Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/319

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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
297

equal resolution ; and, in their common disdain for the unwarlike people of Greece and Asia, it was confessed on both sides that the Turks and the Franks were the only nations entitled to the appellation of soldiers.[1] Their encounter was varied and balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the brandished javelin; of a weighty broad-sword, and a crooked sabre; of cumbrous armour, and thin flowing robes;[2] and of the long Tartar bow, and the arbalist or cross-bow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown to the Orientals.[3] As long as the horses were fresh and the quivers full, Soliman maintained the advantage of the day; and four thousand Christians were pierced by the Turkish arrows. In the evening, swiftness yielded to strength; on either side, the numbers were equal, or at least as great as any ground could hold or any generals could manage; but in turning the hills the last division of Raymond and his provincials was led, perhaps without design, on the rear of an exhausted enemy; and the long contest was determined. Besides a nameless and unaccounted multitude, three thousand pagan knights were slain in the battle and pursuit; the camp of Soliman was pillaged; and in the variety of precious spoil the curiosity of the Latins was amused with foreign arms and apparel, and the new aspect of dromedaries and camels. The importance of the victory was proved by the hasty retreat of the sultan : reserving ten thousand guards of the relics of his army, Soliman evacuated the kingdom of Roum, and hastened to implore the aid, and kindle the resentment, of his Eastern brethren. March through the Lesser Asia. July-September In a march of five hundred miles, the crusaders traversed the Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted towns, without either finding a friend or an enemy. The geographer[4] may trace the position of Dorylæum, Antioch of

  1. Veruntamen dicunt se esse de Francorum generatione ; at quia nullus homo naturaliter debet esse miles nisi Fninci et Turci ((jesta Francorum, p. 7). The same community of blood and valour is attested by Archbishop Baldric (p. 99).
  2. [The painted windows of the Church of St. Denys, made by order of the Abbot Sugar in the 12th Cent., reproduced in Montfaucon's Monuments, plate li., &c. illustrated the armour of the Saracens.]
  3. Balista, Ballestra, Arbalestre. See Muratori, Antiq. torn. ii. p. 517-524. Ducange, Gloss. Latin, torn. i. p. 531, 532. In the time of Anna Comnena, this weapon, which she describes under the name of tzangra, was unknown in the East (1. X. p. 291 [c. 8]). By an humane inconsistency, the pope strove to prohibit it in Christian wars.
  4. The curious reader may compare the classic learning of Cellarius and the geographical science of D'.Anville. William of Tyre is the only historian of the crusades who has any knowledge of antiquity; and M. Otter trode almost in the footsteps of the Franks from Constantinople to Antioch (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. i. p. 35-88).