OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 345 sent to Damascus to an honourable prison, and speedy ransom ; but the victor}- was stained by the execution of two hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and ^^^f martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head ; and of the two grand masters of the military' orders, the one was slain, and the other was made a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the inland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field. TjTe and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin ; and three months after the battle of Tiberias he appeared in arms before the gates of Jerusalem."'^ He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on and city of earth and in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would a.d.ii87,' rekindle the last sparks of enthusiasm ; and that, of sixty thousand Christians, every man would be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But queen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband ; and the barons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and the chains of the Turks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the public ruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants were composed of the Greek and Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the Mahometan before the Latin yoke ; '^ and the holy sepulchre attracted a base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the defence of Jerusalem ; but in the space of fourteen days a victorious army drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their scaling ladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet and the sultan. It was in vain that a bare-foot pro- cession of the queen, the women, and the monks implored the Son of God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercy of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant deputation that mercy was sternly denied. " He had sworn to avenge the patience and long- suffering of the Moslems ; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, practice of Saladin, of never putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of the companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur (Abulfeda, p. 32). [Reginald had been prince of Antioch in 1154 (by marriage with Constance, the heiress. He had been a prisoner at Aleppo for sixteen years, and, after his release, married an- other heiress, Stephanie of Hebron. He took part in the battle of Ramlah in which Saladin was vanquished in 1177.] > Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and city (Hist, des Chevaliers de Malthe, torn. i. 1. ii. p. 226-278), inserts two original epistles of a knight-templac- iRfinaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.
