On his arrival there with about one hundred followers, he found the yoke of the Greeks no less detested than the depredations of the Saracens; that the pope, emperor, and feudatory were alike prepared to reduce the maritime places and the mountain forts. For some time their success was thwarted by obstacles which valour could not surmount. On one occasion they were defeated by a greatly superior force, and their leader slain; and the emperor, Henry II, whose army they had joined, was compelled by a pestilence to abandon the north of Italy. But under Rainulf, the brother of Drengot, they resolved to establish a sovereignty for themselves; and in this view they reduced Aversa, a fortress belonging to the duchy of Naples, which they fortified in opposition to the wish of that republic. That city, however, they had soon an opportunity of conciliating. When Pandulf IV, prince of Capua, took Naples by surprise, where open force would have failed, Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the commonwealth, fled to Aversa, implored the succours of the strangers, and with their aid expelled the garrison of Capua. The grateful chief erected Aversa into a fief, with which he invested the Norman leader as Count Rainulf. But this leader was not destined to lay the foundation of Norman sovereignty. About this time and allured by the same hope of distinction, there arrived three sons of Tancred of Hauteville, an illustrious house of Normandy. In the war which ensued, both Greeks and Saracens were worsted, until all Apulia was wrested from the former, when the new conquests were partitioned among twelve counts, each with a town and territory. At the head of these adventurers was Guillaume Bras de Fer, eldest son of Tancred. But they acknowledged no subordination; they committed on churches and monasteries, Christians and infidels, friends and foes, excesses which neither Greek nor Saracen could have exceeded, until the pope, justly regarding them as the greatest curse of the country, formed a league to expel them. At the head of a motley army of Romans, Germans, Greeks, Campanians, and Apulians, Leo IX himself took the field. Guillaume was dead, but his brother Humphrey (or Humbert) filled his place; Humphrey was assisted by Robert Guiscard [or Wiscard] another son of Tancred, and by the count of Aversa.[i] CAPTURE OF THE POPE; ROBERT GUISCARD (1053 A.D.) The Normans of Apulia could muster in the field no more than three thousand horse, with a handful of infantry; the defection of the natives intercepted their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable of fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the hostile approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or reluctance before their spiritual father. But the pope was inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the diminutive stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed that death or exile was their only alternative.