Yet even his admirers recognized that he was a vicious individual, whose military success sprang from a lifelong reputation as a butcher and brute of the most despicable severity. Zengi was casually inventive in the violence he directed toward enemies, subordinates and intimates alike. He crucified his own troops for marching out of line and trampling crops. If his military commanders irked him he either killed or banished them and castrated their children.
