a new dominion;
and the four places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were
alone saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this aera we
may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon eclipsed the
infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts [24] were chosen by the popular
suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were the motives of their choice.
The tributes of their peculiar districts were appropriated to their use;
and each count erected a fortress in the midst of his lands, and at
the head of his vassals. In the centre of the province, the common
habitation of Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of
the republic; a house and separate quarter was allotted to each of the
twelve counts: and the national concerns were regulated by this military
senate. The first of his peers, their president and general, was
entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was conferred on William
of the iron arm, who, in the language of the age, is styled a lion in
battle, a lamb in society, and an angel in council. [25] The manners
of his countrymen are fairly delineated by a contemporary and national
historian. [26] "The Normans," says Malaterra, "are a cunning and
revengeful people; eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their
hereditary qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are
curbed by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness
of nature and passion. Their princes affect the praises of popular
munificence; the people observe the medium, or rather blond the
extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and in their eager thirst of
wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and hope
whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress, the
exercises of hunting and hawking [27] are the delight of the Normans;
but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with incredible patience
the inclemency of every climate, and the toil and absence of a military
life." [28]

[Footnote 20: Liutprand, in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has illustrated this
event from the Ms. history of the deacon Leo, (tom. iv. A.D. 965, No.
17-19.)]

[Footnote 21: See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori,
Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253.]

[Footnote 22: Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war, and
the conquest of Apulia, (l. i. c. 7, 8, 9, 19.) The same events are
described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741-743, 755, 756) and Zonaras,
(tom. ii. p. 237, 238;) and the Greeks are so har