4. Sichelgaita Led Warriors Into Combat
Sichelgaita and Guiscard schemed to take over the Byzantine Empire by marrying one of their children into the imperial household, but a palace coup in Constantinople ruined those plans. So the power couple decided to take over Byzantium the hard way, by conquering it. In October of 1081, Sichelgaita led an advance force, which encountered a powerful Byzantine army. Sichelgaita determined to attack and keep the Byzantines pinned in place until Guiscard arrived with reinforcements, but her men wavered. As described by near contemporaries: “Directly Sichelgaita … saw these soldiers running away. She looked fiercely after them and in a very powerful voice called out to them … “How far will ye flee? Stand and fight like men!” And when she saw that they continued to run, she grasped a long spear and at full gallop rushed after the fugitives; and on seeing this they recovered themselves and returned to the fight.“
She was badly wounded, but held part of the battlefield until reinforcements arrived to turn the tide and win the hard-fought engagement. Notwithstanding the victory, the plans for conquering Byzantium had to be discarded because of developments back in Italy, when a conflict broke out between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1084, the power couple resumed the attempted conquest of Byzantium. They won some initial victories, including a ferocious naval battle against a combined Venetian-Byzantine, which secyred them the islands of Cefalonia and Corfu. However, Guiscard took ill and died soon thereafter in 1085, and the campaign in Greece fizzled out. Sichelgaita retired to Salerno, where she died five years later, in 1090.
