disdaining to perform this ceremony, from the recollection that he was freely born and educated. The others, giving and receiving promises of fidelity, proceeded in the first week of June to Nice, which the rest had already besieged from the middle of May. Uniting, therefore, their forces, much carnage ensued on either side; since every kind of weapon could easily be hurled by the townsmen on those who were beneath them; and the arm even of the weakest had effect on persons crowded together. Moreover the Turks dragged up, with iron hooks, numberless dead bodies of our people, to mangle them in mockery; or to cast them down again when stripped of their raiment. The Franks were grieved at this: nor did they cease venting their rage by slaughter, till the Turks, wearied by extremity of suffering, on the day of the summer solstice, surrendered themselves to the emperor by means of secret messengers. He, who knew only how to consult his own advantage, gave orders to the Franks to depart: choosing rather, that the city should be reserved for the undisguised disloyalty of the Turks, than the distrusted power of the Franks. He ordered, however, silver and gold to be distributed to the chiefs, and copper coin to those of inferior rank, lest they should complain of being unrewarded. Thus the Turks, who, passing the Euphrates, had now for the space of fifty years been possessed of Bithynia, which is a part of Asia Minor that is called Romania, betook themselves to flight to the eastward. Nevertheless, when the siege was ended, they attempted, at the instigation of Soliman,[1] who had been sovereign of all Romania, to harass the army on its advance. This man collecting, as is computed, three hundred and sixty thousand archers, attacked our people, expecting anything rather than hostility, with such violence, that overwhelmed with an iron shower of arrows, they were terrified and turned their backs. At that time, by chance, duke Godfrey and Hugh the Great, and Raimund, had taken another route, that they might plunder the enemies' country to a wider extent, and obtain forage with more facility. But the Norman, sensible of his extreme
- ↑ His Turkish name was Killidge-Arslan: his kingdom of Roum extended from the Hellespont to the confines of Syria, and barred the pilgrimage of Jerusalem. (See De Guignes, tom. lii. p. 2, pp. 10—30.)—Hardy.
