Malaterra: DE REBUS GESTIS ROGERII CALABRIAE ET SICILIAE COMITIS ET ROBERTI GUISCARDI DUCIS FRATRIS EIUS

Si quaeritur quod, Calabria vel Apulia, iam ex parte non autem ex toto, -quantum ad ea quae in eis facta sunt- descriptis, apud Siciliam describentes transeamus, iterum, quasi digressionem facientes, ad eundem stilum reducturi, sciendum est quod unaquaeque res describenda suum locum, quantum ad tempus quo facta est, exigit, ut rationis series recto tramite testatur, ut quae priora facta sunt, praecedant, quae vero posteriora subsequendo describantur.

If it be asked why, with Calabria or Apulia already in part, not however in whole,—insofar as regards the things that were done in them—having been described, we pass over to Sicily, proceeding to describe it, again, as if making a digression, to be brought back to the same style, it must be known that each matter to be described demands its own place with respect to the time in which it was done, as the series of reason attests by a straight path, so that the things earlier done should precede, while the later be described in following.

Comes enim Rogerius, cum primum Siciliam debellaturus egressus est, quae apud Calabriam habebat, non deseruit; sed, cum opportunitas exigebat, exercitu in Siciliam interim dimisso, ipse ad sua negotia disponenda redibat. Multotiens etiam duci fratri auxilium laturus, vel certe in maioribus et dubiis rebus consilium daturus, ut strenuus miles et vir magni consilii, in Apuliam usque transibat.

For Count Roger, when first he went out to bring the war in Sicily to an end, did not desert the things he had in Calabria; but, when opportunity demanded, with the army meanwhile dispatched into Sicily, he himself would return to arrange his own affairs. Very often also, to carry aid to his brother the duke, or at any rate to give counsel in greater and doubtful matters, as a strenuous soldier and a man of great counsel, he crossed even into Apulia.

I. Elegantissimus igitur iuvenis comes Calabriae, Rogerius, cum apud Regium cum fratre duce, tota Calabria debellata, moraretur, Siciliam incredulam audiens, et brevissimo mari interposito ex proximo intuens, ut semper dominationis avidus erat, ambitione adipiscendi eam captus est, duo sibi proficua reputans, animae scilicet et corporis, si terram, idolis deditam, ad cultum divinum revocaret, et fructus vel redditus terrae, quos gens Deo ingrata sibi usurpaverat, ipse, in Dei servitio dispensaturus, temporaliter possideret.

1. Therefore the most elegant young Count of Calabria, Roger, while he was staying at Rhegium with his brother the duke, all Calabria having been fully subdued, hearing Sicily to be incredulous, and, with a very short sea intervening, viewing it from close by, as he was always avid of domination, was seized by the ambition of acquiring it, reckoning two things as profitable to himself—namely for soul and for body—if he should recall the land, given over to idols, to divine worship, and if he himself might possess, for a time, the fruits or revenues of the land which a nation ungrateful to God had usurped to itself, to dispense them in the service of God.

Haec secum animo revolvens, eorum, ad quae animum intendebat, non tardus executor, cum sexaginta tantum militibus, periculosissimo quamvis brevi pelago inter Scillam et Caribdim navaliter sese committens, Siciliam explorat et gentis suae militiam tentatum transmeando vadit.

Turning these things over with himself in mind, not a tardy executor of those aims to which he was directing his spirit, with only sixty soldiers, committing himself by ship to the most perilous, though brief, sea between Scylla and Charybdis, he reconnoiters Sicily and, by crossing over, goes to test the soldiery of his own people.

Est portui, quo applicuerunt, populosa civitas proxima, quae, a messe vocabulum trahens, -eo quod totius regionis messes, quantum Romanis in tributum antiquitus persolvebatur, illuc congregari solebat-Messana vocata est. Huius urbis cives, quorum plurima multitudo erat, hostes suos fines pervasisse cognoscentes, plurimum indignati, maxime quod paucos numero videbant, urbis portas maximo impetu prosilientes, ipsos occupatum vadunt. Porro comes, ut semper astutissimus et militia callens, primo timore simulato, cum eos longius ab urbe seduxisset, impetu facto, acerrime super eos irruens, in fugam vertit.

Nearest to the port at which they made land is a populous city, which, drawing its appellation from the harvest—because the harvests of the whole region, the portion which of old was paid to the Romans as tribute, used to be gathered there—was called Messana. The citizens of this city, whose multitude was very great, learning that their enemies had overrun their borders, were highly indignant, especially because they saw them few in number; bursting out through the city gates with the greatest onrush, they went to seize them. But the Count, as ever most astute and skilled in soldiery, at first with fear feigned, when he had lured them farther from the city, making a charge and rushing most fiercely upon them, turned them to flight.

Sicque extremos quosque cedendo, usque in portam civitatis longo reditu fugientibus, visu odibili comminator, reduxit. Spoliis itaque et equis illorum quos deiecerat acceptis, naves suas ingressus, Regium remeat, ad ducem fratrem suum.

And thus, by giving way to each of the hindmost, he drove the fugitives, in a long return, back as far as the city’s gate, a menace odious to behold. Therefore, taking the spoils and the horses of those whom he had unhorsed, having boarded his ships, he returns to Rhegium, to the duke, his brother.

II. Dux deinde Robertus cum comite Rogerio fratre suo in Apuliam hiematurus reversus est: ubi, quia iam aliquantulum temporis transierat, ex quo abinde recesserat, res suas quasi ab omnibus esse laesas et minus ordinatas inveniens, tota hieme consilio prudentiae suae resarciens, ad integrum reparavit. Apuliensesque principes, de novo ducatu accepto sibi congaudentes, pluribus donans, de expeditione versus Siciliam in proxima futura aestate facienda permonuit.

2. Then Duke Robert, with Count Roger his brother, returned into Apulia to winter; where, because already a little time had passed since he had departed from there, finding his affairs as though injured by all and less well ordered, by the counsel of his prudence throughout the winter repairing them, he restored them to integrity. And the Apulian princes, rejoicing with him over the new duchy received, he, bestowing many gifts, admonished about the expedition toward Sicily to be made in the next forthcoming summer.

III. Rogerius vero comes, duce relicto in Apulia, Regium in prima septimana ante quadragesimam remeavit, ad quem Betumen, admiraldus Siciliae, a Belcamedo, quodam principe, proelio fugatus, eo quod maritum sororis suae, honestum suae gentis iuvenem, vocabulo Benneclerum occiderat, apud Regium profugus, venit, comitem versus impugnationem Siciliae multis exhortationibus excitans.

3. But Count Roger, with the duke left behind in Apulia, returned to Regium in the first week before Lent, to whom Betumen, the admiral of Sicily, routed in battle by Belcamedus, a certain prince, because he had killed the husband of his sister, an honorable young man of his nation, by the name Benneclerus, came to him at Regium as a refugee, rousing the count by many exhortations toward the assault on Sicily.

IV. De cuius adventu comes non minimum gavisus, eum honorifice suscepit, eiusque consilio, necdum hieme transacta, hebdomada videlicet proxima ante quadragesimam, cum centum sexaginta militibus, ipsum Betumen secum, eo quod patriam sciebat, ducens, Farumque ad Clibanum tegularum transiens, Siciliam invadit. Dumque, Betumene, qui ad se transfugerat, ductore, versus Melacium praedatum iturus, de nocte, haud longe a civitate Messanae transiret, obvium habuit quendam sarracenum, militia inter suos nominatissimum, fratrem scilicet Bennecleri, pro cuius occasione Betumen a Sicilia eiectus fuerat. Hic nempe, cum in praecedenti vespere persensisset comitem armata manu Siciliam intrasse, militia sua plus necessario praesumens, a Messana progressus nocturnus hostis, ut sibi aliquod militare nomen in damno hostium acquireret, tentatum ibat.

4. On whose arrival the count, rejoicing not a little, received him honorably, and by his counsel, the winter not yet passed—namely in the week next before Lent—taking with him one hundred sixty knights and leading Betumen himself along, since he knew the country, and crossing the Pharos at the Tile-kiln, he invaded Sicily. And while, with Betumen—who had defected to him—as his guide, he was going to make a foray toward Melacium, as he was passing by night not far from the city of Messana, he encountered a certain Saracen, most renowned in soldiery among his own, namely the brother of Benneclerus, on whose account Betumen had been driven from Sicily. This man, when on the preceding evening he had perceived that the count had entered Sicily with an armed band, presuming more than necessary upon his soldiery, having advanced from Messana as a nocturnal enemy, went to attempt something, that he might acquire for himself some military renown by damage to the enemy.

Comes vero Rogerius, inermis, excepto clypeo solo et ense quo accinctus erat - armiger namque cum armis subsequebatur - socios praecedebat, oculos intentissime circumquaque ducens. Dumque illum adventantem sub pallore lunae deprehendisset, perlongum ducens ab armigero arma recipere, ne forte, si etiam ille sub umbra viseret, aufugeret, impetu facto, solo ense super eum irruens, unoque ictu medium corripiens, secavit: de corpore, duabus partibus factis, equumque et spolia cuidam suorum dedit. Inde Melacium et Ramectam usque pertransiens, plurimum praedae accepto, ad tres lacus iuxta Farum, qui Praroli dicuntur, hospitaturus rediit ; in crastinum ad ultimas aquas usque progrediens, praedam, quam acceperat, Regium deferendam navibus posuit.

But Count Roger, unarmed, except for a shield alone and the sword with which he was girt—the armor-bearer, namely, was following with the arms—was going before his companions, directing his eyes most intently everywhere. And when he had detected him approaching under the pallor of the moon, drawing it out at great length to receive his arms from the armor-bearer, lest perchance, if the other too should see under the shadow, he might take flight, with a charge made, rushing upon him with only the sword, and with one blow seizing him in the middle, he cut him through: the body being made into two parts, and he gave the horse and the spoils to one of his men. Thence, passing through as far as Melacium and Ramecta, having taken very much booty, he returned to lodge at the three lakes near the Pharos, which are called Praroli ; on the morrow advancing as far as the farthest waters, he set the booty that he had taken to be carried to Rhegium by ships.

V. Porro Messanenses putantes, quibusdam iam naves ingressis, se illos quasi semipartitos facilius posse occupare, equitatu et peditatu, omnes ab urbe egressi, invadere vadunt. Verum, quia ventus contrarius erat, nullus armatorum naves intraverat. Comes vero, cognoscens eos versus se adventare, Serlonem, nepotem suum, videlicet Serlonis fratris sui filium, cuius superius in fine primi Libri mentionem fecimus, ne si fugere, sicut et fecerunt, vellent, liberius possent, sic praemissum, ipse velocius subsecutus dum fugere nituntur, ita intercepit, ut vix ex tanta multitudine unus evaserit.

5. Furthermore, the Messinese, thinking, as certain men had already entered the ships, that they could more easily seize them as if half-divided, all, with cavalry and infantry, went out from the city to attack. But, because the wind was contrary, none of the armed men had entered the ships. The Count, however, recognizing that they were coming toward him, sent forward Serlo, his nephew, namely the son of his brother Serlo, of whom we made mention above at the end of the first Book, so that, if they should wish to flee—as indeed they did—they might not be able to do so more freely; he himself, following more swiftly, while they strive to flee, intercepted them in such wise that scarcely one out of so great a multitude escaped.

VI. Messanensibus suorum funera flentibus, comes penes civitatem transiens, in insula Sancti Iacynti, haud longe ab urbe hospitatum vadit; summoque diluculo Messanam, quasi viribus exhaustam, oppugnare vadit. Sed Messanensibus, quamvis paucis, qui adhuc supererant, cum ipsis mulieribus armatis turres et pro pugnacula seseque certatim ut pro vita defendentibus, comes, ne Sicilia, tali facto excitata, super eum irruat, ad tentoria sua rediens, de transitu versus Regium tractare coepit. Mare vero turbatum cum periculosum transitum obstentaret, comes, sapienti usus consilio, totam praedam, quam ceperat, sancto Andronio, ad ecclesiam suam reaedificandam, iuxta Regium dandam proposuerat: destructa quippe erat noviter.

6. With the Messanans weeping over the funerals of their own, the count, passing by the city, goes to lodge on the island of Saint Hyacinth, not far from the city; and at the very dawn he goes to attack Messana, as if drained of forces. But with the Messanans—though few—who still survived, with the women themselves armed, defending the towers and the fortifications and themselves, vying as for their lives, the count, lest Sicily, roused by such a deed, should rush upon him, returning to his tents began to treat of a crossing toward Rhegium. But since the sea, being turbulent, was obstructing a dangerous passage, the count, using wise counsel, had proposed to give all the booty he had taken to Saint Andronius, for the rebuilding of his church near Rhegium; for it had lately been destroyed.

Sicque meritis eiusdem Sancti, ut credimus, aura prospere flante, mare sedatum sese transmeabile praebens, impune transire permisit.

And so, by the merits of that same Saint, as we believe, with a breeze blowing prosperously, the sea, calmed and presenting itself as crossable, permitted a crossing with impunity.

VII. Ne videatur hoc factum, quod praedam Deo obtulerunt, contrarium canonicis sanctionibus, propter illud quod dicitur: Qui immolat victimam ex rapina vel ex substantia pauperis, quasi qui victimat filium in cospectu patris, cum hoc potissimum accipiendum sit dictum de substantia pauperum Christi, de quibus et alibi dictum est: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est Regnum coelorum, non esse absurdum scimus, qui Deum nec ore nec corde confitentur. Sed quod aufertur, Deo offerre haud absurdum videtur, nam acceptis ingratis utuntur, a quibus ipse largitor non recognoscitur.

7. Lest this deed, that they offered the spoil to God, appear contrary to canonical sanctions, on account of that saying: He who immolates a victim from rapine or from the substance of a poor man is as one who immolates a son in the sight of his father, since this is chiefly to be taken as said of the substance of the poor of Christ—of whom elsewhere it is said: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven—we know it is not absurd in the case of those who confess God neither with mouth nor with heart. Rather, to offer to God what is taken away does not seem absurd, for they use with ingratitude the things received, by whom the Giver himself is not acknowledged.

VIII. Comes igitur Rogerius, toto mense martio et aprili per Calabriam utilitates prudenter ordinans, navibus et reliquis necessariis commeatibus expeditionem iterum versus Siciliam certatim parat. Maio itaque intrante, dux, ab Apulia cum maximo equitatu Regium veniens, etiam navalem exercitum per mare venire fecit.

8. Count Roger, throughout the whole month of March and April prudently arranging the resources through Calabria, with ships and the other necessary supplies, eagerly prepares the expedition again toward Sicily. Therefore, with May entering, the duke, coming from Apulia to Rhegium with a very great cavalry, also caused the naval force to come by sea.

Belcamet vero, admiraldus Siciliae, audiens expeditionem versus Siciliam apparari, naves, quas cattos appellant, quae hostium transitum impediant, a Panormo in Farum mittens, per aliquot dies hostes transire impediunt. Nam, quamvis noster navalis exercitus plurimus esset, eorum tamen amplior et fortioribus navibus abundantior erat. Nostri denique tantummodo germundos et galeas, Sicilienses vero cattos et golafros, sed et dromundos et diversae fabricae naves habebant.

Belcamet, in truth, the admiral of Sicily, hearing that an expedition was being prepared toward Sicily, sending the ships which they call “cattos,” which impede the transit of the enemy, from Panormus into the Faro, for several days prevent the enemies from crossing. For although our naval army was very numerous, theirs nevertheless was larger and more abounding with stronger ships. Our men, in fine, had only germunds and galleys; the Sicilians, however, had cattos and golafros, and also dromunds and ships of diverse fabrication.

IX. Dux ita sibi transitum turbari videns, cum frate comite et sapientibus exercitus, accepto consilio, divinum invocat auxilium. Exercitui, ut sacerdotibus confiteantur et, poenitentia suscepta, omnes communicent, indicit; ipse cum fratre, si terra divino auxilio illis tribuatur, sese deinceps Deo devotiores futuros voto promittunt, certa fide in mente retinentes quod scriptum est: In omnibus negotiis tuis Deus adiutorem tibi assume, et habebis prosperos effectus. Et quia non est consilium contra Dominum, et quod nulla proficiendi difficultas est, ubi Spiritus Sanctus cooperator adest, in omnibus, quae facere disponebant, Deum ordinatorem et fortiorem gubernatorem lacrimabili compunctione cordis implorant.

9. The Duke, thus seeing the crossing being thrown into disorder for himself, with his brother the Count and the wise men of the army, counsel having been taken, invokes divine aid. He enjoins upon the army that they confess to the priests and, penance having been undertaken, all communicate; he himself with his brother, if the land shall be granted to them by divine aid, promise by a vow that thereafter they will be more devoted to God, retaining with sure faith in mind that which is written: In all your undertakings take God as a helper for yourself, and you will have prosperous effects. And since there is no counsel against the Lord, and that there is no difficulty in making progress where the Holy Spirit as cooperator is present, in all things which they were arranging to do, with tearful compunction of heart they implore God as the ordainer and stronger governor.

X. Comes itaque Rogerius, videns hostes ex altera ripa contra suum exercitum adiacere et nusquam promoveri, ad callida argumenta, ut solitus erat, ac si legisset: Quid refert? Armis contingat palma dolisve, convertitur, consiliumque duci dedit: ut, ibidem cum exercitu remanens, sese hostibus ostentaret; ipse interim, cum centum quinquaginta militibus Regium usque progrediens, navibusque sibi abinde sub nocturna umbra contraductis, mare, nescientibus hostibus, transiens, Siciliam invaderet. Duce vero, timore amittendi fratrem, hoc negante et dicente se nil per fratris mortem lucrari velle, sed potius fratris vitam omni lucro praeponere, Regium, praemissis navibus, ipse comes cum trecentis militibus subsecutus, ut semper militia praesumptuosus et magnarum rerum attentator, mare, incertis hostibus, impune transiens, ad locum, qui Trium Monasterium dicitur, applicuit; navesque remittens, ne forte aliquis suorum ad illas refugeret, Messallam oppugnatum vadit.

10. Count Roger, therefore, seeing the enemies lying along the other bank opposite his army and that there was no advance anywhere, turns to crafty stratagems, as he was wont, as if he had read: What does it matter? Let the palm be obtained by arms or by wiles; and he gave counsel to the duke: that, remaining there with the army, he should display himself to the enemies; meanwhile he himself, advancing with one hundred and fifty soldiers as far as Reggio, and having ships brought round thence to himself under the nocturnal shadow, crossing the sea, with the enemies not knowing, should invade Sicily. But the duke, for fear of losing his brother, denied this and said that he wished to gain nothing through his brother’s death, but rather to prefer his brother’s life to every gain; Reggio having been anticipated by the dispatch of ships, the count himself, with three hundred soldiers following, as one ever presumptuous in soldiery and an attempter of great things, the enemies being uncertain, crossing with impunity, made landfall at the place which is called Trium Monasterium; and sending back the ships, lest perhaps any of his men should flee for refuge to them, he goes to besiege Messalla.

Quam inermem inveniens -nam iamdudum defensores eius peremerat - urbe capta, turres et propugnacula eius diruit: quos invenerunt interfectis, quibusdam vero ad Panormitanas naves transfugientibus, anno ab incarnatione Domini MLX[I].

Finding it unarmed - for he had long since slain its defenders - with the city captured, he tore down its towers and ramparts: those whom they found were killed, while certain men deserted to the Panormitan ships, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1061.

XI. Inter quos et quidam iuvenis de nobilioribus Messanae urbis civibus, sororem habens pulcherrimam, dum fugiens secum adducere nititur: puella, ut tenuis virguncula, et debilis naturae, laboris expers, timore et insolito cursu deficere coepit. Frater vero, ad fugam dulcissime illam verbis excitans, dum minime proficit, viribus exhaustam videns, ne, inter Normannos remanens, ab aliquo eorum corrumperetur, gladio appetens, interfecit. Et quamvis prae dulcedine sororis lacrimis perfunderetur - unica enim erat - maluit sororis interemptor fieri et mortuam quoque flere, quam soror legis suae praevaricatrix fieret et ab aliquo lege sua non contento stupraretur.

11. Among whom also a certain young man from the nobler citizens of the city of Messana, having a most beautiful sister, while fleeing strove to lead her along with him: the girl, as a slight little maiden, and of weak nature, unacquainted with labor, began to fail from fear and from the unusual running. The brother, however, very sweetly urging her with words to flight, while he by no means made progress, seeing her exhausted of strength, lest, remaining among the Normans, she be corrupted by any one of them, assailing with the sword, killed her. And although, for the sweetness of his sister, he was drenched with tears - for she was his only one - he preferred to become the slayer of his sister and to weep her even dead, rather than that his sister should become a transgressor of his law and be defiled by someone not content with his law.

XII. Porro Panormitani, urbe Messanae capta, se delusos ab hostibus cognoscentes, timentes ne forte tum mare turbatum, si illic diutius morarentur, eos ad terram cogeret, et ab hostibus opprimerentur, confusi, vela, unde venerant, direxerunt. Ipsius vero urbis captae claves comes Rogerius ad ducem transmisit, mandans ei quatenus secure navigando acceleret ad se. Sicque, mari hostibus purgato, patenti absque periculo transitu, dux, cum omni exercitu placido cursu transmeans, Messanam venit fratremque sanum inveniens, non minimum congavisi sunt.

12. Furthermore the Palermitans, the city of Messina having been taken, recognizing themselves to have been deluded by the enemies, fearing lest perhaps then the troubled sea, if they should linger there longer, would drive them to land, and that they would be overwhelmed by the enemies, in confusion they directed their sails back to whence they had come. But Count Roger sent to the duke the keys of the captured city itself, instructing him that by sailing securely he should hasten to him. And thus, the sea purged of enemies, with the passage lying open without danger, the duke, crossing over with all the army at a placid course, came to Messina, and finding his brother sound, they rejoiced together not a little.

XIII. Rebus itaque suis per octo dies sapienter dispositis et urbe pro velle suo firmata, custodibus dimissis, equestri exercitu et navibus apud Messanam relictis, versus Ramectam utrique fratres intendunt. Ramectentes autem, iamdudum cognito in parva manu hostium eorumdem maximam multitudinem Messanensium bellatorum occubuisse, ne quid simile sibi accidat, advenientibus hostibus obviam territi, legatos, qui pacem postulent, mittunt, urbemque et seipsos ditioni dedentes, libris superstitionis legis suae coram positis, iuramento fidelitatem firmant.

13. Therefore, with their affairs wisely arranged over eight days and the city secured according to their will, the guards having been dispatched, the equestrian host and the ships left at Messana, both brothers direct their course toward Ramecta. But the Ramectans, having long since learned that, in a small band of those same enemies, a very great multitude of Messanensian fighting-men had fallen, lest something similar happen to themselves, terrified at the approach of the enemies to encounter them, send envoys to request peace; and, surrendering the city and themselves to their dominion, with the books of the superstition of their law set before them, they confirm their fealty by an oath.

XIV. Inde de prospero eventu cum maxima laetitia recedentes et, debilitate gentis cognita, audaciores sub Scabatripoli hospitium sumunt. Inde in crastinum ad Fraxinos perveniunt, et a Fraxinis ad Maniaci pratum.

14. Thence, departing with the greatest joy over the prosperous outcome and, the weakness of the people having been perceived, bolder, they take lodging beneath Scabatripolis. Thence on the morrow they arrive at Fraxini, and from Fraxini to the meadow of Maniaces.

Hic Christiani, in valle Deminae manentes, sub Sarracenis tributarii erant. De Christianorum adventu gavisi, illis occurrerunt, multaque exenia et donaria obtulerunt: hanc excusationem contra Sarracenos assumentes, quod, non causa amoris, sed ut seipsos et quae sua erant tuerentur, hoc facerent, fidelitatem vero suam illis inviolabilem se servaturos. Fratres vero utrique, eos cum maxima dulcedine suscipientes, multa beneficia se illis collaturos, si terra sibi a Deo concedatur, promittunt.

Here the Christians, remaining in the valley of Demina, were tributary under the Saracens. Rejoicing at the arrival of the Christians, they went to meet them, and offered many gifts and donatives; adopting this excuse toward the Saracens, that they did this not for the sake of love, but in order to protect themselves and what was theirs, and that they would keep their fealty to them inviolate. But the two brothers, receiving them with the greatest sweetness, promise to confer many benefits upon them, if the land should be granted to themselves by God.

Sic in pace dimissis, ipsi Centurbium usque pertendunt.

Thus, with them dismissed in peace, they themselves proceed as far as Centurbium.

XV. Sed Centurbienses, quamvis strenuitatem ipsorum non ignorarent, mori tamen non abhorrentes, cum nullo modo servire volunt, in defensione urbis et sua propugnacula armant. Nostri vero fortiter oppugnantes civitatem, cum viderent suos a fundibulariis et a sagittariis vexari et sine detrimento suorum versus urbem nil se posse proficere, ab oppugnatione desistunt, maxime quia in proximo sibi a Sarracenis bellum imminere audiebant: contra quos suos, ne vexarentur vel numero diminuerentur, reservabant.

15. But the Centurbians, although they were not ignorant of their prowess, yet not shrinking from dying, since in no way do they wish to serve, arm their own bulwarks in defense of the city. But our men, stoutly attacking the city, when they saw their own being harassed by slingers and archers, and that toward the city they could make no progress without loss to their own, desist from the assault, especially because they heard that war from the Saracens was imminent at hand: against whom they were reserving their own, lest they be harassed or diminished in number.

XVI. Sic Centurbio relicto, in planicie Paternionis castrametati, tentoria figunt. Visaque planicie apta et spatiosa ad proeliandum, per octo dies illuc morati sunt, volentes ut a Sarracenis inibi sibi proelium dispositum offerretur.

16. Thus, Centurbium left behind, on the plain of Paternion they encamped, pitching their tents. And the plain having seemed apt and spacious for fighting, they stayed there for eight days, wishing that a battle set in array might be offered to them there by the Saracens.

Sed cum a speculatoribus Betuminis Sarraceni, qui apud Regium ad comitem transfugerat et illis fidus comes et ductor comitabatur, didicissent bellum necdum in promptu haberi, ulterius progredientes, apud Sanctum Felicem, iuxta cryptas subterraneas, hospitati sunt: quas oppugnantes, maxima ex parte coeperunt, pluribus ex inhabitantibus interemptis. Inde progressi ad molendina, ante Castrum-Iohannis, in ripa fluminis, quod lingua eorum Guedetani dicitur - quod latine resolutum flumen paludis interpretatur -, castrametati sunt.

But when, from the scouts of Betumen the Saracen—who at Reggio had defected to the count and was accompanying them as a faithful companion and guide—they had learned that the war was not yet at hand, advancing further, at Saint Felix, near the subterranean crypts, they took lodging: which, attacking, they seized for the most part, with many of the inhabitants slain. Thence proceeding to the mills, before Castle-John, on the bank of the river which in their tongue is called Guedetani - which, rendered into Latin, is interpreted “river of the marsh” -, they encamped.

XVII. Belcamet igitur, numerosa multitudine Africanorum et Siciliensium coadunata, bellum, quod diu disposuerat, hostibus offert, anno ab incarnatione Domini MLXI. Porro dux, esercitum semipartiens - erant enim tantummodo septingenti - et ex ipsis duas acies ordinans, unam fratri, ut priori, sicuti sibi moris erat, ut hostem feriat, delegat; ipse cum altera, suos alacriter verbis exhortando, subsequi non tardat.

17. Belcamet therefore, a numerous multitude of Africans and Sicilians coadunated, offers to the enemies the war which he had long disposed, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1061. Furthermore, the duke, half-dividing the army—for they were only seven hundred—and from these arranging two battle-lines, assigns one, as the foremost, to his brother, just as was his custom, that he might strike the enemy; he himself with the other does not delay to follow, briskly exhorting his men with words.

Similiter Belcamet, cum quindecim millia armatorum haberet, tres acies instituit, cum quibus primo quidem audacissime hostibus occurrens, certamen iniit. Porro nostri, ex more in primo congressu fortiter agendo, plurimos sternentes, reliquos in fugam verterunt; quos cedendo, versus Castrum-Iohannis persequentes, usque ad decem millia occiderunt. Sicque victoriam adepti, spoliis quidem sunt ditati in tantum, ut qui equum unum in proelio perdiderit, pro uno decem recipiens: consimili lucro ad similem exercitum accedere non dubitaret.

Similarly Belcamet, when he had fifteen thousand armed men, instituted three battle-lines, with which, first indeed, most boldly meeting the enemies, he entered the contest. Moreover our men, according to custom by acting bravely in the first encounter, laying very many low, turned the rest to flight; and, as they were yielding, pursuing them toward Castrum-Iohannis, they slew up to ten thousand. And thus, having obtained the victory, they were enriched with spoils to such an extent that whoever had lost one horse in the battle, receiving ten in exchange for one, would not hesitate, for similar lucre, to enter upon a similar expedition.

In crastino itaque proprius castrum progredientes, ad locum, qui est inter Castrum-Iohannis et Naurcium, sola nocte hospitati, die sequenti in monte, qui Calataxibet dicitur, tentoria figunt. Sed, quia mons strictior erat et minus ad hospitandum exercitui sufficiens, ad Planiciem Fontium transierunt. Comes vero Rogerius, quietis impatiens et laboris avidus, trecentos iuvenes secum ducens, usque Agrigentum praedatum et terram inspectum vadit, totam provinciam incendio concremando devastans.

On the morrow, therefore, advancing nearer the castle, to the place which is between Castrum-Iohannis and Naurcium, having lodged for a single night, on the following day on the mountain which is called Calataxibet they pitch their tents. But, because the mountain was straiter and less sufficient for lodging the army, they crossed to the Plain of the Springs. Count Roger, however, impatient of rest and avid of labor, leading three hundred youths with him, goes as far as Agrigentum to plunder and to inspect the land, devastating the whole province by burning with fire.

Cum redit, spoliis et praeda totum exercitum abundanter replevit. Per mensem itaque ibi perdurantes, totam provinciam, diversis incursionibus lacerantes, afflixerunt; sed Castro-Iohannis minime praevaluerunt. In ipso anno dux castrum Marci fecit.

When he returned, he abundantly replenished the whole army with spoils and booty. Therefore, remaining there for a month, lacerating the whole province with diverse incursions, they afflicted it; but at Castrum-Iohannis they did not at all prevail. In that very year the duke constructed the castle of Marci.

XVIII. Hiemem itaque vicinam praevidentes, expeditionem solvunt; Betumen vero in sua fidelitate apud Cathaniam - sui enim iuris erat - dimittentes, qui Siciliam interim lacessat, ipsi Messanam reversi sunt. Quam militibus, qui eam custodiant, et his, quae militibus necessaria forent, munientes, Faro transmeato, dux quidem in Apuliam, hiemandi gratia, secessit, comes vero in Calabria remansit.

18. Therefore, foreseeing the near winter, they broke up the expedition; but leaving Betumen in his own fealty at Catania — for it was of his own right — to harry Sicily in the meantime, they themselves returned to Messina. Which they fortified with soldiers to guard it, and with those things that would be necessary for the soldiers; the Faro crossed, the duke withdrew into Apulia for the sake of wintering, while the count remained in Calabria.

Media vero hieme, videlicet ante natalem Domini, cum ducentis quinquaginta militibus iterum mare transiens, usque ad Agrigentinam urbem, totam patriam sollicitans, praedatum vadit. Christiani vero provinciarum, sibi cum maxima laetitia occurrentes, in multis subsecuti sunt. Inde Traynam veniens, a christianis civibus, qui eam incolebant, cum gaudio susceptus, urbem intrat: quam pro velle suo ordinans, ibidem natalem Domini celebravit.

In mid-winter, to wit, before the Nativity of the Lord, crossing the sea again with 250 soldiers, he goes as far as the city of Agrigentum, stirring up the whole fatherland, to plunder. But the Christians of the provinces, meeting him with greatest gladness, followed in great numbers. Thence coming to Trayna, by the Christian citizens who inhabited it he was received with joy, and he enters the city; arranging it according to his own will, there he celebrated the Nativity of the Lord.

XIX. Sic legatus quidam, a Calabria veniens, nuntiavit abbatem Sanctae Euphemiae, Robertum, a Normannia, a Iudicta, sorore sua, nepte Normannorum comitum, adducta, mandare sibi, ut acceleret versus nuptias celebrandas. Quod comes audiens, multum exhilaratus erat.

19. Thus a certain legate, coming from Calabria, announced that Abbot Robert of Saint Euphemia, with Judith, his sister, the niece of the counts of the Normans, having been brought from Normandy, was sending him word to hasten toward the nuptials to be celebrated. Which, the count hearing, he was much exhilarated.

Denique ex multo tempore eam cupiens - speciosa quippe et praeclari generis erat -, quanto celerius potuit, versus Calabriam repedans, diu cupitam puellam visum ire accelerat. Veniensque in vallem Salinarum, apud Sanctum Martinum, puellam legitime desponsatam Melitum cum maximo musicorum concentu deducens, illuc solemnes nuptias celebravit.

At last, desiring her for a long time — for she was beautiful and of illustrious lineage —, as quickly as he could, turning back toward Calabria, he hastened to go to see the long-desired girl. And coming into the Valley of the Salines, at Saint Martin, leading the girl, lawfully betrothed, to Melito with the greatest concert of musicians, there he celebrated the solemn nuptials.

XX. Quibus consummatis, aliquandiu cum uxore commoratus, quod animus intenderat, oblivisci minime potuit. Sed, exercitu apparato, Rogerium armigerum ex parte ducis secum accipiens, iuvencula in Calabria dimissa, iterum Siciliam invadit, nullis persuasionibus lacrimantis uxoris detentus. A Cathania itaque, per legatum Betumine sarraceno arcessito, secum ducens, Petreleium obsessum vadit.

XX. With these things consummated, having tarried for some time with his wife, he could by no means forget what his mind had intended. But, the army prepared, taking with him Roger the armiger on the duke’s part, the young girl left behind in Calabria, he again invades Sicily, detained by no persuasions of his weeping wife. From Catania, therefore, having summoned through an envoy Betumin the Saracen, leading him with him, he goes to besiege Petreleium.

Porro cives, ex parte Christiani et ex parte Sarraceni, consilio invicem habito, pacem cum comite facientes, castrum seseque ditioni suae dedunt. Comes vero, castrum pro libito suo firmans, militibus et stipendiariis muniens, Traynam venit; quam similiter muniens, Betumen, ut Siciliam lacessitum et ad suam utilitatem applicatum vadat, exhortatus, in Calabriam, se desideranti et de salute ipsius sollicite uxori sese repraesentans, de adventu suo non minimum laetificavit.

Moreover the citizens, in part Christians and in part Saracens, counsel having been taken mutually, making peace with the count, surrender the castle and themselves to his dominion. The count indeed, strengthening the castle at his pleasure, fortifying it with soldiers and stipendiaries, comes to Traynam; and similarly fortifying it, having exhorted Betumen to go to harry Sicily and to bring it over to his own advantage, into Calabria, presenting himself to his wife who desired him and was solicitous about his safety, he gladdened her not a little by his arrival.

XXI. Castrum itaque nullum in sua a fratris potestate - excepto solo Melito - habens, a fratre, ut quod sibi promiserat quando a Scalea, ab ipso invitatus, ad invicem reconciliati sunt, medietatem videlicet totius Calabriae, impertiatur, maxime quia iuvenculam uxorem exinde, utpote puellam, tam praeclaris ortam natalibus, decenter dotare volebat, requirit. Dux autem, quamvis pecunia largus, in distributione quidem terrarum aliquantulum parcior erat: fratremque, per ambages differendo, protrahebat.

21. Therefore, having no castle in his own control from his brother - except Melito alone - he requests of his brother that there be imparted to him what he had promised him when at Scalea, invited by him, they were reconciled with one another, namely the moiety of all Calabria, especially because he wished therefrom to dower fittingly his young wife—inasmuch as she was a maiden—sprung from such illustrious natalities. The Duke, however, although lavish with money, was somewhat more sparing in the distribution of lands: and he kept drawing out his brother, by evasions and delaying, protracting the matter.

Porro comes, fratris calliditatem animadvertens, nec diutius fallaciis pasci sustinens, per meliores totius Apuliae ad rationem ponit, quod sibi promissum fuerat expetens. At cum nec ita proficit, foedere, quod inter se habebant, rupto, irato animo a fratre recedit; Melitumque veniens, castrum viriliter firmavit, optimos quoque milites undecumque sibi in fratris damnum conducens. Sed, quamvis erga se fratrem suum iniuste agere patulum esset, legalitatem tamen suam servans, per quadraginta dies a fratris iniuria abstinuit; ne, si forte infra hunc terminum erga resipisceret - ipse quidem de iniuria conquerebatur - potius iniuriis haberi iudicaretur, mallens huius dissentionis iniuriosam culpam in fratrem potius quam in se retorqueri.

Moreover the count, noticing his brother’s cunning and no longer willing to be fed on fallacies, lays the matter before the better men of all Apulia, demanding what had been promised to him. But when he does not thus make progress, the foedus that they had between them being broken, he withdraws from his brother in an angry spirit; and coming to Melito, he manfully strengthened the castle, and likewise hired the best soldiers from wheresoever to his brother’s detriment. Yet, although it was evident that his brother was acting unjustly toward him, nevertheless, keeping his legality, he abstained for forty days from injury against his brother; lest, if perchance within this term he should come to his senses—he himself indeed was complaining of the injury—he should be judged rather to be the one in the wrong, preferring that the injurious blame of this dissension be retorted upon his brother rather than upon himself.

XXII. Betumen vero per Siciliam vadens, sicuti a comite rogatus fuerat, quoscumque poterat, ad fidelitatem nostrae gentis applicat; quibus vero minus persuadere poterat, ipsos impugnationibus vexare non desistebat. At, cum versus castrum Antilium, quod quondam suum fuerat, debellandum properaret, Nichel, quidam potentior, castri quondam eiusdem Betuminis miles, in dolo verba pacifica mandans, ut, cum paucis a suis semotus, Antiliensibus, quasi reconciliari volentibus, loco determinato locutum veniat, mandat.

22. Betumen indeed, going through Sicily, just as he had been asked by the count, attaches whomever he could to the fidelity of our people; but those whom he could less persuade, he did not cease to vex with assaults. Yet, when he was hastening toward the castle Antilium, which had once been his own, to subdue it, Nichel, a certain more powerful man, formerly a miles of that same castle of Betumen, sending words of peace in guile, gives orders that he, separated from his men with a few, should come to speak with the Antilienses—as if wishing to be reconciled—at a designated place.

Ille vero, quia iam plurima beneficia illis iamdudum, cum secum bene erant, contulerant, minus fraudem suspicatus, quo et qualiter sibi mandabatur, venire non distulit. Antilienses itaque, consilium venenoso corde, duce Nichel, conceptum reperientes, equum eius primitus spiculo transfigunt, ne sessor, si sibi primo vulnus datum foret, fraude intercepta, equo sano liberius cum vulnere aufugeret. Sicque, equo deiecto, ipsum etiam in terra confodientes, cum sanguine ultimum vitae flatum exhalare fecerunt.

He, indeed, because he had already conferred very many benefactions upon them long since, when they were well with him, suspecting fraud the less, did not delay to come to the place and in the manner it was being enjoined upon him. The Antilienses, therefore, finding their plan conceived with a venomous heart, with Nichel as leader, first transfix his horse with a dart, lest the rider, if a wound were given to him first and the deceit intercepted, might more freely flee away with the wound on a sound horse. And thus, the horse having been cast down, stabbing him also on the ground, they made him, with his blood, exhale the last breath of life.

Quod audientes Normanni, qui apud Traynam et Petreleium ad castra a comite deputati erant, maxime turbati, eius enim nomine praesidia quam maxime tuebantur, castris relictis, Messanam, quae eis deputata erat, revertunt.

Hearing this, the Normans, who at Trayna and Petreleium had been deputed to the camps by the count, greatly disturbed—for in his name they were most zealously guarding the garrisons—abandoning the camps, return to Messina, which had been assigned to them.

XXIII. Dux vero fratrem a se recessisse iratus, exercitu congregato, eum apud Melitum obsessum vadit, anno incarnationis Domini MLXII. Comes autem, quamvis tunc temporis typo febrium gravaretur, apud Geracium enim, quibusdam negotiis se illuc vocantibus, erat; ubi, insolito aÎre corrupto, ipse nihilominus infirmatus, quosdam suorum amiserat.

23. But the duke, angry that his brother had withdrawn from him, having assembled the army, goes to besiege him at Melitum, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1062. The count, however, although at that time he was weighed down by a bout of fevers, was at Geracium—for certain business calling him thither; where, with the unusual air corrupted, he himself, nonetheless being sick, had lost some of his men.

Tamen fratri, ut hosti venienti, in monte qui Sancti Angeli dicitur, acerrime occurrit, multisque ex fraterna acie hastili robore militari congressu deiectis, ne in ipso monte vel certe in adiacenti, qui Mons Viridis dicitur, castra, sicut disposuerant, figant, impetu facto, longius arcet. Urbe itaque obsessa, ex utraque parte ambitio laudis et iuvenilis aetas plures ad militiam exercendam impellebat. Unde, cum plures militariter progrediuntur, iuvenis quidam, Arnaldus nomine, ex parte comitis, qui frater iuvenculae uxoris eius erat, vir militaribus exercitiis aptus, dum deicere tentat, deiectus - quod dolor est dicere!

However, he ran to meet his brother, as an enemy coming on, most fiercely on the mountain which is called Saint Angel; and after many from the fraternal battle-line had been cast down by the spear’s strength in military encounter, so that they might not pitch camp on the mountain itself or at least on the adjacent one, which is called Green Mountain, having made an impetus he drives them farther off. The city therefore being besieged, on either side ambition of praise and juvenile age were impelling many to exercise soldiery. Whence, as several advance militarily, a certain youth, by name Arnaldus, on the count’s side—who was the brother of his young wife—a man apt for military exercises, while he tries to cast down, was cast down—what a grief it is to say!

- occubuit. Unde permaximus dolor et planctus non solum his, quibus adiutor erat, verumtamen his ipsis, qui a foris impugnabant, excrevit. Ac dum soror, cum multa lamentatione exequias celebrans, funus, ut decebat, exequitur, comes, qui non minus sorore dolebat, in vindictam exardescens iuvenis, congressu in hostem facto, multos militariter sternens, interimit.

- he fell. Whence a very great grief and lamentation swelled not only among those whom he was a helper to, but indeed among those very ones who were assaulting from without. And while the sister, celebrating the obsequies with much lamentation, carries out the funeral as was fitting, the count, who grieved no less than the sister, blazing up into vengeance for the youth, having joined battle with the enemy and laying many low in military fashion, slays them.

Dux itaque, videns talibus congressionibus suis quotidie vexari et minus proficere, duo castella ante urbem firmavit: putans taedio et fame facilius eos posse affici. Comes vero, ipsa castella quotidie lacessens, cum ducem in uno esse sciebat, alterum oppugnabat; cum vero ad idem succurrendum venire videbat, illo relicto, per medium civitatis ad aliud transibat, sic assidue certamen localiter alternans.

Therefore the duke, seeing that by such engagements he was daily vexed and was making less progress, fortified two castles before the city, thinking that by tedium and famine they could more easily be afflicted. But the count, provoking those very castles day by day, when he knew the duke was in the one, attacked the other; and when he saw him coming to bring succor to the same, leaving that one, he passed through the middle of the city to the other, thus assiduously alternating the contest by location.

XXIV. Nocte vero quadam Melito cum centum militibus exiens, Geracium venit: urbemque sibi ab incolis traditam ingressus, in suorum usus aptavit. Quod dux audiens, maxima ira repletus, castella quae ante Melitum firmaverat, militibus muniens, cum toto exercitu versus Geracium contra urbem tentoria fixit.

24. But on a certain night, going out from Melito with one hundred soldiers, he came to Geracium: and, having entered the city handed over to him by the inhabitants, he adapted it for the uses of his own men. Which when the duke heard, filled with very great ire, strengthening with soldiers the forts which he had formerly firmed before Melitum, with the whole army he fixed his tents toward Geracium, against the city.

Geracenses quidem sibi iamdudum fidelitatem iuraverant, non tamen urbem, ut pro libitu suo uteretur, reddiderunt; ne, si forte castellum in ipsa firmaret, pro velle suo omnes sibi prorsus subiugatos haberet. Dux vero, quendam de potentioribus urbis notum habens, nomen Basilium, ab ipso ad prandium invitatus, capucio capite cooperto, ne forte quis esset perciperetur, urbem ingressus, ad palatium illius solus comestum vadit. Qui ingressus, dum, nil mali suspicans, necdum cibo parato, colloquiis Melitae, uxoris illius, qui se invitaverat, uteretur, urbicenses, per quendam famulum domus ducem intra urbem esse cognoscentes, traditionem suspicati, non minimum turbantur.

Indeed the Geracians had long since sworn fidelity to him, yet they did not hand back the city for him to use at his own pleasure; lest, if by chance he should fortify a castellum within it, he might have all men altogether subjugated to himself at his will. But the duke, having among the more powerful men of the city an acquaintance by the name Basil, invited by him to luncheon, with a hood covering his head, lest perchance it be perceived who he was, having entered the city, goes alone to dine at that man’s palace. He, having entered, while suspecting nothing evil, and with the food not yet prepared, was engaging in colloquy with Melita, the wife of the one who had invited him; the townspeople, learning through a certain household servant that the duke was within the city, suspecting a handing-over, are not a little disturbed.

Undique concurrentibus, tota urbs tumultuatur, omnesque, in arma ruentes, ad domum, in qua erat, furenti impetu illum extrahere vadunt. Ille vero, qui ducem invitaverat, impietatem concivium suorum cognoscens et viribus ad resistendum diffidens, dum, versus ecclesiam profugus, vitam tueri nititur, patrio ense confossus, occubuit. Uxor quoque eius cum tanta impietate a suis civibus attractata est, ut, stipite ab ipso ano usque ad praecordia transfixa, inhonesta morte vitam terminare cogeretur.

As people running together from every side, the whole city is in tumult, and all, rushing to arms, go to the house in which he was, to drag him out with a frenzied impetus. He, however, who had invited the duke, recognizing the impiety of his fellow-citizens and diffident of his strength to resist, while, a fugitive toward the church, he strives to protect his life, pierced through by his own ancestral sword, fell. His wife also was dragged about with such impiety by her fellow-citizens that, transfixed with a stake from the anus itself up to the precordia, she was compelled to end her life by a dishonorable death.

Quo viso, si dux de vita desperavit, mirandum non est: praesertim cum videret cives a civibus, amicos ab amicis, praelatos a subditis, absque recordatione alicuius praecedentis beneficii, cum tanto furore crudeli ense perimi. Stat inter furentium hostium minantia tela miles inermis, quondam multorum millium debellator, leoninam ferocitatem, quae quasi quodammodo sibi innata erat, in agninam transferens mansuetudinem. At, cum videret sapientiores quosque, ita qui exitum rei praenotabant, ad hoc niti ut inordinatum furorem indoctioris vulgi et minus prospicientis quid damni, quidve lucri, si occideretur, proveniret, animo aliquantulum resumpto, talibus eos verbis alloqui adortus est: "Nolite - inquit -, nolite superabundatiori laetitia fallaciter extolli, ne rotalis fortuna, vobis ad praesens arridens, mihi autem adversa, arrisione sua vobis indicium praenotet in futurum habendae adversitatis, cum nulla potestas, absque divina dispositione, nemini attribuatur.

At the sight of this, if the duke despaired of his life, it is not a thing to be wondered at: especially since he saw citizens by citizens, friends by friends, prelates by their subjects, without remembrance of any preceding beneficence, with so great a fury being slain by the cruel sword. There stands amid the threatening missiles of raging enemies an unarmed soldier, once the debellator of many thousands, transferring his leonine ferocity, which was, as it were, in some manner inborn to him, into lamb-like meekness. But, when he saw that the wiser men—those who pre-noted the outcome of the matter—were striving to this end, namely, to restrain the disordered fury of the less-taught crowd, which less foresaw what loss, or what gain, would come if he were killed, with his spirit somewhat resumed he began to address them with such words: "Do not - he says -, do not be deceitfully exalted by an over-abundant joy, lest rotary Fortune, smiling upon you at present but adverse to me, by her smile pre-note to you an indication of adversity to be had in the future, since no power, without divine disposition, is attributed to anyone."

Quo iudicio in me potestatem habeatis, apud vos ipsos reputando conferte. Nec enim vestris viribus praesens esse perductus sum; sed neque ego, ut vobis aliquid mali machinaretur, hanc urbem ingressus sum. Vos quidem mihi fidelitatem fecistis; ego vero quod pactum vobis promisi, in nullo me violasse cognosco.

By what judgment you have power over me, consider it by reckoning with yourselves. For I was not brought to be present by your forces; nor did I enter this city so that any evil might be machinated against you. You indeed rendered fealty to me; but as for the pact which I promised you, I recognize that in nothing have I violated it.

Si forte istud ad utilitatem vestram aut ad experientiam contingit, ut fidelitas vestra, cuius stabilitatis sit, a nobis cognita, vos nobis gratiosiores et praemio digniores repraesentet. Tot millibus hominum uni soli casualiter, non autem militariter circumveniendo, intercepto foedere, mentito, et absque defensione vitam auferre, nulla laus est. Sed neque, ut reor, quantum de me vobis aliquid proficuum erit: mors enim mea iugum gentis meae non aufert, sed in vindictam meam vobis infestiores exardescent.

If perchance this turns to your utility or to experience, to wit, that your fidelity—of what stability it is—being known by us, may present you to us as more gracious and more worthy of reward. For so many thousands of men to take away the life of one single person by entrapping him casually, not militarily, with a treaty intercepted and falsified, and without a defense, is no praise. But neither, as I reckon, will anything advantageous accrue to you from me; for my death does not lift the yoke of my nation, but they will blaze out more hostile against you in vengeance for me.

Sunt denique mihi fidelissimi milites, sunt fratres, sunt consanguinei, quibus, si periurando vos manus vestras meo sanguine pollueritis, nulla ratio reconciliare poterit. Sed et ubicum que terrarum hoc a vobis factum personuerit, opprobrium sempiternum, propter periuriam, cum omni successione generis vestri incurretis, praesertim si sine discussione aliquod praeiudicium perpessus fuero a vobis!" Talibus verbis, faventibus sibi sapientioribus urbis, ignobile vulgus, tumultu sedato, ducem in captione, donec quid de ipso faciendum sit consilium capiant, ponunt.

I have, finally, most faithful soldiers; I have brothers; I have consanguine kinsmen, to whom, if by perjuring yourselves you stain your hands with my blood, no reasoning will be able to reconcile you. But also, wherever on earth this deed done by you shall have resounded, you will incur everlasting opprobrium, on account of perjury, together with every succession of your race, especially if, without discussion, I shall have suffered any prejudgment at your hands!" With such words, the wiser men of the city favoring him, the ignoble mob, the tumult having been calmed, place the leader in custody, until they may take counsel as to what is to be done concerning him.

XXV. Exercitus itaque ducis, qui extra portam tentoria fixerat, audito ducem tali infortunio in captionem detrusum, undique turbati, dum, quid faciendum sit dubitantes, inter se disputant, tandem, meliori consilio accepto, per legatos comiti fratri rei eventum intimare accelerant. Sciebant quippe legalitatem animi eius, et, quamvis, conventionem suam expetendo, versus fratrem aliquam controversiam ostenderet, tamen, in consideratione consanguinitatis, fratrem suum, ut fratrem, diligeret et fraternam vitam, in tanto discrimine positam, ereptum ire, omni sibi illata iniuria oblita, quovis lucro praeponere, invitant fratrem ut fratri, in angustias posito, auxilium ferendo subveniat: de controversia, quae inter ipsos erat, duce erepto, ius teneatur, sese auxilium laturos promittunt.

25. Therefore the duke’s army, which had pitched its tents outside the gate, on hearing that the duke, by such an infortune, had been thrust into captivity, being disturbed on all sides, while, doubting what should be done, they dispute among themselves, at length, a better counsel having been adopted, hasten through legates to intimate to the count, his brother, the event of the matter. For they knew, indeed, the legality of his mind, and although, by seeking his own convention, he showed some controversy toward his brother, nevertheless, in consideration of consanguinity, he would love his brother as a brother, and would prefer the fraternal life, placed in so great a crisis, to be snatched away to safety, with every injury inflicted on himself forgotten, before any profit; they invite the brother that, as a brother, he may, by bringing aid, come to the help of his brother placed in straits: as to the controversy which was between them, once the duke is rescued, let right be maintained; they promise that they will bring assistance.

XXVI. Comes itaque, sinistro rumore de fratris infortunio turbatus, fraterni sanguinis affectu totus lacrimis perfusus, suos supplex exorat ut fratrem suum ereptum accelerent. Sicque, arma corripiens, Geracium citissimus advolat; urbicenses, ut sibi extra muros, foedere interposito, secure locutum veniant, invitat.

26. Therefore the Count, disturbed by a sinister rumor about his brother’s misfortune, by the affection of fraternal blood all drenched in tears, as a suppliant entreats his men to hasten to rescue his brother. And so, seizing arms, he flies most swiftly to Gerace; he invites the townspeople to come to him outside the walls, with a covenant interposed, to speak securely.

Et ita alloquitur: "Eia - inquit -, amici et fideles mei! Ecce, fidelitatem vestram experiri incipio, et, quia fratrem meum obsessum venientem cognovistis captum et in mea fidelitate tenetis, gratissimum habeo; et, quia versus me in tantum vestra fidelitas progressa est, vestro consilio, non autem vestris vel manibus vel armis, de ipso ulcisci volo. In tantum enim me ad iram provocavit, ut nullo modo mihi sufficiat, si alterius armis, quam meis, intereat.

And thus he addresses them: "Come - he says -, my friends and my fideles! Behold, I begin to test your fidelity, and, since you have recognized my brother, coming while besieged, to have been captured, and you hold him in my fidelity, I hold it most pleasing; and, because your fidelity toward me has advanced to such a degree, I wish, by your counsel, not however by your hands nor by your arms, to avenge myself concerning him. For he has provoked me to wrath to such an extent that it in no way suffices me if he should perish by the arms of another rather than by my own."

Quod ne vestra fidelitas, quasi mihi gratum obsequium se praestare credens, faciat, omnimode sibi interdictum sciat. Accelerate igitur inimicum meum mihi reddendo. Sufficiet ut de suppliciis eius primo sciatis.

Let not your loyalty, as though believing it is rendering me a pleasing service, do this; let it know that it is in every way interdicted to itself. Make haste, therefore, by rendering my enemy back to me. It will suffice that you first learn of his punishments.

Vestro consilio satiatus, faciam eum cum tormentis vitam finire. Nulla in reddendo dilatio sit, nam nulla utilitas me avellet ab obsessione huius urbis donec ulciscar mihi ab ipso illatis iniuriis. Ecce, omnis exercitus suus, iniurias eius ulterius non ferens, ipso spreto, in meam fidelitatem transiens, me ducem eligit.

Satisfied by your counsel, I will make him end his life with torments. Let there be no delay in handing him over, for no utility will tear me away from the siege of this city until I avenge myself for the injuries inflicted by him. Behold, his whole army, no longer bearing his injuries, with him scorned, passing over into my fidelity, chooses me as leader.

Ecce, vel modicum terrae sub ipso habere indignus iudicabar, eo perempto, omnia quae iuris sui hactenus fuerunt, fortuna favente, suscipiam ! Non sum, quem per ambages protrahere possitis. Si diutius differre tentatis, ecce ad praesens vineta et oliveta vestra extirpabuntur. Urbs vestra, a nobis obsessa, machinamentis apparatis, nullo contra nos praesidio, tuebitur.

Behold, I was judged unworthy to have even a modicum of land under him; with him slain, all that has hitherto been his by right, Fortune favoring, I will take over! I am not one whom you can protract by circumlocutions. If you attempt to defer longer, behold, at present your vineyards and olive-groves will be extirpated. Your city, besieged by us, with engines prepared, with no defense against us, will protect itself.

Vos si inviti capiamini, poenae, quae hosti repromittuntur, et vobis, ut ipso, torquebuntur".

You—if you are taken unwilling—the penalties that are promised to the enemy will be inflicted upon you also, as upon him."

Hac oratione habita, Geracenses territi, licentia accepta, in urbem concivibus suis relaturi et consilium pariter accepturi, vadunt. Sicque, consilio accepto, dubii utrum ne ea, quae a comite audierant, ex industria, ut fratrem eripiant, aut certe ex vero odio dicerentur, iuramentum a duce expetunt, ne, si ab ipsis dimissus, fraternas minas evadat, dum sibi vita comes fuerit, castellum aliquod infra civitatem suam firmare faciat. Quo sacramento minus discernentes calliditatem ducis, decepti sunt: nam quod dux se non facturum iuravit, comes, non iurans, non multo post, illis dolentibus, perfecit.

With this oration delivered, the Geracensians, terrified, having received license, go into the city to report back to their fellow-citizens and likewise to receive counsel. And so, counsel received, doubtful whether the things which they had heard from the count were said by design, in order that they might snatch away his brother, or indeed out of true hatred, they demand an oath from the duke: that, if released by them, he not evade the fraternal threats, and that, while life shall be companion to him, he make some castle within their city to be fortified. By which sacrament, the cunning of the duke being less discerned, they were deceived: for what the duke swore that he himself would not do, the count, not swearing, not long after, to their sorrow, accomplished.

Sacramento itaque accepto, ducem extra urbem adducentes, multis Normannorum prae gaudio flentibus, reddunt; sese deinceps fideles utrique futuros multis assertionibus promittunt.

Therefore, the oath having been accepted, leading the duke outside the city, they hand him back, many of the Normans weeping for joy; they promise, with many asseverations, that henceforth they will be faithful to both.

XXVII. Dux igitur et comes, sese mutuo conspicientes - ut quondam Ioseph Beniamin - in visu prae dulcedine insperata, in prosperum cedente fortuna, in lacrimas prorumpentes, mutuis amplexibus fruuntur. Dux comiti quae promiserat, se amodo non retenturum promittit.

27. Therefore the duke and the count, beholding one another - as once Joseph and Benjamin - at the sight, by reason of unexpected sweetness, with fortune yielding to prosperity, bursting into tears, enjoy mutual embraces. The duke promises the count that, as he had promised, he will from now on not keep him back.

Comes, ducem usque ad Sanctum Martinum prosecutus, inde Melitum vadit. Milites vero comitis, qui apud Melitum erant, audito ducem in captione detineri, castella eius, quae ante Melitum firmaverat, oppugnantes capiunt; milites vero, quos invenerant, in captione retinentes, suis militibus castellum, quod apud Sanctum Angelum firmaverat, muniunt; aliud vero, quod minus forte videbatur, diruunt. Uxor vero, viduationem suspicata, Tropeam aufugit.

The count, having escorted the duke as far as Saint Martin, from there goes to Melito. But the soldiers of the count, who were at Melito, on hearing that the duke was being held in captivity, assaulting they seize his castles which he had previously fortified before Melito; and, holding in capture the soldiers whom they had found, they fortify, for their own soldiers, the castle which he had made strong at Saint Angel; but another, which seemed less strong, they demolish. His wife, suspecting widowhood, fled to Tropea.

XXVIII. Dux itaque hoc audiens, plus maleficii quam beneficii memor, maxima indignatione permotus, conventionem, quam fratri promiserat, exequi denegat: donec sibi et castellum Sancti Angeli et milites, qui in captione tenebantur, restituantur, et de illata iniuria ius teneatur. Porro comes fratri duci, omnem occasionem eius velle exequendo, auferre volens, milites reddit; et castellum et quae in ipso retenta sunt, restituit.

28. Therefore the duke, hearing this, mindful more of harm than of benefit, moved by the greatest indignation, refuses to execute the convention which he had promised to his brother: until both the Castle of Saint Angel and the soldiers who were held in captivity be restored to him, and that right be maintained concerning the injury inflicted. Moreover the count, wishing to remove from his brother the duke every occasion by executing his will, returns the soldiers; and he restores the castle and the things which had been retained in it.

Sed cum nec sic animum fratris, ut sibi ius teneat, molliri videt, traditione inhabitantium castrum Messiani ingressus, duci inimicitias mandat. Dux itaque, videns castrum, quod melius in ipsa provincia habebat, sibi ablatum, sciens totam Calabriam per illud facile posse turbari, in valle Cratensi cum fratre sibi conventionem executus, Calabriam partivit. Sicque in Apuliam vadit, comes vero in Calabriam portionem suam recepturus redit.

But when he sees that not even thus his brother’s mind is softened so as to maintain for him the right, having entered the castle of Messina by the surrender of the inhabitants, he sends to the duke a declaration of enmities. Therefore the duke, seeing the castle, which he had as the best in that province, taken from him, and knowing that all Calabria could easily be disturbed on account of it, in the Crathis valley, having executed for himself the convention with his brother, divided Calabria. And so he goes into Apulia, but the count returns into Calabria to receive his portion.

At, cum videret suos propter seditionem, quae inter se et fratrem hactenus fuerat, equis, vestibus et armis minus sufficientes, per totam Calabriam a quibuscumque, propter quod ei tribuant, expetitum vadit. Veniensque Geracium, quia eos, quasi infideliores, caeteris exosiores habebat, ut plus ab ipsis extorqueat, castellum extra urbem procul sese firmare figit. Geracensibus vero iuramentum sibi a duce factum obiicientibus, comes respondit: "Cum medietas Geracii mea sit, dux in sua parte iuramenti sui ordinem, ne violetur, servare poterit; me vero, qui in mea parte quodlibet faciam, nec votum, nec promissio aliqua redarguit". Geracenses ergo, cognoscentes se callide a duce iuramento delusos, insipientiae suae deputant.

But when he saw his men, on account of the sedition which had hitherto been between himself and his brother, less sufficient in horses, clothing, and arms, he goes through all Calabria to exact from whomever, on account of which they render tribute to him. And coming to Gerace, because he held them, as if more unfaithful, more odious than the others, in order that he might extort more from them, he determines to plant himself fortified in a castle far outside the city. But when the Geracensians alleged the oath made to them by the duke, the count replied: "Since the moiety of Gerace is mine, the duke will be able, in his part, to keep the order of his oath, lest it be violated; but as for me, who in my part may do whatever I please, neither a vow nor any promise convicts me." The Geracensians therefore, recognizing themselves cleverly deluded by the duke’s oath, impute it to their own folly.

Pacto cum comite facto, a castello, quod foedere ceperat, pecunia, potiusquam armis, illum avertunt.

With a pact made with the count, they avert him from the castle, which he had taken by treaty, with money rather than with arms.

XXIX. Comes igitur, suos abundanter armis et equis et coeteris, quae necessaria erant, remunerans, et terram, quae sorti suae cesserat, fidelibus suis prudenter ordinans, iterum Siciliam cum trecentis debellaturus aggreditur, uxorem iuvenculam, quamvis timidam et in quantum audiebat renitentem, secum ducens. Veniens itaque apud Traynam, a christianis Graecis, qui eum iam altera vice similiter susceperant, iterum et, si non cum tanta, ut prius, tamen alacritate suscipitur, urbemque, quamvis natura montis, in quo sita est, satis defensabilis foret, ad votum suum aptando fortiorem reddens, uxore ibi cum paucis dimissa, circumquaque vicina castra lacessitum vadit.

29. therefore the Count, abundantly remunerating his men with arms and horses and the other things that were necessary, and prudently ordering the land which had fallen to his lot for his faithful, again sets out to Sicily with three hundred to subdue it, leading with him his young wife, although timid and, insofar as she heard, resisting. Coming therefore to Trayna, he is received again by the Christian Greeks, who had already on a second occasion similarly received him, and, if not with as great alacrity as before, yet with alacrity; and rendering the city stronger—although by the nature of the mountain on which it is situated it was quite defensible—by fitting it to his wish, his wife having been left there with a few, he goes to challenge the neighboring forts round about.

Graeci vero, semper genus perfidissimum, hoc solo offensi, quod milites comitis in domibus suis ubi hospitabantur, de uxoribus et filiabus timentes, quadam die, cum comes apud Nicosinum, oppugnandi gratia, moraretur, videntes paucos cum comitissa remansisse, suspicati se in eosdem facile praevalere, ut eos ab urbe, expellendo vel certe occidendo, iugum eorum a suo excutiant collo, oppugnare coeperunt. Sed nostri, quamvis pauci, animo tamen et armis promptissimi, dolo cognito, citius in arma ruunt: dominam suam seseque pro vita alacriter defendentes, acerrime resistunt, donec nox certamen diremit. Comes vero, quod acciderat per legatum cognoscens, citissimus advolat, Graecosque, qui, iam urbe ad medietatem recisa, inter se et Normannos quandam munitionem ad se defendendum refecerant, minus ad praesens proficiens, expugnabat.

The Greeks indeed, ever a most perfidious race, offended by this alone—that, as the count’s soldiers were lodging in their houses, they feared for their wives and daughters—on a certain day, while the count was tarrying at Nicosinum for the sake of attacking, seeing that few had remained with the countess, supposing that they could easily prevail over the same, in order that, by expelling them from the city, or at least by killing them, they might shake off their yoke from their own neck, they began to attack. But our men, though few, yet most prompt in spirit and arms, the deceit being recognized, rush more quickly to arms: defending their lady and themselves for their lives with alacrity, they resist most fiercely, until night sundered the combat. The count, however, learning through a legate what had happened, flies thither with the utmost speed, and was assaulting the Greeks, who—now that the city had been cut as it were in half—had rebuilt a certain fortification between themselves and the Normans for their own defense; but for the present he was making less progress.

Sarraceni denique de vicinis castris quinque millia a nobis promptiores, audientes Graecos a nostris dissentire, non minimum gavisi, auxilium laturi, se iam ad illos contulerant: quorum praesidio Graeci se perplurimum tuebantur. Nam cum diu, taliter impugnando, nunc autem seipsos defendendo, iugi incursione detenti, dum, per diversa loca praedando, victum quaerere, ut soliti erant, impediuntur, famis angustia et assidui certaminis et vigiliarum aestu, quae minime sibi pariter conveniunt, perplurimum afficiebantur. In tantum enim quisque sibimet intentus erat, ut etiam ipse comes vix aliquem haberet, qui sibi cibum, excepta uxore et armigeris, appararet.

Saracens at last, about five thousand, more prompt than we, hearing that the Greeks were dissenting from our men, rejoicing not a little, had already betaken themselves to them to bring aid; by whose protection the Greeks were very greatly defending themselves. For whereas for a long time, attacking in such a fashion, and now again defending themselves, we were detained by continual incursion, while we were hindered, as we were wont, from seeking victuals by plundering through diverse places, we were very much afflicted by the straits of famine and by the heat of assiduous combat and of vigils, which least agree together for them; for each man was so intent upon himself that even the count himself scarcely had anyone, except his wife and his armor-bearers, to prepare food for him.

Nam, cum infra urbem, ne extra praedatum iret, iugi defensione interim detinerentur, extra autem omnium oculi ad hoc intenderent, ut si, cum paucis latrocinari tentaret, depraehenderetur: quodvis eorum agere imminens periculum dehortabatur. Unde et tanta penuria inter eos fuit, ut neque rapere, neque, gratia largiente, alter ab altero impetrare, vel mutuo aliquid accipere possent, omnibus pene - ab ipso comite usque ad ultimum clientem - aequo pondere indigentibus. Vestium etiam tanta penuria illis erat, ut, inter comitem et comitissam non nisi unam cappam habentes, alternatim, prout unicuique maior necessitas incumbebat, ea utebantur.

For, since within the city, lest he should go out to plunder, they were meanwhile held back by unremitting defense, while outside everyone’s eyes were fixed on this, that, if he should attempt to maraud with a few, he would be apprehended: the imminent danger dissuaded them from doing either. Whence also there was such penury among them that they could neither seize by rapine nor, favor being generous, obtain from one another, nor receive anything on loan mutually, almost all - from the count himself to the last retainer - being needy in equal measure. There was also such a scarcity of clothing for them that, having between the count and the countess only a single cloak, they used it alternately, as greater necessity pressed upon each.

Graeci vero et Sarraceni, quibus omnis patria favens pro libito patebat, plurima replebantur abundantia. Neque enim necesse illis erat, victum quaerendo, aliquorsum vagari, quippe quibus omnis Sicilia, quaeque necessaria erant, certatim deferens ultra, suppeditabat. Nostri autem, quamvis, tanta penuria affecti, famis et laboris vigiliarumque aestu inter seipsos flebiliores anhelarent, viriles animo alter alteri flebilitatem suam, ne ad invicem dehortarentur, occultantes, quadam hilaritate vultu et verbis simulare tentabant.

The Greeks, indeed, and the Saracens, for whom the whole fatherland, favoring them, lay open at their good pleasure, were filled with very great abundance. For it was not necessary for them, in seeking sustenance, to wander anywhere, since all Sicily, vyingly bringing in more than enough, supplied what was necessary. Our men, however, although afflicted by so great penury, and panting among themselves more tearfully under the heat of hunger, toil, and vigils, hiding from one another their tearfulness with a virile spirit, lest they dishearten each other, were trying to simulate a certain cheerfulness in face and words.

Sed iuvencula comitissa sitim quidem aqua extinguebat; famem vero non nisi lacrimis et somno, aliquid unde non habens, refrenare sciebat. Certamen assiduum, quod cibus non cibus suppeditabat, hostilis impugnatio abesse prohibebat. Sed interdum, ne ab hostibus diriperentur, si non impugnati in arma ruerent, ipsa animis eorum innata ferocitas sagaciter, etiam nolentibus viribus, repraesentabat.

But the young countess indeed extinguished thirst with water; hunger, however—having nothing from which to get anything—she knew to restrain only with tears and sleep. The assiduous contest, which a food that was no food supplied, hostile impugnation did not allow to be absent. But sometimes, lest they be plundered by the enemies, their very inborn ferocity of spirit, sagaciously, even their forces being unwilling, anticipated the need, so that, though not attacked, they rushed to arms.

XXX. Quadam itaque die, certamine inito, comes, equo insidens, ut suis succurrat, sese hostibus medium dedit. Hostes vero, eo cognito, versus eum fortiori impetu transientes, equum eius spiculis confodiunt; ipsum cum equo, humi deiectum, manibus corripiunt, quasi taurum ad victimam reluctantem, usque ad sibi tutiorem locum nituntur pertrahere puniendum.

30. Therefore on a certain day, battle having been joined, the count, seated on his horse, that he might succor his own men, gave himself into the midst of the enemies. But the enemies, this perceived, turning toward him and sweeping by with a stronger onset, pierce his horse with darts; him, together with the horse, cast to the ground, they seize with their hands, and, as a bull reluctant for the victim, they strive to drag him all the way to a place safer for themselves, to be punished.

Porro comes, in tanto discrimine positus, pristinarum virium non immemor, ensem, quo accinctus erat, exercens in modum falcis virens pratum resecantis, circumquaque impiger vibrando ducens, pluribus interemptis, sola dextra et Dei adiutorio liberatur: tanta strage de inimicis facta, ut, sicut in condensibus saltibus iacerent a vento dirupta ligna, sic circumquaque sibi adiacerent hostium ab ipso perempta cadavera. Hostes reliqui sese in suam munitionem recipiunt; ipse, equo amisso, sellam, ne quasi timidus accelerare videretur, asportans, versus suos pedes regreditur. Nostris igitur per quattuor menses in tam laborioso discrimine positis, hiems asperrima, quae ipso anno ipsis in partibus fuit occasio liberationis, hostibus autem damnationis extitit.

Moreover the count, placed in so great a crisis, not unmindful of his former strength, wielding the sword with which he was girt in the manner of a sickle cutting a green meadow, and on every side energetically drawing it by brandishing, with many slain, is freed by his right hand alone and by God’s aid: so great a slaughter of the enemies was made that, just as in dense forests lie logs riven by the wind, so around him on every side lay the corpses of foes slain by himself. The remaining enemies withdraw into their own fortification; he himself, his horse lost, carrying the saddle, lest he seem to accelerate as if timid, returns on foot toward his own men. Our men therefore, being for four months placed in so toilsome a crisis, were helped by a most harsh winter, which in that very year in those parts was an occasion of liberation for them, but proved one of damnation for the enemies.

Nam et a vicinitate Etnae, quae in eadem provincia haud procul exterminat, ibi ita certis temporibus ab aestuanti incendio sulphurei montis aestas acerrima, itaque certis temporibus minime satis inundatio tempestatis, procellarum, nivis et grandinum asperrima solet fieri. Quamobrem hostes balnearum aestuationibus aestuari assueti, frigidiori aura flante, dum vini potationibus naturalem calorem intra se excitare nituntur, somno propter vinum, ut assolet, subsequente, tardiores ad excubias vigiliarum urbis esse coeperunt. Quod cum nostri cognovissent, coeperunt et ipsi ex industria tardiores apparere; et, quamvis attentissime vigilarent, clamoribus tamen obmissis - ut illos dolose securiores redderent - fingebant se quasi non vigiles essent.

For from the vicinity of Etna, which in the same province not far off devastates, there at fixed times, from the seething conflagration of the sulphureous mountain, the summer is most keenly scorching, and likewise at fixed times an inundation of weather far from moderate, most harsh with squalls, snow, and hail, is wont to occur. Wherefore the enemies, accustomed to be heated by the heatings of baths, when a cooler breeze was blowing, while by potations of wine they strive to arouse the natural heat within themselves, with sleep ensuing on account of the wine, as is usual, began to be slower at the outposts of the watches of the city. Which when our men had learned, they too began on purpose to appear slower; and, although they kept watch most attentively, with outcries nevertheless omitted - so as to render them, by a trick, more secure - they were feigning themselves as though they were not vigilant.

Quadam ergo nocte, cum comes, ut semper nullo labore deficiens, excubias noctis cum suis armatis, sub algenti bruma suis utilitatibus accuratissime intentis, celebraret, hostes, somno gravatos, inter suos munitiones, et neminem eorum, ex tanta multitudine vigilare deprehendisset, castra eorum silenter irrumpit; armata itaque manu incautos occupans, pluribus interfectis, munitionem accipit: plures capiuntur, ex adventiciis reliqui fugae refugium petunt. Porinus, qui caput proditionis exstiterat, cum sibi principaliter assientibus laqueo suspensus, ad exemplum aliorum vita privatur. Plures diversis poenis afficiuntur.

Therefore on a certain night, when the Count, as always failing in no labor, was keeping the night watches with his armed men, under the chill of gelid midwinter, his men most scrupulously intent upon their own duties, and he had discovered the enemies, weighed down with sleep, within their fortifications, and that no one of them, out of so great a multitude, was keeping watch, he silently bursts into their camp; and so, seizing the unwary with an armed hand, many having been slain, he takes the fortification: more are captured, of the adventitious (auxiliary) troops the rest seek refuge in flight. Porinus, who had stood forth as the head of the treason, hanged by the noose together with those chiefly assenting to him, is deprived of life as an example to others. Many are afflicted with diverse punishments.

Spoliis itaque triumphali honore acceptis, nostri hactenus egentes, tanta abundantia frumenti, vini et olei et aliarum rerum, quae ad usum necessaria erant, sunt repleti, ut merito a consimili argumento recordari possent illius, quod apud Samariam inspirato a Deo subito datae abundantiae ad verbum Elisei dicentis: Cras hora ista in porta Samariae modius similae uno statere erit, cum in praecedenti die nullo quamvis magno pretio posset inveniri.

And so, the spoils and triumphal honor having been received, our men, hitherto in want, were filled with such an abundance of grain, wine, and oil, and of other things which were necessary for use, that they could rightly recall by a similar example that case of the abundance suddenly given by God’s inspiration at Samaria, according to the word of Elisha saying: “Tomorrow at this very hour in the gate of Samaria a modius of fine flour will be for one stater,” whereas on the preceding day it could not be found at any price, however great.

XXXI. Ordinatis itaque rebus suis et urbe ad suum libitum melius firmata, ut suis equos, quos amiserant, restituat, versus Calabriam et Apuliam adquisitum vadit, uxore et militibus suis apud Traynam dimissis. Quae, quamvis iuvencula, tanta strenuitate coepit esse sollicita circa castrum tuendum, ut, diatim circuens, ubi meliorandum videbat, studeret ut fierent vigiles.

31. Therefore, with his affairs set in order and the city, to his pleasure, more firmly secured, so that he might restore to his men the horses which they had lost, he goes toward Calabria and Apulia to acquire them, having left his wife and his soldiers at Trayna. She, although a young woman, with such strenuousness began to be solicitous about defending the castle that, going the rounds day by day, wherever she saw something to be improved, she took pains that sentries be set.

Reliquos omnes, quos sibi dominus suus abiens dimiserat, blande alloquens, ut sollicite, quae servanda erant, providerent, hortabatur, multa in reditu domini sui repromittens. Sed et transactum periculum, ne, segniter agendo, quid simile incurrerent, ad memoriam reducebat.

Addressing kindly all the rest whom her lord, as he was departing, had left to her, she urged them to provide solicitously for the things that had to be guarded, promising many things upon her lord’s return. But she also recalled to memory the danger that had been undergone, lest, by acting sluggishly, they should incur something similar.

XXXII. Comes vero a Calabria et Apulia, ut apes studiosissima, his, quae militibus necessaria erant, onustus rediens, omnes suos adventu laetificavit, equos et cetera, quibus opus habebant, illis impertiens. Aliquantis ergo diebus equis, quos adduxerat, recreatis, comperto quod Arabici et Africani, qui Arabia et Africa, quasi auxilium laturi Siciliensibus, causa lucrandi, advenerant, apud Castrum-Iohannis usque ad quingentos morarentur, cupiens experiri cuius valentiae eorum militiae esset, illuc versus aciem dirigit.

32. But the Count, from Calabria and Apulia, like a most industrious bee, returning laden with the things which were necessary for the soldiers, gladdened all his men by his arrival, imparting to them horses and the rest of what they needed. Therefore, after for some days the horses which he had brought had been refreshed, and having learned that Arabs and Africans—who from Arabia and Africa, as if about to bring aid to the Sicilians, had come for the sake of lucre—were lingering at Castrum-Iohannis, up to five hundred of them, wishing to test of what valency their soldiery was, he directs his battle-line thither.

Praemittens Serlonem, nepotem suum, cum triginta militibus, qui se ante castrum ostendentes extractos ad certamen excitarent, ipse cum caeteris in quodam loco, in insidiis latens, occultatur, ut, dum suos ex industria, simulato timore, fugientes illi acrius persequerentur, ipse, insperato a loco insidiarum prorumpens, hostes, longius a castro subtractos, facilius occuparet. Quos Arabici, qui in castro erant, eminus adventare videntes, maximo impetu prorumpentes, obvii sunt, fugientes persecuntur, accingentes diruunt, in tantum ut ad locum insidiarum non nisi duo ex nostris illaesi pervenirent. Porro comes suos, quos praemiserat, ex parte captos et ex parte deiectos videns, leonino impetu ab insidiis prorumpens, hostibus occurrit.

Sending ahead Serlo, his nephew, with thirty soldiers, that they, showing themselves before the castle, might draw them out and excite them to combat, he himself with the rest, lying in ambush in a certain place, hides, so that, when his men, on purpose and with feigned fear, fled and they pursued them the more keenly, he, bursting forth unexpectedly from the place of ambush, might more easily seize the enemies, drawn farther from the castle. The Arabs who were in the castle, seeing them approaching from afar, rushing out with the greatest onrush, met them, pursue the fleeing, cut down those who were girding themselves, to such a degree that to the place of ambush not except two of ours arrived unhurt. But the count, seeing his men, whom he had sent ahead, in part captured and in part cast down, with leonine onrush, bursting from the ambush, encountered the enemies.

Certamen init; fortiter utrimque congreditur. Sed a longo et acri certamine tandem comes, Deo sibi propitio, paganis fugientibus, victor efficitur. Hostes, extremos quoque cedendo, plus milliario insequitur.

He initiates the contest; the encounter is bravely joined on both sides. But after a long and sharp contest, at length the count, God propitious to him, with the pagans fleeing, is made victor. He pursues the enemies, even the hindmost yielding, for more than a mile.

Spoliis onustus, laetus apud Traynam revertitur: urbs gaudio repletur.

Laden with spoils, joyful, he returns at Traina: the city is replete with joy.

Volensque Siculos undique lacessere, Calatabuturum praedatum vadit. Unde rediens versus roccas Castri-Iohannis, si forte Arabicos a castro extrahere posset, attentans, maximam praedam reduxit. Profundiores itaque partes Siciliae cognoscere volens, longius progressus, usque Buterium pervenit, ubi, non minima praeda pecorum accepta, captivos plurimos secum adducens, apud Anator hospitium sumpsit.

And willing to harry the Sicilians on every side, he goes to Calatabuturum to plunder. Whence returning toward the roccas of Castrum-John, attempting, if by chance he might draw the Arabians out from the castle, he led back the greatest booty. Therefore, wishing to learn the more profound parts of Sicily, having advanced farther, he came as far as Buterium, where, a not small booty of flocks having been taken, bringing very many captives with him, he took lodging at Anator.

In crastinum autem, quia pro longitudine itineris et calore nimii aestus, sed et aquae penuria plures equos amiserat, apud Sanctum Felicem pernoctans, inde Traynam venit.

On the next day, however, because, on account of the length of the journey and the heat of excessive sultriness, and also the penury of water, he had lost many horses, spending the night at Saint Felix, from there he came to Trayna.

XXXIII. Africani igitur et Arabici cum Siciliensibus, plurimo exercitu congregato, ut bellum comiti inferant, advenire nuntiantur, anno Verbi incarnati MLXIII: quibus comes cum suis alacriter occurrens, in cacumen eiusdem montis, super fluvium Cerami, ut eos plenius prospiceret, ascendit. Vidensque eos trans flumen, in supercilio alterius montis diutius alternatim intuentes, nec his versus illos, nec illis versus hos transeuntibus, Sarraceni priores, locum mutantes, ad sua castra, quibus hospitati erant, regrediuntur.

33. Therefore Africans and Arabians, together with the Sicilians, with a very numerous army gathered, are reported to be arriving to bring war upon the count, in the year of the Incarnate Word 1063: to meet whom the count, with his own men, eagerly hurrying, ascended to the summit of that same mountain, above the river Cerami, that he might behold them more fully. And seeing them across the river, on the brow of another mountain, for a long time gazing at one another by turns, with neither these crossing toward those nor those toward these, the Saracens first, changing position, return to their camp, where they had been quartered.

Comes vero apud Traynam revertitur.

The Count, however, returns to Trayna.

Sic triduo, flumine interposito, sese mutuo conspicientes, nec illi versus istos transire flumen praesumebant; in quarto vero die Sarraceni, castra commoventes, ne ulterius quasi ad tergum retrogradi viderentur, in monte, quo se iam triduo ostentaverant, castrametati sunt. Nostri vero, hostilem affinitatem diutius impugnatam ferre nolentes, cum magna devotione, presbyteris testibus, Deo confessi, poenitentia accepta, Dei miserationi sese commendantes et de eius auxilio confisi, bellum hostibus inferre vadunt. Sed media via, nuntio accepto, quod Ceramum ab hostibus impugnaretur, illuc comes aciem dirigit: Serlonem, nepotem eius, cum triginta sex militibus praemittens, ut, castrum intrans, defendendo, donec ipse veniat, sustineat, cum centum tantum militibus - non enim amplius habebat - ipse subsequitur.

Thus for three days, with the river interposed, beholding one another in turn, neither did those presume to cross the river toward these; but on the fourth day the Saracens, moving their camp, lest they might seem to be retrograding further, as it were to the rear, encamped on the mountain on which they had already displayed themselves for three days. Our men, however, unwilling to endure longer the hostile contiguity, long assailed, with great devotion, the priests as witnesses, having confessed to God, penance received, commending themselves to God’s mercy and trusting in His aid, go to bring war upon the enemies. But midway, a message having been received that Ceramum was being assaulted by the enemies, thither the count directs the battle-line: sending ahead Serlo, his nephew, with thirty-six soldiers, that, entering the fortress, by defending it he might hold out until he himself should come, with only one hundred soldiers - non enim amplius habebat - he himself follows.

Serlo vero castrum ingressus, adventum subsequentis avunculi infra moenia minime sustinuit; sed per portas, ut leo furibundus, in hostes prorumpens, multas strages dando, cum tria millia essent, exceptis peditibus, quorum infinita erat multitudo - quod mirum dictum est! - ipse, triginta sex milites habens, omnes in fugam vertit. Hoc facto patenter cognoscere possumus, Deum nostris fautorem fuisse.

Serlo, however, having entered the castle, did not at all await within the walls the arrival of his uncle who was following after; but through the gates, like a furious lion, bursting out upon the enemies, dealing many slaughters, when there were three thousand, the infantry excepted, whose multitude was infinite - which is marvelous to say! - he himself, having thirty-six soldiers, turned them all to flight. This done, we can patently recognize that God was a favorer of our men.

Nam humanae vires, tam magnum quid, tamque nostris temporibus inauditum, nec praesumere quidem, nedum perficere potuissent. Si autem prophetam admirantes requirimus dicentem: Quomodo persequebatur unus mille?, nam hoc istis, ut quondam filiis IsraÎl provenisse cognoscimus, profecto nobismetipsis ex eiusdem prophetae verbis absque mendacio respondere possumus: Quia Deus suus vindicat eos et Dominus in profundo iniquitatum suarum clavibus irae suae concluserat illos. Deus suus - dico -, non quod eum colendo cognoscebant, sed quia, quamvis indigni, Factori suo ingrati existendo, tamen eius creaturae erant.

For human forces, such a great thing, and so unheard-of in our times, could not even have presumed, much less have perfected it. But if, admiring, we inquire of the prophet saying: How did one pursue a thousand?, for this we know to have befallen these men, as once the sons of Israel, assuredly we can answer to ourselves from the words of the same prophet without mendacity: Because their God vindicates them, and the Lord had enclosed them in the depth of their iniquities with the keys of his wrath. Their God — I say — not because they were knowing him by worshiping him, but because, although unworthy, existing ungrateful to their Maker, yet they were his creatures.

Deus suus - dico -, secundum illud quod ab Apostolo instruimur, ubi ait: Nam idem Deus omnium, dives in omnes qui invocant illum. Quod si aliquis, hanc sententiam dialectizando, commutabilem astruere tentaverit, dicens: "Si dives est Deus in eos, qui invocant illum, consequi oportet, ut pauper fit in eos, qui non invocant illum", respondendum est: "Quod Deus nec augmentum, nec detrimentum patitur, nec in natura recipit maius vel minus, sed, semper in eodem statu permanens, semper aeque omnia potest". Si autem pauperem dicere concludimur, non tamen quantum ad ipsum, sed quantum ad illos, qui se indignos exhibent, quibus misericordiae suae divitias Deus impertiatur.

Their God — I say — according to that which we are instructed by the Apostle, where he says: “For the same God of all, rich toward all who call upon him.” But if someone, dialecticizing this sentence, should attempt to assert mutability, saying: “If God is rich toward those who call upon him, it must follow that he becomes poor toward those who do not call upon him,” it must be answered: “That God suffers neither increase nor detriment, nor in his nature does he receive a greater or a lesser, but, remaining always in the same state, he is always equally able for all things.” But if we are concluded to say “poor,” it is not, however, as regards himself, but as regards those who show themselves unworthy, to whom God would impart the riches of his mercy.

Comes itaque, nepotem subsecutus cum centum militibus, Ceramum veniens, hostesque a nepote devictos cognoscens, dum subsequi, ut plenius devincat, deliberat, quibusdam ex timore dehortantibus et sufficere sibi victoriam a Deo per nepotem factam dicentibus - ne forte, si ultra insequendo progrediatur, fortuna rotabilis et in deterius cedat - Ursellus de Ballione exploranti comiti interminatus est, se nunquam vel ibi vel alibi sibi auxilium laturum, nisi certamen cum hostibus ineat. Quod comes audiens dehortantibus quidem multa convitia iratus intulit, citiusque hostibus versus castra eorum - illuc enim aufugerunt - bellum offerre vadit. Porro illi, viribus resumptis, duas acies ex sese facientes, nostris audacter occurrere accelerant.

Thus the Count, having followed his nephew with 100 soldiers, coming to Ceramum and learning that the enemies had been vanquished by his nephew, while he deliberates to follow up so that he may subdue them more fully, certain men, dissuading out of fear and saying that the victory wrought by God through his nephew sufficed for him - lest perhaps, if he should advance by pursuing further, wheel-turning Fortune should yield into the worse - Ursellus de Ballione threatened the Count as he was reconnoitering, that he would never, either there or elsewhere, bring him aid, unless he should enter a contest with the enemies. Which when the Count heard, angered he hurled many revilings at the dissuaders, and more swiftly, toward the enemies, he goes to offer battle at their camp - for thither they had fled. Moreover they, their strength resumed, making two battle-lines out of themselves, hasten boldly to run to meet our men.

Comes etiam, similiter duos cuneos faciens ex suis, unum nepoti et Ursello et Arisgoto de Puteolis, ut praecedentes primo feriant, delegavit: ipse, cum altero subsequens, bellatum, Deum sibi adiutorem invocans, vadit. Prima autem acies eorum, Serlonem cum prima acie nostra declinando, montem super nostros praeripere volens, ultimae aciei nostrae, quam comes ducebat, occurrit. Comes ergo et Ursellus de Ballione, suos solito formidolosiores prae nimia multitudine hostium, quam exhorrebant, videntes, talibus exhortationibus timorem ex ipsis excutere nitebantur: "Arrigite animos vestros, o fortissimi christianae militiae tyrones.

The Count also, likewise making two wedges from his own men, assigned one to his nephew and to Ursellus and Arisgotus of Puteoli, that, going before, they might strike first: he himself, following with the other, goes to do battle, invoking God as his helper. But their first battle-line, by avoiding Serlo with our first battle-line, wishing to snatch the hill above our men, met our last battle-line, which the Count was leading. Therefore the Count and Ursellus of Ballio, seeing their men more fearful than usual on account of the excessive multitude of the enemy, at which they shuddered, were striving by such exhortations to shake the fear out of them: "Raise your spirits, O most valiant tyros of the Christian militia.

Omnes Christi titulo insigniti sumus: qui non deseret signaculum suum, nisi offensus? Deus noster, Deus deorum, omnipotens est: et ab ipso omnis quidem, de Deo diffidens, confidit in homine, et ponit carnem brachium suum. Omnia regna mundi Dei nostri sunt, et, quibus volet, ipse impartietur.

We all are marked with the title of Christ: who would abandon his own seal, unless offended? Our God, the God of gods, is omnipotent: and it is away from him that everyone who, distrusting God, confides in man and sets flesh as his arm. All the kingdoms of the world are our God’s, and he himself will impart them to whom he wills.

Gens ista Deo rebellis a est, et vires, quae a Deo non reguntur, citius exhauriuntur. Ipsi in virtute sua gloriantur; nos autem de Dei praesidio securi sumus. Nam neque honestum est dubitari, quod certum est, Deo nos praecedente, ante faciem nostram non posse subsistere: Gedeon, quia de Dei auxilio non dubitavit, in paucis multa millia hostium stravit".

That people is rebellious against God, and the forces which are not governed by God are more quickly exhausted. They glory in their own virtue; but we are secure by the protection of God. For neither is it honorable that one should doubt what is certain, with God going before us, namely that they cannot stand before our face: Gideon, because he did not doubt the help of God, with a few laid low many thousands of enemies".

Dum talia versus certamen properando perorantur, apparuit quidam eques, splendidus in armis, equo albo insidens, album vexillum in summitate hastilis alligatum ferens et desuper splendidam crucem, quasi a nostra acie progrediens, ut nostros ad certamen promptiores redderet, fortissimo impetu hostes, ubi densiores erant, irrumpens. Quo viso, nostri, hilariores effecti, Deum sanctumque Georgium ingeminantes et prae gaudio tantae visionis compuncti, lacrimas fundendo, ipsum praecedentem promptissime subsecuti sunt. Visum etiam fuit a pluribus in summitate hastilis comitis vexillum dependens, crucem continens, a nullo, nisi divinitus, appositum.

While such things were being spoken in verse, hurrying the contest along, there appeared a certain horseman, splendid in arms, seated on a white horse, bearing a white vexillum tied at the top of the spear-shaft and above it a splendid cross, as if advancing from our battle-line, to render our men more prompt for the contest, bursting with very mighty onset into the enemies where they were densest. At this sight, our men, made more cheerful, doubling the cry of God and Saint George, and pierced with joy at so great a vision, pouring forth tears, most promptly followed him as he went before. It was also seen by many that on the top of the spear-shaft there hung the Count’s vexillum, containing a cross, set there by no one, unless by divine agency.

Comes ergo aciei suae primos exhortatus, Arcadium de Palerna, suam aciem, nostris exprobando, promptissime antecedentem, et splendenti clamucio, quo pro lorica utebatur, armatum, certamine inito, fortissimo congressu hastili robore deiectum, caeteris metum incutiens, interfecit. Erat enim inter suos militia praeclarissimus, cui etiam in armis neminem resistere posse putabant; et clamucium, quo indutus erat, nullis armis poterat violari, nisi ab imo in superius impingendo inter duo ferrea, quae per iuncturas cum catenata sunt, ingenio potius quam viribus inviceretur. Dum itaque utrimque fortiter dimicatur, nostri, numero pauci, multitudini intermixti ita concludebantur, ut vix aliquis nostrorum, nisi armis sibi viam faciendo, tumultum interrumpere posset.

The Count therefore, having exhorted the front ranks of his battle-line, slew Arcadius of Palerna—who, reproaching our men, was most swiftly going before his own line, and who was armed with a splendid clamucium, which he used in place of a lorica—once the contest was begun, by a most stout encounter, casting him down by the spear’s strength, striking fear into the rest. For he was among his own most illustrious in militia, whom they even supposed no one could resist in arms; and the clamucium with which he was clad could be violated by no weapons, unless by striking from below upward between the two iron pieces which along the joints are chain-linked, so that it might be overcome by ingenuity rather than by force. While therefore on both sides it was being fought bravely, our men, few in number, intermingled with the multitude, were so hemmed in that scarcely any of ours could break through the tumult, save by making himself a way with arms.

Videntes autem nostros tantam condensitatem inimicorum paganorom ac Siciliensium - simul existentium et circumdantium se hostium - sternendo, ut a furenti vento solet condensitas nebularum disrumpi et sicuti velocissimos accipitres imbecillem turbam avium disruptam sternere, sed cum longo certamine grassati, diutius nostrorum infestationem ferre non praevalentes, fuga se tueri, potius quam armis nituntur. Nostri, audacter insequentes, extremos quosque cedendo, perimunt. Sicque victores effecti, ad quindecim millia ex hostibus occubuerunt.

Seeing, moreover, our men laying low so great a density of enemies, pagans and Sicilians — the foes being together and surrounding them — as the condensity of mists is wont to be ruptured by a raging wind, and just as the swiftest accipiters lay low a feeble flock of birds, torn apart; but, after having advanced with a long contest, not able to bear longer the infestation of our men, they strive to protect themselves by flight rather than by arms. Our men, boldly pursuing, slay each of the hindmost as they give way. And thus, having become victors, about fifteen thousand of the enemy fell.

Nostri itaque, triumphalibus spoliis onusti, usque ad hostium castra regredientes, in eorum tentoriis hospitantur, camelos et reliqua omnia, quae invenerunt, sibi vindicantes. In crastinum vero pedites ad viginti millia, qui fugientes scopulos et praerupta montis occupaverant, oppugnantes, plurima ex parte perimunt, reliquos vero debellattos vendentes, pecuniam infinitam accipiunt. Sed cum, aliquandiu ibi commorati, foetore putrentium cadaverum occisorum hostium gravarentur, foetorem abhorrentes, Traynam reversi sunt.

Our men therefore, laden with triumphal spoils, returning all the way to the enemies’ camp, take lodging in their tents, claiming for themselves the camels and all the other things which they found. But on the morrow, assailing the infantry to the number of 20,000 who, in flight, had occupied the crags and the precipitous places of the mountain, they kill them for the most part; and the rest, once thoroughly subdued, they sell, receiving wealth without measure. But when, having tarried there for some time, they were weighed down by the stench of the rotting cadavers of the slain enemies, abhorring the stench, they returned to Traina.

Comes Deo et sancto Petro, cuius patrocinio tantam victoriam se adeptum recognoscebat, de collato sibi beneficio non ingratus existens, in testimonium victoriae suae per quendam suorum, nomine Meledium, camelos quattuor, quos inter reliqua spolia, hoste triumphato, acceperat, Alexandro papae, qui tunc temporis vice beati Petri prudenter et catholice exsequebatur, apud Romam repraesentat. Apostolicus vero, plus de victoria a Deo de paganis concessa quam de sibi transmissis donariis gavisus, benedictionem apostolicam et, potestate qua utebatur, absolutionem de offensis, si resipiscentes in futurum caveant, comiti et omnibus, qui in lucranda de paganis Sicilia et lucratam in perpetuum ad fidem Christi retinendo auxiliarentur, mandat, vexillumque a Romana Sede, apostolica auctoritate consignatum; quo praemio, de beati Petri fisi praesidio, tutius in Saracenos debellaturi insurgerent.

The Count, to God and to Saint Peter—by whose patronage he acknowledged himself to have obtained so great a victory—being not ungrateful for the benefaction conferred upon him, as a testimony of his victory, through a certain one of his men, named Meledius, presents at Rome to Pope Alexander—who at that time was prudently and catholicly executing the office in the stead of blessed Peter—four camels, which among the remaining spoils, the enemy being triumphed over, he had received. But the Apostolic, rejoicing more over the victory granted by God over the pagans than over the donaries sent to him, grants the apostolic benediction and, by the power which he wielded, absolution from offenses—if, having come to their senses, they beware for the future—to the count and to all who should aid in winning Sicily from the pagans and in retaining the won land forever to the faith of Christ; and he also sends a banner from the Roman See, sealed with apostolic authority, by which reward, trusting in the protection of blessed Peter, they might rise up to wage war the more safely against the Saracens.

XXXIV. Pisani ergo mercatores, qui saepius navali commercio Panormum lucratum venire soliti erant, quasdam iniurias ab ipsis Panormitanis passi vindicari cupientes, navali exercitu undique conflato, vela per mare ventis committentes, apud Siciliam, in portu vallis Deminae applicuerunt, legatumque comiti Traynam, ubi tunc morabatur, mittentes, mandant, ut equestri exercitu Panormum illis occurrat, se illi in urbe capienda auxilium laturos, nihil praemii, excepta vindicta de illata sibi iniuria, expetentes. Comes vero, quibusdam negotiis se detinentibus, ad praesens ire distulit, mandans illis ut modicum temporis sustinerent, donec haec, quibus ad praesens intentus erat, expedirentur.

34. Therefore the Pisan merchants, who were accustomed repeatedly to come to Panormum for profit by naval commerce, having suffered certain injuries from the Panormitans themselves and desiring to have them avenged, with a naval force mustered from every side, committing their sails to the winds over the sea, made landfall at Sicily, in the port of the Valley of Demina; and, sending a legate to the count at Traina, where he was then staying, they bade that he meet them at Palermo with a cavalry force, they for their part bringing aid to him in taking the city, seeking no reward except vengeance for the injury inflicted on them. The count, however, certain affairs detaining him, deferred going for the present, ordering them to await a little time, until these matters to which he was presently intent should be dispatched.

Porro illi, commercialibus lucris plusquam bellicis exercitiis ex consuetudine dediti, sustinere, ne lucris assuetis diutius privarentur, nolentes, Panormumque per se incassum aggredi disponentes, vela in portum eiusdem urbis dirigunt. Sed plurimam multitudinem hostium exhorrentes et ob hoc a navibus progredi minime praesumentes, catena tantummodo, quae portum ab una ripa ad alteram claudebat, abscissa, hoc sibi more suae gentis pro maximo reputantes, Pisam reversi sunt.

Moreover, they, by custom devoted to commercial gains more than to martial exercises, unwilling to endure, lest they be deprived for longer of their accustomed profits, and planning to attack Palermo by themselves to no effect, direct their sails into the port of that same city. But shuddering at a very great multitude of enemies and, on account of this, not at all presuming to disembark from the ships, with only the chain cut, which closed the port from one bank to the other—reckoning this for themselves, in the manner of their nation, as a very great exploit—they returned to Pisa.

XXXV. Comes itaque, videns aestatem proximam, quae prae nimio calore a vicinitate solis ferventis caniculae pluriores equitatus in praedali exercitio fieri prohiberet, fratri duci in Apuliam interim, dum importuna aestas pertranseat, ire disponens, ne uxorem suam et milites cum ipsa remanentes absque stipendiis derelinquat, Golisanum una die, secunda Brucatum, tertia Cefaludum praedatum aciem dirigit. Sicque Traynam multa abundantia replens, militibus suis, ut, urbem attentissime pervigilantes, incursus hostium prudenter caveant, et ne aliquorsum longius ab urbe, aliqua occasione intercurrente, progrediantur, multis exhortationibus commonitis, ipse versus Apuliam, cum fratre quid ulterius agendum sit tractaturus, vadit.

35. The count, therefore, seeing the coming summer, which, by reason of the excessive heat from the nearness of the sun’s burning Dog-star, would prevent larger bodies of cavalry from being made in raiding exercise, arranging in the meantime to go to his brother the duke into Apulia, while the unseasonable summer should pass by, lest he leave his wife and the soldiers remaining with her without stipends, directs his battle-line to plunder Golisano on one day, on the second Brucato, on the third Cefalù. And thus, filling Traina with much abundance, and his soldiers, with many exhortations having been admonished, that, keeping most vigilantly over the city, they may prudently beware the enemy’s incursions, and that they not advance anywhere farther from the city, should any occasion intervene, he himself goes toward Apulia, to discuss with his brother what is to be done further.

Plurimumque ad invicem conferentes, tandem, refrigerante calore, centum militibus sibi ab eo in auxilium acceptis, in Siciliam rediens, versus provinciam Agrigentinam cum ducentis militibus praedatum vadit. Unde cum rediret, cum maxima parte militum suorum praedam praecedere praecipiens, ipse cum reliquis inter duos cuneos minatur ne a fronte vel certe a tergo aliquo hostili incursu excuteretur.

And after conferring very much with each other, at length, as the heat cooled, having received from him one hundred soldiers in auxiliary aid, returning into Sicily, he goes toward the Agrigentine province with two hundred soldiers to plunder. Whence, as he was returning, ordering the booty to go on ahead with the greatest part of his soldiers, he himself with the rest, between two wedge-formations, advances, lest he be shaken off by some hostile incursion from the front or indeed from the rear.

Porro Africani et Arabici, cum essent cupientes ulcisci de victoria in Ceramensi proelio sibi ablata et laudem, quam ibi amiserant, aliquando, sibi favente fortuna, recuperare, cognoscentes per nuntios ita eos praedatum isse cum ducentis electis militibus, via, qua redire habebant, insidiantes occultantur. Nostri autem, qui praecedebant, ad locum usque pervenientes, illis ex improviso exsurgentibus, virilis audaciae, qua hactenus assueti erant, obliti, enerviter agentes, cum fuga, potius quam armis, mortis periculum declinare cupiunt. Montem quendam, quem ex omni parte praecipitium cingebat, solo et arto aditu patente, pro auxilio expetentes, ascendunt.

Moreover the Africans and the Arabians, since they were eager to avenge the victory taken from them in the Ceramensian battle and someday, with fortune favoring them, to recover the renown which they had there lost, learning through messengers that they had thus gone to plunder with 200 chosen soldiers, hide themselves, lying in ambush on the road by which they had to return. But our men, who were going before, arriving as far as the place, with them rising up unexpectedly, forgetful of the manly audacity to which they had hitherto been accustomed, acting enervately, wish to avert the danger of death by flight rather than by arms. Seeking for aid a certain mountain, which a precipice encircled on every side, with a single and narrow access alone lying open, they ascend it.

Hostes vero, parte armigerum, qui praedam minabant, perempta, ipsam etiam praedam excutiunt. Comes autem, qui subsequebatur, tumultum audiens, dum citius advolat, quae acciderant cognoscens, maxima indignatione et ira repletus, ut secum de hostibus ultionem expetant, suos immensis clamoribus a monte, quem conscenderant, incassum revocare nititur, donec ipsemet, Turonem ascendens et suos quemque nomine vocans, ne se in posterum fuisse excusarent, talibus verbis alloqui aggressus est: "Ita ne - inquit -, o fortissimi, hactenus viribus exhausti estis, ut, absque recordatione alicuius militaris laudis, in profundum putribundae defectionis submersi, ulterius respirare nequeatis. Recordamini antecessorum, sed et gentis nostrae, nostraeque hactenus habitae strenuitatis preconizatae, devitantes notas futuri vituperii.

But the enemies, with a part of the men-at-arms who were driving the booty slain, seize even the booty itself. The Count, however, who was following behind, hearing the tumult, while he hastens thither more quickly, learning what had happened, filled with the greatest indignation and wrath, that they might seek vengeance upon the enemies with him, strives in vain with immense shouts to call his men back from the mountain which they had climbed, until he himself, mounting Turon and calling each of his men by name, so that they might not thereafter excuse themselves, began to address them with such words: “Is it so — he says — O bravest, that you have been thus far exhausted in your strength, that, without any recollection of military praise, sunk into the deep of a putrefying defection, you are not able any further to draw breath. Remember your forerunners, and also of our nation, and of our hitherto-held and preconized strenuousness; shun the marks of future vituperation.”

Recordamini quot millia hostium apud Ceramum pauciores, quam nunc debellatores exstinxistis. Fortuna tunc vobis arridens ab eodem, quo et nunc adhuc regitur. Resumite pristinas vires: victoria post fugam fortiter agentibus laudis reparatio est".

“Remember how many thousands of enemies at Ceramus you, fewer than now, as conquerors extinguished. Fortune, then smiling upon you, is governed by the same power by which even now it is still governed. Resume your former strength: victory after flight is, for those acting bravely, a reparation of renown”.

Haec et alia exprobando, plura locutus, vix eis exhortationibus recreatis, ad certamen properans, cum hoste congreditur. Fortiter agendo, gens, Deo rebellis, debellatur; praeda excussa recuperatur. Nostri, victores effecti, triumphalibus spoliis ditantur.

Reproaching these things and others, having spoken further, with them scarcely revived by those exhortations, hastening to the combat, he engages with the enemy. By acting bravely, the nation, rebellious to God, is carried to a finish in war; the booty, shaken loose, is recovered. Our men, made victors, are enriched with triumphal spoils.

Traynam cum gaudio remeantes, excepta de sola morte Galterii de Similia, qui, inter omnes militari laude dignus, in congressu fortiter agendo - quod dolor est dicere! -, iuventutis florem, ab hostibus confossus, amiserat, plurimum tristabantur.

Returning to Traina with joy, except for the sole death of Galterius of Similia, who, worthy of military laud among all, in the encounter by acting bravely - which it is a sorrow to say! -, pierced through by the enemies, had lost the flower of youth, they were very greatly saddened.

XXXVI. Dux ergo Robertus, cum in Apulia esset, sciens fratrem suum apud Siciliam multiplici incursione ab hostibus lacessiri, plurimo exercitu ab Apulia et Calabri a congregato, nolens expers esse quaestus, laboris etiam particeps fieri, versus Siciliam intendit. Comes vero fratrem adventare audiens, cum gaudio magno festinus illi apud Cusentium, Calabriae urbem, occurrit.

36. Therefore Duke Robert, when he was in Apulia, knowing that his brother near Sicily was being provoked by the enemies with multiple incursions, with a very great army gathered from Apulia and Calabri a, unwilling to be without gain, and to become even a participant in labor, directed his course toward Sicily. But the Count, hearing that his brother was approaching, with great joy, hastening, met him at Cusentium, a city of Calabria.

Sicque progredientes, anno Dominicae incarnationis MLXIIII, cum quingentis tantummodo militibus apud Farum mare transmeantes, tota Sicilia, nullo adversus eos aliquid praesumente, impune peragrata, Panormum usque perveniunt; atque in monte, qui postea Tarantinus [dictus est] ab abundantia tarantarum, a quibus ibidem exercitus eorum plurimum vexatus est, iubente duce - quem postea poenituit -, tentoria fixa sunt. Nam mons totus insitus tarantis, viris et mulieribus inhonestum, quamvis iis qui evaserint, ridiculosum hospitium praebuit. Taranta quidem vermis est, araneae speciem habens, sed aculeum veneni ferae punctionis omnesque, quos punxerit, multa et venefica ventositate replet: in tantumque angustiantur, ut ipsam ventositatem, quae per anum inhoneste crepitando emergit, nulla modo restinguere praevaleant et, nisi clibanica vel alia quaevis ferventior aestuatio citius adhibita fuerit, vitae periculum incurrere dicuntur.

And so advancing, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1064, with only five hundred soldiers, crossing the sea at the Farum, with the whole of Sicily traversed with impunity, no one venturing anything against them, they came as far as Panormus; and on a mountain—which afterwards [was called] Tarantine from the abundance of tarantulas, by which in that place their army was greatly vexed—by order of the duke (which he later regretted), the tents were pitched. For the whole mountain, planted with tarantas, provided a lodging disgraceful for men and women, though laughable to those who escaped. The taranta indeed is a “worm,” having the appearance of a spider, but a sting of venom of savage puncture, and it fills all whom it has stung with much and veneficial windiness: and they are straitened to such a degree that they are in no way able to extinguish that very windiness, which issues forth indecently by the anus with crackling, and, unless clibanary or any other more fervent heating be quickly applied, they are said to incur danger to life.

Tali inhonestate nonnulli nostrorum vexati, tandem locum mutare coguntur, vicinum urbi locum tutiorem, quo tabernacula figant, expetentes, ubi per tres menses commorati, Panormitanis fortiter repugnantibus, versus urbem quidem minime profecerunt, sed viciniora circumquaque loca plurima depopulando vexaverunt. At, cum viderent se versus urbem minime tunc temporis prevalere posse, castra moventes, Bugamum oppugnare vadunt, civibusque eiusdem castri enerviter reluctantibus, funditus diruunt, incolas omnes cum mulieribus et liberis omnique supellectili sua captivos adducunt. Sicque versus Calabriam remeare volentes, haud procul ab Agrigentina urbe - sic enim illis directior adiacebat via - tentoria figunt.

Harassed by such indecency, some of our men were at last compelled to change their place, seeking a safer spot near the city where they might pitch their tents; there, having remained for three months, with the Panormitans bravely resisting, they made no progress toward the city, but by ravaging many places nearby on every side they harried them. But when they saw that at that time they could by no means prevail toward the city, moving the camp they go to attack Bugamum, and, the citizens of that same stronghold resisting feebly, they overthrow it from the foundations, and lead all the inhabitants captive, with the women and children and all their household furnishings. And so, wishing to return toward Calabria, not far from the city of Agrigentum—for thus a more direct road lay adjacent to them—they pitch their tents.

Porro cives eiusdem urbis, viribus suis plus necessario confidentes, per portas prorumpendo, forti strepitu super illos proruunt, incautique hostibus cedendo dum fugiunt, usque in portas suae civitatis persequuntur. Dux itaque digressus, in Calabriam veniens, expeditionem solvit: Bugamenses, quos captivos adduxerat, Scriblam, quam desertaverat, restaurans, ibi hospitari fecit.

Moreover, the citizens of that same city, over-confident in their own forces beyond what was necessary, bursting out through the gates, with a mighty din rush down upon them, and, being incautious and yielding to the enemies while they flee, they pursue them as far as the gates of their city. The duke, therefore, having departed and coming into Calabria, dissolved the expedition: the people of Bugamum, whom he had brought in captive, restoring Scribla, which he had abandoned, he caused to lodge there.

XXXVII. Anno vero Dominicae incarnationis MLXV Policastri castrum destruens, incolas omnes apud Nicotrum, quod ipso anno fundaverat, adducens, ibi hospitari fecit. Autequam iret versus Panormum, dux Robertus, et in monte Tarantarum, iuxta Panormum, tentoria fixisset, dux et comes Rogerius prius in provincia Cusentii castrum quidem Rogel expugnaverunt et pro libitu ordinaverunt.

37. But in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1065, destroying the castle of Policastro, bringing all the inhabitants to Nicotrum, which in that very year he had founded, he caused them to lodge there. Before he went toward Panormus, Duke Robert—after he had pitched his tents on Mount Tarantarum, near Panormus—the duke and Count Roger had previously, in the province of Cosenza, indeed stormed the castle Rogel and arranged it at their pleasure.

Eodem anno castrum quoddam, quod Ayel dicitur, in provincia Cusentii, dux oppugnare vadens, per quattuor menses obsedit. Ayellenses autem extra castrum progredientes, cum vicinius tentoria hostes figerent, fundibulis et sagittis longius propellere nituntur; sicque ex utraque parte mutua caede fortiter congrediuntur. At, dum nostri maxima indignatione commoti, impetum in hostes facientes, ubi densiores erant, prorumpere nituntur, Rogerius, filius Scolcandi, iaculo confossus, equo deiicitur; cum etiam Gilbertus, nepos eius, eum relevare tentat, deiectus, utrique occiduntur.

In the same year, a certain fortress, which is called Ayel, in the province of Cosenza, the duke, going to attack, besieged for four months. But the Ayellans, advancing outside the fortress, since the enemies were pitching their tents nearer, strive to drive them back to a longer distance with slings and arrows; and thus on both sides they join battle bravely with mutual slaughter. But, while our men, moved by very great indignation, making an assault upon the enemies, try to break through where they were thickest, Roger, son of Scolcand, pierced by a javelin, is thrown from his horse; and when Gilbert, his nephew, also tries to raise him, he too is cast down, and both are killed.

De quorum nece dux cum omni exercitu non modicum turbantur: erant enim inter familiares sibi carissimi. Eorum corpora apud Sanctam Euphemiam, ubi tunc abbatia in honore Sanctae Dei Genitricis Mariae noviter incoepta instituebatur, humanda mandavit: equos et coetera, quae habebant, eidem ecclesiae pro ipsorum salvatione contulit.

At whose slaying the duke, together with the whole army, was not a little disturbed; for they were among his familiars most dear to him. He ordered their bodies to be buried at Saint Euphemia, where at that time an abbey, in honor of the Holy Mother of God Mary, was being newly begun and instituted; the horses and the other things which they had he bestowed upon the same church for the salvation of their souls.

Ayellenses itaque, cognoscentes pro tali et similibus factis ducem sese graviter offendisse, pacem ab ipso expetunt, ne, si rebelles persistendo, vi caperentur, ab ira eius, absque recordatione alicuius pietatis - ut meriti erant - omnes pariter perimerentur. Dux vero, quamvis anhelans esset cum suppliciis de ipsis ultionem expetere, tamen, ne ibi diutius perendinando, alias tandem intendens, demoraretur, pacem cum ipsis fecit; castrumque, ab eis deliberatum, accepit et pro libitu suo disposuit.

Thus the Ayellenses, recognizing that by such and similar deeds they had gravely offended the duke, seek peace from him, lest, if by persisting as rebels they were taken by force, by his wrath, without any recollection of pity — as they had deserved — all alike might be slain. The duke, however, although he was panting to exact vengeance upon them with punishments, nevertheless, lest by lingering there any longer — being at length intent on other matters elsewhere — he be delayed, made peace with them; and the castle, delivered up by them, he received and disposed according to his good pleasure.

XXXVIII. Comes vero Rogerius, adquirendae Siciliae intentus, quietis impatiens erat; omniaque perlustrans, crebris incursionibus deterrebat; in tantumque ex consuetudine labori continuus erat, ut hinc nec infestior aura nec coecitas obscurae noctis dehortari posset: quin de loco ad locum transiliens, per se ipsum omnia attentaret, eiusque praesentiam, plusquam omnia, hostes exhorrebant; in tantumque eius veloci frequentia deterrebantur, ut nusquam absens putaretur. Sed quia ubi, suis praesentibus, ipse absens ab hostibus deprehendebatur, sui hostili incursione interdum gravabantur, castrum, quo se - si forte necessitas incumberet - facilius tuerentur et a cuius vicinitate quaeque proxima loca attentius subiugata sibi concite foederarentur, apud Petreleium, anno Dominicae incarnationis MLXVI, turribus et propugnaculis extra portam accuratissime firmavit, per quod maximam partem Siciliae ad suae dominationis iugum ferendum perdomuit.

38. But Count Roger, intent on acquiring Sicily, was impatient of quiet; surveying everything, he deterred by frequent incursions; and to such an extent, by habit, he was continuous in labor, that neither a more hostile breeze nor the blindness of the dark night could dissuade him: nay rather, leaping from place to place, he attempted all things by himself, and the enemies shuddered at his presence more than at anything; and to such a degree were they terrified by his swift frequency that he was thought nowhere to be absent. But because when, with his men present, he himself, being absent, was caught by the enemies, his men were sometimes burdened by a hostile incursion, he most carefully fortified at Petreleium, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1066, a castle with towers and bulwarks outside the gate, by which he subdued the greatest part of Sicily to bear the yoke of his domination, so that there—from which vicinity each of the nearest places, more attentively subjugated, might quickly be federated to him—they might more easily defend themselves, if perchance necessity should press.

Filiis denique Tancredi naturaliter hic mos insitus erat: ut semper dominationis avidi, prout illis vires suppetebant, neminem terras vel possessiones habentes ex proximo sibi absque aemulatione habere paterentur, quin vel ab ipsis confestim subiecti deservirentur, vel certe ipsi omnia in sua virtute potirentur.

Finally, in the sons of Tancred this custom was naturally inbred: that, always avid for domination, as their forces sufficed, they would allow no one who had lands or possessions in their neighborhood to be without rivalry toward themselves; but either such persons were forthwith subjected and made to serve by them, or at least they themselves would get possession of everything in their own power.

XXXIX. Inde et Robertus dux, qui prae caeteris hunc morem sibi vindicaverat, Gaufridum de Conversano, nepotem videlicet suum - filius quippe sororis suae erat -, ut de Montepiloso sibi servitium - sicut et de caeteris castris, quae plurima sub ipso habebat - exhiberet, adorsus est; quodque ab ipso, sicut et coetera, minime acceperat, sed sua strenuitate, duce sibi auxilium non ferente, per se ab hostibus lucratus fuerat. Id facere renuente, dux, admoto exercitu, idem castrum obsessum vadit: multisque militariter ex utraque parte perpetratis, tandem, ut de eodem castro, sicut et de caeteris, sibi servitium promittens exhiberet, compulit.

CHAPTER 39. Then too Duke Robert, who beyond the rest had claimed this custom for himself, set upon Geoffrey of Conversano, his nephew, namely - for he was the son of his sister -, that he should render to him service from Montepiloso - as also from the other castles, very many of which he held under him - which he had by no means received from him, as also the rest, but by his own strenuousness, the duke bringing him no aid, he had by himself won from the enemies. With him refusing to do that, the duke, the army having been brought up, goes to besiege that same castle: and, many things having been performed in military fashion on either side, at length he compelled him, promising, to render to him service from that same castle, as from the others.

XL. Dux itaque, videns omnia, quae solo inceptu attentabat, fortuna favorabiliter arridente, sibi in prosperum cedere, famosissimam urbem, quae Barum dicitur, adhuc Constantinopolitano imperatori ex fidelitate adhaerentem sibi vero rebellem, ex proximo - haud longe a Montepiloso, quam, habens, quibuscumque poterat pactionibus imperator etiam, ut sibi faventiores redderet, ad impugnationem eiusdem urbis se cum inflamma[t] -, anno Verbi incarnati MLXVII[I], equitatu et navali exercitu eam obsessum vadit. Et quia ipsa civitas, quasi in quodam angulo sita, in mare porrigitur, ipse cum equestri exercitu ipsam partem qua civitas versus terram patebat, quasi ab uno mari in aliud claudens, navibus per mare extensis, una ad alteram firmiter ferreis catenis, ac si sepem faciendo, compaginatis, ita totam urbem cinxit, ut nullo latere exitus ab urbe progrediendi pateret. Duos quoque pontes, unum videlicet ab unaquaque ripa constituens, qui longius in mare usque quo navium funes ab utraque parte attingebant, porrexit, ut, si forte Barenses aliquem incursum versus naves attentarent, directo cursu a militibus navibus expeditius subveniretur.

40. The duke therefore, seeing that all the things which he was attempting at their mere inception, fortune smiling favorably, were turning to his prosperity, against the most famous city which is called Bari—still adhering by fidelity to the Constantinopolitan emperor, but rebellious to himself—from nearby (not far from Montepeloso, which, having it, the emperor also, by whatever agreements he could, so as to render them more favorable to himself, with inflamed zeal committed himself to the assault of that same city), in the year of the Incarnate Word 1067[8], with an equestrian and a naval army goes to besiege it. And because the city itself, as if set in a certain corner, stretches into the sea, he, with the equestrian force, closed off that part by which the city lay open toward the land, as if from one sea to another shutting it in, with ships stretched across the sea, one to another firmly by iron chains, as if making a hedge, jointed together, so girded the whole city that on no side was there afforded an exit for proceeding out from the city. He also extended two bridges, namely establishing one from each shore, which reached farther into the sea, as far as the ropes of the ships touched from either side, so that, if perchance the Barensians attempted any incursion toward the ships, aid might be brought more expeditiously by the soldiers to the ships in a straight course.

Barenses autem demonstrare volentes id, pro quo dux hoc agebat, habere despectui, omnia vilipendere ornamenta sua, thesaurorumque speciosa dependentia ostentare, Guiscardo plurima convitia inferentes, turribus suis fidentes, rerum exitus minus metiri coeperunt. Quae res Guiscardum ab incepto quidem non deterrebant; sed magis ambitionis cupidine fervens, quanto pretiosiora infra muros contineri dicebant, tanto ardentius spe ea lucrandi, ad quod coeperat persistendum, mentis instantiam figebat, subridendo illis respondens: "Quae - inquit - ostentatis, mea sunt, et quia a vobis voluntarie mihi praesentantur, habeo gratum. Estote fideles ad tempus in conservando ! Vobis quippe de amissione dolentibus, fiam quandoque largus in distribuendo".

The people of Bari, however, wishing to demonstrate that they held in despite the very thing for which the duke was acting thus, began to vilipend all their ornaments and to ostentate the splendid pendants of their treasures, hurling many invectives at Guiscard; trusting in their towers, they began the less to measure the issue of affairs. This did not, indeed, deter Guiscard from his inception; but rather, burning with the cupidity of ambition, the more precious things they were said to have contained within the walls, the more ardently, in the hope of gaining them, he fixed the insistence of his mind on persevering in what he had begun, responding to them with a smile: “The things which you ostentate are mine; and because they are voluntarily presented to me by you, I hold it as a favor. Be faithful for a time in keeping them safe! For when you are grieving over the loss, I shall someday be lavish in distributing.”

Sicque suos ad urbem debellandam exhortationibus et promissionibus inflammans, laboris sui renunciationisque praemium infra murum testatur esse: ipse moenia circumire, aggeres comportare, urbem vallare, arietes facere, caeteraque machinamenta, quae usui capiendae urbis necessaria erant, componere, suos instruere, hostes infestare, metum iugi instantia studebat incutere.

And thus, inflaming his men to war the city down with exhortations and promises, he attests that the reward of their labor and renunciation is within the wall: he himself to go around the ramparts, to bring up embankments, to invest the city, to make battering-rams, and to compose the other machinaments which were necessary for the use of taking the city, to instruct his own, to infest the enemies; he strove to inculcate fear by continual insistence.

Barenses ergo, videntes costantiam ducis, ultra quam rati erant, indivulsam persistere, victumque infra urbem, nullo ad introducendum - hostibus circumspectis - aditu patente, a multitudine inermis vulgi, mulierum scilicet et puerorum, inutiliter devastari, quod vi nequibant, dolo vitae ducis periculum parant; pretioque composito, a quodam laevitatis viro, ut, urbe digrediens, illum spiculo corripere attentet, mercantur. Amerinus ergo, avaritia captionis cupidine captus, ad perpetrandum tam nobile, ut sibi tunc videbatur, facinus accelerat; spiculoque, venenis infecto, ab edocentibus se tantae versutiae fraudem accepto, urbe digressus, quasi unus ex nostris, lapides funda versus hostes supra muros iacendo, adversus castra nostrorum dolose speculatum circumvenit. Sicque, vesperascente die, nox intercludere solis radios properat, cumque, coenae hora instante, dux in tabernaculo suo, ex foliosis arborum ramis composito, sedisset, ille, a tergo veniens, ramoso pariete interposito, ducem, primo oculo, deinde aure per vocem, bene visum, credens, spiculum, quod ad hoc acceperat, fortiter impingendo, parte vestium correpta, sed, Deo protegente, ipso illaeso permanente, in terram defixit.

Therefore the Barensians, seeing the duke’s constancy persist unbroken beyond what they had reckoned, and the victuals within the city—no passage standing open for bringing any in, the enemies being on the watch—being uselessly ravaged by the multitude of the unarmed common sort, namely of women and boys, prepare by guile the peril of the duke’s life, which they could not achieve by force; and, a price agreed, they hire a certain man of depravity, that, as he goes out of the city, he should attempt to strike him with a little dart. Amerinus, therefore, seized by a covetous desire of the capture, hastens to perpetrate so “noble” a crime, as it then seemed to him; and with a spiculum, infected with poisons, having received from his instructors the trick of so great versutia, going out of the city, as if one of ours, by hurling stones with a sling toward the enemies above the walls, he stealthily comes round to spy against our camp. And so, as the day was drawing toward evening, night hastens to shut off the rays of the sun, and when, the hour of supper approaching, the duke had sat in his tabernacle, constructed from leafy branches of trees, he, coming from behind, with a branchy wall interposed, believing the duke to be well identified—first by the eye, then by the ear through the voice—by forcefully driving the spiculum which he had received for this, a part of the clothing being caught, but, God protecting, he himself remaining unhurt, he fixed it in the ground.

Sicque ducem laesum credens, incasso vulnere, spiculo amisso, nihil sibi fuga utilius credens, quam velocius potuit, cursu sese infra urbem recepit. Ducis vero ministri, tali facto expavefacti, extra prosilientes, dolo cognito, noctis excubias solito attentius vigilesque circa ducem deputant, coementariosque ex eius edicto conducentes, summo diluculo petrinam domum brevi perficiunt.

And so, believing the duke to have been wounded, with the wound in vain and the dart lost, believing nothing more useful to himself than flight, he, as swiftly as he could, by running withdrew himself within the city. But the duke’s ministers, terrified by such a deed, leaping out, and the fraud recognized, assign the night-watches more attentively than usual and appoint vigils around the duke; and, hiring masons by his edict, at the very break of dawn they in short order complete a stone house.

XLI. Ea tempestate comes Rogerius in Sicilia morabatur, crebris incursionibus omnia hostiliter perlustrans, ad sibi subdendum nunc praemiis pulsans, modo minis terrens iugi exercitatione plerumque alios damnis afficiens, in tantumque, quietis impatiens, hostes lacessendo deterrebat, ut vix in ipsis munitionibus nusquam autem alias securi essent . Nox vel dies, vesper et aurora, aura lenis vel aspera, aequo pondere infesta timori erant. Unde et Sicilienses, consilio intra se habito, mori potiusquam cum tanta inquietudine infelicem vitam diutius protelare deliberantes, belli fortunam contra comitem tentare parant Denique versus Panormum praedatum proficiscenti, exercitu innumerabili undique conflato, ex improvviso apud Miselmir occurrunt, anno incarnati Verbi MLXVIII.

41. At that time Count Roger was lingering in Sicily, scouring everything in hostile fashion with frequent incursions, now pressing with rewards to bring men under his sway, now frightening with threats, by continual exercise for the most part afflicting others with losses; and, so impatient of rest, by harrying the enemies he so deterred them that scarcely even in their very fortifications—but nowhere else at all—were they secure . Night or day, evening and dawn, a gentle or a rough breeze, were with equal weight fraught with fear. Whence also the Sicilians, having held counsel among themselves, resolving to die rather than to prolong a wretched life any longer with such disquiet, prepare to try the fortune of war against the count Denique, as he set out toward Panormus to plunder, with an innumerable army gathered from every side, they met him unexpectedly at Miselmir, in the year of the Incarnate Word 1068.

Porro comes, eminus eos conspiciens, totus infremuit; omnesque suos in unum coÎrcens, subridendo ait suis: "Eia - inquit - nobilium praedecessorum nobiliores! Fortuna vobis favens, praedam, quam longius quaerere disposueratis, labori vestro parcens, ultro vobis obviam, ne plus in conficiendo itinere fatigemini, adducit. Ecce praeda a Deo nobis concessa!

But the count, seeing them from a distance, roared outright; and, gathering all his men into one body, smiling said to his men: "Ho - he said - nobler than your noble predecessors! Fortune, favoring you, brings the booty which you had determined to seek farther away, sparing your labor, of its own accord to meet you, so that you may not be wearied more in completing the journey. Behold the booty granted to us by God!

Auferte iis, qui ea indigni sunt! Utamur ea, dividentes apostolico more, prout cuique opus est. Ne exhorrescatis iamdudum a multotiensque a vobis devictos.

Take away from those who are unworthy of them! Let us use them, dividing in apostolic manner, as each person has need. Do not shudder at those long since and many times conquered by you.

Si ducem mutaverunt, eiusdem nationis, qualitatis, sed et religionis est, cuius et caeteri sunt. Deus autem noster immutabilis est; et, si a nobis non mutatur integritas fidelis spei, nec ab ipso mutabitur sententia triumphalis auxilii".

If they have changed their leader, he is of the same nation, quality, and even religion as the others are. But our God is immutable; and, if the integrity of faithful hope is not changed by us, neither will the decree of triumphal aid be changed by him".

His dictis, acieque suorum prudenter ordinata, cum hoste congreditur. Fortiter nostris agentibus, gens inimica in tantum debellatur, ut vix ex tanta multitudine superesset, per quem rei eventus Panormi renuntiaretur. Nostri vero triumphalibus spoliis plurimum ditantur.

With these things said, and the battle-line of his own prudently ordered, he joins battle with the enemy. Our men acting bravely, the inimical nation is so thoroughly vanquished that scarcely out of so great a multitude was there anyone left by whom the outcome of the affair might be reported to Panormus. Our men, for their part, are enriched very greatly with triumphal spoils.

XLII. Moris vero Saracenorum est, ut columbas, frumento et melle infuso domi nutrientes, cum aliquorsum longius digrediuntur, masculos sportulis inclusos, secum ferant; ut, cum aliquid novi fortuna illis administraverit, quod domi scitum velint, chartulis eventus suos annotantes et collo avis, vel certe sub ala, suspendentes, avibus dimissis per aera, familiae domi sollicitae, utrum prospere erga peregrinos amicos omnia agantur, notificare accelerant. Avicula enim dulcedine grani melliti, quam domi degustare saepius assueverat, illecta, reditum accelerat, chartulas morem suum scientibus repraesentat.

42. It is indeed the custom of the Saracens, that, nourishing at home doves with grain and honey infused, when they go somewhat farther afield they carry with them the males enclosed in little baskets; so that, when fortune has managed some new development for them which they wish to be known at home, noting their outcomes on little slips and suspending them at the bird’s neck, or certainly under the wing, with the birds sent through the air they hasten to notify the household at home, anxious whether all things are being conducted prosperously for their friends abroad. For the little bird, enticed by the sweetness of honeyed grain, which it had been accustomed often to taste at home, hastens its return, and presents the little papers to those acquainted with its custom.

Huiusmodi sportulas cum avibus comes inter reliqua spolia accipiens, avibus cum inscriptis sanguine chartulis dimissis, tristis fortunae eventus Panormitanis repraesentat. Urbs tota concutitur: lacrimosae voces liberorum et mulierum per aÎra coelum usque attolluntur. Gaudium nostris, illis tristitia parturitur.

The Count, receiving among the other spoils such baskets with the birds, the birds—slips inscribed with blood attached—having been sent off, represents to the Panormitans the sad outcome of fortune. The whole city is shaken: the tearful voices of children and of women are lifted through the air even up to heaven. For our men joy is brought to birth; for them sorrow is brought to birth.

XLIII. Principabatur tunc temporis urbi Barensi sub imperatore graecus quidam, Argeritius nomine, qui, cum caeteris civibus pro tempore et loco consilio habito, chartulis aerumnas urbis civiumque, sed et hostium infestationem, adnotans, clam de nocte per quendam ab urbe digredientem Diogeno, Costantinopolitano imperatori, dirigit: urbem, quae, sola in eius fidelitate persistens, undique hostili incursione quatiebatur, nisi citius subveniat, se amissuros sciat, victus penuria; se - iam tertio anno instantibus hostibus - circumsepto, cives, diutino certamine deficientes, deditionem parare; nisi ipsam retineat, spem nullam de recuperatione pervasae ab hostibus patriae ulterius reservari.

43. At that time there presided over the city of Bari, under the emperor, a certain Greek, named Argeritius, who, with the other citizens, counsel having been taken according to the exigency of time and place, annotating on little slips the hardships of the city and of the citizens, and also the infestation of the enemies, secretly by night dispatches to Diogenes, the Constantinopolitan emperor, through a certain man departing from the city: that the city, which, alone persevering in his fealty, was being shaken on all sides by hostile incursions, unless he more swiftly come to succor, he should know that they will lose it, through a penury of victuals; that he—now with the enemies pressing for the third year—being encompassed, the citizens, failing from the long contest, are preparing surrender; that, unless he hold it, no hope at all concerning the recovery of the fatherland overrun by the enemies is reserved any further.

Legatus, quod instructus erat, fideliter adimplere satagens, brevi magnum conficiens iter, Byzantium venit. Acceptas epistolas imperatori repraesentare vadit: epistolis orationem exhortatoriam ut subveniat, addit. Imperator vero, susceptis epistolis ac perlectis, Duracium mittens, classem in mari parare facit, cui Gocelinum de Corintho - quendam natione normannum et in palatio post imperatorem secundum paucis, quia strenuus armis et consilio callens erat - ducem praeponens, cum multis copiis Barensibus succurrendum disponit.

The legate, striving faithfully to fulfill what he had been instructed, completing a great journey in a short time, came to Byzantium. He goes to present the received letters to the emperor; to the letters he adds an exhortatory oration that he aid. The emperor indeed, having received and thoroughly read the letters, sending to Durazzo, has a fleet prepared on the sea; appointing as commander Gocelinus of Corinth—someone a Norman by nation and in the palace, after the emperor, second to few, because he was strenuous in arms and skillful in counsel—he arranges that with many forces succor be brought to the Barensians.

Porro qui missus fuerat, iussus ab imperatore, Barum regrediens, clam per hostes urbem, ut exierat, intrat. Acta refert, signumque, quo auxilium veniens eminus cognoscant, edocet: ut simile signum de uno quoque propugnaculo contra advenientes faciant, fac es scilicet accendant, ne a certo portu devient, admonet.

Furthermore, the one who had been sent, ordered by the emperor, returning to Bari, secretly through the enemies enters the city, as he had gone out. He reports what was done, and he instructs them in the signal by which they may recognize the aid, coming from afar: he admonishes that they make a similar signal from each and every battlement against those approaching—namely, that they light torches—lest they deviate from the appointed harbor.

Barenses, hoc nuntio exhilarati, plus necessario festinantes, - animo enim cupienti nihil satis festinatur - in proximam noctem faces accendunt, clamoribus et laudibus plus solito laetitiam ostendunt. Quidnam in hoc facto praetendant, inter nostros quaestio oritur: fit de pluribus rebus coniectura; undique argumentatur; a prudentioribus rei veritas depraehenditur, auxilium videlicet per mare illis advenire.

The Barensians, exhilarated by this message, hastening more than was necessary, - for to a desiring mind nothing is hastened enough - on the next night light torches, and with shouts and praises display joy more than usual. What they might intend in this deed, a question arises among our people: conjecture is made about several matters; it is argued on all sides; by the more prudent the truth of the matter is apprehended, namely that help is coming to them by sea.

Advenerat tamen in auxilium ducis fratris plurimo remige comes Siciliae, Rogerius, noviter a fratre invitatus: leoninam in omni certamine habens ferocitatem, quam tamen prudentia regebat et fortuna favens comitabatur. Hic callide in hoc negotio agens, singulis noctibus speculatum ire iubet, si forte eminus per mare adventantes naves aspiciantur. Cum ecce, quadam iam nocte mediante, quasi stellae lucernae ardentes in summitate mali uniuscuiusque navis eminus apparere conspiciuntur.

Nevertheless there had come, to the aid of his brother the duke, with very many oarsmen, the Count of Sicily, Roger, newly invited by his brother: having a leonine ferocity in every contest, which, however, prudence governed and favoring fortune accompanied. He, acting cleverly in this business, orders that on each night men go to keep watch, in case ships approaching over the sea might be seen from afar. When behold, with a certain night now at its middle, as if starry lamps burning on the summit of the mast of each ship are seen to appear from afar.

Quod cum a comite compertum fuisset, accelerantissime, armata manu, plurimo sese remigi credens, obviam hostibus ire accelerat. Quos hostes eminus aspicientes, Barenses, qui sibi prae gaudio occurrerent, rati, minus sese ad defensionem aptant. Comes vero navem Gocelini, qui dux hostium erat, duabus lanternis a caeteris distinctam, eminus cognoscens, illam versus impetum suorum intendere iubet.

When this had been found out by the count, most speedily, with an armed band, committing himself to very many oarsmen, he hastens to go to meet the enemies. But the Barensians, seeing those enemies from afar, supposing them to be people who were running up to them out of joy, fit themselves the less for defense. The Count, however, recognizing from afar the ship of Gocelin, who was the leader of the enemies, distinguished from the others by two lanterns, orders the impetus of his men to be directed toward that one.

Dumque fortiter congrediuntur, tanta vi quaedam ex nostris super navem illorum grassata est, ut, ex uno latere cum pondere armorum incaute decurrente, centum quinquaginta loricati ex nostris submergerentur. Comes vero Gocelinum oppugnans superat: quem in suam navem exarmatam recipiens, cum triumpho gloriosus ad fratrem remeat.

And while they are stoutly engaging, a certain one of our vessels charged onto their ship with such force that, from one side, as the weight of the arms was heedlessly rushing down, 150 armored men of ours were submerged. But the Count, assailing Gocelin, overcomes him; receiving him disarmed into his own ship, he returns glorious with triumph to his brother.

Dux vero, amittendi timore in certamine fratris, plurimum angebatur: quippe enim nec succurrere poterat, nec alium, excepto illo - caeteris defunctis -, habebat. At cum victor et incolumis redire nuntiatur, nulli credulus fieri asserit, donec visu sibi satisfaciente. Utrum sanus esset scrutando, ingeminat cum lacrimis Comes vero Gocelinum, mirifice graeco more praeparatum, duci, ad honorem, repraesentat captivum.

But the Duke, from fear of losing his brother in the combat, was greatly anguished: since indeed he could neither succor him, nor had another, except him — the rest having deceased —. But when it is reported that he returns victorious and unharmed, he avers he will become credulous to no one, until by a sight satisfying himself. Scrutinizing whether he were safe and sound, he reiterates with tears; but the Count presents Gocelin, marvelously prepared in Greek fashion, to the duke, for honor, as a captive.

Barenses itaque, se sua spe frustrati, ulterius suos hostes ferre non valentes, deditione facta, duci foederantur, anno Domini MLXX[I]. Dux voti compos effectus fratri cunctoque exercitui, gratias referens, urbe pro velle suo ordinata, fratrem in Siciliam praemittens, solito exercitu brevi iterum espeditionem versus Panormum summovet. Toto iunio et iulio mense apud Ydrontum moratus, montem, quo facilius descensus ad mare - equos navibus introducens - fieret, rescindere facit. Unde et Duracenses maxime sunt territi, ne, mare cum exercitu transmeans, eos impugnatum veniret, mulam et equum ei, quasi ad honorem, mandantes, ea occasione rem speculatum mittunt.

The Barensians, therefore, having been frustrated in their own hope, no longer able to bear their enemies, having made surrender, are federated to the duke, in the year of the Lord 1071. The duke, having obtained his vow, giving thanks to his brother and to the whole army, the city ordered according to his will, sending his brother on ahead into Sicily, with his usual army shortly again sets an expedition in motion toward Panormus. Having remained throughout the whole of June and July at Hydruntum, he has a mountain cut back, so that a descent to the sea might be made more easily—bringing horses onto ships. Whence the Dyrrachians also were greatly terrified, lest, crossing the sea with his army, he should come to attack them; sending to him a mule and a horse, as if for honor, on that occasion they send someone to spy out the situation.

XLIV. Ea tempestate, Costa Condomicita, qui Stilum iamdudum duci fraudolenter abstulerat, veritus ne, cum dux versus Siciliam navigando transitum simularet, Stilum obsessum diverteret, duci reconciliatus, castrum reddidit, tali iniuria se, ad quod fecerat, compulsum dicens. Dux Costam Pelogam quendam stratigotum statuerat, qui, nimia insolentia defluens, quosque ingenuos viros vel mulieres, nec etiam suae consanguinitati parcens, contumeliis afficiebat.

44. At that time, Costa Condomicita, who had long since fraudulently taken Stilo from the duke, fearing lest, when the duke, by sailing, should simulate a crossing toward Sicily, he might turn aside to besiege Stilo, being reconciled to the duke, returned the castle, saying that by such an injury he had been compelled to that which he had done. The duke had appointed a certain Costa Peloga as stratigotus, who, overflowing with excessive insolence, subjected whomever—even freeborn men or women, not sparing even his own consanguinity—to contumelies.

Hic, inter caetera, quadam ingenuam matronam, nomine Reginam, aviam Costae Condomicitae, gallinam auream cum pullis, quam habere dicebatur, ab ea extorquere volens, verberibus laniatam captione retruserat. Costa Condomicita in famulatu ducis apud Insulam Crotoni detinebatur; cui, cum quod acciderat relatum fuisset, iniuriam aviae reputans suam, infirmitate simulata, licentiam redeundi domum, causa curationis, a duce exposcens, vigilia natalis Domini Stilum reversus est. Quem stratigotus venisse audiens, piscium sibi exenia per famulum mittit; qualiter se res erga ducem habebat, requirit.

Here, among other things, he had thrust into captivity, torn with beatings, a certain freeborn matron named Regina, grandmother of Costa Condomicita, wishing to extort from her a golden hen with chicks, which she was said to possess. Costa Condomicita was being detained in the service (famulatus) of the duke at the Island of Croton; to him, when what had happened had been reported, accounting his grandmother’s injury his own, feigning infirmity, and asking from the duke licence to return home for the sake of a cure, he returned to Stilo on the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord. The strategotus, hearing that he had come, sends to him gifts of fish through a servant; he inquires how the matter stood with respect to the duke.

Ille, ac si nihil mali machinans, ira dissimulata, gratias remandat. Sed quod animo conceperat minime oblitus; postquam comestum est, potentioribus urbis secreto circumventis, de sibi illata aviaeque iniuria quaerimoniam ostentat. Quibus respondentibus merito sibi talia accidisse, - eius praesidio vel arte sciebant ducem - excusationibus minime usus, facti se poenitere asserens, uti contulerat, ita auferre tentaturum promittit, si tantummodo ipsis potiatur auxiliariis.

He, as if contriving nothing evil, his wrath dissembled, sends thanks back. But by no means forgetful of what he had conceived in mind; after it was eaten, with the more powerful men of the city secretly surrounded, he displays a complaint about the injury inflicted upon himself and upon his grandmother. As they answered that such things had befallen him deservedly, - they knew the duke to be his by protection or by artifice - making no use of excuses, asserting that he repents of the deed, he promises that, as he had bestowed, so he will attempt to take away, if only he might obtain them as auxiliaries.

Sicque, a pluribus fide accepta, totam noctem insomnem ducens, quoscumque potest sibi allegat: summoque diluculo cum omnes, qui huius rei ignari erant, ut dies ipsa monebat, in ecclesia Dei laudibus inservirent, ipse cum tredecim viris, gladiis cum capis accinctis, reliquis, signo dato, et a foribus expectantibus, ad portam castelli accedens, ianitor, nil suspicatus, quasi noto aperit. Ille cum sociis ingressus, hospitium stratigoti intrat; arma, quae invenit, corripit: versus ecclesiam stratigotum praeoccupare volens, citissimus occurrit. Undique ergo, insurgente clamore, stratigotus, insidiis compertis, per fenestram prosiliens, praecipitio dilapsus, dum fuga refugium petit, a civibus, quibus omnibus exosus erat, comprehensus reducitur.

Sowhen, having received a pledge of good faith from several, and passing the whole night sleepless, he attaches to himself whomever he can: and at the very break of dawn, when all who were unaware of this affair, as the day itself admonished, were attending in the church to the praises of God, he himself, with thirteen men, girt with swords and in cloaks, the rest, the signal having been given, waiting at the doors, approaching the gate of the castle, the doorkeeper, suspecting nothing, opens as to one known. He, having entered with his companions, enters the lodging of the stratigot; he seizes the arms which he finds: heading toward the church, wishing to preoccupy the stratigot, he runs up with utmost speed. Therefore, with a clamor arising on every side, the stratigot, the ambush discovered, leaping out through a window, slipping in a headlong plunge, while in flight he seeks a refuge, is seized by the citizens, to all of whom he was odious, and is brought back.

Costa Condomicita - quia consanguineus eius erat - volente ei parcere, a populo condemnatur: sicque cum suppliciis poenas luens, a quibus mala intulerat, perimitur; quos religaverat, liberantur; a fidelitate ducis palam avertuntur. Sicque per sex fere annos duci rebelles per diversa loca Calabriae, ab ipsis turbatio plurima facta est.

Costa Condomicita—because he was his kinsman—though wishing to spare him, is condemned by the people; and thus, paying the penalties with torments, he is put to death by those upon whom he had inflicted evils; those whom he had bound are freed; they are openly turned away from loyalty to the duke. And so, for almost six years, being rebellious to the duke, through various places of Calabria, very great disturbance was caused by them.

Istud hic inscribimus, ut caveant praelati sibi subditos pravis ministris a sua fidelitate divelli.

We inscribe this here, that prelates may beware lest their subjects be torn away from their fidelity by depraved ministers.

XLV. Dux igitur, commeatibus et caeteris quae expeditioni congruebant apparatis, fratrem, quem praemiserat, subsecutus, apud Cathaniam, ubi comes erat, venit, fingens se Maltam debellatum ire, quasi de Panormo non curans. Sed a fratre cohortatus, magno equitatu, cum navalibus peditumque copiis ab inde progrediens, Panormum venit, ab oceano urbem navibus obsidens, fratremque comitem cum iis, qui eius famulatui inserviebant, ab uno latere statuens, ipse ab altero cornu cum Calabrensibus et Apulis muros ambit.

45. Therefore the Duke, with the provisions and the other things which were congruent to the expedition prepared, having followed his brother whom he had sent ahead, came to Catania, where the Count was, feigning that he was going to Malta to have it thoroughly subdued, as if not caring about Palermo. But, encouraged by his brother, with great cavalry, advancing from there with naval and infantry forces, he came to Palermo, besieging the city from the ocean with ships; and setting his brother the Count, with those who were in his service, on one flank, he himself from the other wing, with Calabrians and Apulians, encircled the walls.

Sicque quinque mensium circulo hostes urbis defensionis fuerant attentissime pervigiles: ipse, nihilominus impugnationi cum fratre intentus, inquietare ipsam perstuduit. Utrique, pari ardore inflammati, non cessant omnia circumire, suos instruere, omnia ordinare, hostibus interminari, suis plurima largiri, ampliora promittere, primus et frequentior adesse, nihil intentatum relinquere. Machinamentis itaque et scalis ad muros transcendendos artificiosissime compaginatis, dux hortos cum trecentis militibus latenter ingressus, ex altera parte, qua videlicet navalis exercitus adiacebat, urbem infestare, fratremque a parte, qua erat, haud secus agere perdocuerat.

And thus, in the circle of five months, the enemies had been most attentively pervigilant in the defense of the city; he himself, nonetheless intent upon the impugnation with his brother, strove exceedingly to disquiet it. Both, inflamed with equal ardor, do not cease to go all about, to instruct their own, to set everything in order, to threaten the enemies, to largess very many things to their men, to promise ampler rewards, to be first and more frequently present, to leave nothing unattempted. Therefore, with engines and ladders for over-climbing the walls most artificiously compaginated, the duke, having stealthily entered the gardens with three hundred soldiers, had arranged to infest the city from the other side—namely where the naval host lay adjacent—and had thoroughly instructed his brother to act no otherwise from the side where he was.

Illi, signo dato, quo edocti erant, haud perficere segnes, magno sonitu irruunt. Urbs tota, in arma ruens, quae strepitu tumultuantium deterrebatur, defensioni accelerando grassatur. A parte, qua minus cavebant, incaute vacuatur; a Guiscardensibus scalis appositis, murus trascenditur.

They, the signal having been given, by which they had been instructed, not slow to carry it out, rush in with a great din. The whole city, rushing to arms, which was being deterred by the clamor of the tumultuators, sets about hastening to the defense. On the side where they were less on guard, it is incautiously left vacant; with ladders set in place by Guiscard’s men, the wall is scaled.

Urbs exterior capitur; portae ferro sociis ad ingrediendum aperiuntur. Dux et comes cum omni exercitu infra muros hospitantur.

The outer city is captured; the gates are opened by iron to the allies for entering. The duke and the count, with the whole army, are quartered within the walls.

Panormitani delusi, hostes a tergo infra muros esse cognoscentes, in interiori urbe refugium petendo, sese recipiunt. Nox tumultum diremit. Proximo mane primores, foedere interposito, utrisque fratribus locutum accedunt, legem suam nullatenus se violari vel relinquere velle dicentes, scilicet, si certi sint, quod non cogantur, vel iniustis et novis legibus non atterantur.

Deluded, the Panormitans, recognizing that the enemies were behind them within the walls, seek refuge in the inner city and withdraw themselves. Night ended the tumult. On the next morning the primores, with a treaty interposed, come to speak with both brothers, saying that they by no means wish their law to be violated or abandoned, namely, if they are assured that they will not be compelled, nor worn down by unjust and novel laws.

Quandoquidem fortuna praesenti sic hortabantur, urbis deditionem facere, se in famulando fideles persistere, tributa solvere: et hoc iuramento legis suae firmare spopondunt.

Since the present fortune was thus exhorting, they urged a surrender of the city, that they would persist faithful in serving, to pay tributes: and they pledged to make this firm by an oath of their own law.

Dux comesque gaudentes, quod offerebatur libenter suscipiunt, anno Dominicae incarnationis MLXXI. Adepti, prius illius Scripturae fideles imitatores dicentis: Primum quaerite regnum Dei, et omnia adiicientur vobis, ecclesiam sanctissimae Dei Genitricis Mariae, quae antiquitus archiepiscopatus fuerat - sed tunc ab impiis Saracenis violata, templum superstitionis eorum facta erat -, cum magna devotione catholice reconciliatam, dote et ornamentis ecclesiasticis augent. Archiepiscopum, qui, ab impiis deiectus, in paupere ecclesia sancti Cyriaci - quamvis timidus et natione graecus -, cultum Christianae religionis pro posse exequebatur, revocantes restituunt.

The duke and the count, rejoicing, gladly accept what was being offered, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1071. Having obtained it, first as faithful imitators of that Scripture which says: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all things shall be added to you,” they augment the church of the most holy Mother of God Mary, which in ancient times had been an archbishopric - but then, violated by the impious Saracens, had been made a temple of their superstition -, reconciled in Catholic fashion with great devotion, with a dowry and ecclesiastical ornaments. The archbishop, who, cast down by the impious, in the poor church of Saint Cyriacus - although timid and Greek by nation -, was carrying out the cult of the Christian religion as he could, recalling him, they restore.

Deinde vero, castello firmato et urbe pro velle suo disposita, dux, eam in suam proprietatem retinens, vallem Deminae caeteramque omnem Siciliam adquisitam et suo adiutorio, ut promittebat, nec falso adquirendam fratri de se habendam concessit.

Then indeed, the castle having been fortified and the city disposed according to his wish, the duke, retaining it in his own property, conceded the valley of the Demina and all the rest of Sicily acquired, and, by his assistance, as he promised, not falsely to be acquired, to his brother to be held of himself.

XLVI. Cum ista geruntur, Serlo, filius Serlonis, nepos videlicet utrorumque principum istorum - cuius in praecedentibus mentionem fecimus -, apud Ceramum morabatur ad tuendam provinciam ab incursionibus Arabicorum, qui apud Castrum-Iohannis ea tempestate morabantur, a duce et comite sic iussus. Nam et medietas totius Siciliae, ex consensu ducis et comitis, suae sorti Arisgotique de Puteolis, inter se dividenda, cesserat, eo quod hic quid consanguineus eorum erat: uterque autem consilio et armis probissimi viri erant.

46. While these things are being done, Serlo, son of Serlo, the nephew, namely, of both those princes — of whom we have made mention in the preceding — was staying at Ceramum to guard the province from the incursions of the Arabians, who at that season were staying near Castrum-Iohannis, having been thus ordered by the duke and the count. For even a half of the whole of Sicily, by the consent of the duke and the count, had fallen to his lot and to Arisgot of Puteoli, to be divided between them, for the reason that this man was a kinsman of them: and both were men most proven in counsel and in arms.

Arabici autem, qui apud Castrum-Iohannis morabantur, strenuitate Serlonis, quia eis multum infestus erat, plurimum inimicabantur, iugique intentione dolo vel armis ruinam eius meditari nitebantur. Saracenus autem quidam, de potentioribus Castri-Iohannis, nomine Brachiem, cum Serlone, ut eum facilius deciperet, foedus inierat, eorumque more per aurem adoptivum fratrem, alter alterum factum vicissim susceperat. Hic, traditione cum suis composita, Serloni salutaria munuscula cum amicalibus verbis in dolo mandat, inter quae etiam intulit ista: "Sciat fraternitas adoptivi mei, quod, tali vel tali die, septem tantummodo Arabici ex deliberatione iactantiae ad terram tuam debent praedatum adire". Quod Serlo audiens, ridiculo habere coepit; minusque sibi prospiciens, ex vicinis castris neminem sibi in auxilium arcessivit.

But the Arabs, who were dwelling at Castrum-John, because of Serlo’s strenuousness—since he was very hostile to them—were exceedingly inimical, and with continual intent were striving to plot his ruin by deceit or by arms. Now a certain Saracen, one of the more powerful men of Castrum-John, by name Brachiem, had entered into a pact with Serlo, so that he might more easily deceive him, and, in their fashion, by the ear, as an adoptive brother, each in turn had accepted the other. He, with treachery arranged with his own men, sends to Serlo salutary little gifts with friendly words, in deceit, among which he also inserted these: "Let the brotherhood of my adoptive brother know that, on such-and-such a day, only seven Arabs, by a deliberation of vaunting, ought to go to your land to plunder." Hearing this, Serlo began to hold it as a joke; and, looking out for himself less, he summoned no one from the neighboring camps to his aid.

Sed, determinato die, inconsultus venatum secessit.

But, on the determined day, unadvised, he withdrew to the hunt.

Porro Arabici, qui dolum composuerant, cum septingentis militibus et duobus millibus peditum de Castro-Iohannis digressi, haud procul a Ceramo in abditis locis insidias ordinant, septem tantummodo, ut Brachiem Serloni indicaverat, milites mandantes, qui Ceramo, praeda capta, Serlonem exstrahunt. Insurgit clamor; ab incolis provinciae tumultuatur; a Serlone, ubi venatum ierat, tumultuantium civium strepitus auditur. Sed, quia inermis processerat, nuntium apud Ceramum, ad deferenda sibi arma suosque invitandos, mittens, ipse, quo clamor infestus urgebat, sciscitaturus quidnam esset, progreditur.

Furthermore the Arabians, who had composed the trick, having departed from Castle-John with seven hundred horse-soldiers and two thousand foot-soldiers, not far from Ceramus in hidden places arrange ambushes, sending only seven soldiers, as Brachiem had indicated to Serlo, who at Ceramus, booty seized, draw Serlo out. A clamor rises; there is tumult from the inhabitants of the province; by Serlo, where he had gone to hunt, the din of citizens in uproar is heard. But, because he had gone forth unarmed, sending a messenger to Ceramus to carry arms to him and to invite his men, he himself, to where the hostile clamor was pressing, goes forward to inquire what it might be.

At, dum a septem militibus praeda abduci dicitur, arma sibi delata corripiens, adoptivo fratri plus necessario credulus, improvide subsequens, ultra insidias progreditur. Illis autem ab insidiis prorumpentibus, cum hostes a tergo horribili armorum turbine deprehenduntur, Serlo, cum decertandi copiae non essent, - sed et fugae praesidio diffidens - cum paucis, qui secum erant, petram, quae ab ipsa die Serlonis dicta est, cursu expetit. Qua ascensa, a dorso pro muro eius usus, diu fortiter, sed nullo aliunde auxilio adventante, incassum dimicatur.

But, while the plunder is said to be carried off by seven soldiers, snatching up the arms that had been brought to him, being more credulous than necessary toward his adoptive brother, and improvidently following, he advances beyond the ambush. But when they burst forth from the ambushes, and the foes are caught from behind in a horrible whirlwind of arms, Serlo, since there were not forces for fighting it out - yet also distrusting the safeguard of flight - with the few who were with him, makes at a run for a rock which from that very day has been called Serlo’s. Having ascended it, using its back as a wall, for a long time he fights bravely; but, with no help arriving from elsewhere, he fights in vain.

Nam tandem confossus, occubuit; nullusque ex omnibus, qui cum ipso erant - exceptis duobus, qui inter cadavera mortuorum latitaverant - evasit. Serlone eviscerato, Saraceni cor extraxerunt; utque audaciam eius, quae multa fuerat, conciperent, comedisse dicuntur. Capita vero occisorum abscissa in Africam regi ad honorem, mittunt; sed caput Serlonis, stipiti impositum, per plateas urbis delatum, a clamante est praeconizatum eius esse, a quo, prae caeteris, Sicilia impugnabatur; hostes devictos; nullo simili superstite, Siciliam amodo suae sorti facile cessuram.

For at last, run through, he died; and none out of all who were with him — except two who had hidden among the corpses of the dead — escaped. Serlo having been eviscerated, the Saracens extracted the heart; and so that they might conceive his daring, which had been great, they are said to have eaten it. The severed heads of the slain, moreover, they send into Africa to the king, as an honor; but Serlo’s head, set upon a stake, carried through the streets of the city, was preconized by a crier to be his, by whom, before the rest, Sicily was being assailed; that the enemies were defeated; and that, with no similar man surviving, Sicily from now on would easily yield to its lot.

Sed, cum ista apud Panormum principibus nostris nuntiantur, exercitus totus conturbatur. Comes, amissione nepotis, intolerabili dolore angebatur; dux vero, a lamentis fratrem suum coÎrcere volens, dolorem suum virili more occultare nitebatur: "Foeminis - inquit - lamenta permittantur; nos autem in vindictam armis accingamur".

But, when these things are announced at Panormus to our princes, the whole army is thrown into confusion. The Count, at the loss of his nephew, was tormented by intolerable pain; the Duke, however, wishing to restrain his brother from laments, strove to hide his own grief in manly wise: "To women - he says - let lamentations be permitted; but let us gird ourselves with arms for vengeance".

Igitur, quia seiunctim, ad invicem, utrique fratres - quisque suis utilitatibus - lucrari studebant, excepto quod, cum necessitas incumberet, alter ab altero invitatus, vicissim sibi ad invicem succurrendum venirent, huic libro, alium incoepturi, finem ponamus, ut in sequenti de unoquoque, nunc seiunctim, iterum coniunctim, prout ipsa res expostulaverit, stilum alternemus.

Therefore, because, separately, toward one another, both brothers - each for his own utilities - were striving to profit, except that, when necessity pressed, the one, invited by the other, would come, in turn, to succor one another, let us place an end to this book, being about to begin another, so that in the following we may alternate the stylus about each one, now separately, again conjointly, as the matter itself shall have required.

Secundis Libri Finis.

End of the Second Book.