d to be justified; after the disaster of Hattin, Saladin did capture Caesarea, and with it Raymond's wife; she and her attendents were well treated and quickly released.7
In a council of war held at Saffariya on the night of July 2, Raymond had seemingly prevailed upon the Frankish leaders not to make the dangerous march toward Caesarea. The principal account of his argument, taken from Ernoul, cannot be fully relied upon, since it accords so closely with the events of the next two days as to suggest that the chronicler took advantage of hindsight.8 But all contemporary accounts agree that Raymond argued against the advance on Caesarea. Moreover, the general outcome of an advance in the Syrian summer through waterless terrain was predictable to any man experienced in desert warfare. A few years later, as we shall see, Richard the Lionheart would abandon a march on Jerusalem rather than risk being cut off from his water supply.
We may reasonably assume, then, that Raymond's actual argument was broadly that later attributed
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