The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

“where is paid the fee
By those who sowing discord win their burden”;

a burden difficult to describe even with untrammelled words, or in plain prose, free from the fetters of rhyme. ↩

Apulia, or La Puglia, is in the southeastern part of Italy, “between the spur and the heel of the boot.” ↩

The people slain in the conquest of Apulia by the Romans. Of the battle of Maleventum, Livy, X 15, says:⁠—

“Here likewise there was more of flight than of bloodshed. Two thousand of the Apulians were slain, and Decius, despising such an enemy, led his legions into Samnium.”

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Hannibal’s famous battle at Cannae, in the second Punic war. According to Livy, XXII 49:⁠—

“The number of the slain is computed at forty thousand foot, and two thousand seven hundred horse.”

He continues, XXII 51, Baker’s Tr.:⁠—

“On the day following, as soon as light appeared, his troops applied themselves to the collecting of the spoils, and viewing the carnage made, which was such as shocked even enemies; so many thousand Romans, horsemen and footmen, lay promiscuously on the field, as chance had thrown them together, either in the battle, or flight. Some, whom their wounds, being pinched by the morning cold, had roused from their posture, were put to death by the enemy, as they were rising up, all covered with blood, from the midst of the heaps of carcasses. Some they found lying alive, with their thighs and hams cut, who, stripping their necks and throats, desired them to spill what remained of their blood. Some were found, with their heads buried in the earth, in holes which it appeared they had made for themselves, and covering their faces with earth thrown over them, had thus been suffocated. The attention of all was particularly attracted by a living Numidian with his nose and ears mangled, stretched under a dead Roman, who lay over him, and who, when his hands had been rendered unable to hold a weapon, his rage being exasperated to madness, had expired in the act of tearing his antagonist with his teeth.”

When Mago, son of Hamilcar, carried the news of the victory to Carthage, “in conformation of his joyful intelligence,” says the same historian, XXIII 12, “he ordered the gold rings taken from the Romans to be poured down in the porch of the senate-house, and of these there was so great a heap that, according to some writers, on being measured, they filled three pecks and a half; but the more general account, and likewise the more probable is, that they amounted to no more than one peck. He also explained to them, in order to show the greater extent of the slaughter, that none but those of equestrian rank, and of these only the principal, wore this ornament.” ↩

Robert Guiscard, the renowned Norman conqueror of southern Italy. Dante places him in the Fifth Heaven of Paradise, in the planet Mars. For an account of his character and achievements see Gibbon, Ch. LVI.

Matthew Paris, Giles’s Tr., I 171, AD. 1239, gives the following account of the manner in which he captured the monastery of Monte Cassino:⁠—

“In the same year, the monks of Monte Cassino (where St. Benedict had planted a monastery), to the number of thirteen, came to the Pope in old and torn garments, with dishevelled hair and unshorn beards, and with tears in their eyes; and on being introduced to the presence of his Holiness, they fell at his feet, and laid a complaint that the Emperor had ejected them from their house at Monte Cassino. This mountain was impregnable, and indeed inaccessible to any one unless at the will of the monks and others who dwelt on it; however R. Guiscard, by a device, pretending that he was dead and being carried thither on a bier, thus took possession of the monks’ castle. When the Pope heard this, he concealed his grief, and asked the reason; to which the monks replied, ‘Because, in obedience to you, we excommunicated the Emperor.’ The Pope then said, ‘Your obedience shall save you’; on which the monks went away without receiving anything more from the Pope.”

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The battle of Ceperano, near Monte Cassino, was fought in 1265, between Charles of Anjou and Manfred, king of Apulia and Sicily. The Apulians, seeing the battle going against them, deserted their king and passed over to the enemy. ↩

The battle of Tagliacozzo in Abruzzo was fought in 1268, between Charles of Anjou and Curradino or Conradin,nephew of Manfred. Charles gained the victory by the strategy of Count Alardo di Valleri, who,

“weaponless himself,
Made arms ridiculous.”

This valiant but wary crusader persuaded the king to keep a third of his forces in reserve; and when the soldiers of Curradino, thinking they had won the day, were scattered over the field in pursuit of plunder, Charles fell upon them, and routed them.

Alardo is mentioned in the Cento Novelle Antiche, Nov. LVII, as “celebrated for his wonderful prowess even among the chief nobles, and no less esteemed for his singular virtues than for his courage.” ↩

Gibbon, ch. L, says:⁠—

“At the conclusion of the Life of Muhammad, it may perhaps be expected that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be difficult, and the success uncertain; at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of religious incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia.⁠ ⁠… From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the