only argument that
could determine the belief of the Greeks; and the ardor of the Latins
was much inferior to their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to
enjoy the harvest of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled
at the known and unknown dangers of a transmarine expedition. In his new
levies, Robert exerted the influence of gifts and promises, the terrors
of civil and ecclesiastical authority; and some acts of violence
might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were pressed without
distinction into the service of their unrelenting prince. After two
years' incessant preparations the land and naval forces were assembled
at Otranto, at the heel, or extreme promontory, of Italy; and Robert was
accompanied by his wife, who fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and
the representative of the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights of
Norman race or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be
swelled to thirty thousand followers of every denomination. The men,
the horses, the arms, the engines, the wooden towers, covered with
raw hides, were embarked on board one hundred and fifty vessels: the
transports had been built in the ports of Italy, and the galleys were
supplied by the alliance of the republic of Ragusa.

At the mouth of the Adriatic Gulf, the shores of Italy and Epirus
incline towards each other. The space between Brundusium and Durazzo,
the Roman passage, is no more than one hundred miles; at the last
station of Otranto, it is contracted to fifty; and this narrow distance
had suggested to Pyrrhus and Pompey the sublime or extravagant idea of
a bridge. Before the general embarkation, the Norman duke despatched
Bohemond with fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu, to
survey the opposite coast, and to secure a harbor in the neighborhood
of Vallona for the landing of the troops. They passed and landed without
perceiving an enemy; and this successful experiment displayed the
neglect and decay of the naval power of the Greeks. The islands of
Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the arms or the name
of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu (I use the modern
appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. That city, the western key of the
empire, was guarded by ancient renown, and recent fortifications, by
George Palaeologus, a patrician, victorious in the Oriental wars, and a
numerous garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who, in every age,
have maintained the char