Anna Komnena, Alexias

to the defense of all these things he was summoning the barbarian; for he said that his own daughter-in-law, the beautiful young Helen, had been left unprotected and a widow instead of a bridegroom; for he cried out that his son Constantine and the empress Maria had attached themselves to Botaneiates unwillingly because of his tyranny. Saying these things, he both provoked the barbarian's wrath and armed him for war against the Romans. Such a story reaches my ears, and I do not find it surprising if some most obscure men impersonate others who are famous and of noble birth. 1.12.8 But another, more plausible, story, rumored from another source, buzzes about me, that no monk impersonated the emperor Michael, nor did anything of the sort move Robert to war against the Romans, but that the barbarian himself, being most resourceful, easily fabricated such things. For the story goes as follows. Robert himself, they say, being most unscrupulous and travailing with the battle against the Romans and preparing for the war long before, was prevented by some of the most illustrious men around him and by his own wife Gaita, as one who was beginning unjust wars and preparing against Christians, and he was often checked when he attempted such an impulse. But wishing to make the pretext for the war plausible, he sends some men to Cotrone, entrusting to them the secrets of his plans and instructs them as follows: that if they should find any monk wanting to cross from there to here to venerate the shrine of the chief apostles and patrons of Rome, one who from his very appearance did not display a particularly low birth, they should gladly embrace him and, having befriended him, bring him to him. When they found the aforementioned Raiktor, a man both crafty and peerless in villainy, they announced to Robert, who was staying in the area of Salerno, by letter, that "your kinsman by marriage, Michael, who was driven from the empire, has arrived, begging for help from you." For so Robert had instructed them to compose their letters to him. 1.12.9 And taking these in his hands, he immediately read them to his wife, then gathering all the counts he showed the letters to them as well, so that he might no longer be hindered by them, having seized upon what was perhaps a reasonable cause. They all immediately agreed to Robert's plan, and so he both received him and came to have an interview with him. Thenceforth he stages everything and sets up a scene, that that monk was the emperor Michael, that he had been deposed from the throne, that his wife and son and all else had been taken from him by the tyrant Botaneiates, and that they had unjustly and against all right reason clothed him in the monastic habit instead of the fillet and the diadem. And "now he has come as a suppliant," he says, "to us." 1.12.10 Robert publicly proclaimed these things among them, urging that the empire be restored to him on account of the marriage-alliance, and deeming that monk worthy each day, as if he were the emperor Michael, of precedence and of higher thrones and of excessive honor, and at different times fashioning his public speeches in different ways, now lamenting what his daughter had suffered, now pitying his kinsman-by-marriage for the evils that had befallen him, and now further provoking and stirring up to war the barbarians around him, promising them in various ways heaps of gold, which he kept promising they would have from the Romans. 1.12.11 Thence, having led everyone by the nose, both richer and poorer, and setting out from Longobardia, or rather having dragged the whole of it along, he occupies Salerno, the metropolis of Melfi, in which, having arranged all matters concerning his other daughters well, he then prepares for war. For he had two; for the queen of cities held the third, from

τούτων πάντων εἰς ἄμυναν ἐξεκαλεῖτο τὸν βάρβαρον· τὴν γὰρ καλήν φησι μείρακα τὴν αὐτοῦ νύμφην Ἑλένην ἀπερίστατον καταλεῖψαι καὶ χήραν ἄντι κρυς τοῦ νυμφίου· τὸν γὰρ υἱὸν Κωνσταντῖνον καὶ τὴν βασιλίδα Μαρίαν προσρυῆναι τῷ Βοτανειάτῃ καὶ ἄκοντας διὰ τὴν τυραννίδα ἐβόα. Ταῦτα λέγων παρώξυνέ τε τὸν θυμὸν τοῦ βαρβάρου καὶ πρὸς πόλεμον κατὰ Ῥωμαίων ἐξώπλιζε. Τοιοῦτος μὲν λόγος διαρρεῖ μου τὰς ἀκοάς, καὶ οὐκ ἔχω γε διὰ θαύματος, εἴ τινες ἀδοξότατοί τινας τοὺς ἐπὶ δόξης καὶ γένους εὐγενοῦς ὑποκρίνονται. 1.12.8 Ἕτερος δέ με περιβομβεῖ πιθανώτερος λόγος ἑτέρωθεν φημιζό μενος, ὡς οὔτε μοναχός τις τὸν βασιλέα Μιχαὴλ ὑπεκρί νατο οὔτε τοιοῦτόν τι τὸν Ῥομπέρτον πρὸς τὸν κατὰ Ῥωμαίων ἐκίνησε πόλεμον, ἀλλ' αὐτὸς ὁ βάρβαρος πολυ τροπώτατος ὢν τὰ τοιαῦτα ῥᾳδίως ἐπλάττετο. Ἔχει γὰρ ὧδε τὰ ἐφεξῆς. Αὐτὸς μέν, ὥς φασιν, ὁ Ῥομπέρτος ῥᾳδιουργότατος ὢν καὶ τὴν κατὰ Ῥωμαίων ὠδίνων μάχην καὶ πρὸ πολλοῦ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον παρασκευαζόμενος ἐκω λύετο μὲν ὡς ἀδίκων πολέμων ἄρχων καὶ κατὰ Χριστιανῶν εὐτρεπιζόμενος παρά τινων τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδοξοτάτων ἀνδρῶν καὶ αὐτῆς τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Γαΐτης, καὶ ἀνεκό πτετο πολλάκις ἐπιχειρήσας τῆς τοιαύτης ὁρμῆς. Βουλό μενος δὲ πιθανὴν τὴν πρόφασιν τοῦ πολέμου ποιήσασθαι πέμπει τινὰς ἄνδρας εἰς Κοτρώνην τὰ ἀπόρρητα καταπι στεύσας αὐτοῖς τῶν βεβουλευμένων καὶ ἐπισκήπτει τοιαῦτα· ὡς εἴ τινα μοναχὸν εὕροιεν βουλόμενον ἐκεῖθεν ἐνθάδε διαπερᾶσαι εἰς προσκύνησιν τοῦ νεὼ τῶν κορυφαίων καὶ πολιούχων τῆς Ῥώμης ἀποστόλων, ἐξ αὐτῆς ὄψεως μὴ πάνυ τὸ δυσγενὲς ἐμφαίνοντα, τοῦτον ἀσμένως ἐναγκαλί σασθαι καὶ οἰκειωσαμένους πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀγαγεῖν. Ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸν προειρημένον ἐφεῦρον Ῥαίκτωρα, ἄνδρα ποικίλον τε καὶ πρὸς πανουργίαν ἀπαράμιλλον, δηλοῦσι τῷ Ῥομπέρτῳ διὰ γραμμάτων κατὰ τὸ Σαλερηνὸν ἐνδιατρίβοντι, ὅτιπερ «ὁ σὸς κηδεστὴς Μιχαὴλ ὁ τῆς βασιλείας ἐξεωθεὶς κατέ λαβε τὴν ἀπὸ σοῦ ἐξαιτούμενος βοήθειαν». Οὕτω γὰρ αὐτοῖς ὁ Ῥομπέρτος ὑπέθετο τὰς πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐκθεῖναι γραφάς. 1.12.9 Ὁ δὲ ἐν χερσὶ ταύτας λαβὼν παρευθὺς μὲν τῇ ὁμευνέτιδι ὑπαναγινώσκει, εἶτα συναγαγὼν τοὺς κόμητας ἅπαντας ὑποδείκνυσι καὶ τούτοις τὰ γράμματα, ὡς μηκέτι κωλύεσθαι παρ' αὐτῶν εὐλόγου τάχα αἰτίας δραξάμενος. Συντίθενται ἅπαντες παραχρῆμα τῇ τοῦ Ῥομπέρτου βουλῇ, καὶ οὕτως προσήκατό τε αὐτὸν καὶ εἰς ὁμιλίαν ἐλήλυθεν. Ἐντεῦθεν τὰ πάντα δραματουργεῖ καὶ σκηνὴν περιτίθησιν, ὡς ὁ βασιλεὺς εἴη Μιχαὴλ ὁ μοναχὸς ἐκεῖνος, ὡς καθαιρεθείη τῶν θρόνων, ὡς τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ τὸν παῖδα καὶ τἄλλα πάντα πρὸς τοῦ Βοτανειάτου τυράννου ἀφαιρεθείη, καὶ ὡς τοῦτον ἀδίκως καὶ παρὰ πάντα δίκαιον λόγον ἀντὶ τῆς ταινίας τε καὶ τοῦ διαδήματος τὸ μοναχικὸν περιέθεντο σχῆμα. Καὶ «νῦν ἱκέτης ἧκέ» φησι «πρὸς ἡμᾶς». 1.12.10 Ταῦτα εἰς μέσους ἐδημηγόρει ὁ Ῥομπέρτος τήν τε βασιλείαν αὐτῷ διὰ τὸ κῆδος ἐπανασωθῆναι πρε σβεύων, καὶ ἀξιῶν ἑκάστης ἡμέρας τὸν μοναχὸν ἐκεῖνον, ὡς δῆθεν τὸν βασιλέα Μιχαήλ, καὶ προεδρίας καὶ θρόνων ὑψηλοτέρων καὶ τιμῆς ὑπερβαλλούσης, καὶ ἄλλοτε ἄλλως τὰς δημηγορίας πλαττόμενος, νῦν μὲν ἐλεεινολογούμενος, οἷα πέπονθεν ἐπὶ θυγατρί, νῦν δὲ τοῦ συμπενθέρου φειδό μενος ἐφ' οἷστισι κακοῖς περιπέπτωκεν, νῦν δὲ προσπαρο ξύνων τε καὶ διεγείρων πρὸς πόλεμον τὸ περὶ αὐτὸν βάρβαρον ποικίλως ἐπαγγελλόμενος τούτοις χρυσοῦ θημῶ νας, οὓς ἐκ τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἔχειν τούτοις κατεπηγγέλλετο. 1.12.11 Ἐντεῦθεν πάντας ἑλκυσάμενος τῆς ῥινὸς καὶ πλουσιω τέρους καὶ πενεστέρους ἀπάρας τῆς Λογγιβαρδίας, μᾶλλον δὲ πᾶσαν αὐτὴν ἑλκυσάμενος καταλαμβάνει τὴν Σάλερνον μητρόπολιν οὖσαν Μέλφης, ἐν ᾗ τὰ κατὰ τὰς ἄλλας θυγα τέρας αὐτοῦ πάντα καταπράξας καλῶς ἐντεῦθεν τὰ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἐξαρτύεται. ∆ύο δὲ ἤστην αὐτῷ· τὴν γὰρ τρίτην ἡ βασιλὶς τῶν πόλεων εἶχεν ἐξ