ABSTRACT
In earlier times, whatever the outcomes of wars, some historian would assuredly be put forward by his colleagues to relate for the minds of his listeners as best he could the occasion, whether of sorrow or of joy. But this is the record of the grief of griefs and of complete unhappiness which by sudden disaster stole into the warlike part of Roger, prince of the Antiochenes, and, as a mass of offenses drove that prince, utterly removed his joys and went beyond the limit and bounds of complete wretchedness to such an extent that it cannot be expressed in words or conceived in thoughts how many and what kind of torments and unheard of deaths were visited on our men in an enormity of destruction. The weakness of the tower and the lack of food and, Il-ghazi's arrival there were good reasons why he could not remain there and should give himself up as prisoner to the victorious enemy.
