51. 811 preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns, than the effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary Ant. Christ. nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or 70. allured by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the implacable enemies of the Huns: and the numbers of that haughty people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength, might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of the great and populous cities of China.39 The desertion of his subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and highspirited nation. He was received at Sigan, the capital of Ant. Christ. the monarchy, by the troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the honours that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese vanity.40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception; his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family; and the patience of the barbarian king was exhausted by the ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence. After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed from their allegiance, and seized the favourable moments of war and rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate kingdoms. the princes of the nation was urged by fear and ambition to retire towards the south with eight hords, which composed between forty and fifty thousand families. the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service of the empire was secured by weakness and the desire of revenge. From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the north continued to languish about fifty years, till they were oppressed on every side by their One of A.D. 48. He obtained, with *This expression is used in the memorial to the emperor Venti (Du Halde, tom. it. p. 417). Without adopting the exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the south, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more populous. See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable festival is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and es plained in a note by the P. Gaubil, p. 86, 90. 312 A.D. 93. Their EMIGRATIONS OF THE HUNS. 42 CHAP. XXVI foreign and domestic enemies. The proud inscription"1 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain, announced to posterity that a Chinese army had marched seven hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, a tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end of the first century of the Christian æra.43 The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various influence of character and situation.44 Above one hundred emigrations, thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillaA.D. 100, &c. nimous of the people, were contented to remain in their native country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honourable servitude, retired towards the south, implored the protection of the emperors of China, and were permitted to inhabit and to guard the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns maintained in their adverse fortune the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The Western world was open to their valour, and they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains, to discover and subdue some remote country which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi and to the laws of China.45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the mountains of Imaus and the limits of the Chinese geography; but we are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles, which directed their The white march towards the Oxus and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian, where they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites or Nepthalites." Their manners were softened, and even This inscription was composed on the spot by Pankou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 392). Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of Tartary (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122). 42 M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short account of the Sienpi. 43 The æra of the Huns is placed by the Chinese 1210 years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not commence till the year 230 (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21, 123). 44 The various accidents of the downfal and flight of the Huns are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91, 95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each hord may be ascribed to their losses and divisions. 45 M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary (tom. ii. p. 123, 277, &c. 325, &c.). Euthalites seems to be a misprint for Ephthalites ('Eplaniral), which is the name found in Procopius (Beil. Persic. i. 3). The Armenian writers, who fre quently mention the wars carried on by A.D, 100. THE HUNS OF SOGDIANA AND OF THE VOLGA. 313 their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate and their long residence in a flourishing province, which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. The white Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a temporary splendour, was the residence of the king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was maintained by the labour of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of their ancient barbarism was the custom which obliged all the companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same grave.18 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of treaties; in war, the dictates of humanity; and their memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation as well as the valour of the barbarians. The second The Huns of division of their countrymen, the Huns who gradually ad- the Volga. vanced towards the north-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each hord was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council directed the public measures of the whole nation. As late as the thirteenth century their transient residence on the eastern banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary.49 In the winter they 46 Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his Moguls. The Oriental historians (see D'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.) celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful country which he desolated. In the next century the same provinces of Chorasmia and Mawaralnahr were described by Abulfeda (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.). Their actual misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423-469. 47 Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the new and extracrdinary trade which transported the merchandizes of India into Europe by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea, were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l'Esprit des Loix, 1. xxi.) 48 Procopius de Bell. Persico, 1. i. c. 3, p. 9 [tom. i. p. 16, ed. Bonn.]. In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who traversed the immense ed. Paris; p. 188, ed. Bonn) is probably a corruption of Ephthalites (St. Martin, Notes on Le Beau, vol. iv. p. 255). They are called Cidarita by Priscus (p. 43, ed. Paris; p. 159, ed. Bonn). The preovut Turcomans are most likely their deacond ants.-S. 314 THE HUNS: CHAP. XXVI. descended with their flocks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer excursions reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the black Calmucks, 50 who remained about a century under the protection of Russia, and who have since returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march and the return of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns, 51 Their con Alaui. It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time which elapsed after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, quest of the and before they showed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend that the same force which had driven them from their native seats still continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe. The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended above three thousand miles from east to west,52 must have gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable neighbourhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the territories of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very natural suspicion that the Huns of the North derived a considerable reinforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the dominion or China; that the bravest warriors marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by the common hardships of their adverse fortune. 53 The Huns, with their flocks plain of Kipzak in his journey to the court of the Great Khan) observed the remark able name of Hungary, with the traces of a common language and origin (Hist des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269). 50 Bell (vol. i. p. 29-34) and the editors of the Genealogical History (p. 539) have described the Calmucks of the Volga in the beginning of the present century. 5 This great transınigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for the inscription of a column, has been translated by the missionaries of Pekin (Mémoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p. 401-418). The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People. 52 The Kang-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to the present standard, 200 lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe that the ancient li scarcely equalled one-half of the modern. See the elaborate researches of M. d'Anville, a geographer who is not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Mesures Itinéraires, p. 154-167.) See the Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125-144. The subsequent history (p. 145277) of three or four Hunnic dynasties evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a long residence in China, A.D 100. THEIR CONQUEST OF THE ALANI. 315 and herds, their wires and children, their dependents and allies, were transported to the West of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their vassals. Towards the north they penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of human flesh; and their southern inroads were pushed as far as the confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Sarmatic and German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those formidable barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked scimetar, fixed in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship; the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their horses; and they viewed with pity and contempt the pusillanimous warriors who patiently expected the infirmities of age and the tortures of lingering discase. On the banks of the Tanais the military power of the Huns and the Alani encountered each other with equal valour, but with unequal success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or submission.55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge 54 Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvant et bella. Judicatur ibi beatus qui in prælio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos, conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 2.] We must think highly of the conquerors of such men. On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus (xxxi. 2), Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24), M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279), and the Genealogical History of the Tartars (tom. ii. p. 617)." a There has been much dispute respect ing the ethnological affinities of the Alani. It is usually supposed that remains of them still exist in the Ossetæ, a people of Mount Caucasus, who are said by ancient travellers to have also borne the name of Alans. But these Ossetæ appear to be an Indo-European people; while all the descriptions of the Alani by the ancient writers seem to prove that they belonged to the Tartar or nomadic races of Asia. Thus Lucian says (Toxaris, c. 51, vol. ii. p. 557, ed. Reitz) that their language and dress were the same as those of the Scythians; and Ammianus (xxxi. c. 2) describes them as resembling the Huns, but less savage in form and manners. This would point to a Turkish origin, |