Under the reign of Constantine the grand_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

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.]

66 (return) [ This brazen statue, which had been brought from

Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to

represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See

Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P.

p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri,

Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100.

They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is immaterial.]

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, 67 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, 68 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 Maesian 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

Haemus, 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 hydromed:

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.

67 (return) [ The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or

Sphendosthlabus, is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M.

Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 94-107.)]

68 (return) [ This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth

book of the Iliad, (205-221,) in the minute detail of the cookery

of Achilles. By such a picture, a modern epic poet would disgrace

his work, and disgust his reader; but the Greek verses are

harmonious—a dead language can seldom appear low or familiar; and

at the distance of two thousand seven hundred years, we are

amused with the primitive manners of antiquity.]

Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had

introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John

Zimisces, 69 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 Haemus 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, 70 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. 71 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. 72

69 (return) [ This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian

language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I

may be indulged in the question in the play, “Pray, which of you

is the interpreter?” From the context, they seem to signify

Adolescentulus, (Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar.

Graec. p. 1570.) * Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives

another derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag,

which means a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the

East. He was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written

in Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo

Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr’s Byzant. Hist.—M.]

70 (return) [ In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba

implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena,

(Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus

and the Lower Danube, it appears to fill the ground, or at least

the station, of Marcianopolis. The situation of Durostolus, or

Dristra, is well known and conspicuous, (Comment. Academ.

Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne,

tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]

71 (return) [ The political management of the Greeks, more

especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first

chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]

72 (return) [ In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud

Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968-973) is more authentic and

circumstantial than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660-683) and Zonaras,

(tom. ii. p. 205-214.) These declaimers have multiplied to

308,000 and 330,000 men, those Russian forces, of which the

contemporary had given a moderate and consistent account.]

Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal

to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on

the conversion of the Russians. 73 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 aera of

Russian Christianity. 74 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. 75 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. 76 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. 77 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.

73 (return) [ Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut.

It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the

Russian nation, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it

become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian

idolaters. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists.]

74 (return) [ M. Levesque has extracted, from old chronicles and

modern researches, the most satisfactory account of the religion

of the Slavi, and the conversion of Russia, (Hist. de Russie,

tom. i. p. 35-54, 59, 92, 92, 113-121, 124-129, 148, 149, &c.)]

75 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15,

p. 343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of

Barbarians the Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an

Athenian magistrate, with a female termination, which would have

astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]

76 (return) [ See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri,

(Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione

Russorum.)]

77 (return) [ Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein

(apud Pagi tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir’s baptism

and marriage; and both the tradition and the gates are still

preserved at Novogorod. Yet an observing traveller transports the

brazen gates from Magdeburgh in Germany, (Coxe’s Travels into

Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes an inscription, which

seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not confound

this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula, with a new

city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth of the

Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable interview of

the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]

In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian

aera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over

Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden,

Poland, and Russia. 78 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, 79 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. 80 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. 81 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; 82 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.

78 (return) [ Consult the Latin text, or English version, of

Mosheim’s excellent History of the Church, under the first head

or section of each of these centuries.]

79 (return) [ In the year 1000, the ambassadors of St. Stephen

received from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a

diadem of Greek workmanship. It had been designed for the duke of

Poland: but the Poles, by their own confession, were yet too

barbarous to deserve an angelical and apostolical crown. (Katona,

Hist. Critic Regum Stirpis Arpadianae, tom. i. p. 1-20.)]

80 (return) [ Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen, (A.D.

1080,) of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa

ferocissima Danorum, &c., natio..... jamdudum novit in Dei

laudibus Alleluia resonare..... Ecce populus ille piraticus .....

suis nunc finibus contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis semper

inaccessa propter cultum idolorum... praedicatores veritatis

ubique certatim admittit, &c., &c., (de Situ Daniae, &c., p. 40,

41, edit. Elzevir; a curious and original prospect of the north

of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity.)]

81 (return) [ The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which

was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of

empire in the xivth century. See the 1st and 2d volumes of

Levesque’s History, and Mr. Coxe’s Travels into the North, tom.

i. p. 241, &c.]

82 (return) [ The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the

reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam,

&c., which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and

the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of

the pope and the independence of the crown, (Katona, Hist.

Critica, tom. i. p. 20-25, tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.)]

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. 1

The southern provinces, which now compose the kingdom of Naples,

were subject, for the most part, to the Lombard dukes and princes

of Beneventum; 2 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 Cannae 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; 3 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.” 4

1 (return) [ For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth

centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books

of Sigonius de Regno Italiae, (in the second volume of his works,

Milan, 1732;) the Annals of Baronius, with the criticism of Pagi;

the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di

Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo

edition) of the Annali d’ Italia of Muratori, and the 2d volume

of the Abrege Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which,

under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and

industry. But my long-accustomed reader will give me credit for

saying, that I myself have ascended to the fountain head, as

often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and

that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first

volumes of Muratori’s great collection of the Scriptores Rerum

Italicarum.]

2 (return) [ Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last

century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum,

in his two books Historia Principum Longobardorum, in the

Scriptores of Muratori tom. ii. pars i. p. 221-345, and tom. v. p

159-245.]

3 (return) [ See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, l. ii. c

xi. in Vit Basil. c. 55, p. 181.]

4 (return) [ The oriental epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the

emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published

by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51-71,) from the

Vatican Ms. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian

of Salerno.] 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 5 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, 6

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, 7 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. 8 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.

5 (return) [ See an excellent Dissertation de Republica

Amalphitana, in the Appendix (p. 1-42) of Henry Brencman’s

Historia Pandectarum, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.)]

6 (return) [ Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and

protection prinminibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos

oppugnare dispono.... Nova (potius nota) res est quod eorum

patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt, (Liutprand, in

Legat. p. 484.) Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed

his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script.

Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this

change in the style of the anonymous Chronicle. On the rational

ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted

the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria.]

7 (return) [ See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange

(catapanus,) and his notes on the Alexias, (p. 275.) Against the

contemporary notion, which derives it from juxta omne, he treats

it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc

has accurately observed (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924)

that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles

of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy.]

8 (return) [ (the Lombards), (Leon. Tactic. c. xv. p. 741.) The

little Chronicle of Beneventum (tom. ii. pars i. p. 280) gives a

far different character of the Greeks during the five years (A.D.

891-896) that Leo was master of the city.]

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 aera. 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 aera, 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. 9 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. 10 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. 11 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. 12 3. The recital of a

third incident may provoke a smile amidst the horrors of war.

Theobald, marquis of Camerino and Spoleto, 13 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.”

9 (return) [ Calabriam adeunt, eamque inter se divisam

reperientes funditus depopulati sunt, (or depopularunt,) ita ut

deserta sit velut in diluvio. Such is the text of Herempert, or

Erchempert, according to the two editions of Carraccioli (Rer.

Italic. Script. tom. v. p. 23) and of Camillo Pellegrino, (tom.

ii. pars i. p. 246.) Both were extremely scarce, when they were

reprinted by Muratori.]

10 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 874, No. 2) has drawn

this story from a Ms. of Erchempert, who died at Capua only

fifteen years after the event. But the cardinal was deceived by a

false title, and we can only quote the anonymous Chronicle of

Salerno, (Paralipomena, c. 110,) composed towards the end of the

xth century, and published in the second volume of Muratori’s

Collection. See the Dissertations of Camillo Pellegrino, tom. ii.

pars i. p. 231-281, &c.]

11 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 58,

p. 183) is the original author of this story. He places it under

the reigns of Basil and Lewis II.; yet the reduction of

Beneventum by the Greeks is dated A.D. 891, after the decease of

both of those princes.]

12 (return) [ In the year 663, the same tragedy is described by

Paul the Deacon, (de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 7, 8, p. 870,

871, edit. Grot.,) under the walls of the same city of

Beneventum. But the actors are different, and the guilt is

imputed to the Greeks themselves, which in the Byzantine edition

is applied to the Saracens. In the late war in Germany, M.

D’Assas, a French officer of the regiment of Auvergne, is said to

have devoted himself in a similar manner. His behavior is the

more heroic, as mere silence was required by the enemy who had

made him prisoner, (Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV. c. 33, tom. ix.

p. 172.)]

13 (return) [ Theobald, who is styled Heros by Liutprand, was

properly duke of Spoleto and marquis of Camerino, from the year

926 to 935. The title and office of marquis (commander of the

march or frontier) was introduced into Italy by the French

emperors, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 545-732 &c.)]

14 (return) [ Liutprand, Hist. l. iv. c. iv. in the Rerum Italic.

Script. tom. i. pars i. p. 453, 454. Should the licentiousness of

the tale be questioned, I may exclaim, with poor Sterne, that it

is hard if I may not transcribe with caution what a bishop could

write without scruple What if I had translated, ut viris certetis

testiculos amputare, in quibus nostri corporis refocillatio,

&c.?]

The establishment of the Normans in the kingdoms of Naples and

Sicily 15 is an event most romantic in its origin, and in its

consequences most important both to Italy and the Eastern empire.

The broken provinces of the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, were

exposed to every invader, and every sea and land were invaded by

the adventurous spirit of the Scandinavian pirates. After a long

indulgence of rapine and slaughter, a fair and ample territory

was accepted, occupied, and named, by the Normans of France: they

renounced their gods for the God of the Christians; 16 and the

dukes of Normandy acknowledged themselves the vassals of the

successors of Charlemagne and Capet. The savage fierceness which

they had brought from the snowy mountains of Norway was refined,

without being corrupted, in a warmer climate; the companions of

Rollo insensibly mingled with the natives; they imbibed the

manners, language, 17 and gallantry, of the French nation; and in

a martial age, the Normans might claim the palm of valor and

glorious achievements. Of the fashionable superstitions, they

embraced with ardor the pilgrimages of Rome, Italy, and the Holy

Land. 171 In this active devotion, the minds and bodies were

invigorated by exercise: danger was the incentive, novelty the

recompense; and the prospect of the world was decorated by

wonder, credulity, and ambitious hope. They confederated for

their mutual defence; and the robbers of the Alps, who had been

allured by the garb of a pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm

of a warrior. In one of these pious visits to the cavern of Mount

Garganus in Apulia, which had been sanctified by the apparition

of the archangel Michael, 18 they were accosted by a stranger in

the Greek habit, but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a

fugitive, and a mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was

Melo; a noble citizen of Bari, who, after an unsuccessful revolt,

was compelled to seek new allies and avengers of his country. The

bold appearance of the Normans revived his hopes and solicited

his confidence: they listened to the complaints, and still more

to the promises, of the patriot. The assurance of wealth

demonstrated the justice of his cause; and they viewed, as the

inheritance of the brave, the fruitful land which was oppressed

by effeminate tyrants. On their return to Normandy, they kindled

a spark of enterprise, and a small but intrepid band was freely

associated for the deliverance of Apulia. They passed the Alps by

separate roads, and in the disguise of pilgrims; but in the

neighborhood of Rome they were saluted by the chief of Bari, who

supplied the more indigent with arms and horses, and instantly

led them to the field of action. In the first conflict, their

valor prevailed; but in the second engagement they were

overwhelmed by the numbers and military engines of the Greeks,

and indignantly retreated with their faces to the enemy. 1811 The

unfortunate Melo ended his life a suppliant at the court of

Germany: his Norman followers, excluded from their native and

their promised land, wandered among the hills and valleys of

Italy, and earned their daily subsistence by the sword. To that

formidable sword the princes of Capua, Beneventum, Salerno, and

Naples, alternately appealed in their domestic quarrels; the

superior spirit and discipline of the Normans gave victory to the

side which they espoused; and their cautious policy observed the

balance of power, lest the preponderance of any rival state

should render their aid less important, and their service less

profitable. Their first asylum was a strong camp in the depth of

the marshes of Campania: but they were soon endowed by the

liberality of the duke of Naples with a more plentiful and

permanent seat. Eight miles from his residence, as a bulwark

against Capua, the town of Aversa was built and fortified for

their use; and they enjoyed as their own the corn and fruits, the

meadows and groves, of that fertile district. The report of their

success attracted every year new swarms of pilgrims and soldiers:

the poor were urged by necessity; the rich were excited by hope;

and the brave and active spirits of Normandy were impatient of

ease and ambitious of renown. The independent standard of Aversa

afforded shelter and encouragement to the outlaws of the

province, to every fugitive who had escaped from the injustice or

justice of his superiors; and these foreign associates were

quickly assimilated in manners and language to the Gallic colony.

The first leader of the Normans was Count Rainulf; and, in the

origin of society, preeminence of rank is the reward and the

proof of superior merit. 19 1911

15 (return) [ The original monuments of the Normans in Italy are

collected in the vth volume of Muratori; and among these we may

distinguish the poems of William Appulus (p. 245-278) and the

history of Galfridus (Jeffrey) Malaterra, (p. 537-607.) Both were

natives of France, but they wrote on the spot, in the age of the

first conquerors (before A.D. 1100,) and with the spirit of

freemen. It is needless to recapitulate the compilers and critics

of Italian history, Sigonius, Baronius, Pagi, Giannone, Muratori,

St. Marc, &c., whom I have always consulted, and never copied. *

Note: M. Goutier d’Arc has discovered a translation of the

Chronicle of Aime, monk of Mont Cassino, a contemporary of the

first Norman invaders of Italy. He has made use of it in his

Histoire des Conquetes des Normands, and added a summary of its

contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was supposed

to have been entirely lost.—M.]

16 (return) [ Some of the first converts were baptized ten or

twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at

this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries

for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one

hundred captives. But in a generation or two, the national change

was pure and general.]

17 (return) [ The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans

of Bayeux on the sea-coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was

already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem

(Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiae suae

principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica,

suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm.

Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit.

Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the

Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640-1656) has

given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians and

lawyers.]

171 (return) [ A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had

rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet

of Saracens. Gainar, the Lombard prince of Salerno wished to

retain them in his service and take them into his pay. They

answered, “We fight for our religion, and not for money.” Gaimar

entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This

seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans

with Italy. See Histoire des Conquetes des Normands par Goutier

d’Arc, l. i. c. i., Paris, 1830.—M.]

18 (return) [ See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d’Italia, p. 250)

and Baronius, (A.D. 493, No. 43.) If the archangel inherited the

temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the

soothsayer, (Strab. Geograph l. vi. p. 435, 436,) the Catholics

(on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of

their superstition.]

1811 (return) [ Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique

d’Aime, tom. i. p. 21 quoted by M Goutier d’Arc, p. 42.—M.]

19 (return) [ See the first book of William Appulus. His words

are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters:—

Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos

Confugiebat eum gratanter suscipiebant:

Moribus et lingua quoscumque venire videbant

Informant propria; gens efficiatur ut una.

And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy:—

Pars parat, exiguae vel opes aderant quia nullae:

Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant.]

1911 (return) [ This account is not accurate. After the retreat

of the emperor Henry II. the Normans, united under the command of

Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in

the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when

Pandulf IV., prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by

surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the

republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which

he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a

foreign dominion he retired to Aversa; and when, with the

assistance of the Greeks and that of the citizens faithful to

their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the

rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to

attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and

reentered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in

the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into

a count’s fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf. Hist. des

Rep. Ital. tom. i. p. 267]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 64 / 79 章

Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius, the