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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

proved insufficient to satisfy the soaring mind of Robert. After an interval oftwenty years, he not only invaded Sicily in form, but conceived the daringproject of attacking the dominions which still continued to own subjection tothe Emperor of the East.

“ The Norman veterans (say historians) wished to enjoy the harvest of theirtoils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known and unknown dangersof a transmarine expedition. In his new levies, Robert exerted the influenceof gifts and promises : the terrors of civil and ecclesiastical authority, and someacts of violence, might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were pressed,without distinction, into the service of their unrelenting prince. After twoA'ears incessant preparation, the land and naval forces were assembled atOtranto, at the heel or extreme promontory of Italy, and Robert was accom-panied by his wife, who fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and the repre-sentative of the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights, of Normanrace or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be swelled tothirteen thousand followers of every denomination. The men, the horses, thearms, the engines, the wooden towers covered with raw hides, were embarkedon board one hundred and fifty vessels : the transports had been built in theports of Italy, and the gallies were supplied by the alliance of the republic ofRagusa.

“ At the mouth of the Adriatic gulf, the shores of Italy and Epirus inclinetowards each other. The space between Brundusium and Durazzo, the Romanpassage is no more than one hundred miles : at the last station of Otranto it iscontracted to fifty ; and this narrow distance had suggested to Pyrrhus andPompey the sublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. Before this general em-barkation, the Norman Duke dispatched Bohemond with fifteen gallies, toseize or threaten the isle of Corfu, to survey the opposite coast, and to Securea harbour in the neighbourhood of Vallona for the landing of the troops.They passed and landed without perceiving an enemy; and this successfulexperiment 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 thename of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu, to use the modern appel-lation, to the siege of Durazzo. That city, the western key of the empire, wasguarded by ancient renown and recent fortifications, by George Palaeologus,a patrician victorious in the Oriental wars, at the head of a numerous gar-rison of Albanians and Macedonians, who in every age have maintained the’ character