ors of Apulia: his gifts, or at least
his proposals, were rejected; and they unanimously refused to relinquish
their possessions and their hopes for the distant prospect of Asiatic
fortune. After the means of persuasion had failed, Argyrus resolved to
compel or to destroy: the Latin powers were solicited against the common
enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the two
emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was occupied by
Leo the Ninth, a simple saint, of a temper most apt to deceive himself
and the world, and whose venerable character would consecrate with
the name of piety the measures least compatible with the practice of
religion. His humanity was affected by the complaints, perhaps the
calumnies, of an injured people: the impious Normans had interrupted the
payment of tithes; and the temporal sword might be lawfully unsheathed
against the sacrilegious robbers, who were deaf to the censures of
the church. As a German of noble birth and royal kindred, Leo had free
access to the court and confidence of the emperor Henry the Third;
and in search of arms and allies, his ardent zeal transported him from
Apulia to Saxony, from the Elbe to the Tyber. During these hostile
preparations, Argyrus indulged himself in the use of secret and guilty
weapons: a crowd of Normans became the victims of public or private
revenge; and the valiant Drogo was murdered in a church. But his
spirit survived in his brother Humphrey, the third count of Apulia. The
assassins were chastised; and the son of Melo, overthrown and wounded,
was driven from the field, to hide his shame behind the walls of Bari,
and to await the tardy succor of his allies.

But the power of Constantine was distracted by a Turkish war; the mind
of Henry was feeble and irresolute; and the pope, instead of repassing
the Alps with a German army, was accompanied only by a guard of seven
hundred Swabians and some volunteers of Lorraine. In his long progress
from Mantua to Beneventum, a vile and promiscuous multitude of Italians
was enlisted under the holy standard: the priest and the robber slept in
the same tent; the pikes and crosses were intermingled in the front;
and the martial saint repeated the lessons of his youth in the order of
march, of encampment, and of combat. The Normans of Apulia could muster
in the field no more than three thousand horse, with a handful of
infantry: the defection of the natives intercepted their provisions