Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the

Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they

reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must

bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the Gnostics

had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and

against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine they

were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by the silence

of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been

transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of

the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made

without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to

whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their

merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap of bones and

ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps,

with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and

vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber, the body

and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts

of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was

degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and

the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the

laborious office of mediation in heaven, and ministry upon earth.

In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments,

the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of

worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the

baptism and communion of the faithful. They indulged a convenient

latitude for the interpretation of Scripture: and as often as

they were pressed by the literal sense, they could escape to the

intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence

must have been employed to dissolve the connection between the

Old and the New Testament; since they adored the latter as the

oracles of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and

absurd invention of men or daemons. We cannot be surprised, that

they should have found in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the

Trinity: but, instead of confessing the human nature and

substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy with a

celestial body that passed through the virgin like water through

a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the vain and

important malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual

was not adapted to the genius of the times; 7 and the rational

Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and

easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that

the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first

article of natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their

trust was in the Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the

invisible world.

But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and

rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle of an

active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises

his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin.

8 The appearances of moral and physical evil had established the

two principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the

East; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various

swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the

nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a

subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect

malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness, and the

power, of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the

line; and every step that approaches the one must recede in equal

proportion from the other. 9

7 (return) [ The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined

by Peter (p. 756,) with much prejudice and passion.]

8 (return) [ Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia;

Deum malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et

princi pem, et alium futuri aevi, (Petr. Sicul. 765.)]

9 (return) [ Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du

Manicheisme, l. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.

Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii.

iii.,) have labored to explore and discriminate the various

systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles.]

The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied the

number of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual

ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the

Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many

Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he

preached with success in the regions of Pontus 10 and Cappadocia,

which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster. The

Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their Scriptural

names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity

of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some

extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable

of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of

the Catholic prelacy; such anti-Christian pride they bitterly

censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned

as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was

loosely spread over the provinces of Asia Minor to the westward

of the Euphrates; six of their principal congregations

represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed his

epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the

neighborhood of Colonia, 11 in the same district of Pontus which

had been celebrated by the altars of Bellona 12 and the miracles

of Gregory. 13 After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus,

who had retired from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell

a sacrifice to Roman persecution. The laws of the pious emperors,

which seldom touched the lives of less odious heretics,

proscribed without mercy or disguise the tenets, the books, and

the persons of the Montanists and Manichaeans: the books were

delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to secrete

such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an

ignominious death. 14 A Greek minister, armed with legal and

military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and

to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of

cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of

his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon

and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual

father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones

dropped from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only

one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is styled by

the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This

apostate (Justin was his name) again deceived and betrayed his

unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St.

Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle,

he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute,

renounced his honors and fortunes, and required among the

Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were not

ambitious of martyrdom, 15 but in a calamitous period of one

hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal

could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the

obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and

ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and

congregations repeatedly arose: amidst their foreign hostilities,

they found leisure for domestic quarrels: they preached, they

disputed, they suffered; and the virtues, the apparent virtues,

of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are

reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. 16 The native

cruelty of Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause;

and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the

name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive simplicity,

their abhorrence of popular superstition, the Iconoclast princes

might have been reconciled to some erroneous doctrines; but they

themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they

chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the

accomplices, of the Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the

clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favor the severity

of the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honor

of a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the rigid

Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but

the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion

of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental church. Her

inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia,

and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short

reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the

sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit has perhaps

been stretched beyond the measure of truth: but if the account be

allowed, it must be presumed that many simple Iconoclasts were

punished under a more odious name; and that some who were driven

from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of heresy.

10 (return) [ The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys

were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c.

103) and Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race

of the Achaemenides, (Sallust. Fragment. l. iii. with the French

supplement and notes of the president de Brosses.)]

11 (return) [ Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest

of Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Caesarea, is

named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a

strong country, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34.

Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293.)]

12 (return) [ The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus was a

powerful and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was

respected as the second person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal

office had been occupied by his mother’s family, Strabo (l. xii.

p. 809, 835, 836, 837) dwells with peculiar complacency on the

temple, the worship, and festival, which was twice celebrated

every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features and

character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.]

13 (return) [ Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, (A.D. 240-265,)

surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years

afterwards, the history or romance of his life was composed by

Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, the brother of the

great St. Basil.]

14 (return) [ Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque

orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque

capitali puniri sententia juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in

loco inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem

occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici,

ejusque bona in fiscum inferri, (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more

could bigotry and persecution desire?]

15 (return) [ It should seem, that the Paulicians allowed

themselves some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation;

till the Catholics discovered the pressing questions, which

reduced them to the alternative of apostasy or martyrdom, (Petr.

Sicul. p. 760.)]

16 (return) [ The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p.

579-763) with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa

persolvit. See likewise Cedrenus, (p. 432-435.)]

The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a

religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause

they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the justice of

their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and

they revenge their fathers’ wrongs on the children of their

tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the

Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the

Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. 17 They were

first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who

exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the

heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected

their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming

flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt

of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the

general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic

inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his

desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united

by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of

anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the

caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to

the implacable enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between

Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice,

18 which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and

the neighboring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives,

who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During

more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the calamities of

foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads, the disciples

of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful

Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered

into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant

spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so

intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son

of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against the

Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the

Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had

condemned to the flames. The Saracens fought under the same

banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive

generals, with more than a hundred tribunes, were either released

by his avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and

ambition of Chrysocheir, 19 his successor, embraced a wider

circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful

Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops

of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown; the

edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and

Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could the apostle St. John

protect from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of

Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the

Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and

abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe

the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which had

disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil,

the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom

for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation

and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians,

and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and

silk garments. “If the emperor,” replied the insolent fanatic,

“be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign

without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of

the Lord will precipitate him from the throne.” The reluctant

Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his

army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and

sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same

calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the

strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the Barbarians, and the

ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh

from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople, he

labored, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure

the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and

the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might

live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious

adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished:

after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in

his retreat; and the rebel’s head was triumphantly presented at

the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy,

Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with

unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed

the victory of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of

the Paulicians faded and withered: 20 on the second expedition of

the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice, was deserted by the

heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city

was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the

mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their

religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained

their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the

gospel.

17 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, (p. 763, 764,) the continuator of

Theophanes, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 103, 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 541, 542,

545,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 156,) describe the revolt

and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians.]

18 (return) [ Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is

probably the only Frank who has visited the independent

Barbarians of Tephrice now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately

escaped in the train of a Turkish officer.]

19 (return) [ In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p.

67-70, edit. Venet.) has exposed the nakedness of the empire.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 37-43, p. 166-171)

has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus (p. 570-573)

is without their passions or their knowledge.]

20 (return) [ How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth

of Cedrenus!]

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.

About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed

Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition

into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and

Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred

heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he transplanted them from

the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by

this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in

Europe. 21 If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled

with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep

root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the

storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with

their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their

preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith

of the Bulgarians. 22 In the tenth century, they were restored

and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces 23

transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount

Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the

destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the

Manichaeans: the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their

valor: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with

mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the Barbarians

of Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would

be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a

free toleration: the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis

and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the

Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of

villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native

Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy.

As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation,

their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the

empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever

thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost

with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit

rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they were easily

provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often

violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy.

In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred

Manichaeans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, 24 and

retired to their native homes. He dissembled till the moment of

revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and

punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation,

and baptism. In an interval of peace, the emperor undertook the

pious office of reconciling them to the church and state: his

winter quarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the thirteenth

apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed whole

days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were

fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honors and rewards

which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city,

surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified

with his own name, was founded by Alexius for the residence of

his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis was

wrested from their hands; the contumacious leaders were secured

in a dungeon, or banished from their country; and their lives

were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of an

emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt

alive before the church of St. Sophia. 25 But the proud hope of

eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by

the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or

refused to obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they

soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of

the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest

corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and

Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial congregations

of Italy and France. 26 From that aera, a minute scrutiny might

prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. At the end of the

last age, the sect or colony still inhabited the valleys of Mount

Haemus, where their ignorance and poverty were more frequently

tormented by the Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The

modern Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their

religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the

practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have imported

from the wilds of Tartary. 27

21 (return) [ Copronymus transported his heretics; and thus says

Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals of Theophanes.]

22 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice

(A.D. 870) for the ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of

their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the

Historia Manichaeorum to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians,

(p. 754.)]

23 (return) [ The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted

by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned

by Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad,

l. xiv. p. 450, &c.)]

24 (return) [ The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (l. v. p. 131, l. vi.

p. 154, 155, l. xiv. p. 450-457, with the Annotations of Ducange)

records the transactions of her apostolic father with the

Manichaeans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of

refuting.]

25 (return) [ Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a

sect of Gnostics, who soon vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, l.

xv. p. 486-494 Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420.)]

26 (return) [ Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of

our English historian is alleged by Ducange in an excellent note

on Villehardouin (No. 208,) who found the Paulicians at

Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians.]

27 (return) [ See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell’ Imperio

Ottomano, p. 24.]

In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology had

been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. The

favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and twelfth

centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret,

discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the

church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism odious;

less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of saints

and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she

had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of

transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more

corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of

the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who

wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three

different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of

Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who visited

Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube: in their

journey and return they passed through Philippopolis; and the

sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might accompany the

French or German caravans to their respective countries. The

trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic,

and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to foreigners of

every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine standard, the

Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy

and Sicily: in peace and war, they freely conversed with

strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently

propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. 28

It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of every

rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean heresy; and

the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the first

act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, 29 a name so

innocent in its origin, so odious in its application, spread

their branches over the face of Europe. United in common hatred

of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of episcopal

and presbyterian government; their various sects were

discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but

they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the

Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the

cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and

blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was

their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations

were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who

practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the

Albigeois, 30 in the southern provinces of France, that the

Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes

of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the

neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth

century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern

emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of

Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc:

Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It

was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of

the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by

the founders of the Inquisition; 31 an office more adapted to

confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The

visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were

extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by

flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible

spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the

Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the

cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of

St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the

Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the

visions of the Gnostic theology. 3111 The struggles of Wickliff

in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual;

but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced

with gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

28 (return) [ The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and

France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii

Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81-152) and Mosheim, (p. 379-382,

419-422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of William

the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle between the

Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.

tom. v. p. 256:)

Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error

Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.

But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of

Sabellians or Patripassians.]

29 (return) [ Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation,

has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers

and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made

to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l’Avocat

Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss.

Latinitat. Medii et Infimi Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise

named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.]

30 (return) [ Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the

Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim,

(p. 477-481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical

historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and

amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.]

31 (return) [ The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of

Tholouse (A.D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch,

(Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition

in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As

we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will

observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio

pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the

secular arm.]

3111 (return) [ The popularity of “Milner’s History of the

Church” with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that

his attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of

Gnosticism or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in

ignorance, of all the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it

appears, was not acquainted with the work of Photius, “Contra

Manicheos Repullulantes,” the first book of which was edited by

Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the

whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a

very sensible tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G.

Dowling, M. A. London, 1835.—M.]

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the

value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles

of faith, above or against our reason, they have enfranchised the

Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so

far as it may be compatible with truth and piety. After a fair

discussion, we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than

scandalized by the freedom, of our first reformers. 32 With the

Jews, they adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew

Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to

the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the

Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine

law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the

reformers were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the

theology of the four, or the six first councils; and with the

Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all

who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the

invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of

Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument and

pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their

senses, of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first

Protestants were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the

words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther

maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in

the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more

than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly

prevailed in the reformed churches. 33 But the loss of one

mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of

original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which

have been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile

questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and

schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be

attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the

absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of

supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a

sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that

God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

32 (return) [ The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are

exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but

the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so

steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran

brethren.]

33 (return) [ Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and

perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of

England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real

presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the

people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet’s History of

the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)]

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and

important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these

fearless enthusiasts. 34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of

superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of

the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both

sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and

labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of

imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their

temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial

happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church;

and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the

daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of

Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer

and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of

the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime

simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the

vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be

inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and

indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which

restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave

from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils,

were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world;

and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the

Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom,

however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the

Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding

the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal

rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of

the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or

personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus 35 the guilt

of his own rebellion; 36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which

he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists

by the zeal of Cranmer. 37 The nature of the tiger wa s the same,

but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual

and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the

Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without

revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the

antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes

were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private

judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and

enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret

reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the

reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and

the disciples of Erasmus 38 diffused a spirit of freedom and

moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a

common benefit, an inalienable right: 39 the free governments of

Holland 40 and England 41 introduced the practice of toleration;

and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the

prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has

understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows

that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly

reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs:

the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the

knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of

orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or

a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity

are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism.

The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of

mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians,

whose number must not be computed from their separate

congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are shaken by those

men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who

indulge the license without the temper of philosophy. 42 4211

34 (return) [ “Had it not been for such men as Luther and

myself,” said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, “you

would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred.”]

35 (return) [ The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique

of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this

shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d’Artigny, Nouveaux

Memoires d’Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55-154.]

36 (return) [ I am more deeply scandalized at the single

execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in

the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin

seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps

envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the

judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred

trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not

varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In

his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who

neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic

inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires, but

Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done by;

a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in Nicocle,

tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before the

publication of the Gospel. * Note: Gibbon has not accurately

rendered the sense of this passage, which does not contain the

maxim of charity Do unto others as you would they should do unto

you, but simply the maxim of justice, Do not to others the which

would offend you if they should do it to you.—G.]

37 (return) [ See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84-86. The sense and

humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the

primate.]

38 (return) [ Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational

theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by

the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in

England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge,

(Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261-268, octavo edition.)

Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.]

39 (return) [ I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of

the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly

defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and

philosophers.]

40 (return) [ See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on

the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with

Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in

12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only

condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.]

41 (return) [ Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p.

53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the

Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the

Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if

the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred

statutes.]

42 (return) [ I shall recommend to public animadversion two

passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of

his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of

Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second

(vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!]

4211 (return) [ There is something ludicrous, if it were not

offensive, in Gibbon holding up to “public animadversion” the

opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his

creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the

effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is

mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be

compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole

religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed

since Gibbon wrote.—M.]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part

I.

The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The

Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The Monarchy Of

Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The Russians Against The

Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The Barbarians.

Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius, the

ancient barrier of the Danube, so often violated and so often

restored, was irretrievably swept away by a new deluge of

Barbarians. Their progress was favored by the caliphs, their

unknown and accidental auxiliaries: the Roman legions were

occupied in Asia; and after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa,

the Caesars were twice reduced to the danger and disgrace of

defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account

of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and

original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will

hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the

West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and

in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity:

the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be

imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold

the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the

same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages,

who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from

the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual

emigration. 1 Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful,

their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valor

brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was

neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty

of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly

attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared

without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the

despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan

under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of,

I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and, III. Russians, I shall

content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be

remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy

of the, V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable

Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and

empire of Constantine.

1 (return) [ All the passages of the Byzantine history which

relate to the Barbarians are compiled, methodized, and

transcribed, in a Latin version, by the laborious John Gotthelf

Stritter, in his “Memoriae Populorum, ad Danubium, Pontum

Euxinum, Paludem Maeotidem, Caucasum, Mare Caspium, et inde Magis

ad Septemtriones incolentium.” Petropoli, 1771-1779; in four

tomes, or six volumes, in 4to. But the fashion has not enhanced

the price of these raw materials.]

I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric 2 the Ostrogoth had trampled

on the arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the name and

the nation are lost during a century and a half; and it may be

suspected that the same or a similar appellation was revived by

strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga.

A king of the ancient Bulgaria, 3 bequeathed to his five sons a

last lesson of moderation and concord. It was received as youth

has ever received the counsels of age and experience: the five

princes buried their father; divided his subjects and cattle;

forgot his advice; separated from each other; and wandered in

quest of fortune till we find the most adventurous in the heart

of Italy, under the protection of the exarch of Ravenna. 4 But

the stream of emigration was directed or impelled towards the

capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the southern banks of the

Danube, was stamped with the name and image which it has retained

to the present hour: the new conquerors successively acquired, by

war or treaty, the Roman provinces of Dardania, Thessaly, and the

two Epirus; 5 the ecclesiastical supremacy was translated from

the native city of Justinian; and, in their prosperous age, the

obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honored with the

throne of a king and a patriarch. 6 The unquestionable evidence

of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the

original stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian,

race; 7 and the kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians,

Croatians, Walachians, 8 &c., followed either the standard or the

example of the leading tribe. From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in

the state of captives, or subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the

Greek empire, they overspread the land; and the national

appellation of the slaves 9 has been degraded by chance or malice

from the signification of glory to that of servitude. 10 Among

these colonies, the Chrobatians, 11 or Croats, who now attend the

motions of an Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty

people, the conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime

cities, and of these the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the

aid and instructions of the Byzantine court: they were advised by

the magnanimous Basil to reserve a small acknowledgment of their

fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual

tribute, the wrath of these irresistible Barbarians. The kingdom

of Crotia was shared by eleven Zoupans, or feudatory lords; and

their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand horse and one

hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with capacious

harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight of

the Italian shores, disposed both the natives and strangers to

the practice of navigation. The boats or brigantines of the

Croats were constructed after the fashion of the old Liburnians:

one hundred and eighty vessels may excite the idea of a

respectable navy; but our seamen will smile at the allowance of

ten, or twenty, or forty, men for each of these ships of war.

They were gradually converted to the more honorable service of

commerce; yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and

dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century

that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually

vindicated by the Venetian republic. 12 The ancestors of these

Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of

navigation: they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland

regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days’ journey,

according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness.

2 (return) [ Hist. vol. iv. p. 11.]

3 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 296-299. Anastasius, p. 113.

Nicephorus, C. P. p. 22, 23. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria

on the banks of the Atell or Volga; but he deprives himself of

all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine

Sea.]

4 (return) [ Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 29, p.

881, 882. The apparent difference between the Lombard historian

and the above-mentioned Greeks, is easily reconciled by Camillo

Pellegrino (de Ducatu Beneventano, dissert. vii. in the

Scriptores Rerum Ital. (tom. v. p. 186, 187) and Beretti,

(Chorograph. Italiae Medii Aevi, p. 273, &c. This Bulgarian

colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium, and learned

the Latin, without forgetting their native language.]

5 (return) [ These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are

assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of

ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and

Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 869, No. 75.)]

6 (return) [ The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida,

are clearly expressed in Cedrenus, (p. 713.) The removal of an

archbishop or patriarch from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and

at length to Ternovo, has produced some perplexity in the ideas

or language of the Greeks, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. ii. c. 2, p.

14, 15. Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. i. c. 19,

23;) and a Frenchman (D’Anville) is more accurately skilled in

the geography of their own country, (Hist. de l’Academie des

Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)]

7 (return) [ Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the

identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians,

Bulgarians, Poles, (de Rebus Turcicis, l. x. p. 283,) and

elsewhere of the Bohemians, (l. ii. p. 38.) The same author has

marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians. * Note: The

Slavonian languages are no doubt Indo-European, though an

original branch of that great family, comprehending the various

dialects named by Gibbon and others. Shafarik, t. 33.—M. 1845.]

8 (return) [ See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de

Originibus Sclavicis, Vindobonae, 1745, in four parts, or two

volumes in folio. His collections and researches are useful to

elucidate the antiquities of Bohemia and the adjacent countries;

but his plan is narrow, his style barbarous, his criticism

shallow, and the Aulic counsellor is not free from the prejudices

of a Bohemian. * Note: We have at length a profound and

satisfactory work on the Slavonian races. Shafarik, Slawische

Alterthumer. B. 2, Leipzig, 1843.—M. 1845.]

9 (return) [ Jordan subscribes to the well-known and probable

derivation from Slava, laus, gloria, a word of familiar use in

the different dialects and parts of speech, and which forms the

termination of the most illustrious names, (de Originibus

Sclavicis, pars. i. p. 40, pars. iv. p. 101, 102)]

10 (return) [ This conversion of a national into an appellative

name appears to have arisen in the viiith century, in the

Oriental France, where the princes and bishops were rich in

Sclavonian captives, not of the Bohemian, (exclaims Jordan,) but

of Sorabian race. From thence the word was extended to the

general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of

the last Byzantines, (see the Greek and Latin Glossaries and

Ducange.) The confusion of the Servians with the Latin Servi, was

still more fortunate and familiar, (Constant. Porphyr. de

Administrando, Imperio, c. 32, p. 99.)]

11 (return) [ The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most

accurate for his own times, most fabulous for preceding ages,

describes the Sclavonians of Dalmatia, (c. 29-36.)]

12 (return) [ See the anonymous Chronicle of the xith century,

ascribed to John Sagorninus, (p. 94-102,) and that composed in

the xivth by the Doge Andrew Dandolo, (Script. Rerum. Ital. tom.

xii. p. 227-230,) the two oldest monuments of the history of

Venice.]

The glory of the Bulgarians 13 was confined to a narrow scope

both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries, they

reigned to the south of the Danube; but the more powerful nations

that had followed their emigration repelled all return to the

north and all progress to the west. Yet in the obscure catalogue

of their exploits, they might boast an honor which had hitherto

been appropriated to the Goths: that of slaying in battle one of

the successors of Augustus and Constantine. The emperor

Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost his life in

the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he advanced with

boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt the

royal court, which was probably no more than an edifice and

village of timber. But while he searched the spoil and refused

all offers of treaty, his enemies collected their spirits and

their forces: the passes of retreat were insuperably barred; and

the trembling Nicephorus was heard to exclaim, “Alas, alas!

unless we could assume the wings of birds, we cannot hope to

escape.” Two days he waited his fate in the inactivity of

despair; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians

surprised the camp, and the Roman prince, with the great officers

of the empire, were slaughtered in their tents. The body of

Valens had been saved from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was

exposed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often

replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the

dishonor of the throne; but they acknowledged the just punishment

of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup was deeply tinctured with

the manners of the Scythian wilderness; but they were softened

before the end of the same century by a peaceful intercourse with

the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated region, and the

introduction of the Christian worship. The nobles of Bulgaria

were educated in the schools and palace of Constantinople; and

Simeon, 14 a youth of the royal line, was instructed in the

rhetoric of Demosthenes and the logic of Aristotle. He

relinquished the profession of a monk for that of a king and

warrior; and in his reign of more than forty years, Bulgaria

assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth. The

Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint consolation

from indulging themselves in the reproaches of perfidy and

sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan Turks; but Simeon,

in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the first, at a time

when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms of that

formidable nation. The Servians were overthrown, made captive and

dispersed; and those who visited the country before their

restoration could discover no more than fifty vagrants, without

women or children, who extorted a precarious subsistence from the

chase. On classic ground, on the banks of Achelous, the greeks

were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of the

Barbaric Hercules. 15 He formed the siege of Constantinople; and,

in a personal conference with the emperor, Simeon imposed the

conditions of peace. They met with the most jealous precautions:

the royal gallery was drawn close to an artificial and

well-fortified platform; and the majesty of the purple was

emulated by the pomp of the Bulgarian. “Are you a Christian?”

said the humble Romanus: “it is your duty to abstain from the

blood of your fellow-Christians. Has the thirst of riches seduced

you from the blessings of peace? Sheathe your sword, open your

hand, and I will satiate the utmost measure of your desires.” The

reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance; the freedom of

trade was granted or restored; the first honors of the court were

secured to the friends of Bulgaria, above the ambassadors of

enemies or strangers; 16 and her princes were dignified with the

high and invidious title of Basileus, or emperor. But this

friendship was soon disturbed: after the death of Simeon, the

nations were again in arms; his feeble successors were divided

and extinguished; and, in the beginning of the eleventh century,

the second Basil, who was born in the purple, deserved the

appellation of conqueror of the Bulgarians. His avarice was in

some measure gratified by a treasure of four hundred thousand

pounds sterling, (ten thousand pounds’ weight of gold,) which he

found in the palace of Lychnidus. His cruelty inflicted a cool

and exquisite vengeance on fifteen thousand captives who had been

guilty of the defence of their country. They were deprived of

sight; but to one of each hundred a single eye was left, that he

might conduct his blind century to the presence of their king.

Their king is said to have expired of grief and horror; the

nation was awed by this terrible example; the Bulgarians were

swept away from their settlements, and circumscribed within a

narrow province; the surviving chiefs bequeathed to their

children the advice of patience and the duty of revenge.

13 (return) [ The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found,

under the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras.

The Byzantine materials are collected by Stritter, (Memoriae

Populorum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 441-647;) and the series of their

kings is disposed and settled by Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p.

305-318.]

14 (return) [ Simeonem semi-Graecum esse aiebant, eo quod a

pueritia Byzantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis

syllogismos didicerat, (Liutprand, l. iii. c. 8.) He says in

another place, Simeon, fortis bella tor, Bulgariae praeerat;

Christianus, sed vicinis Graecis valde inimicus, (l. i. c. 2.)]

15 (return) [—Rigidum fera dextera cornu Dum tenet, infregit,

truncaque a fronte revellit. Ovid (Metamorph. ix. 1-100) has

boldly painted the combat of the river god and the hero; the

native and the stranger.]

16 (return) [ The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek

excuses, cum Christophori filiam Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus

conjugem duceret, Symphona, id est consonantia scripto juramento

firmata sunt, ut omnium gentium Apostolis, id est nunciis, penes

nos Bulgarorum Apostoli praeponantur, honorentur, diligantur,

(Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482.) See the Ceremoniale of

Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82, tom. ii. p. 429, 430,

434, 435, 443, 444, 446, 447, with the annotations of Reiske.]

II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Europe,

above nine hundred years after the Christian aera, they were

mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and Magog of the

Scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the end of the world. 17

Since the introduction of letters, they have explored their own

antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of patriotic

curiosity. 18 Their rational criticism can no longer be amused

with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns; but they complain

that their primitive records have perished in the Tartar war;

that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long since

forgotten; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle 19 must be

painfully reconciled with the contemporary though foreign

intelligence of the imperial geographer. 20 Magiar is the

national and oriental denomination of the Hungarians; but, among

the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the Greeks under

the proper and peculiar name of Turks, as the descendants of that

mighty people who had conquered and reigned from China to the

Volga. The Pannonian colony preserved a correspondence of trade

and amity with the eastern Turks on the confines of Persia and

after a separation of three hundred and fifty years, the

missionaries of the king of Hungary discovered and visited their

ancient country near the banks of the Volga. They were hospitably

entertained by a people of Pagans and Savages who still bore the

name of Hungarians; conversed in their native tongue, recollected

a tradition of their long-lost brethren, and listened with

amazement to the marvellous tale of their new kingdom and

religion. The zeal of conversion was animated by the interest of

consanguinity; and one of the greatest of their princes had

formed the generous, though fruitless, design of replenishing the

solitude of Pannonia by this domestic colony from the heart of

Tartary. 21 From this primitive country they were driven to the

West by the tide of war and emigration, by the weight of the more

distant tribes, who at the same time were fugitives and

conquerors. 2111 Reason or fortune directed their course towards

the frontiers of the Roman empire: they halted in the usual

stations along the banks of the great rivers; and in the

territories of Moscow, Kiow, and Moldavia, some vestiges have

been discovered of their temporary residence. In this long and

various peregrination, they could not always escape the dominion

of the stronger; and the purity of their blood was improved or

sullied by the mixture of a foreign race: from a motive of

compulsion, or choice, several tribes of the Chazars were

associated to the standard of their ancient vassals; introduced

the use of a second language; and obtained by their superior

renown the most honorable place in the front of battle. The

military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven

equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of

thirty thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the

proportion of women, children, and servants, supposes and

requires at least a million of emigrants. Their public counsels

were directed by seven vayvods, or hereditary chiefs; but the

experience of discord and weakness recommended the more simple

and vigorous administration of a single person. The sceptre,

which had been declined by the modest Lebedias, was granted to

the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the authority

of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of

the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the

prince to consult their happiness and glory.

17 (return) [ A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted his opinion to a

reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog

were the spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies

the root, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from

the root, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once

commanded the respect of mankind, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi.

p. 594, &c.)]

18 (return) [ The two national authors, from whom I have derived

the mos assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes and Annales

veterum Hun garorum, &c., Vindobonae, 1775, in folio) and Stephen

Katona, (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis

Arpadianae, Paestini, 1778-1781, 5 vols. in octavo.) The first

embraces a large and often conjectural space; the latter, by his

learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a

critical historian. * Note: Compare Engel Geschichte des

Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Neben lander, Halle, 1797, and

Mailath, Geschichte der Magyaren, Wien, 1828. In an appendix to

the latter work will be found a brief abstract of the

speculations (for it is difficult to consider them more) which

have been advanced by the learned, on the origin of the Magyar

and Hungarian names. Compare vol. vi. p. 35, note.—M.]

19 (return) [ The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary

of King Bela. Katona has assigned him to the xiith century, and

defends his character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This

rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records,

since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis

rusticorum, et garrulo cantu joculatorum. In the xvth century,

these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the

Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist.

Critica Ducum, p. 7-33.]

20 (return) [ See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4,

13, 38-42, Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work

to the years 949, 950, 951, (p. 4-7.) The critical historian (p.

34-107) endeavors to prove the existence, and to relate the

actions, of a first duke Almus the father of Arpad, who is

tacitly rejected by Constantine.]

21 (return) [ Pray (Dissert. p. 37-39, &c.) produces and

illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries,

Bonfinius and Aeneas Sylvius.]

2111 (return) [ In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan

have been found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves

the residence of the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions.

Precis de la Geog. Univ. par Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353.—G.——This

is contested by Klaproth in his Travels, c. xxi. Madschar, (he

states) in old Tartar, means “stone building.” This was a Tartar

city mentioned by the Mahometan writers.—M.]

With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the

penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger

prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language

stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian

dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms

of the Fennic race, 22 of an obsolete and savage race, which

formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. 2211

The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western

confines of China; 23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish

is attested by Tartar evidence; 24 a similar name and language

are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; 25 and the remains

of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the

sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. 26 The consanguinity

of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful

energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively

contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with

the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are

immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.

Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the

unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by

nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. 27 Extreme

cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of

the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of

men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy

ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their

peace! 28

22 (return) [ Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de

Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have

drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the

Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists

are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the

learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that

although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words, (innumeras

voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et natura.]

2211 (return) [ The connection between the Magyar language and

that of the Finns is now almost generally admitted. Klaproth,

Asia Polyglotta, p. 188, &c. Malte Bran, tom. vi. p. 723, &c.—M.]

23 (return) [ In the religion of Turfan, which is clearly and

minutely described by the Chinese Geographers, (Gaubil, Hist. du

Grand Gengiscan, 13; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31,

&c.)]

24 (return) [ Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi

Bahadur Khan partie ii. p. 90-98.]

25 (return) [ In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives

(Harris’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920,

921) and Bell (Travels, vol. i p. 174) found the Vogulitz in the

neighborhood of Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological

art, Ugur and Vogul are reduced to the same name; the

circumjacent mountains really bear the appellation of Ugrian; and

of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is the nearest to the

Hungarian, (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20-30. Pray. Dissert. ii. p.

31-34.)]

26 (return) [ The eight tribes of the Fennic race are described

in the curious work of M. Leveque, (Hist. des Peuples soumis a la

Domination de la Russie, tom. ii. p. 361-561.)]

27 (return) [ This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is

chiefly drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796-801, and the Latin

Annals, which are alleged by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, A.D.

889, &c.]

28 (return) [ Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 6, in 12mo.

Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment

of Laplanders. Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et

pharetra, sed adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and

attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy

their brutal ignorance.]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part

II.

It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics, 29

that all the Scythian hordes resembled each other in their

pastoral and military life, that they all practised the same

means of subsistence, and employed the same instruments of

destruction. But he adds, that the two nations of Bulgarians and

Hungarians were superior to their brethren, and similar to each

other in the improvements, however rude, of their discipline and

government: their visible likeness determines Leo to confound his

friends and enemies in one common description; and the picture

may be heightened by some strokes from their contemporaries of

the tenth century. Except the merit and fame of military prowess,

all that is valued by mankind appeared vile and contemptible to

these Barbarians, whose native fierceness was stimulated by the

consciousness of numbers and freedom. The tents of the Hungarians

were of leather, their garments of fur; they shaved their hair,

and scarified their faces: in speech they were slow, in action

prompt, in treaty perfidious; and they shared the common reproach

of Barbarians, too ignorant to conceive the importance of truth,

too proud to deny or palliate the breach of their most solemn

engagements. Their simplicity has been praised; yet they

abstained only from the luxury they had never known; whatever

they saw they coveted; their desires were insatiate, and their

sole industry was the hand of violence and rapine. By the

definition of a pastoral nation, I have recalled a long

description of the economy, the warfare, and the government that

prevail in that state of society; I may add, that to fishing, as

well as to the chase, the Hungarians were indebted for a part of

their subsistence; and since they seldom cultivated the ground,

they must, at least in their new settlements, have sometimes

practised a slight and unskilful husbandry. In their emigrations,

perhaps in their expeditions, the host was accompanied by

thousands of sheep and oxen which increased the cloud of

formidable dust, and afforded a constant and wholesale supply of

milk and animal food. A plentiful command of forage was the first

care of the general, and if the flocks and herds were secure of

their pastures, the hardy warrior was alike insensible of danger

and fatigue. The confusion of men and cattle that overspread the

country exposed their camp to a nocturnal surprise, had not a

still wider circuit been occupied by their light cavalry,

perpetually in motion to discover and delay the approach of the

enemy. After some experience of the Roman tactics, they adopted

the use of the sword and spear, the helmet of the soldier, and

the iron breastplate of his steed: but their native and deadly

weapon was the Tartar bow: from the earliest infancy their

children and servants were exercised in the double science of

archery and horsemanship; their arm was strong; their aim was

sure; and in the most rapid career, they were taught to throw

themselves backwards, and to shoot a volley of arrows into the

air. In open combat, in secret ambush, in flight, or pursuit,

they were equally formidable; an appearance of order was

maintained in the foremost ranks, but their charge was driven

forwards by the impatient pressure of succeeding crowds. They

pursued, headlong and rash, with loosened reins and horrific

outcries; but, if they fled, with real or dissembled fear, the

ardor of a pursuing foe was checked and chastised by the same

habits of irregular speed and sudden evolution. In the abuse of

victory, they astonished Europe, yet smarting from the wounds of

the Saracen and the Dane: mercy they rarely asked, and more

rarely bestowed: both sexes if accused is equally inaccessible to

pity, and their appetite for raw flesh might countenance the

popular tale, that they drank the blood, and feasted on the

hearts of the slain. Yet the Hungarians were not devoid of those

principles of justice and humanity, which nature has implanted in

every bosom. The license of public and private injuries was

restrained by laws and punishments; and in the security of an

open camp, theft is the most tempting and most dangerous offence.

Among the Barbarians there were many, whose spontaneous virtue

supplied their laws and corrected their manners, who performed

the duties, and sympathized with the affections, of social life.

29 (return) [ Leo has observed, that the government of the Turks

was monarchical, and that their punishments were rigorous,

(Tactic. p. 896) Rhegino (in Chron. A.D. 889) mentions theft as a

capital crime, and his jurisprudence is confirmed by the original

code of St. Stephen, (A.D. 1016.) If a slave were guilty, he was

chastised, for the first time, with the loss of his nose, or a

fine of five heifers; for the second, with the loss of his ears,

or a similar fine; for the third, with death; which the freeman

did not incur till the fourth offence, as his first penalty was

the loss of liberty, (Katona, Hist. Regum Hungar tom. i. p. 231,

232.)]

After a long pilgrimage of flight or victory, the Turkish hordes

approached the common limits of the French and Byzantine empires.

Their first conquests and final settlements extended on either

side of the Danube above Vienna, below Belgrade, and beyond the

measure of the Roman province of Pannonia, or the modern kingdom

of Hungary. 30 That ample and fertile land was loosely occupied

by the Moravians, a Sclavonian name and tribe, which were driven

by the invaders into the compass of a narrow province.

Charlemagne had stretched a vague and nominal empire as far as

the edge of Transylvania; but, after the failure of his

legitimate line, the dukes of Moravia forgot their obedience and

tribute to the monarchs of Oriental France. The bastard Arnulph

was provoked to invite the arms of the Turks: they rushed through

the real or figurative wall, which his indiscretion had thrown

open; and the king of Germany has been justly reproached as a

traitor to the civil and ecclesiastical society of the

Christians. During the life of Arnulph, the Hungarians were

checked by gratitude or fear; but in the infancy of his son Lewis

they discovered and invaded Bavaria; and such was their Scythian

speed, that in a single day a circuit of fifty miles was stripped

and consumed. In the battle of Augsburgh the Christians

maintained their advantage till the seventh hour of the day, they

were deceived and vanquished by the flying stratagems of the

Turkish cavalry. The conflagration spread over the provinces of

Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia; and the Hungarians 31 promoted

the reign of anarchy, by forcing the stoutest barons to

discipline their vassals and fortify their castles. The origin of

walled towns is ascribed to this calamitous period; nor could any

distance be secure against an enemy, who, almost at the same

instant, laid in ashes the Helvetian monastery of St. Gall, and

the city of Bremen, on the shores of the northern ocean. Above

thirty years the Germanic empire, or kingdom, was subject to the

ignominy of tribute; and resistance was disarmed by the menace,

the serious and effectual menace of dragging the women and

children into captivity, and of slaughtering the males above the

age of ten years. I have neither power nor inclination to follow

the Hungarians beyond the Rhine; but I must observe with

surprise, that the southern provinces of France were blasted by

the tempest, and that Spain, behind her Pyrenees, was astonished

at the approach of these formidable strangers. 32 The vicinity of

Italy had tempted their early inroads; but from their camp on the

Brenta, they beheld with some terror the apparent strength and

populousness of the new discovered country. They requested leave

to retire; their request was proudly rejected by the Italian

king; and the lives of twenty thousand Christians paid the

forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of the

West, the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendor; and

the preeminence of Rome itself was only derived from the relics

of the apostles. The Hungarians appeared; Pavia was in flames;

forty-three churches were consumed; and, after the massacre of

the people, they spared about two hundred wretches who had

gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague exaggeration)

from the smoking ruins of their country. In these annual

excursions from the Alps to the neighborhood of Rome and Capua,

the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful litany:

“O, save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians!” But

the saints were deaf or inexorable; and the torrent rolled

forwards, till it was stopped by the extreme land of Calabria. 33

A composition was offered and accepted for the head of each

Italian subject; and ten bushels of silver were poured forth in

the Turkish camp. But falsehood is the natural antagonist of

violence; and the robbers were defrauded both in the numbers of

the assessment and the standard of the metal. On the side of the

East, the Hungarians were opposed in doubtful conflict by the

equal arms of the Bulgarians, whose faith forbade an alliance

with the Pagans, and whose situation formed the barrier of the

Byzantine empire. The barrier was overturned; the emperor of

Constantinople beheld the waving banners of the Turks; and one of

their boldest warriors presumed to strike a battle-axe into the

golden gate. The arts and treasures of the Greeks diverted the

assault; but the Hungarians might boast, in their retreat, that

they had imposed a tribute on the spirit of Bulgaria and the

majesty of the Caesars. 34 The remote and rapid operations of the

same campaign appear to magnify the power and numbers of the

Turks; but their courage is most deserving of praise, since a

light troop of three or four hundred horse would often attempt

and execute the most daring inroads to the gates of Thessalonica

and Constantinople. At this disastrous aera of the ninth and

tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted by a triple scourge from

the North, the East, and the South: the Norman, the Hungarian,

and the Saracen, sometimes trod the same ground of desolation;

and these savage foes might have been compared by Homer to the

two lions growling over the carcass of a mangled stag. 35

30 (return) [ See Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungar. p. 321-352.]

31 (return) [ Hungarorum gens, cujus omnes fere nationes expertae

saevitium &c., is the preface of Liutprand, (l. i. c. 2,) who

frequently expatiated on the calamities of his own times. See l.

i. c. 5, l. ii. c. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; l. iii. c. 1, &c., l. v. c.

8, 15, in Legat. p. 485. His colors are glaring but his

chronology must be rectified by Pagi and Muratori.]

32 (return) [ The three bloody reigns of Arpad, Zoltan, and

Toxus, are critically illustrated by Katona, (Hist. Ducum, &c. p.

107-499.) His diligence has searched both natives and foreigners;

yet to the deeds of mischief, or glory, I have been able to add

the destruction of Bremen, (Adam Bremensis, i. 43.)]

33 (return) [ Muratori has considered with patriotic care the

danger and resources of Modena. The citizens besought St.

Geminianus, their patron, to avert, by his intercession, the

rabies, flagellum, &c. Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi, Ab

Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis.The bishop erected walls for the

public defence, not contra dominos serenos, (Antiquitat. Ital.

Med. Aevi, tom. i. dissertat. i. p. 21, 22,) and the song of the

nightly watch is not without elegance or use, (tom. iii. dis. xl.

p. 709.) The Italian annalist has accurately traced the series of

their inroads, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. vii. p. 365, 367, 398,

401, 437, 440, tom. viii. p. 19, 41, 52, &c.)]

34 (return) [ Both the Hungarian and Russian annals suppose, that

they besieged, or attacked, or insulted Constantinople, (Pray,

dissertat. x. p. 239. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 354-360;) and the

fact is almost confessed by the Byzantine historians, (Leo

Grammaticus, p. 506. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 629: ) yet, however

glorious to the nation, it is denied or doubted by the critical

historian, and even by the notary of Bela. Their scepticism is

meritorious; they could not safely transcribe or believe the

rusticorum fabulas: but Katona might have given due attention to

the evidence of Liutprand, Bulgarorum gentem atque daecorum

tributariam fecerant, (Hist. l. ii. c. 4, p. 435.)]

35 (return) [—Iliad, xvi. 756.]

The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by the

Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in two

memorable battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians. 36

The valiant Henry was roused from a bed of sickness by the

invasion of his country; but his mind was vigorous and his

prudence successful. “My companions,” said he, on the morning of

the combat, “maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the

first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by

the equal and rapid career of your lances.” They obeyed and

conquered: and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh

expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who,

in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the

perpetuity of his name. 37 At the end of twenty years, the

children of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the

empire of his son; and their force is defined, in the lowest

estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by

domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously

unlocked; and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse,

into the heart of Flanders. But the vigor and prudence of Otho

dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that

unless they were true to each other, their religion and country

were irrecoverably lost; and the national powers were reviewed in

the plains of Augsburgh. They marched and fought in eight

legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes; the

first, second, and third, were composed of Bavarians; the fourth,

of Franconians; the fifth, of Saxons, under the immediate command

of the monarch; the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians; and

the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of

the host. The resources of discipline and valor were fortified by

the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve

the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were purified

with a fast; the camp was blessed with the relics of saints and

martyrs; and the Christian hero girded on his side the sword of

Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and

waved the banner of St. Maurice, the praefect of the Thebaean

legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance,

38 whose point was fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which

his father had extorted from the king of Burgundy, by the threats

of war, and the gift of a province. The Hungarians were expected

in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria

that falls into the Danube; turned the rear of the Christian

army; plundered the baggage, and disordered the legion of Bohemia

and Swabia. The battle was restored by the Franconians, whose

duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested

from his fatigues: the Saxons fought under the eyes of their

king; and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the

triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the

Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action;

they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past

cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive

princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners was

slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed to appear in

the face of their country, were condemned to everlasting poverty

and disgrace. 39 Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled, and

the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch

and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and

peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life;

and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that

far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the

produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or

Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or

Sclavonian origin; 40 many thousands of robust and industrious

captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe; 41

and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he

bestowed honors and estates on the nobles of Germany. 42 The son

of Geisa was invested with the regal title, and the house of

Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But

the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the

diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of

choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the

state.

36 (return) [ They are amply and critically discussed by Katona,

(Hist. Dacum, p. 360-368, 427-470.) Liutprand (l. ii. c. 8, 9) is

the best evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal. Saxon. l.

iii.) of the latter; but the critical historian will not even

overlook the horn of a warrior, which is said to be preserved at

Jaz-berid.]

37 (return) [ Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoria dignum,

ad Meresburgum rex in superiori coenaculo domus per Zeus, id est,

picturam, notari praecepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quam

verisimilem videas: a high encomium, (Liutprand, l. ii. c. 9.)

Another palace in Germany had been painted with holy subjects by

the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori may justly affirm, nulla

saecula fuere in quibus pictores desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat.

Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxiv. p. 360, 361.) Our

domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and original

imperfection (Mr. Walpole’s lively words) are of a much more

recent date, (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 2, &c.)]

38 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 929, No. 2-5. The

lance of Christ is taken from the best evidence, Liutprand, (l.

iv. c. 12,) Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard: but the other

military relics depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum post

Bedam, l. ii. c. 8.]

39 (return) [ Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariae, p. 500, &c.]

40 (return) [ Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The

Chazars, or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march,

(Constant. de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109.) 2. The

Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the

last were perhaps a remnant of the Huns of Attila, and were

intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3. The Russians, who,

like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name to the royal

porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A.D. 956) were invited,

cum magna multitudine Hismahelitarum. Had any of those

Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and

Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who

had spread to the Lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000 Cumans,

A.D. 1239, was received and converted by the kings of Hungary,

who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation, (Pray,

Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109-173. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 95-99,

259-264, 476, 479-483, &c.)]

41 (return) [ Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui

ex omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the

language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary,

A.D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.]

42 (return) [ The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in

old charters: and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a

fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely

magnified by the Italian Ranzanus, (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p,

667-681.)]

III. The name of Russians 43 was first divulged, in the ninth

century, by an embassy of Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the

emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The Greeks

were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or chagan, or

czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople, they

had traversed many hostile nations; and they hoped to escape the

dangers of their return, by requesting the French monarch to

transport them by sea to their native country. A closer

examination detected their origin: they were the brethren of the

Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable

in France; and it might justly be apprehended, that these Russian

strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of

war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and

Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey

the laws of hospitality or prudence, according to the interest of

both empires. 44 This Scandinavian origin of the people, or at

least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by

the national annals 45 and the general history of the North. The

Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable

darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and

military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous

regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with

independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in

the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy

was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the

Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow

limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms,

sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every

coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was

the first scene of their naval achievements they visited the

eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonic

tribes, and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a

tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom

they saluted with the title of Varangians 46 or Corsairs. Their

superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear

and reverence of the natives. In their wars against the more

inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends

and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained

the dominion of a people whom they were qualified to protect.

Their tyranny was expelled, their valor was again recalled, till

at length Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a

dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers

extended his influence: the example of service and usurpation was

imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia;

and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and

assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful

monarchy.

43 (return) [ Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a

singular form, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful

etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure

and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ.

Petropolitanae, tom. viii. p. 388-436) by Theophilus Sigefrid

Bayer, a learned German, who spent his life and labors in the

service of Russia. A geographical tract of D’Anville, de l’Empire

de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens, (Paris, 1772, in

12mo.,) has likewise been of use. * Note: The later antiquarians

of Russia and Germany appear to aquiesce in the authority of the

monk Nestor, the earliest annalist of Russia, who derives the

Russians, or Vareques, from Scandinavia. The names of the first

founders of the Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman.

Their language (according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat.

Imper. c. 9) differed essentially from the Sclavonian. The author

of the Annals of St. Bertin, who first names the Russians (Rhos)

in the year 839 of his Annals, assigns them Sweden for their

country. So Liutprand calls the Russians the same people as the

Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians, call the Swedes,

to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Rootslaue. See

Thunman, Untersuchungen uber der Geschichte des Estlichen

Europaischen Volker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm. Societ. Regbcient.

Gotting. xiii. p. 126. Schlozer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de

‘Europe, vol. i. p. 60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p.

378.—M.]

44 (return) [ See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut

aureis in tabulis rigatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum,

(in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A.D. 839,

twenty-two years before the aera of Ruric. In the xth century,

Liutprand (Hist. l. v. c. 6) speaks of the Russians and Normans

as the same Aquilonares homines of a red complexion.]

45 (return) [ My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M.

Leveque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these

ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning

of the xiith century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was

published at Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Leveque, Hist. de Russie,

tom. i. p. xvi. Coxe’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 184. * Note: The late

M. Schlozer has translated and added a commentary to the Annals

of Nestor; and his work is the mine from which henceforth the

history of the North must be drawn.—G.]

46 (return) [ Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is

differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. iv.

p. 275-311.]

As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and

conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians,

distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and

supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the

Baltic coast. 47 But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a

deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the

Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first

Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these

foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his

riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they

listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a

more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should

embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk

and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same

time, the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to

disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous

children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the

introduction, name, and character, of the Varangians: each day

they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled

at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their

strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen

from the Island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation

of Thule is applied to England; and the new Varangians were a

colony of English and Danes who fled from the yoke of the Norman

conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated

the countries of the earth; these exiles were entertained in the

Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the last age of the

empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and the use of the

Danish or English tongue. With their broad and double-edged

battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the Greek emperor

to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he slept and

feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the palace, the

treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful

hands of the Varangians. 48

47 (return) [ Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were

still guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore, confluentium et

maxime Danorum. Bayer, who quotes (p. 292) the Chronicle of

Dithmar of Merseburgh, observes, that it was unusual for the

Germans to enlist in a foreign service.]

48 (return) [ Ducange has collected from the original authors the

state and history of the Varangi at Constantinople, (Glossar.

Med. et Infimae Graecitatis, sub voce. Med. et Infimae

Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not. ad Alexiad. Annae Comnenae, p.

256, 257, 258. Notes sur Villehardouin, p. 296-299.) See likewise

the annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. of

Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149, 150. Saxo Grammaticus affirms that

they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till the fifteenth

century in the use of their native English.]

In the tenth century, the geography of Scythia was extended far

beyond the limits of ancient knowledge; and the monarchy of the

Russians obtains a vast and conspicuous place in the map of

Constantine. 49 The sons of Ruric were masters of the spacious

province of Wolodomir, or Moscow; and, if they were confined on

that side by the hordes of the East, their western frontier in

those early days was enlarged to the Baltic Sea and the country

of the Prussians. Their northern reign ascended above the

sixtieth degree of latitude over the Hyperborean regions, which

fancy had peopled with monsters, or clouded with eternal

darkness. To the south they followed the course of the

Borysthenes, and approached with that river the neighborhood of

the Euxine Sea. The tribes that dwelt, or wandered, in this ample

circuit were obedient to the same conqueror, and insensibly

blended into the same nation. The language of Russia is a dialect

of the Sclavonian; but in the tenth century, these two modes of

speech were different from each other; and, as the Sclavonian

prevailed in the South, it may be presumed that the original

Russians of the North, the primitive subjects of the Varangian

chief, were a portion of the Fennic race. With the emigration,

union, or dissolution, of the wandering tribes, the loose and

indefinite picture of the Scythian desert has continually

shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia affords some places

which still retain their name and position; and the two capitals,

Novogorod 50 and Kiow, 51 are coeval with the first age of the

monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the epithet of great,

nor the alliance of the Hanseatic League, which diffused the

streams of opulence and the principles of freedom. Kiow could not

yet boast of three hundred churches, an innumerable people, and a

degree of greatness and splendor which was compared with

Constantinople by those who had never seen the residence of the

Caesars. In their origin, the two cities were no more than camps

or fairs, the most convenient stations in which the Barbarians

might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade. Yet

even these assemblies announce some progress in the arts of

society; a new breed of cattle was imported from the southern

provinces; and the spirit of commercial enterprise pervaded the

sea and land, from the Baltic to the Euxine, from the mouth of

the Oder to the port of Constantinople. In the days of idolatry

and barbarism, the Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and

enriched by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of

purchase and exchange. 52 From this harbor, at the entrance of

the Oder, the corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to

the eastern shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were

intermingled, and the holy groves of Curland are said to have

been decorated with Grecian and Spanish gold. 53 Between the sea

and Novogorod an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer,

through a gulf, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter

season, over the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From

the neighborhood of that city, the Russians descended the streams

that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a single tree,

were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species, the

spoil of their beehives, and the hides of their cattle; and the

whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the

magazines of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of

the departure of the fleet: the timber of the canoes was framed

into the oars and benches of more solid and capacious boats; and

they proceeded without obstacle down the Borysthenes, as far as

the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks, which traverse the bed,

and precipitate the waters, of the river. At the more shallow

falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the deeper

cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their

vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in

this toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. 54 At the

first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the

festival of their escape: at a second, near the mouth of the

river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and

more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the

coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could

reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of

Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the

strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a

rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece,

and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the

capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the

persons, effects, and privileges, of the Russian merchant. 55

49 (return) [ The original record of the geography and trade of

Russia is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,

(de Administrat. Imperii, c. 2, p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59-61, c. 13,

p. 63-67, c. 37, p. 106, c. 42, p. 112, 113,) and illustrated by

the diligence of Bayer, (de Geographia Russiae vicinarumque

Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom.

ix. p. 367-422, tom. x. p. 371-421,) with the aid of the

chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.]

50 (return) [ The haughty proverb, “Who can resist God and the

great Novogorod?” is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom.

i. p. 60) even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In

the course of his history he frequently celebrates this republic,

which was suppressed A.D. 1475, (tom. ii. p. 252-266.) That

accurate traveller Adam Olearius describes (in 1635) the remains

of Novogorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein

ambassadors, tom. i. p. 123-129.]

51 (return) [ In hac magna civitate, quae est caput regni, plus

trecentae ecclesiae habentur et nundinae octo, populi etiam

ignota manus (Eggehardus ad A.D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p.

412.) He likewise quotes (tom. x. p. 397) the words of the Saxon

annalist, Cujus (Russioe) metropolis est Chive, aemula sceptri

Constantinopolitani, quae est clarissimum decus Graeciae. The

fame of Kiow, especially in the xith century, had reached the

German and Arabian geographers.]

52 (return) [ In Odorae ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes,

nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Graecis

qui sunt in circuitu, praestans stationem, est sane maxima omnium

quas Europa claudit civitatum, (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p.

19;) a strange exaggeration even in the xith century. The trade

of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic League, are carefully treated in

Anderson’s Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our

language, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory. *

Note: The book of authority is the “Geschichte des Hanseatischen

Bundes,” by George Sartorius, Gottingen, 1803, or rather the

later edition of that work by M. Lappenberg, 2 vols. 4to.,

Hamburgh, 1830.—M. 1845.]

53 (return) [ According to Adam of Bremen, (de Situ Daniae, p.

58,) the old Curland extended eight days’ journey along the

coast; and by Peter Teutoburgicus, (p. 68, A.D. 1326,) Memel is

defined as the common frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia.

Aurum ibi plurimum, (says Adam,) divinis auguribus atque

necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenae.... a toto orbe ibi

responsa petuntur, maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis, id est

regulis Lettoviae) et Graecis. The name of Greeks was applied to

the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect

conversion, if they still consulted the wizards of Curland,

(Bayer, tom. x. p. 378, 402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist.

Goth. p. 99.)]

54 (return) [ Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which

he gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are

enumerated by the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had

surveyed the course and navigation of the Dnieper, or

Borysthenes, (Description de l’Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin

quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.]

55 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.

78-80. From the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, the Russians went to

Black Bulgaria, Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where? when?

The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between

Chazaria and Lazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was

still used in the xith century, (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770.)]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part

III.

But the same communication which had been opened for the benefit,

was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period of one

hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to

plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was various,

but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same in these

naval expeditions. 56 The Russian traders had seen the

magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of the Caesars. A

marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of

their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which

their climate denied; they coveted the works of art, which they

were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase; the

Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure,

and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt

in the northern isles of the ocean. 57 The image of their naval

armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the

Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same

seas for a similar purpose. 58 The Greek appellation of monoxyla,

or single canoes, might justly be applied to the bottom of their

vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech or

willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and

continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length

of sixty, and the height of about twelve, feet. These boats were

built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move

with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men,

with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The

first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but

when the national force was exerted, they might arm against

Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet

was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was

magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real

proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors

been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigor to prevent,

perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of

the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia

to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of

six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the

capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province

escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The

storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at

length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen

miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been

stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their first

enterprise 59 under the princes of Kiow, they passed without

opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in the

absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus. Through a

crowd of perils, he landed at the palace-stairs, and immediately

repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary. 60 By the advice of the

patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn from the

sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable tempest, which

determined the retreat of the Russians, was devoutly ascribed to

the mother of God. 61 The silence of the Greeks may inspire some

doubt of the truth, or at least of the importance, of the second

attempt by Oleg, the guardian of the sons of Ruric. 62 A strong

barrier of arms and fortifications defended the Bosphorus: they

were eluded by the usual expedient of drawing the boats over the

isthmus; and this simple operation is described in the national

chronicles, as if the Russian fleet had sailed over dry land with

a brisk and favorable gale. The leader of the third armament,

Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a moment of weakness and

decay, when the naval powers of the empire were employed against

the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the instruments of

defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys

were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single

tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and

stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid

combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was

propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be

drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to

the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and

soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water;

and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his

disgrace and claim his revenge. 63 After a long peace, Jaroslaus,

the great grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval

invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at

the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But

in the rashness of pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks was

encompassed by an irresistible multitude of boats and men; their

provision of fire was probably exhausted; and twenty-four galleys

were either taken, sunk, or destroyed. 64

56 (return) [ The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth,

xth, and xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals,

especially those of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their

testimonies are collected in the Russica of Stritter, tom. ii.

pars ii. p. 939-1044.]

57 (return) [ Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]

58 (return) [ See Beauplan, (Description de l’Ukraine, p. 54-61:

) his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except the

circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for modern

Cosacks.]

59 (return) [ It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a

Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,

(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265-391.) After

disentangling some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the

years 864 or 865, a date which might have smoothed some doubts

and difficulties in the beginning of M. Leveque’s history.]

60 (return) [ When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the

conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently

ripe.]

61 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini

Continuator in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon

Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom.

ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162.]

62 (return) [ See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque’s Hist. de Russie,

tom. i. p. 74-80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75-79) uses his

advantage to disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the

siege of Kiow by the Hungarians.]

63 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p.

263, 264 Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588,

589. Cedren tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and

Liutprand, l. v. c. 6, who writes from the narratives of his

father-in-law, then ambassador at Constantinople, and corrects

the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.]

64 (return) [ I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758,

759) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more

weighty and credible as they draw near to their own times.]

Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more

frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval

hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks;

their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no

spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the

hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an

opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse

with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and

inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of

the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest

and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the

hoary sages. “Be content,” they said, “with the liberal offers of

Caesar; is it not far better to obtain without a combat the

possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our

desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with

the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of

water, and a common death hangs over our heads.” 65 The memory of

these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle

left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By the

vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an

equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed

with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should

become masters of Constantinople. 66 In our own time, a Russian

armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has

circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital

has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of

war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering

artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as

those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet

behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare

prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date

unquestionable.

65 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.

87.]