Return of Robert [A.D. 1082], and actions of Bohemond 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.[1] After winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles,[2] 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 reinforcement 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;[3] his archers were directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the man ; and a variety of spikes and snares was scattered over the ground on which he might expect an attack. In the neighbourhood 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 Greelcs; 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
- ↑ (
Greek characters) (Anna, 1. 1. p. 35 [c. 14]). 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.
- ↑ Prodiit hac auctor Trojanoe cladis Achilles.
The supposition of the Apitlian (I. v. p. 275) may be excused by the more classic poetry of Virgil (Æneid II. 197), Larissæus Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer.
- ↑ The (Greek characters), which incumbered the knights on foot, have been ignorantly translated spurs (Anna Comnena, Alexias, 1. v. p. 140 [c. 6]). 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.
