ARNOI.9 mt ordered all the Tomplars taken in the place to bo sawn in two, Λ .o. lieo, excepting the most distinguished of the knights, who were reserved for a ransom, and were sent in chains to Aleppo.* Saladin offered Odo de St. Amand his liberty in exchange for the freedom of his own nephew, who was a prisoner in the hands of the Templars; but the Master of the Temple haughtily replied, that he would never, by his example, encourage any of his knights to be mean enough to surrender, that a Templar ought either to vanquish or die, and that he had nothing to give for his ransom but his girdle and his knife.f The proud spirit of Odo de St. Amand could but ill brook confinement ; he languished and died in the dungeons of Damascus, and was succeeded by Brother Arnold de Torroge, who had filled some of the chief situations of the order in Europe-J The affaire of the Latin Christians were at this period in a deplorable situation. Saladin encamped near Tiberias, and extended his ravages into almost every part of Palestine. His light cavalry swept the valley of the Jordan to within a day's march of Jerusalem, and the whole country as far as Panias on the one side, and Beisan, D'Jenneen, and Sebaste, on the other, was destroyed by fire and the sword. The houses of the Templars were pillaged and burnt ; various castles belonging to the order were taken by assault;§ but the immediate destruction of the Latin power was arrested by some partial successes obtained by the christian warriors, and by the skilful generalship of their * Abulpharadge, Citron. Syr. ut sup. Moaologiirm Cistorcionto, p. ISi. Merrtardut Theeuurariua dc acq. Terr. Sane, cap. 139. t Dicena non esse' coneuetudinis milituni Templi ut aliqua rcdemptio dorctur pro eie prteter clngulum et cultcllum. Cbron. Trivet apud Hall, vol. j . p. 77. t Eodcm anno quo captus est in vinculla ct squalore careens, nulli lugendus, dicitur obiisse.— Will. Tyr. lib. xxi. cap. 29. Ib. lib. xxii. cap. 7. Gallia Christiana nova, toni, i. eoi. 230 ; ibidp. 172, inslrumerttoruni% Abulfida, ad aim. 1182, 8. HW. Tyr. lib. xxii. cap. 1(1—20.