CALIPHS OF SPAIN. 59 



inurped by their respective chiefs. In these do 

 mestic quarrels the weaker of two rival brothers 

 implored the friendship of the Christians ; and a band 

 of 500 Norman warriors, knights on horseback, 

 landed in Sicily under the standard of the Governor 

 of Lombardy. The valour of the Arabs quailed be- 

 fore the ponderous swords of this new and untried 

 foe. In three successive engagements they were 

 defeated ; in the second their leader fell ; and in the 

 last, 60,000 of their troops were left dead on the 

 field. Thirteen cities, and the greater part of the 

 island, after a possession of 200 years, w^ere reduced 

 to the obedience of the Greek emperor. 



Twenty years afterward, Sicily felt the prowess 

 of a new conqueror, the famous Count Roger, the 

 twelfth and youngest son of Tancred, a Norman ban- 

 neret, who had joined the fortunes of his brothers 

 and countrymen, then possessors of the fertile rC' 

 gion of Apulia. In an open boat he crossed the 

 strait, landed with only sixty soldiers, drove the 

 Saracens to the gates of Messina, and returned in 

 safety with the spoils of the adjacent country. Nei- 

 ther difficulties nor dangers could repress his activ- 

 ity. Before the walls of Trani, 300 Normans with- 

 stood and repulsed the whole force of the island. 

 At the battle of Ceramio, 50,000 horse and foot were 

 overthrown by only 136 Christian soldiers (most 

 probably knights, but so stands the narrative of the 

 historian), without reckoning St. George, who fought 

 on horseback in the foremost ranks. 



Notwithstanding the frequent and powerful suc- 

 cours which the Sicilian Arabs obtained from their 

 brethren in Africa, town after town yielded to the 

 bravery of the Normans, who added those splendid 

 conquests in the Mediterranean to the list of their 

 achievements in England, France, and other king- 

 doms of Europe. After a war of thirty years, Roger 

 obtained the sovereignty of Sicily, with the title of 

 Great Count ; that of king being afterward bestowed 



