Part 19

The grand master, at the moment of the explosion of this volcano, was in a neighbouring church, imploring, at the foot of the altar, the aid of God. He judged, by the horrible noise he heard, that the explosion of the mine would be followed by an assault. He arose at the very moment the priests, to commence the office, were chanting this preliminary prayer--_Deus, in adjutorium meum intende!_ (Lord, come to my help!) “I accept the augury,” cried the pious general; and turning towards some knights who accompanied him, “Come, my brothers,” said he, “let us change the sacrifice of our praises into that of our lives, and let us die, if it be necessary, in defence of our holy faith.” As he spoke, pike in hand, he advanced with a menacing air. He mounted the bastion, met the Turks, and struck down and killed all who came in his way or resisted him. He tore down the enemy’s ensigns, and regained the bastion in a moment. Mustapha, Soliman’s general, rallied the fugitives and led them back towards the enemy, by dint of blows as well as menaces. He marched forward himself with the greatest audacity. The combat was renewed, and the _mêlée_ became bloody. Steel and fire were equally employed on both parts; they slaughtered each other hand to hand, or at a distance, by musket-shots or sword-cuts. They even proceeded to struggle body to body, and the stronger or more adroit killed his enemy with dagger-thrusts. The Turks, at once exposed to arquebusses, stones, grenades, and fire-pots, at length abandoned the breach and turned their backs. In vain their chiefs, by menaces and promises, endeavour to reanimate their valour. They do not listen to him. All fly, all disperse, and Mustapha himself turns unwillingly from the foe, after having lost more than three thousand men. It was with such inveteracy that the superiority was contested up to the 24th of September, when Soliman issued the order for a general assault. At daybreak the Mahometans, divided into four bodies, or rather four armies, advanced on four sides boldly towards the breach, in spite of the thunders which poured from the place, in spite of a deluge of balls, arrows, darts, and stones. Nothing could stop them. The knights crowded to the point of conflict; they repulsed the assailants; they precipitated them from the walls; they overthrew the ladders. The infidels returned to the charge with more impetuosity than ever, but all their efforts were useless: the knights were invincible. The priests, monks, old men, and even the children, all insist upon taking their share of the peril, and at length repulse the enemy. The women do not yield in exertions to the pioneers, or in courage to the soldiers. Many lost their lives in defending their husbands. A Greek woman, exceedingly handsome, the mistress of an officer who commanded in a bastion, and who was just killed, frantic at the death of her lover, and resolved not to outlive him, after having tenderly embraced two young children she had had by him, and imprinted the sign of the cross upon their brow--“It is better, my children,” said she, with the tears streaming from her eyes, “it is better for you to die by my hands than by those of our pitiless enemies, or that you should be reserved for infamous pleasures, more cruel than death.” Frantic with grief and rage, she seized a knife, slaughtered them, and threw their bodies into the fire; then clothing herself in the garments of her lover, stained with his blood, with his sabre in her hand, she rushed to the breach, killed the first Turk who opposed her, wounded several others, and died fighting with the bravery of a hero. The ill success of so many assaults rendered Soliman furious. He ordered Mustapha to be shot with arrows, and several other captains would have undergone the same fate if they had not persuaded him that he might still succeed in his undertaking. Incessant combats and attacks were carried on up to the middle of winter. At length the Ottomans triumphed; Rhodes, almost entirely destroyed, had no means of resistance left. Most of the knights had been killed defending the fortifications. The grand master, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, seeing with the deepest grief that all his resources were exhausted, felt that it would be madness to resist longer. He resolved to surrender; but his persuasion that he who makes the first proposals loses an advantage, made him positively determine to wait till the Turks should propose capitulation. His project succeeded. Deceived by the continued brave defence, the Turks were ignorant of the real state of the place, and offered the besiegers more honourable conditions than they might have expected. This famous isle, which had been for nearly three centuries the bulwark of Christianity, was wrested from the hands of its few surviving defenders, the wreck of a society of heroes. As soon as the capitulation was signed, Soliman entered the city for the purpose of expressing to l’Isle-Adam his admiration of his noble defence. After a long conversation the conqueror retired, saying, “Although I came here alone, do not imagine I was without an escort; I had the parole of the grand master and the faith of his knights, a security stronger than a whole army.” Soliman did not abuse his victory. He treated the grand master generously; he visited him, pitied him, and consoled him as that last of a race of heroes deserved.

GAZA.

A.C. 332.

Alexander besieged Gaza, one of the keys of Egypt, for two months. We do not think we should have noticed this siege, had it not been for the strange manner in which Alexander dismissed all the good feelings which so frequently distinguished him, after the conquest. Alexander is one of those great historical personages, who have so many fine redeeming qualities, that we feel inclined to pardon their errors and excuse even their crimes; but in this instance he sunk into a mere brutal and revengeful conqueror. He had an inclination to be compared to Achilles, and he boasted of being the son of Jupiter; but this siege proved that he was not invulnerable, like the former, nor exempt from human accidents, as the offspring of an immortal; he received two wounds in this siege, which perhaps was the cause of his wrath. He treated the inhabitants with the utmost cruelty, putting ten thousand to the sword. Betis, the governor of Gaza, was taken in one of the last assaults. Alexander was either angry or jealous at the courage with which he had seen him face death, and ordered him to appear before his throne: “Wretch!” cried he, “thou shalt not die sword in hand, as thou didst hope; expect to suffer all the torments vengeance can contrive.” To imitate Achilles, who dragged the body of Hector three times round the walls of Troy behind his chariot, he ordered the unfortunate Betis to be pierced through the heels, and to be fastened to a chariot, which he drove round the walls of Gaza; thus depriving the brave governor of the little life left by his wounds.

Demetrius lost a great battle on the plains of Gaza, against Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s officers, who had made himself king of Egypt,--A.C. 312.

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 633.

Amrou, commander of the Saracens, presented himself before Gaza in the year 633 of the Christian era. The governor of the place haughtily asked him, in an interview, what brought him into Syria? “The order of God and of my master,” replied Amrou. They soon proceeded to action: the troops of Gaza were cut to pieces; Amrou took the governor prisoner, and Gaza opened its gates to him.

THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1799.

Gaza was taken by Buonaparte, in his Egyptian expedition; but as there is no striking circumstance to give interest to the siege, we shall content ourselves with recording the fact.

PERSEPOLIS.

A.C. 330.

Ever insatiable of glory, Alexander laid siege to Persepolis, the capital of the Persian empire. At his approach, the inhabitants deserted the city, and fled away into the deserts, and the conqueror entered without the least obstacle. The Macedonian soldiery, greedy of booty, pillaged the city, and destroyed the few inhabitants they met with. But Alexander stopped the carnage, and gave orders that the virtue of the women should be respected. Almost all the treasures and magazines of the Persians were collected in Persepolis, which had been their capital from the time of Cyrus. The amount of wealth is so enormous, that a modern historian is afraid to repeat what the ancients have stated: it appears to be a subject for the imagination rather than of calculation or comparison. So rich a booty gave rise to the idea of celebrating this event by a festival. Tables were spread in the streets; the soldiers gave themselves up to rejoicings and the enjoyment of good cheer, whilst their prince presided at a grand banquet given to his officers and friends. Thaïs, an Athenian courtezan, the mistress of Ptolemy, who was afterwards king of Egypt, had gained the privilege of being admitted to the royal table by her wit and gaiety, and was accustomed to address the conqueror of Asia with the utmost freedom. When wine had sufficiently warmed the guests, Thaïs exclaimed--“Noble lord! thanks to your invincible courage, Greece is avenged; you are master of Persia, and we are quaffing the wines of Darius in the palace of the Persian kings. The pleasures I enjoy in this superb abode make amends for the fatigues I have endured whilst you subdued Asia. There is only one thing wanting to complete my felicity. Great prince, why will you not permit the women who have had the honour to follow your warriors to make one glorious blaze of the dwelling of Xerxes, the barbarian who burnt and destroyed my country? I should consider myself a thousand times too fortunate if I could myself set fire to it in your presence, and to let it be known to all ages, that a woman in the train of the great Alexander had more nobly avenged Greece than Miltiades or Themistocles had done!” The guests applauded this boastful appeal. The king rose from table with his head crowned with flowers, and seizing a blazing torch, rushed to the execution of the suggested sacrifice. The Macedonians, following the example of their king and Thaïs, spread themselves in all directions with their flaming brands, and soon produced an awful conflagration. But scarcely had the first flame cast its glare around, than Alexander became aware of his folly, and gave earnest orders for the extinguishing of the fire; but it was too late--the palace was consumed.

LACEDÆMON.

A.C. 272.

The restless, ambitious, insatiable Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, laid siege to Lacedæmon. He arrived in the evening, with all his army, and only postponed the attack till the next day;--this delay saved Sparta. As soon as night came, the Lacedæmonians met to deliberate upon the propriety of sending their wives and daughters to the island of Crete; but the women strongly opposed such a determination. One of them, named Archidamia, entered the senate, sword in hand, and addressing the assembly in the name of all the rest, she proudly demanded why the senators had so bad an opinion of her and her companions, as to imagine they could love or endure life after the ruin of their country.

It was resolved that they should not leave the city. As the men were employed, with vigour and celerity, in digging a trench parallel with the camp of the enemy, to enable them to dispute the approach to the city, the women and girls came to join them, and after having exhorted those who would have to fight, to take repose during the night, they measured the length of the trench, and undertook, as their share, a third part of it, which they finished in the course of the day. This trench was nine feet wide, six deep, and nine hundred long. In all the attacks which took place till Pyrrhus was constrained to raise the siege, these courageous women conducted themselves in a manner worthy of the reputation of their mothers of former days.

ARGOS.

A.C. 272.

The same ambitious, quarrelsome prince fell upon Argos, at a time when it was divided by the factions of Aristias and Aristippus. The Argives at first sent to Pyrrhus to beg him to evacuate their territories. He promised to do so, but that very same night entered their gates, aided by the treachery of Aristias. A great part of his troops had already spread themselves throughout the city, when an act of imprudence deprived him of his victory and his life. Whoever reads the life of Pyrrhus will observe the importance he always attached to his elephants--engines of war, if we may so call them, introduced for a time into Europe by the conquests of Alexander. He had tried to terrify the Romans with these monstrous animals, but without success. So partial was he to these bulky assistants, that he insisted upon their being brought into Lacedæmon, though the gates were not large enough, or the streets sufficiently wide, to make them at all available. Alarmed by the noise created by the confusion the elephants produced, the Argives flew to arms, and their houses became so many citadels, from which they poured all sorts of missiles down upon the troops of the king of Epirus. The elephants so completely blocked up the way, as to prevent the entrance of fresh troops, and were of more injury to their masters than to the Spartans. Abandoned by his people, Pyrrhus maintained his character for personal valour by the brave manner in which he fought his way through the enemy. An Argive attacked him, and hurled his javelin at him; but the point was blunted by the thickness of his cuirass. The furious prince was about to strike him dead, when the mother of the Argive, who beheld the fight from the roof of her house, threw a tile at Pyrrhus, which, striking him on the head, stretched him senseless on the ground. One of the soldiers of Antigonus coming up, was rejoiced to find their great enemy in such a state, and immediately cut off his head. His soldiers, deprived of their leader, were soon put to the rout. Thus perished, by the hand of an old woman, a captain famous for his exploits against both Rome and Carthage, and whose victorious arms had made Greece tremble more than once.

MESSINA.

A.C. 264.

The power of the Romans had struggled during nearly five hundred years against the peoples of Italy; and it was not till after many and severe toils that they succeeded in laying the foundations of an empire which was doomed to embrace nearly the known universe. Rome, mistress of those vast countries which extend from the Rubicon to the southern extremity of Italy, became anxious to carry her conquests abroad. She ventured to attack the forces of Carthage, at that time the most flourishing republic in existence. The union of the Carthaginians with Hiero, king of Syracuse, for the destruction of the Messinians and the siege of Messina, were the pretexts for the first war between these two ambitious republics, whilst the conquest of Sicily was the real object. Messina having placed itself under the protection of Rome, Appius Claudius was ordered to march to the succour of that oppressed city; but a strait of the sea had to be crossed, and the Romans, without maritime experience, had nothing but boats, rudely constructed, very much resembling Indian canoes. Was it possible for such a fleet to resist that of the Carthaginians, well equipped and numerous, besides being accustomed to the domination of the seas? Appius at once perceived his weakness; and yet it was necessary that he should arrive at Messina quickly, as the enemy was pressing it very closely. In this embarrassment, the consul had recourse to an ingenious stratagem: he pretended to endeavour to cross the strait, but seeming to be terrified at the sight of the Carthaginians, he took to flight suddenly, and feigned to abandon the enterprise. The Carthaginians, fully persuaded that he would not return, but was gone back to Rome, retired, as if there was nothing more to be feared. Appius, taking advantage of this belief, crossed the strait in the night-time, and arrived safely in Sicily. The place at which he landed was close to the camp of the Syracusans; and the consul exhorted his troops to fall at once upon the enemy, promising them an easy victory;--in fact, it proved so. The army of Hiero could not sustain the impetuous shock of the Romans: it fled, and abandoned the entrances of Messina to the conquerors. The consul was received like a liberator from heaven; and the joy of the citizens was the greater, from their having been in utter despair. Appius, taking advantage of his victory, attacked the camp of the Carthaginians; but he was repulsed with some loss, and forced to retreat. He was pursued, which was what he desired and expected; he faced about, and fortune seemed to change with the situation of the place. The Carthaginians could not stand against the courage of the Romans, but took to flight in their turn, after losing many men. And thus Rome commenced the first Punic war.

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1282.

Stung almost to madness by the celebrated Sicilian Vespers, Charles of Anjou collected all the troops in his power, set forward on his march, accompanied by an apostolic legate, and invested Messina, which he pressed closely. The unfortunate inhabitants, upon the point of having their city carried by assault, offered to capitulate. They promised to return to their duty, if the monarch would forget the past, and engage not to give to the French either places or magistracy in their city. Charles replied, that he intended to govern as to him should seem best; and that, if they did not promptly submit, they might prepare to be treated in the same manner as they had treated the French. The Messinese, irritated by this disheartening reply, swore that they would rather devour their own children than become slaves for ever. It was in vain that endeavours were made to bring them back to a more prudent line of conduct; the most terrible menaces were equally vain: they would listen to nothing: they declared that it would be better to die like brave men, than to be given up to the executioner like base malefactors. Old men, women, and children, all took up arms in the common cause. The king continued to press the siege very warmly; but the Messinese, animated by a generous despair, defended themselves with such heroic valour, that they gave Don Pedro of Arragon time to come to their succour. This prince, at the head of a fleet of fifty galleys, which had for admiral Roger Doria, the greatest seaman of his age, advanced into the strait of Messina, for the purpose of carrying off the French fleet, which lay there without defence. Charles, being informed of this project, thought it evident he should be ruined if he continued the siege; so he retreated without obtaining his revenge; but he could not save his vessels, of which the enemy took twenty-nine, and burnt thirty.

This war lasted many years, and was almost always unfortunate for the house of Anjou, which was at length obliged to share Sicily with that of Arragon, and to content itself with Calabria, Apulia, the Terra di Lavoro, and the Abruzzi, under the title of the kingdom of Naples.

We cannot leave the beautiful island of Sicily, where such interesting sieges have detained us so long, without offering our young readers a reflection upon the fate of that earthly paradise. From the shores of the Mediterranean to the summit of Etna, Sicily may be said to produce all that is desirable in most of the climates of the earth, and that almost spontaneously. But it is this spontaneity that we think creates its misfortune: Providence neither favours countries, nor limits its blessings to them, without countervailing checks or advantages. Sicily, from the time of the tyrants of Syracuse, under whom it was at least reckoned for something in the world, has always been under the subjugation of foreigners: successively enslaved by the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs, the Normans; under the vassalage of the popes, the French, the Germans, and the Spaniards; always hating its masters; revolting against them, without making any efforts worthy of liberty; and continually exciting seditions, only to change its chains;--such is the history of Sicily; and only because it is one of the richest spots in the world--is the granary of the country that owns it--and produces this best of all wealth, as we have said, almost spontaneously. Where man is not constrained to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, he degenerates; the worst of passions are engendered by idleness; and from the indulgence of them follows that loss of self-respect which makes him indifferent to liberty, careless of his rights, and the willing victim of the highest bidder to his vices. It is a curious fact, but no less a fact, that the most productive countries in the world are seldom ruled over by the inhabitants indigenous to them.

CORINTH.

A.C. 244.