The Christians shed tears at the death of Count Gervais, but they soon had to weep for a much more painful loss. Tancred, who governed the principality of Antioch, died in an expedition against the infidels. He had raised high in the East the opinion of the heroic virtues of a French knight; never had weakness or misfortune implored his aid in vain. He gained a great many victories over the Saracens, but never fought for the ends of ambition. Nothing could shake his fidelity, nothing appeared impossible to his valour. He answered the ambassadors of Alexius, who required him to restore Antioch: “I would not give up the city which is confided to me even if the warriors who presented themselves to conquer it had bodies and bore arms of fire.” Whilst he lived, Antioch had nothing to fear from the invasion of the infidels or the discord of the inhabitants. His death consigned the colony to disorder and confusion, it spread mourning through all the Christian states of the East, and was for them the signal of the greatest reverses. The kingdom of Jerusalem had hitherto only had to contend against armies drawn from Egypt; the Turks of Syria, much more terrible in war than the Egyptians, had never united their forces to attack the Christians of Jerusalem.[240] The sultans of Damascus and Mossoul, with several emirs of Mesopotamia, assembled an army of thirty thousand fighting men, and penetrated through the mountains of Libanus into Galilee. During more than three months the banks of the Jordan and of the Lake of Genesareth were devastated by the horrors of war. The king of Jerusalem placed himself at the head of his knights to encounter this redoubtable enemy, and was defeated by the Saracens on the plains near Mount Tabor. Roger of Sicily, who had been governor of Antioch since the death of Tancred, and the counts of Tripoli and Edessa, came with their troops to the assistance of Baldwin. The Christian army, although it then mustered under its banners eleven thousand combatants, took up its encampment on the mountains, and did not dare to risk a battle. The Christians, intrenched upon the heights, beheld their fields ravaged and their cities burnt. All the banks of the Jordan seemed to be in flames; for a vast number of Saracens from Ascalon, Tyre, and other Mussulman cities, had taken advantage of the reverses of the Christians to lay waste many of the provinces of Palestine. The country of Sechem was invaded, and the city of Naplouse delivered up to pillage. Jerusalem, which was without defenders, shut its gates, and was in momentary fear of falling again into the power of the infidels.