princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in two memorable
battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians. 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. 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 prÊfect of the ThebÊan legion. But
his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance, 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. 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; many thousands of robust and
industrious captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe;
and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he bestowed
honors and estates on the nobles of Germany. 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.
III. The name of Russians 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. This
Scandinavian origin of the people, or at least the princes, of Russia,
may be confirmed and illustrated by the national annals 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_ 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.
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. 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.
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. 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 and Kiow, 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 CÊsars. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. The Russian
traders had seen the magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of
the CÊsars. 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.
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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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 CÊsar; it
is 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." 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. 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.
By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and as they
fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions must often
have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the Scythian hordes.
Yet their growing towns, however slight and imperfect, presented a
shelter to the subject, and a barrier to the enemy: the monarchy of
Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed the dominion of the North; and
the nations from the Volga to the Danube were subdued or repelled by the
arms of Swatoslaus, the son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric.
The vigor of his mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a
military and savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually
slept on the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was
coarse and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, his meat (it was often
horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals. The exercise of war
gave stability and discipline to his army; and it may be presumed, that
no soldier was permitted to transcend the luxury of his chief. By an
embassy from Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, he was moved to undertake
the conquest of Bulgaria; and a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of gold
was laid at his feet to defray the expense, or reward the toils, of the
expedition. An army of sixty thousand men was assembled and embarked;
they sailed from the Borysthenes to the Danube; their landing was
effected on the MÊsian shore; and, after a sharp encounter, the swords
of the Russians prevailed against the arrows of the Bulgarian horse. The
vanquished king sunk into the grave; his children were made captive;
and his dominions, as far as Mount HÊmus, were subdued or ravaged by the
northern invaders. But instead of relinquishing his prey, and performing
his engagements, the Varangian prince was more disposed to advance than
to retire; and, had his ambition been crowned with success, the seat
of empire in that early period might have been transferred to a more
temperate and fruitful climate. Swatoslaus enjoyed and acknowledged the
advantages of his new position, in which he could unite, by exchange or
rapine, the various productions of the earth. By an easy navigation
he might draw from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and
hydromel: Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the spoils
of the West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and the foreign
luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain. The bands of
Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the standard of victory;
and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed his trust, assumed the purple,
and promised to share with his new allies the treasures of the Eastern
world. From the banks of the Danube the Russian prince pursued his march
as far as Adrianople; a formal summons to evacuate the Roman province
was dismissed with contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that
Constantinople might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a master.