OF THE EOMAN EMPIKE 295 of the first conqueror ; and, in the defence of a land which the Turks considered as their own, he deserved the praise of his enemies, by whom alone he is known to posterity. Yielding to the first impulse of the torrent, he deposited his family and treasure in Nice, retired to the mountains with fifty thousand horse, and twice descended to assault the camps or quarters of the Christian besiegers, which formed an imperfect circle of above six miles. The lofty and solid walls of Nice were covered by a deep ditch, and flanked by three hundred and seventy towers ; and on the verge of Christendom the Moslems were trained in arms and inflamed by religion. Before this city, the French princes occupied their stations, and pro- secuted their attacks without correspondence or subordination ; emulation prompted their valour ; but their valour was sullied by cruelty, and their emulation degenerated into envy and civil discord. In the siege of Nice the arts and engines of antiquity were employed by the Latins ; the mine and the battering-ram, the tortoise, and the belfry or moveable turret, artificial fire, and the catapult and balixt, the sling, and the cross-bow for the casting of stones and darts. *^ In the space of seven weeks much labour and blood were expended, and some progress, especially by Count Raymond, was made on the side of the besiegers. But the Turks could protract their resistance and secure their escape, as long as they were masters of the lake Ascanius,^* which stretches several miles to the westward of the city. The means of conquest were supplied by the prudence and industry of Alexius ; a great number of boats was transported on sledges from the sea to the lake ; they were filled with the most dex- trous of his archers ; the flight of the sultana was intercepted ; Nice was invested by land and water ; and a Greek emissary persuaded the inhabitants to accept his master's protection, and to save themselves, by a timely surrender, from the rage of the subject of the first crusade (de Guignes, torn. iii. p. ii. p. 10-30). [This is not quite correct. Sulaiman died in 1086. After an interregnum of si.x years Kilij-Arslan, his son, succeeded in 1092, and reigned till 1106. The western historians confuse the two.] 83 On the fortifications, engines, and sieges of the middle ages, see Muratori (Antiquitat. Italia;, torn. ii. dissert. .xvi. p. 452-524). The belfredus, from whence our belfry, was the moveable tower of the ancients (Ducange, torn. i. p. 608). [See description of the berefridus in the Itinerarium regis Ricardi, iii. c. 6 (ed. Stubbs), and of the Kp<.o^r,pa% x«A"J») in Anna Comnena, xiii. c. 3 ; they .are the same engine. Compare on the whole subject, Oman, Art of War, ii. p. 131 sqq:
- ■* I cannot forbear remarking the resemblance between the siege and lake of
Nice, with the operations of Hernan Cortez before Mexico. See Dr. Robertson, Hist, of America, 1. v.
