DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0200
184
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
plunder and the pleasure of an active and conquering life
alike agreed in making the proposition welcome ; and thus
the sons of Tancred de Hauteville, and their followers
took payment under the Greek Emperor.
On joining the troops of the catapan in April, these
keen observers noted with surprise the negligence of the
Greek host, and the general improvidence and carelessness
evinced in the administration of a province but lately
rescued from open rebellion ; and these observations were
not lost to them, as we shall presently see.
Meanwhile, their auxiliary aid was of the greatest
service to the Greeks in Sicily. Ever foremost in the
fight, and as persevering as they were brave, they con-
tributed greatly to the success of the expedition.
The Greek authorities treated them at first with the
utmost deference and favour ; but, as was to be expected,
dissensions arose when the partition of the spoils was
begun. The Normans were overbearing and rapacious;
the Greeks jealous and faithless.
Messina and Syracuse had meantime been recon-
quered from the Saracens. William of the Iron Hand
had slain an emir in single fight at the siege of the
latter city, and the greater part of the island owned the
Imperial dominion, when the catapan refused to the
Norman allies the half of the spoils of war—which was
the share they demanded. A tumultuous scene followed,
but a barbarous and impolitic act of cruelty of the cata-
pan brought on a bloody crisis.
He ordered the Norman interpreter, Ardoin, a Lom-
bard by birth, to be stripped and shaved (an intolerable
indignity to the national feelings of a Lombard), and then
to be scourged round the camp.
The vengeance of the Normans was eminently charac-
teristic ; it was prompt, intrepid, politic, complete. In
a few fishing boats they crossed the Faro of Messina,
and landed on the coast of Italy.1 It was the depth of
winter ; and even in that southern climate winter, whilst
it lasts, is intensely severe in the snow-covered mountain
1 Chronique de Robert Viscart, Lib. i. and v. Cherier, Tom. i., p. 56.
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
plunder and the pleasure of an active and conquering life
alike agreed in making the proposition welcome ; and thus
the sons of Tancred de Hauteville, and their followers
took payment under the Greek Emperor.
On joining the troops of the catapan in April, these
keen observers noted with surprise the negligence of the
Greek host, and the general improvidence and carelessness
evinced in the administration of a province but lately
rescued from open rebellion ; and these observations were
not lost to them, as we shall presently see.
Meanwhile, their auxiliary aid was of the greatest
service to the Greeks in Sicily. Ever foremost in the
fight, and as persevering as they were brave, they con-
tributed greatly to the success of the expedition.
The Greek authorities treated them at first with the
utmost deference and favour ; but, as was to be expected,
dissensions arose when the partition of the spoils was
begun. The Normans were overbearing and rapacious;
the Greeks jealous and faithless.
Messina and Syracuse had meantime been recon-
quered from the Saracens. William of the Iron Hand
had slain an emir in single fight at the siege of the
latter city, and the greater part of the island owned the
Imperial dominion, when the catapan refused to the
Norman allies the half of the spoils of war—which was
the share they demanded. A tumultuous scene followed,
but a barbarous and impolitic act of cruelty of the cata-
pan brought on a bloody crisis.
He ordered the Norman interpreter, Ardoin, a Lom-
bard by birth, to be stripped and shaved (an intolerable
indignity to the national feelings of a Lombard), and then
to be scourged round the camp.
The vengeance of the Normans was eminently charac-
teristic ; it was prompt, intrepid, politic, complete. In
a few fishing boats they crossed the Faro of Messina,
and landed on the coast of Italy.1 It was the depth of
winter ; and even in that southern climate winter, whilst
it lasts, is intensely severe in the snow-covered mountain
1 Chronique de Robert Viscart, Lib. i. and v. Cherier, Tom. i., p. 56.