volume one

HISTOIIY OF THE CEUSADES. 157
he proceeded without an escort over mountains and through
forests, till he fell in with some Armenian woodcutters.
These men at once recognised the prince of Antioch, and as
he bore upon his countenance marks of depression and grief,
they judged that the city must be taken. One of them,
drawing near to him, snatched his sword from him, and
plunged it into his body. His head was carried to the new
masters of Antioch, and Phirous had an opportunity of contemplating
without fear the features of him who, the day
before, might have sentenced him to death. After having
received great riches as the reward of his treachery, this
renegade embraced the Christianity he had abandoned, and
followed the Crusaders to Jerusalem. Two years afterwards,
his ambition not being satisfied, he returned to the
religion of Mahomet, and died abhorred by both Mussulmans
and Christians, whose cause lie had by turns embraced and
betrayed.
Wiaen the Christians were tired of slaughter, they prepared
to attack the citadel ; but as it was built upon a
mountain, inaccessible on most sides, all tneir efforts were
useless. They contented themselves with surrounding it
with soldiers and machines of war, in order to confine the
garrison, and then spread themselves throughout the city,
giving way to all the intoxication which their victory inspired.
The pillage of Antioch had yielded them immense riches
and although they had found but a small stock of provisions,
they abandoned themselves to the most extravagant excesses
of intemperance and debauchery.
These events passed in the early days of June, 1098 ; the
siege of Antioch had been begun in the month of October
of the preceding year. After this victory, three days passed
quickly av/ay in the midst of rejoicings, but the fourth was
a day of fear and mourning.
A formidable army of Saracens was drawing near to Antioch.
From the earliest period of the siege, Accien, and the
sultan of Nice, whom the Christians had despoiled of his dominions,
had applied to all the Mussulman powers to procure
assistance against the warriors of the AVest. The supreme
head of the Seljoucides, the sultan of Persia, had promised
to aid them ; and at his voice all Corassan, says Matthew of
Edessa, Media, Babylon, a part of Asia Minor, and all the
;