CHAP. His defeat by John an easy navigation he might draw from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and hydromel: Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the spoils of the West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and the foreign luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain. The bands of Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the standard of victory; and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed his trust, assumed the purple, and promised to share with his new allies the treasures of the eastern world. From the banks of the Danube the Russian prince pursued his march as far as Adrianople; a formal summons to evacuate the Roman province was dismissed with contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that Constantinople might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a master. Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief Zimisces, which he had introduced; but his throne and wife A. D. 970 -973. q were inherited by John Zimisces, who, in a diminutive body, possessed the spirit and abilities of a hero. The first victory of his lieutenants deprived the Russians of their foreign allies, twenty thousand of whom were either destroyed by the sword, or provoked to revolt, or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but seventy thousand barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had been recalled from the new conquests of Syria prepared, with the return of the spring, to march under the banners of warlike prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the injured Bulgaria. The passes of mount Hamus had been left unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was formed of the immortals (a proud imitation of the Persian a This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian language, and Thμons is interpreted in Greek by povlanilns, or poigazigns. 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. 1. iv. MS. apud Du Cange, Glossar. Græc. p. 1570). LV. style); the emperor led the main body of ten thou- CHAP. sand five hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow and cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or Peristhlaba, in two days: the trumpets sounded; the walls were scaled; eight thousand five hundred Russians were put to the sword; and the sons of the Bulgarian king were rescued from an ignominious prison, and invested with a nominal diadem. After these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired to the strong post of Dristra, 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 valour 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 valour, 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 Bo In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba implied the great or illustrious city, μsyaλn xai ovṛa nai deyoμɛyn, says Anna Comnena (Alexiad, 1. vii. p. 194). From its position between mount Hæmus 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). LV. CHAP. rysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted, the season was unfavourable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and oppressed by the neighbouring tribes, with whom the Greeks entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. Far different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviours 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.* Conversion of Russia, Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch whose amA. D. 864. bition was equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on the conversion of the Russians." Those fierce and bloody barbarians had been persuaded by the voice of reason and religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metro s The political management of the Greeks, more especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first chapters, de Administratione Imperii. t 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. u Phot. Epistol. ii. No 35. p. 58. edit. Montacut. It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the Russian nation, so 'Pas, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians; nor did it become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian idolaters ns 'Eλanviuns xai abrov dons. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists. LVI. of Olga, A.D. 955. politan, might administer the sacraments in the church CHAP. 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 æra of Russian Christianity. A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues which command the fear and obedience of barbarians. moment of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has described, with minute Baptism diligence, the ceremonial of her reception in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted, to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the superior majesty of the purple." In the sacrament of baptism, she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labours 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 ▾ 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, 93. 113–121. 124-129. 148, 149, &c.) See the Ceremoniale Aulæ Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15. p. 343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga, is Agxovriora Pwarias. 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. VOL. VII. LV. CHAP. 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 on the minds of the prince and people: the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to baptise; and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St. Sophia; the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. But the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the brother of his spouse; but the brazen gates were transported, as it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church as a trophy of his victory and faith." At his despotic command, Peroun, of Wolo domir, A. D. 988. * See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri (Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113), de Conversione Russorum. y 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. |