The passage of the French Crusaders, however, had awakened the zeal of the Italians. Bohémond, prince of Tarentum, was the first who resolved to associate himself with their fortunes, and to partake of the glory of the holy expedition. He was of the family of those knights who had founded the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Fifty years before the crusade, his father, Robert Guiscard ’the subtle) had quitted the castle of Hauteville, in Normandy, with thirty foot-soldiers and five horsemen. Seconded by some of his relations and compatriots, who had preceded him into Italy, he fought with advantage against the Greeks, the Lombards, and the Saracens, who disputed Apulia and Calabria with him. He soon became sufficiently powerful to be by turns the enemy and the protector of the popes. He beat the armies of the emperors of the East and the West, and when he died he was engaged in the conquest of Greece. Bohémond had neither less cunning nor less talents than his father, Robert Guiscard. Contemporary authors, who never fail to describe the physical qualities of their heroes, inform us that his height was so great that it exceeded by a cubit that of the tallest man in his army; his eyes were blue, and appeared full of passion and haughty pride. His presence, says Anna Comnena, was as astonishing to the eyes as his reputation was to the mind. When he spoke, his hearers believed that eloquence had been his only study; when he appeared under arms, he might be supposed to have done nothing but wield the lance and the sword. Brought up in the school of the Norman heroes, he concealed the combinations of policy beneath an exterior of violence; and although of a proud and haughty character, he could put up with an injury when vengeance would not have been profitable to him. Everything that could contribute to the success of his designs appeared to him to be just. He had learnt from his father to consider every man whose wealth or states he coveted as his enemy; he was neither restrained by the fear of God, the opinion of men, nor his own oaths. He had followed Robert in the war against the emperor Alexis, and had distinguished himself in the battles of Durazzo and Larissa; but, disinherited by a will, he had nothing at his father’s death but the memory of his exploits, and the example of his family. He had declared war against his brother Roger, and had recently compelled him to cede to him the principality of Tarentum, when the expedition to the East began to be talked of in Europe. The deliverance of the tomb of Christ was not the object that kindled his zeal, or induced him to assume the cross. As he had sworn an eternal hatred to the Greek emperors, he smiled at the idea of traversing their empire at the head of an army; and, full of confidence in his own fortunes, he hoped to win a kingdom before he should arrive at Jerusalem.