I have been there often without any one's daring to present himself before me." The emperor did not care to take up this sort of challenge, and contented himself with replying to the warrior, "If you there waited for foes without finding any, you are now about to have what will satisfy you.

I have, however, a piece of advice to give you; don't put yourself at the head or the tail of the army; keep in the middle.

I have learned how to fight with Turks; and that is the best place you can choose." The crusaders and the Greeks were mutually contemptuous, the former with a ruffianly pride, the latter with an ironical and timid refinement.
This posture, on either side, of inactivity, ill-will, and irritation, could not last long.

On the approach of the spring of 1097, the crusader chiefs and their troops, first Godfrey de Bouillon, then Bohemond and Tancred, and afterwards Count Raymond of Toulouse, passed the Bosphorus, being conveyed across either in their own vessels or those of the Emperor Alexis, who encouraged them against the infidels, and at the same time had the infidels supplied with information most damaging to the crusaders.

Having effected a junction in Bithynia, the Christian chiefs resolved to go and lay siege to Nicaea, the first place, of importance, in possession of the Turks.