BOHEMOND I, the son of the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard, who rose to be Duke of Apulia and Calabria; b. 1056; d. 1111. He became familiar with warfare when a mere boy, took a prominent part in various expedi tions to Greece and Illyria against Alexis Comnenus, and repeatedly defeated his troops with a very inferior force. As eldest son Bohemond naturally expected to succeed his father, but when the succession opened in 1085 Bohemond was absent in Greece, and his younger brother Roger, having obtained posses sion of the paternal Inheritance, declared his determination to maintain it. A war between the brothers was followed by an arrangement which gave Bohemond nothing more than the principality of Tarentum. While assisting his brother at the siege of Amalfi he resolved to become a Crusader, and without waiting to com plete it he harangued the troops so effectually on the glory to be gained in the Holy Land that the great body of them at once joined his standard. Bohemond was soon on his march,
and after encountering considerable difficulties reached the scene of action. The Crusaders had laid siege to Antioch, but had made little progress and were beginning to despair of suc cess, when Bohemond found means to gain over an Armenian renegade, who undertook to- in troduce him and his men by night, and that give them possession of the town. Bohemond laid the matter before his fellow-chiefs, and in doing so stipulated that in the event of success he himself should be Prince of Antioch. The Armenian kept his promise, and accordingly in 1098 Bohemond was installed in his sovereignty, which he retained ever after, and at his death transmitted it to his son, who assumed the title of Bohemond II.