These events had transpired while Frederic Barbarossa was yet advancing towards Rome, to demand the imperial crown, and on his arrival formed one of the heads of complaint to him on the part of the pope, who hoped to use the strong arm of the professed champion of the Church in redressing her wrongs. Frederic, indeed, expressed the warmest zeal in the pope's cause, and, none the less so, as it presented, under the appearance of a sacred duty, a prospect so inviting to his own ambition. But, as we have seen, he was reluctantly compelled by his murmuring soldiers to close his campaign and return home. He did not, however, lose sight of Sicily; which, as will be described in the sequel, gave rise to a fresh and sharper quarrel between him and the pope. Disappointed in his hopes of assistance from Frederic, Adrian, with characteristic energy, resolved to assist himself; and rejoined to the ruffianism of William with a ban of excommunication, a proceeding which instantly decided in the pope's cause several of the most powerful nobles of Apulia, especially Robert Count of Loritelli, the king's cousin, Andrew Count of Rupi Canino, Richard Count of Aquila, and Robert Prince of Capua; men who, like the bulk of their order, were impatient to shake off the oppressive and ignominious yoke of the royal favourite Wrajo. Backed by these, who again were secretly encouraged by the court of Constantinople, Adrian followed up his ban of excommunication, by invading at the head of his troops the Terra di Lavoro, which he totally subdued, and then proceeded to Beneventum, where he fixed his head quarters. William, who in the mean time was in Sicily, and lulled asleep to every interest under the noxious influence of Wrajo, no sooner became aware of his bad fortune across the water,--where, owing to the events just related, all his Italian possessions, with the exception of Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, and a few other towns and castles of secondary importance, were wrested from him,--than he presently shook off his lethargy, sailed over to Salerno, and from that city sent ambassadors to the pope to negotiate a peace. To this step he was urged all the more by finding out that Emanuel, the Greek emperor, after refusing to stand his ally at the beginning of the war, was in correspondence, through his minister Palaeologus, with Adrian; trying to procure from the latter the cession of three sea-ports of Apulia in consideration of a large sum of money, and of the promise to expel the Sicilian king from his Italian dominions. The offers which William made were, namely: to pay a sum equivalent to that tendered by Emanuel; to surrender the three sea-ports in question as an indemnification for the damage done by Scitinius; and to swear fealty to the pope as the liege lord of Sicily.