/> his wars extended.



As heir to the imperial title of Charlemagne, he was lord of the ancient

palace of the great emperor, at Aix-la-Chapelle, and here held court at

the feast of St. John in the year 978. All was peace and festivity

within the old imperial city, all war and threat without it. While Otho

and his courtiers, knights and ladies, lords and minions, were enjoying

life with ball and banquet, feast and frivolity, in true palatial

fashion, an army was marching secretly upon them, with treacherous

intent to seize the emperor and his city at one full swoop. Lothaire,

King of France, had in haste and secrecy collected an army, and, without

a declaration of hostilities, was hastening, by forced marches, upon

Aix-la-Chapelle.



It was an act of treachery utterly undeserving of success. But it is not

always the deserving to whom success comes, and Otho heard of the rapid

approach of this army barely in time to take to flight, with his

fear-winged flock of courtiers at his heels, leaving the city an easy

prey to the enemy. Lothaire entered the city without a blow, plundered

it as if he had taken it by storm, and ordered that the imperial eagle,

which was erected in the grand square of Charles the Great, should have

its beak turned westward, in token that Lorraine now belonged to France.



Doubtless the great eagle turned creakingly on its support, thus moved

by the hand of unkingly perfidy, and impatiently awaited for time and

the tide of affairs to turn its beak again to the east. It had not long

to wait. The fugitive emperor hastily called a diet of the princes and

nobles at Dortmund, told them in impassioned eloquence of the faithless

act of the French king, and called upon them for aid against the

treacherous Lothaire. Little appeal was needed. The honor of Germany was

concerned. Setting aside all the petty squabbles which rent the land,

the indignant princes gathered their forces and placed them under Otho's

command. By the 1st of October the late fugitive found himself at the

head of a considerable army, and prepared to take revenge on his

perfidious enemy.



Into France he marched, and made his way with little opposition, by

Rheims and Soissons, until the French capital lay before his eyes. Here

the army encamped on the right bank of the Seine, around Montmartre,

while their cavalry avenged the plundering of Aix-la-Chapelle by laying

waste the country for many miles around. The French were evidently as

little prepared for Otho's activity as he had been for Lothaire's

treachery, and did not venture beyond the walls of their city, leaving

the country a defenceless prey to the revengeful anger of the emperor.



The Seine lay between the two armies, but not a Frenchman ventured to

cross its waters; the garrison of the city, under Hugh Capet,--Count of

Paris, and soon to become the founder of a new dynasty of French

kings,--keeping closely within its walls. These walls proved too strong

for the Germans, and as winter was approaching, and there was much

sickness among his troops, the emperor retreated, after having

devastated all that region of France. But first he kept a vow that he

had made, that he would cause the Parisians to hear a Te Deum such as

they had never heard before. In pursuance of this vow, he gathered upon

the hill of Montmartre all the clergymen whom he could seize, and forced

them to sing his anthem of victory with the full power of their lungs.

Then, having burned the suburbs of Paris, and left his lance quivering

in the city gate, he withdrew in triumph, having amply punished the

treacherous French king. Aix-la-Chapelle fell again into his hands; the

eyes of the imperial eagle were permitted once more to gaze upon

Germany, and in the treaty of peace that followed Lorraine was declared

to be forever a part of the German realm.



Two years afterwards Otho, infected by that desire to conquer Italy

which for centuries afterwards troubled the dreams of German emperors,

and brought them no end of trouble, crossed the Alps and descended upon

the Italian plains, from which he was never to return. Northern Italy

was already in German hands, but the Greeks held possessions in the

south which Otho claimed, in view of the fact that he had married

Theophania, the daughter of the Greek emperor at Constantinople. To

enforce this claim he marched upon the Greek cities, which in their turn

made peace with the Arabs, with whom they had been at war, and gathered

garrisons of these bronzed pagans alike from Sicily and Africa.



For two years the war continued, the advantage resting with Otho. In 980

he reached Rome, and there had a secret interview with Hugh Capet, whom

he sustained in his intention to seize the throne of France, still held

by his old enemy Lothaire. In 981 he captured Naples, Taranto, and other

cities, and in a pitched battle near Cotrona defeated the Greeks and

their Arab allies. Abn al Casem, the terror of southern Italy, and

numbers of his Arab followers, were left dead upon the field.



On the 13th of July, 982, the emperor again met the Greeks and their

Arab allies in battle, and now occurred that singular adventure and

reverse of fortune which has made this engagement memorable. The battle

took place at a point near the sea-shore, in the vicinity of Basantello,

not far from Taranto, and at first went to the advantage of the

imperial forces. They attacked the Greeks with great impetuosity, and,

after a stubborn defence, broke through their ranks, and forced them

into a retreat, which was orderly conducted.



It was now mid-day. The victors, elated with their success and their

hopes of pillage, followed the retreating columns along the banks of the

river Corace, feeling so secure that they laid aside their arms and

marched leisurely and confidently forward. It was a fatal confidence. At

one point in their march the road led between the river and a ridge of

serried rocks, which lay silent beneath the mid-day sun. But silent as

they seemed, they were instinct with life. An ambuscade of Arabs

crouched behind them, impatiently waiting the coming of the unsuspecting

Germans.



Suddenly the air pealed with sound, the "Allah il Allah!" of the

fanatical Arabs; suddenly the startled eyes of the imperialists saw the

rugged rocks bursting, as it seemed, into life; suddenly a horde of

dusky warriors poured down upon them with scimitar and javelin,

surrounding them quickly on all sides, cutting and slashing their way

deeply into the disordered ranks. The scattered troops, stricken with

dismay, fell in hundreds. In their surprise and confusion they became

easy victims to their agile foes, and in a short time nearly the whole

of that recently victorious army were slain or taken prisoners. Of the

entire force only a small number broke through the lines of their

environing foes.



The emperor escaped almost by miracle. His trusty steed bore him

unharmed through the crowding Arabs. He was sharply pursued, but the

swift animal distanced the pursuers, and before long he reached the

sea-shore, over whose firm sands he guided his horse, though with little

hope of escaping his active foes. Fortunately, he soon perceived a Greek

vessel at no great distance from the shore, a vision which held out to

him a forlorn hope of escape. The land was perilous; the sea might be

more propitious; he forced his faithful animal into the water, and swam

towards the vessel, in the double hope of being rescued and remaining

unknown.



He was successful in both particulars. The crew willingly took him on

board, ignorant of his high rank, but deeming him to be a knight of

distinction, from whom they could fairly hope for a handsome ransom. His

situation was still a dangerous one, should he become known, and he

could not long hope to remain incognito. In truth, there was a slave on

board who knew him, but who, for purposes of his own, kept the perilous

secret. He communicated by stealth with the emperor, told him of his

recognition, and arranged with him a plan of escape. In pursuance of

this he told the Greeks that their captive was a chamberlain of the

emperor, a statement which Otho confirmed, and added that he had

valuable treasures at Rossano, which, if they would sail thither, they

might take on board as his ransom.



The Greek mariners, deceived by the specious tale, turned their vessel's

prow towards Rossano, and on coming near that city, shifted their

course towards the shore. Otho had been eagerly awaiting this

opportunity. When they had approached sufficiently near to the land, he

suddenly sprang from the deck into the sea, and swam ashore with a

strength and swiftness that soon brought him to the strand. In a short

time afterwards he entered Rossano, then held by his forces, and joined

his queen, who had been left in that city.



This singular adventure is told with a number of variations by the

several writers who have related it, most of them significant of the

love of the marvellous of the old chroniclers. One writer tells us that

the escaping emperor was pursued and attacked by the Greek boatmen, and

that he killed forty of them with the aid of a soldier, named Probus,

whom he met on the shore. By another we are told that the Greeks

recognized him, that he enticed them to the shore by requesting them to

take on board his wife and treasures, which had been left at Rossano,

and that he sent young men on board disguised as female attendants of

his wife, by whose aid he seized the vessel. All the stories agree,

however, in saying that Theophania jeeringly asked the emperor whether

her countrymen had not put him in mortal fear,--a jest for which the

Germans never forgave her.



To return to the domain of fact, we have but further to tell that the

emperor, full of grief and vexation at the loss of his army, and the

slaughter of many of the German and Italian princes and nobles who had

accompanied him, returned to upper Italy, with the purpose of collecting

another army.



All his conquests in the south had fallen again into the hands of the

enemy, and his work remained to be done over again. He held a grand

assembly in Verona, in which he had his son Otho, three years old,

elected as his successor. From there he proceeded to Rome, in which city

he was attacked by a violent fever, brought on by the grief and

excitement into which his reverses had thrown his susceptible and

impatient mind. He died December 7, 983, and was buried in the church of

St. Peter, at Rome.



The fancy of the chroniclers has surrounded his death with legends,

which are worth repeating as curious examples of what mediaeval writers

offered and mediaeval readers accepted as history. One of them tells the

story of a naval engagement between Otho and the Greeks, in which the

fight was so bitter that the whole sea around the vessels was stained

red with blood. The emperor won the victory, but received a mortal

wound.



Another story, which does not trouble itself to sail very close to the

commonplace, relates that Otho met his end by being whipped to death on

Mount Garganus by the angels, among whom he had imprudently ventured

while they were holding a conclave there. These stories will serve as

examples of the degree of credibility of many of the ancient chronicles

and the credulity of their readers.