LV. approached with that river the neighbourhood of the Euxine CHAP. 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 desart 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, 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 splendour, which was compared with Constantinople by those who had never seen the residence of the Cæsars. 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 fre 50 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 Ölearius, describes (in 1635) the remains of Novegorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein ambassadors (tom. i. p. 123...129). 51 In hac magna civitate, quæ est caput regni, plus trecentæ ecclesiæ habentur et nundina 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 (Russia) metropolis est Chive, æmula sceptri Constantinopolitani quæ est clarissimum decus Græciæ. The fame of Kiow, especially in the eleventh century, had reached the German and the Arabian geographers. LV. 53 CHAP. quented and enriched by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of purchase and exchange.52 From this harbour, at the entrance of the Oder, the corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to the eastern shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were intermingled, and the holy groves of Curland are said to have been decorated with Grecian and Spanish gold. Between the sea and Novogorod an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer, through a gulph, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter season, over the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From the neighbourhood 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 bee-hives, 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 desart.54 At the first island below the falls, the Rus 52 In Odoræ ostio quâ Scythicas alluit paludes, nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Græcis qui sunt in circuitu præstans stationem; est sane maxima omnium quas Europa claudit civitatum (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles p. 19). A strange exaggeration even in the eleventh century. The trade of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic league, are carefully treated in Anderson's Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our languages, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory. 53 According to Adam of Bremen (de Sitû Daniæ, 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 plenæ ... a toto orbe ibi responsa petuntur maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis, id est regulis Lettovia) et Græcis. 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 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 d'Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin quarto); but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy. LV. sians celebrated the festival of their escape; at a second, CHAP. 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 of the Rus Constanti. But the same communication which had been opened for Naval exthe benefit, was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In peditions a period of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians sians made four attempts to plunder the treasures of Constantino- against ple: the event was various, but the motive, the means, and nople. 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 Cæsars. 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 Cosacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same seas, for a similar purpose.58 The Greek appellation 55 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? May we not, instead of Evpia, read Evavia (de Administrat. Imp. c. 42. p. 113)? The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between Chazaria and Lazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was still used in the eleventh century (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770). 56 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 Προσεταιρίσαμενος δε και συμμαχικον εκ ολίγον απο των κατοι κέντων εν τοις προσαρκτιοις τε Οκεανό νησοις εθνών. Cedrenus, in Com pend. p. 758. 58 See Beauplan (Description de l'Ukraine, p. 54...61.) his descriptions are VOL. VII. N LV. CHAP. of monoxyla, or single canoes, might be justly 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 vigour 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 streight of fifteen miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russian might have been stopped The first, 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 lively, his plans accurate, and, except the circumstance of fire-arms, we may read old Russians, for modern Cosacks A. D. 865. 59 It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitanâ (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 365...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 When Photius wrote his enciclic epistle on the conversion of the Rus sians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently ripe; he reproaches the nation as εις ωμότητα και μιαιφονίαν παντας δευτερες τατλόμενον. LV. The se A. D. 941. a seasonable tempest, which determined the retreat of the CHAP. 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 cond, by Oleg the guardian of the sons of Ruric. A strong bar. A. D. 904. rier 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 favourable gale. The leader The third, 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 gallies were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water; and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his disgrace and claim his revenge. After a long peace, Jaroslaus, the great-grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at the The fourth, entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But A.D.1043. 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 twentyfour gallies were either taken, sunk, or destroyed.64 61 Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini Continuator, in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Simeon Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162. 62 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 Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p. 263, 264. Simeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588, 589. Cedren. tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191. and Liutprand, 1. 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 I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758, 759.) and Zonaras (tom. |