and Asia; his troops were assembled in arms,
flushed with success, and eager for action. Their numbers, in the
language of Homer, are compared by Anna to a swarm of bees; yet the
utmost and moderate limits of the powers of Guiscard have been already
defined; they were contained on this second occasion in one hundred
and twenty vessels; and as the season was far advanced, the harbor
of Brundusium was preferred to the open road of Otranto. Alexius,
apprehensive of a second attack, had assiduously labored to restore the
naval forces of the empire; and obtained from the republic of Venice an
important succor of thirty-six transports, fourteen galleys, and
nine galiots or ships of extra-ordinary strength and magnitude. Their
services were liberally paid by the license or monopoly of trade, a
profitable gift of many shops and houses in the port of Constantinople,
and a tribute to St. Mark, the more acceptable, as it was the produce
of a tax on their rivals at Amalphi. By the union of the Greeks and
Venetians, the Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet; but their
own neglect, or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind, or the
shelter of a mist, opened a free passage; and the Norman troops were
safely disembarked on the coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and
well-appointed galleys, their intrepid duke immediately sought the
enemy, and though more accustomed to fight on horseback, he trusted his
own life, and the lives of his brother and two sons, to the event of a
naval combat. The dominion of the sea was disputed in three engagements,
in sight of the Isle of Corfu: in the two former, the skill and numbers
of the allies were superior; but in the third, the Normans obtained a
final and complete victory. The light brigantines of the Greeks were
scattered in ignominious flight: the nine castles of the Venetians
maintained a more obstinate conflict; seven were sunk, two were taken;
two thousand five hundred captives implored in vain the mercy of the
victor; and the daughter of Alexius deplores the loss of thirteen
thousand of his subjects or allies. The want of experience had been
supplied by the genius of Guiscard; and each evening, when he had
sounded a retreat, he calmly explored the causes of his repulse, and
invented new methods how to remedy his own defects, and to baffle the
advantages of the enemy. The winter season suspended his progress: with
the return of spring he again aspired to the conquest of Constantinople