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4. Firming the Elements
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4. Firming the Elements NO DECADE BETTER DEMONSTRATED ambivalence toward the Arabs than the 870S. Events illustrating this began with a seemingly minor incident in Salerno, probably in the spring of87I-just after Louis had taken Bari. According to the Chronicon Salernitanum, Prince Guaifer was striding through the city ofSalerno, heading back to his palace from the local baths, when as he passed through the forum an Arab hailed him, saying he much admired Guaifer's handsome head covering. Guaifer, apparently in one of his rare good moods, tossed the cap or bonnet to the Arab. The tale is intriguing because it suggests that Arab visitors were commonplace. In addition, however, the incident was to prove significant. For not long afterward (the Chronicon reports) the Arab, back home in North Mrica, encountered an Amalfitan merchant and gave him an urgent message for Guaifer. In return for Guaifer's generosity, the Arab wanted him warned that preparations were under way for amassive Aghlabid attackon Guaifer's capital.l Whether or not this colorful tale was true, Salerno does seem to have had advance warning of an impending attack, and all of Campania knew this to mean a crisis for the region. There were frantic efforts to prepare for what was coming. The defenses of the city of Salerno were strengthened and military reinforcements poured in from the other Lombard principalities and even farther afield. In addition, emissaries set off north, one by one, to find Louis and beg his help. The emissaries apparently included Guaifer's son and heir, Guaimar, two of Campania's leading ecclesiastics (Bishops Landolf of Capua and Athanasius II of Naples), and even papal representatives.2 Everyone doubtless realized it would not be easy to lure Louis south again after the treatment accorded him by the Beneventans only a month or two earlier. Understandably, Louis at first resisted all entreaties. (He even imprisoned briefly the young Guaimar.) Meanwhile, the AgWabid forcesthirty thousand "Saraceni," according to Erchempert-Ianded in Calabria and made their way north, capturing "many towns" along the way. When they finally reached the city ofSalerno, its defenses proved strong enough 56 Chapter 4to keep them out, but it was impossible to protect the surrounding countryside . While the main force held the city under close siege, others of the AgWabid invaders settled like locusts throughout the area, keeping food supplies from reaching the city and capturing or killing virtually everyone they encountered.3 The siege seems to have begun in the late fall of87I.4 Time and again, hunger nearly drove the inhabitants to surrender; at the very worst point, after many months, the Salernitans survived only because Amalfi managed to smuggle some supplies into the city. (We are told that Amalfi took this action only after much debate, for Amalfi "pacem cum Agarenis a primitus habebat.")5 Of course, even with this Amalfitan aid, the Salernitans could not have held out indefinitely; in the end, after over a year ofsiege, it was Louis who saved them. Presumably worn down by the desperate pleas, he dispatched a Frankish force supplemented by various Lombard contingents . Word ofthis approaching army caused the invaders to abandon the siege and depart.6 The siege ofSalerno represented the first try on the part ofthe AgWabid rulers of North Mrica to take a major Campanian city. It would also prove to be the last, but no one could know that. Overall, the situation must have appeared grim, especially since this massive attack on Salerno occurred just as the AgWabids were tightening their grip on Sicily; only six years later, Syracuse, the last great prize, would fall to them. True, at the time of the Salerno attack Louis had just taken Bari. But Bari was merely an adventitious outpost, not linked to any major Muslim offensive. And its recapture had only limited significance as long as Taranto and other key Apulian ports and towns remained in Arab hands. The fall of Syracuse in 878 was to be far more momentous. Syracuse was the administrative capital of Byzantine Sicily and unquestionably its most important city. Its loss, capping decades of Muslim advance across Sicily, meant that the Muslim world now really did extend to peninsular Italy's doorstep.7 One can imagine how doubly ominous the fall ofSyracuse would have seemed, had Salerno also fallen, six years earlier. For that matter, saving the city ofSalerno may have seemed to contemporaries only a qualified victory. The main AgWabid force sailed back home, but for decades...