columns to surprise the Normans before daybreak on two
different sides: his light cavalry was scattered over the plain; the
archers formed the second line; and the Varangians claimed the honors of
the vanguard. In the first onset, the battle-axes of the strangers made
a deep and bloody impression on the army of Guiscard, which was
now reduced to fifteen thousand men. The Lombards and Calabrians
ignominiously turned their backs; they fled towards the river and the
sea; but the bridge had been broken down to check the sally of the
garrison, and the coast was lined with the Venetian galleys, who played
their engines among the disorderly throng. On the verge of ruin, they
were saved by the spirit and conduct of their chiefs. Gaita, the wife of
Robert, is painted by the Greeks as a warlike Amazon, a second Pallas;
less skilful in arts, but not less terrible in arms, than the Athenian
goddess: though wounded by an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove,
by her exhortation and example, to rally the flying troops. Her female
voice was seconded by the more powerful voice and arm of the Norman
duke, as calm in action as he was magnanimous in council: "Whither," he
cried aloud, "whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable; and death
is less grievous than servitude." The moment was decisive: as the
Varangians advanced before the line, they discovered the nakedness of
their flanks: the main battle of the duke, of eight hundred knights,
stood firm and entire; they couched their lances, and the Greeks deplore
the furious and irresistible shock of the French cavalry. Alexius was
not deficient in the duties of a soldier or a general; but he no sooner
beheld the slaughter of the Varangians, and the flight of the Turks,
than he despised his subjects, and despaired of his fortune. The
princess Anne, who drops a tear on this melancholy event, is reduced
to praise the strength and swiftness of her father's horse, and his
vigorous struggle when he was almost overthrown by the stroke of a
lance, which had shivered the Imperial helmet. His desperate valor broke
through a squadron of Franks who opposed his flight; and after wandering
two days and as many nights in the mountains, he found some repose,
of body, though not of mind, in the walls of Lychnidus. The victorious
Robert reproached the tardy and feeble pursuit which had suffered the
escape of so illustrious a prize: but he consoled his disappointment by
the trophies and standards of the fie