Bohemond I of Antioch

Bohemond I (c. 1054–1111), Prince of Taranto and founder of the Principality of Antioch, was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard and the most formidable military brain of the First Crusade. Described by the Byzantine imperial historian Anna Komnene as a towering, icy-eyed giant possessed of dangerous martial genius, Bohemond was feared by Greeks and Turks alike.

During the grueling eight-month Siege of Antioch (1097–1098), Bohemond established secret contact with an Armenian tower captain named Firouz, orchestrating a midnight escalade that breached the impenetrable walls. Days later, trapped inside the city by the colossal relief host of Atabeg Kerbogha of Mosul, Bohemond organized the starving Crusader army into disciplined battle lines outside the Bridge Gate, crushing Kerbogha in pitched battle and securing the Levant for Christendom.