with the warmest professions of friendship, and the most
lively desire of strengthening their alliance by every public and
private tie. He congratulates Henry on his success in a just and
pious war; and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is
disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Norman Robert. The
lists of his presents expresses the manners of the age - a
radiated crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the
breast, a case of relics, with the names and titles of the
saints, a vase of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most
probably of Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he
added a more solid present, of one hundred and forty-four
thousand Byzantines of gold, with a further assurance of two
hundred and sixteen thousand, so soon as Henry should have
entered in arms the Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath
the league against the common enemy. The German, ^82 who was
already in Lombardy at the head of an army and a faction,
accepted these liberal offers, and marched towards the south: his
speed was checked by the sound of the battle of Durazzo; but the
influence of his arms, or name, in the hasty return of Robert,
was a full equivalent for the Grecian bribe. Henry was the
severe adversary of the Normans, the allies and vassals of
Gregory the Seventh, his implacable foe. The long quarrel of the
throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and
ambition of that haughty priest: ^83 the king and the pope had
degraded each other; and each had seated a rival on the temporal
or spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and
death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy, to assume
the Imperial crown, and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of
the church. ^84 But the Roman people adhered to the cause of
Gregory: their resolution was fortified by supplies of men and
money from Apulia; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged
by the king of Germany. In the fourth year he corrupted, as it
is said, with Byzantine gold, the nobles of Rome, whose estates
and castles had been ruined by the war. The gates, the bridges,
and fifty hostages, were delivered into his hands: the anti-pope,
Clement the Third, was consecrated in the Lateran: the grateful
pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican; and the emperor
Henry fixed his residence in the Capitol, as the lawful successor
of Augustus and Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septizonium were
still defended by the nephew of Gregory: the pope himself was
invested in the castle of St. Angelo; and his last hope was in
the courage and fidelity of his Norman vassal. Their friendship
had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries and complaints;
but, on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by the
obligation of his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths,
by the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors.
Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of
the prince of the apostles: the most numerous of his armies, six
thousand horse, and thirty thousand foot, was instantly
assembled; and his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the
public applause and the promise of the divine favor. Henry,
invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach;
recollected some indispensable affairs that required his presence
in Lombardy; exhorted the Romans to persevere in their
allegiance; and hastily retreated three days before the entrance
of the Normans. In less than three years, the son of Tancred of
Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the pope, and of
compelling the two emperors, of the East and West, to fly before
his victorious arms. ^85 But the triumph of Robert was clouded by
the calamities of Rome. By the aid of the friends of Gregory,
the walls had been perforated or scaled; but the Imperial faction
was still powerful and active; on the third day, the people rose
in a furious tumult; and a hasty word of the conqueror, in his
defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage. ^86 The
Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his
brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the
holy city of the Christians: many thousands of the citizens, in
the sight, and by the allies, of their spiritual father were
exposed to violation, captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter
of the city, from the Lateran to the Coliseum, was consumed by
the flames, and devoted to perpetual solitude. ^87 From a city,
where he was now hated, and might be no longer feared, Gregory
retired to end his days in the palace of Salerno. The artful
pontiff might flatter the vanity of Guiscard with the hope of a
Roman or Imperial crown; but this dangerous measure, which would
have inflamed the ambition of the Norman, must forever have
alienated the most faithful princes of Germany.

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