reign of his
family Graecia (says Malaterra) hostibus recedentibus libera laeta
quievit: Apulia tota sive Calabria turbatur.]

[Footnote 94: Urbs Venusina nitet tantis decorata sepulchris, is one
of the last lines of the Apulian's poems, (l. v. p. 278.) William of
Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) inserts an epitaph on Guiscard, which is not
worth transcribing.]

[Footnote 95: Yet Horace had few obligations to Venusia; he was carried
to Rome in his childhood, (Serm. i. 6;) and his repeated allusions to
the doubtful limit of Apulia and Lucania (Carm. iii. 4, Serm. ii. I) are
unworthy of his age and genius.]

[Footnote 96: See Giannone (tom. ii. p. 88-93) and the historians of
the fire crusade.]

Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and
soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert Guiscard was
extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the second generation;
but his younger brother became the father of a line of kings; and the
son of the great count was endowed with the name, the conquests, and the
spirit, of the first Roger. [97] The heir of that Norman adventurer was
born in Sicily; and, at the age of only four years, he succeeded to
the sovereignty of the island, a lot which reason might envy, could she
indulge for a moment the visionary, though virtuous wish of dominion.
Had Roger been content with his fruitful patrimony, a happy and grateful
people might have blessed their benefactor; and if a wise administration
could have restored the prosperous times of the Greek colonies, [98] the
opulence and power of Sicily alone might have equalled the widest
scope that could be acquired and desolated by the sword of war. But the
ambition of the great count was ignorant of these noble pursuits; it
was gratified by the vulgar means of violence and artifice. He sought to
obtain the undivided possession of Palermo, of which one moiety had been
ceded to the elder branch; struggled to enlarge his Calabrian limits
beyond the measure of former treaties; and impatiently watched the
declining health of his cousin William of Apulia, the grandson of
Robert. On the first intelligence of his premature death, Roger sailed
from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor in the Bay of Salerno,
received, after ten days' negotiation, an oath of fidelity from the
Norman capital, commanded the submission of the barons, and extorted a
legal investiture from the reluctant popes, who could not long endure
either t