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
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. 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; 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. The unquestionable evidence
of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the original
stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian, race; and the
kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians,
&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 has been degraded by chance
or malice from the signification of glory to that of servitude. Among
these colonies, the Chrobatians, 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 Croatia 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. 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.
The glory of the Bulgarians 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, 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 Achelˆus,
the Greeks were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of the
Barbaric Hercules. 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;
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.
II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Europe, above
nine hundred years after the Christian Êra, 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. Since the introduction of letters,
they have explored their own antiquities with a strong and laudable
impulse of patriotic curiosity. 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 must be painfully reconciled with the
contemporary though foreign intelligence of the imperial geographer.
_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.
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. 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.
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, of an obsolete and
savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and
Europe. The genuine appellation of _Ugri_ or _Igours_ is found on the
western confines of China; their migration to the banks of the Irtish is
attested by Tartar evidence; a similar name and language are detected in
the southern parts of Siberia; and the remains of the Fennic tribes
are widely, though thinly scattered from the sources of the Oby to the
shores of Lapland. 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. 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!
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.--Part II.
It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics, 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 were 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.
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. 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
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. 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 preÎminence
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. 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 CÊsars. 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 Êra 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.