eorge
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: th