but his throne and wife were inherited by John Zimisces, who, in a
diminutive body, possessed the spirit and abilities of a hero. The
first victory of his lieutenants deprived the Russians of their foreign
allies, twenty thousand of whom were either destroyed by the sword,
or provoked to revolt, or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but
seventy thousand Barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had
been recalled from the new conquests of Syria, prepared, with the return
of the spring, to march under the banners of a warlike prince, who
declared himself the friend and avenger of the injured Bulgaria. The
passes of Mount HÊmus had been left unguarded; they were instantly
occupied; the Roman vanguard was formed of the _immortals_, (a proud
imitation of the Persian style;) the emperor led the main body of ten
thousand five hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow
and cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first
exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or Peristhlaba,
in two days; the trumpets sounded; the walls were scaled; eight thousand
five hundred Russians were put to the sword; and the sons of the
Bulgarian king were rescued from an ignominious prison, and invested
with a nominal diadem. After these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired
to the strong post of Drista, on the banks of the Danube, and was
pursued by an enemy who alternately employed the arms of celerity and
delay. The Byzantine galleys ascended the river, the legions completed
a line of circumvallation; and the Russian prince was encompassed,
assaulted, and famished, in the fortifications of the camp and city.
Many deeds of valor were performed; several desperate sallies were
attempted; nor was it till after a siege of sixty-five days that
Swatoslaus yielded to his adverse fortune. The liberal terms which he
obtained announce the prudence of the victor, who respected the valor,
and apprehended the despair, of an unconquered mind. The great duke of
Russia bound himself, by solemn imprecations, to relinquish all hostile
designs; a safe passage was opened for his return; the liberty of trade
and navigation was restored; a measure of corn was distributed to each
of his soldiers; and the allowance of twenty-two thousand measures
attests the loss and the remnant of the Barbarians. After a painful
voyage, they again reached the mouth of the Borysthenes; but their
provisions were exhausted; the season was unfavorable; they passed
the winter on the ice; and, before they could prosecute their march,
Swatoslaus was surprised and oppressed by the neighboring tribes with
whom the Greeks entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. Far
different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his capital
like Camillus or Marius, the saviors of ancient Rome. But the merit of
the victory was attributed by the pious emperor to the mother of God;
and the image of the Virgin Mary, with the divine infant in her arms,
was placed on a triumphal car, adorned with the spoils of war, and
the ensigns of Bulgarian royalty. Zimisces made his public entry on
horseback; the diadem on his head, a crown of laurel in his hand; and
Constantinople was astonished to applaud the martial virtues of her
sovereign.
Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal to his
curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on the conversion
of the Russians. Those fierce and bloody Barbarians had been persuaded,
by the voice of reason and religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God,
the Christian missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their
friends and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the
various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian chiefs might
allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of baptism; and a Greek
bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might administer the sacraments
in the church of Kiow, to a congregation of slaves and natives. But the
seed of the gospel was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates,
the converts were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the Êra
of Russian Christianity. A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who
could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her husband Igor,
must have been endowed with those active virtues which command the fear
and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment of foreign and domestic peace,
she sailed from Kiow to Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine
Porphyrogenitus has described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial
of her reception in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the
salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted to
gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the superior
majesty of the purple. In the sacrament of baptism, she received the
venerable name of the empress Helena; and her conversion might be
preceded or followed by her uncle, two interpreters, sixteen damsels
of a higher, and eighteen of a lower rank, twenty-two domestics or
ministers, and forty-four Russian merchants, who composed the retinue
of the great princess Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she
firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation
of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and
nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their
fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule
of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his youthful zeal
to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage
deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices:
in the choice of the victim, a citizen was preferred to a stranger, a
Christian to an idolater; and the father, who defended his son from the
sacerdotal knife, was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic
tumult. Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep,
though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people: the
Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to baptize:
and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the idolatry of the
woods with the elegant superstition of Constantinople. They had gazed
with admiration on the dome of St. Sophia: the lively pictures of saints
and martyrs, the riches of the altar, the number and vestments of the
priests, the pomp and order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the
alternate succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it
difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each
day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. But the
conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his desire of a
Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of Cherson, the rites of
baptism and marriage were celebrated by the Christian pontiff: the city
he restored to the emperor Basil, the brother of his spouse; but the
brazen gates were transported, as it is said, to Novogorod, and erected
before the first church as a trophy of his victory and faith. At his
despotic command, Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long
adored, was dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy
Barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was
indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of
Wolodomir had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites of
baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the
rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient Russians,
who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a doctrine which had been
embraced by the great duke and his boyars. In the next generation, the
relics of Paganism were finally extirpated; but as the two brothers
of Wolodomir had died without baptism, their bones were taken from the
grave, and sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.
In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian Êra,
the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over Bulgaria,
Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia.
The triumphs of apostolic zeal were repeated in the iron age of
Christianity; and the northern and eastern regions of Europe submitted
to a religion, more different in theory than in practice, from the
worship of their native idols. A laudable ambition excited the
monks both of Germany and Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the
Barbarians: poverty, hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first
missionaries; their courage was active and patient; their motive pure
and meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of
their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the fruitful
harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the proud and
wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first conversions were free
and spontaneous: a holy life and an eloquent tongue were the only arms
of the missionaries; but the domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced
by the miracles and visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper
of the chiefs was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest.
The leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and
saints, held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith on their
subjects and neighbors; the coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to the
Gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard of the cross; and the
reign of idolatry was closed by the conversion of Lithuania in the
fourteenth century. Yet truth and candor must acknowledge, that the
conversion of the North imparted many temporal benefits both to the old
and the new Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species,
could not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace; and
the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the calamities
of hostile contention. But the admission of the Barbarians into the
pale of civil and ecclesiastical society delivered Europe from the
depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, the Hungarians, and
the Russians, who learned to spare their brethren and cultivate their
possessions. The establishment of law and order was promoted by the
influence of the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were
introduced into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety
of the Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the
Greeks, to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the dome
and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the churches of
Kiow and Novogorod: the writings of the fathers were translated into
the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble youths were invited or
compelled to attend the lessons of the college of Jaroslaus. It should
appear that Russia might have derived an early and rapid improvement
from her peculiar connection with the church and state of
Constantinople, which at that age so justly despised the ignorance of
the Latins. But the Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging
to a hasty decline: after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the
Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and Moscow
were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the divided monarchy
was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of Tartar servitude. The
Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms, which had been converted by
the Latin missionaries, were exposed, it is true, to the spiritual
jurisdiction and temporal claims of the popes; but they were united in
language and religious worship, with each other, and with Rome; they
imbibed the free and generous spirit of the European republic, and
gradually shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western
world.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.--Part I.
The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.--First
Adventures And Settlement Of The Normans.--Character And
Conquest Of Robert Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia--Deliverance Of
Sicily By His Brother Roger.--Victories Of Robert Over The
Emperors Of The East And West.--Roger, King Of Sicily,
Invades Africa And Greece.--The Emperor Manuel Comnenus.--
Wars Of The Greeks And Normans.--Extinction Of The Normans.
The three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the Saracens, and the
Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy. The southern
provinces, which now compose the kingdom of Naples, were subject,
for the most part, to the Lombard dukes and princes of Beneventum;
so powerful in war, that they checked for a moment the genius of
Charlemagne; so liberal in peace, that they maintained in their capital
an academy of thirty-two philosophers and grammarians. The division of
this flourishing state produced the rival principalities of Benevento,
Salerno, and Capua; and the thoughtless ambition or revenge of
the competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common
inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years, Italy was
exposed to a repetition of wounds, which the invaders were not capable
of healing by the union and tranquility of a perfect conquest. Their
frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo,
and were entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of
Naples: the more formidable fleets were prepared on the African coast;
and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes tempted to assist or
oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In the revolution of human
events, a new ambuscade was concealed in the Caudine Forks, the fields
of CannÊ were bedewed a second time with the blood of the Africans, and
the sovereign of Rome again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and
Tarentum. A colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands
the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations
provoked the resentment, and conciliated the union of the two emperors.
An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian, the
first of his race, and Lewis the great-grandson of Charlemagne; and each
party supplied the deficiencies of his associate. It would have been
imprudent in the Byzantine monarch to transport his stationary troops
of Asia to an Italian campaign; and the Latin arms would have been
insufficient if his superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the
Gulf. The fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks,
and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of
four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis, who
commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest
had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but their recent
amity was soon imbittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and
pride. The Greeks assumed as their own the merit of the conquest and
the pomp of the triumph; extolled the greatness of their powers,
and affected to deride the intemperance and sloth of the handful of
Barbarians who appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince.
His reply is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: "We
confess the magnitude of your preparation," says the great-grandson of
Charlemagne. "Your armies were indeed as numerous as a cloud of summer
locusts, who darken the day, flap their wings, and, after a short
flight, tumble weary and breathless to the ground. Like them, ye sunk
after a feeble effort; ye were vanquished by your own cowardice; and
withdrew from the scene of action to injure and despoil our Christian
subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why were
we few? Because, after a tedious expectation of your arrival, I had
dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band of warriors to
continue the blockade of the city. If they indulged their hospitable
feasts in the face of danger and death, did these feasts abate the vigor
of their enterprise? Is it by your fasting that the walls of Bari have
been overturned? Did not these valiant Franks, diminished as they were
by languor and fatigue, intercept and vanish the three most powerful
emirs of the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall
of the city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be
delivered; and, if we command the sea, the Island of Sicily may be
rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother," accelerate (a
name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek,) "accelerate your naval
succors, respect your allies, and distrust your flatterers."
These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the death of Lewis, and the
decay of the Carlovingian house; and whoever might deserve the honor,
the Greek emperors, Basil, and his son Leo, secured the advantage, of
the reduction of Bari The Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded
or compelled to acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from
Mount Garganus to the Bay of Salerno, leaves the far greater part of the
kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire. Beyond
that line, the dukes or republics of Amalfi and Naples, who had never
forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in the neighborhood of
their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was enriched by supplying Europe
with the produce and manufactures of Asia. But the Lombard princes of
Benevento, Salerno, and Capua, were reluctantly torn from the communion
of the Latin world, and too often violated their oaths of servitude and
tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth, as the metropolis
of the new theme or province of Lombardy: the title of patrician, and
afterwards the singular name of _Catapan_, was assigned to the supreme
governor; and the policy both of the church and state was modelled in
exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople. As long as the
sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were feeble
and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the forces of Germany,
which descended from the Alps under the Imperial standard of the
Othos. The first and greatest of those Saxon princes was compelled to
relinquish the siege of Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest
bishops and barons, escaped with honor from the bloody field of Crotona.
On that day the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the valor
of the Saracens. These corsairs had indeed been driven by the Byzantine
fleets from the fortresses and coasts of Italy; but a sense of interest
was more prevalent than superstition or resentment, and the caliph of
Egypt had transported forty thousand Moslems to the aid of his Christian
ally. The successors of Basil amused themselves with the belief, that
the conquest of Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved
by the justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and the
gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and oppression.
A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth into the palace of
Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery were dispelled by the easy
and rapid success of the Norman adventurers.
The revolution of human affairs had produced in Apulia and Calabria a
melancholy contrast between the age of Pythagoras and the tenth century
of the Christian Êra. At the former period, the coast of Great Greece
(as it was then styled) was planted with free and opulent cities: these
cities were peopled with soldiers, artists, and philosophers; and the
military strength of Tarentum; Sybaris, or Crotona, was not inferior to
that of a powerful kingdom. At the second Êra, these once flourishing
provinces were clouded with ignorance impoverished by tyranny, and
depopulated by Barbarian war nor can we severely accuse the exaggeration
of a contemporary, that a fair and ample district was reduced to the
same desolation which had covered the earth after the general deluge.
Among the hostilities of the Arabs, the Franks, and the Greeks, in the
southern Italy, I shall select two or three anecdotes expressive of
their national manners. _1._ It was the amusement of the Saracens to
profane, as well as to pillage, the monasteries and churches. At
the siege of Salerno, a Mussulman chief spread his couch on the
communion-table, and on that altar sacrificed each night the virginity
of a Christian nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the
roof was accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head; and the
death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ, which
was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful spouse. _2._
The Saracens besieged the cities of Beneventum and Capua: after a vain
appeal to the successors of Charlemagne, the Lombards implored the
clemency and aid of the Greek emperor. A fearless citizen dropped from
the walls, passed the intrenchments, accomplished his commission, and
fell into the hands of the Barbarians as he was returning with the
welcome news. They commanded him to assist their enterprise, and deceive
his countrymen, with the assurance that wealth and honors should be the
reward of his falsehood, and that his sincerity would be punished with
immediate death. He affected to yield, but as soon as he was conducted
within hearing of the Christians on the rampart, "Friends and brethren,"
he cried with a loud voice, "be bold and patient, maintain the city;
your sovereign is informed of your distress, and your deliverers are
at hand. I know my doom, and commit my wife and children to your
gratitude." The rage of the Arabs confirmed his evidence; and the
self-devoted patriot was transpierced with a hundred spears. He deserves
to live in the memory of the virtuous, but the repetition of the same
story in ancient and modern times, may sprinkle some doubts on the
reality of this generous deed. _3._ The recital of a third incident may
provoke a smile amidst the horrors of war. Theobald, marquis of Camerino
and Spoleto, supported the rebels of Beneventum; and his wanton cruelty
was not incompatible in that age with the character of a hero. His
captives of the Greek nation or party were castrated without mercy, and
the outrage was aggravated by a cruel jest, that he wished to present
the emperor with a supply of eunuchs, the most precious ornaments of the
Byzantine court. The garrison of a castle had been defeated in a sally,
and the prisoners were sentenced to the customary operation. But the
sacrifice was disturbed by the intrusion of a frantic female, who, with
bleeding cheeks dishevelled hair, and importunate clamors, compelled
the marquis to listen to her complaint. "Is it thus," she cried, "ye
magnanimous heroes, that ye wage war against women, against women who
have never injured ye, and whose only arms are the distaff and the
loom?" Theobald denied the charge, and protested that, since the
Amazons, he had never heard of a female war. "And how," she furiously
exclaimed, "can you attack us more directly, how can you wound us in
a more vital part, than by robbing our husbands of what we most dearly
cherish, the source of our joys, and the hope of our posterity? The
plunder of our flocks and herds I have endured without a murmur, but
this fatal injury, this irreparable loss, subdues my patience, and calls
aloud on the justice of heaven and earth." A general laugh applauded her
eloquence; the savage Franks, inaccessible to pity, were moved by
her ridiculous, yet rational despair; and with the deliverance of the
captives, she obtained the restitution of her effects. As she returned
in triumph to the castle, she was overtaken by a messenger, to inquire,
in the name of Theobald, what punishment should be inflicted on her
husband, were he again taken in arms. "Should such," she answered
without hesitation, "be his guilt and misfortune, he has eyes, and a
nose, and hands, and feet. These are his own, and these he may deserve
to forfeit by his personal offences. But let my lord be pleased to spare
what his little handmaid presumes to claim as her peculiar and lawful
property."