The camel as a celebration of Norman power

The legend presents the image of Count Roger entering Messina on a camel. Some iconographic evidence, however, shows the Norman in front of the town gate with a group of Moorish prisoners, and, in the background, the figure of the camel (a symbol of their abuse of power). To confirm this interpretation, we sometimes find a little puppet of a Moor on the back of the camel, depicting the Moor as a tax collector, for example in the province of Vibo Valentia, in Tropea, Ricadi, San Costantino di Briatico, and in the province of Reggio Calabria, in Seminara.