in some places far longer, as is the case still in Central Africa. While the gorod was always a fortified place, surrounded by an earthen rampart, the straže seem merely to have been lookouts on high ground, where, in case of danger, beacons might be lighted. The wooden towns were distinct from the earthworks of the gorod; these were originally erected on roads frequented for trading purposes, and were subsequently enclosed and fenced, so that they might be employed as fortresses.

Before the ninth century a brisk trade passed through Russia from the Gulf of Finland past the Lake of Ilmen to the Dwina, and then down the Dnieper over the Black Sea into Greece. The oldest wooden towns, originally trading stations, lay on this celebrated route from the Varagian country to Byzantium. A frequented trade-route from the Black Sea to the Baltic led up the Dniester to the river San, then down that river and the Vistula. While the first became the main trade-route of Russia, the other became the chief highroad to Poland; both perhaps date from Phoenician times. The vessels and their cargoes were hauled up from one riversystem to the other; for example, from the Dniester to the San; hence the name wolok, wolocyska (haulages). The trading stations grew into towns, since the country people flocked into them for greater security. The public affairs of the town and the surrounding district were organised in these markets at assemblies which were called weče (cf. p. 462). The meeting was summoned by the circulation of a token, or, as later, by the tolling of a bell.

Differences in the administration of law and justice must have been noticeable in the various districts, while the conditions in the same tribe would naturally alter during the course of centuries. Persons who speak in general terms about the Slavonic laws and customs of that age are only deluding themselves, as much as if they spoke of contemporary universal Germanic customs. Distinctions must inevitably have prevailed. A people does not develop its personality merely when it employs somewhat divergent terms to express the same objects, ideas, etc., but when it looks at things with other eyes and has formed new conceptions and new institutions. Language is the mirror in which the philosophic notions and intellectual activity of the nation are reflected. An instance may make this clearer. When the Slavs still formed one nation with the Teutons they must have had a name for the bear resembling the German word bär; for even at the present day a bee-keeper is called in Slavonic bartnik (bear-guard?). But when, after their permanent settlement, they noticed that the bear eagerly eats honey they called it from this peculiarity the honey-eater (from med=honey: medojid or medwid, Polish niedzwiedź). It can be imagined what damage bears must have then caused when such a name was given them; according to our authorities large quantities of honey and mead were made in those times. By the use of this term the Slavonic nation showed that it had special ideas regarding the bear. In some such way as this we ought to investigate the personal and national differentiation in every domain of the life of the people. Hitherto it has been impossible to pronounce any deliberate opinion about the religion, mythology, laws, family life, or civilization of the ancient pagan Slavs. It is on this most slippery soil of national peculiarities, where the inquirer oscillates between self-glorification and unwarranted depreciation of his neighbour, that a fabric has been built up out of most untenable assertions.

(b) Foreign Evidence concerning the Pagan Slars. The occasional accounts. given by old writers are noteworthy, especially since Slavonic paganism lingered

on for centuries after the Christian era. Jordanes in 550 A. D. says of the Slavs "morasses and forests are their towns; " Procopius tells us that they lived in dirty, scattered huts, and easily shifted their abode. The Emperor Maurice relates, in the year 600, that they lived in forests, near rivers, marshes, and lakes, which were difficult to approach. They made many exits from their houses, in order to escape any possible dangers. They buried all their property in the ground, and in order to frustrate any hostile attacks nothing but bare necessaries were left visible. Helmold of Bosau, in 1170, gives a similar account at the end of his Chronicle of the Slavs: "They take little trouble about building their houses; they quickly plait twigs together into huts which supply a bare shelter against storm and rain. So soon as the call to arms is heard, they collect their stores of corn, bury them together with their gold, silver, and other valuables, and conduct their wives. and children into the fortresses or the forests. Nothing is left for the enemy but the hut, whose loss is easily repaired." "When they go into battle," says Procopius, "they attack the enemy on foot, holding shield and spear in their hands. They do not wear armour; they have neither cloaks nor shirts, but advance to the fight clad only in trousers." The wives, as among the Teutons, occupied an honourable position; they held property of their own, although, as in other countries, polygamy prevailed and wives were carried off by force. The Russian Chronicle relates of the Drewljans that they lived like cattle, knew nothing of marriage, but carried off the maidens on the rivers. It is recorded of the Radimices, Wjatices, Seweranes that no marriages took place but games in the middle of the village. The people assembled for the games, danced, and indulged in every sort of debauchery, and each man carried off the woman to whom he was betrothed. This was the case among other nations. Břetislav I Achilles (p. 237), so Cosmas of Prague († 1125) records, carried off his bride Judith from Schweinfurt. Until quite recently the otmiza, or capture of wives, was customary among the Serbs.

Many instances of the gentle disposition of the Slavs are mentioned by the old chroniclers. Procopius says "covetousness and deceit are unknown among them." Maurice extols their hospitality. Helmold records of the Ranes (Ruanians or Rügen): "Although they are more hostile to Christians and also more superstitious than the other Slavs, they possess many good qualities. They are extremely hospitable and show great respect to their parents. Neither beggars nor paupers are found among them. A man who is feeble through sickness or advanced age is intrusted to the care of his heir. The virtues most highly esteemed among the Slavs are hospitality and filial regard." The man who refused hospitality had his house burned down. It was permissible to steal in order to provide food for a traveller. Theophylactus Simocattes (in the first half of the seventh century) relates the following anecdote. As the emperor Maurice was on his way to Thrace to prepare for war against the Avars, the escort of the emperor seized three men who carried zithers. When asked to what race they belonged, they replied that they were Slavs and lived on the western ocean; the Khagan had sent envoys to the princes of their country with many presents to solicit help. When they heard that the Romans had reached the highest stage of power and culture, they escaped and reached Thrace. They carried zithers, because they were unfamiliar with arms, since no iron was found in their country. The Arabs also testify that music was practised by the Slavs.

A noteworthy account of the funeral customs of a Slavonic tribe is furnished

by a witness whom we have already mentioned, the ambassador of the Kalif alMuqtadir, ibn Fadlan.1 When a poor man died, they built a small boat for him, placed him in it, and burnt it. This was customary among the North Germanic tribes. On the death of a rich man they collected his possessions and divided them into three parts. The one part was reserved for his family; with the second they prepared an outfit for him, and with the remaining part they bought intoxicating drinks to be drunk on the day when the slave-girl consents to be a victim and is burnt with her master. When indeed a chief dies, the family ask his bondmen and bondwomen, "Which of you is willing to die with him?" Then one of them answers, "I will." If he has uttered this word he is bound. But mostly the slave girls did so. . . . Boat, wood, and maiden together with the dead man were soon reduced to ashes. They then raised above the place where the boat, which had been dragged up out of the river, had stood, a sort of round hillock, erected in the middle of it a large beech-trunk, and wrote on it the name of the dead man with the name of the king of the Rōs. If we compare this with the account given by Herodotus of the burial of a Scythian king (Vol. IV, p. 76) we shall find, in spite of many differences in detail, the same fundamental idea.

These are our materials for estimating the degree of culture which the Slavs of that age had attained. There was not wanting among them a belief in the life after death. They are said to have been acquainted with writing; and in connection with this statement the so-called Runic characters must be taken into account. Traces of music and architecture can be found among them, though in a crude form, and they were lovers of poetry and song. It can hardly be supposed that, as many Slavonic scholars assert, they possessed some astronomical knowledge, and had a civil year with twelve months. The names of the months which are found later among various Slavonic tribes were indubitably first formed by learned priests, on the model of the Greek and Roman names, at that point in the Christian era when the Julian Calendar with twelve instead of ten months was coming into general use in Europe. Charles the Great first proposed among the Franks the substituting of German names for the Latin names of the months.

The independent spirit of the Slavs is specially mentioned by German as well as Byzantine writers. Widukind, the historian of the first two Saxon emperors, says of them: "The Slavs are a dogged, laborious race, inured to the scantiest food, and they regard as a pleasure what is often a heavy burden to men of our time. They face any privations for their beloved liberty, and in spite of many reverses they are always ready to fight again. The Saxons fight for glory and the expansion of their frontiers, the Slavs for their freedom." Adam of Bremen records a century later: "I have heard the most truth-loving King Sven of Denmark say repeatedly that the Slavonic peoples could have been long ago converted to Christianity, if the greed of the Saxons had not interposed obstacles. These think more of exacting tribute than of converting pagans." There is a particular appropriateness in the words which the Polish historian, John Dlugosz, wrote about the Poles in 1480 or so, although he is describing his contemporaries. "The Polish nobles thirst for glory and are bent on booty; they despise dangers and death . . . they are devoted to agriculture and cattle-breeding; they are courteous and kind towards strangers and guests, and more hospitable than any other people. The 1 Taken from Chr. M. J. Frähn, "Ibn Foszlans und andrer Araber Berichte über die Russen älterer Zeit," St. Petersburg, 1823.

peasants shrink from no work or trouble, endure cold and hunger, and are superstitious . . . they care little about the maintenance of their houses, being content with few ornaments; they are spirited and brave to rashness, .. of high stature, of strong and well proportioned build, with a sometimes fair, sometimes dark complexion."

The well known peaceful disposition of many Slavonic tribes, and above all the circumstance that they adhered to the old tribal constitution, which prevented any creation of a State on a large scale, were the causes why the Slavs in their pagan period played no important part, but were first aroused to a new life by their contact with the civilized nations. Christian Rome and Byzantium saw the development of Slavonic kingdoms in the north, after they had to some degree furnished the political germs for that growth.

3. THE FOUNDING OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE (THE DNIEPER AGE) A. THE BEGINNINGS UNTIL IGOR

THE rise of the Russian Empire falls in the period when the Scandinavian Vikings were at the zenith of their power. Just as these hardy rovers sailed over the Baltic, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, until they reached Iceland and North America, and in their small forty-oared galleys went up from the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, the Rhine, the Maas, and the Seine far into the interior, striking terror into the inhabitants, so too in the east of Europe they followed the course of the rivers and discovered the way to the Black Sea and Constantinople. The route which led up the Dwina and then down the Dnieper to Byzantium was called the Varagian way; even the rapids of the Dnieper bore, so it is said, Scandinavian names. The Norsemen, who had founded here and there independent empires in the west of Europe, could do so still more easily in the east.

At the outset of Russian history we find here six or seven independent districts, which stood perhaps under Norse rule: (old) Ladoga on the Wolchow, later Novgorod, Bjelosersk, Isborsk, Turow in the region of Minsk, Polock (Pólozk), and Kiev. The core of the later Russian Empire was at first (c. 840) in the north, in the Slavonic-Finnish region, but it soon spread toward the south and was then shifted to Kiev in the basin of the Dnieper. "Russia" absorbed the Slavonic, Finnish, Bulgarian, and Khazar empires. Rurik (Rjurik), in Norse Hroerekr (Hrurekr), an otherwise unknown semi-mythical hero of royal race, was regarded in the eleventh century as the ancestor of the Russian dynasty. The soil was so favourable here for the growth of a large empire that it was able, by the middle of the ninth century (860; cf. p. 76), to undertake a marauding expedition against Constantinople (Norse: Mikligardr or Miklagard, that is, great city). Besides Slavs, Lithuanians, Fins, and Khazars, the Varagians fought; usually it was Swedes from Upland, Södermanland, and Ostergotland who formed the picked troops and took the lead in every expedition. The mercenary bands had entered into a covenant with the prince, but were pledged to obey him; they were not, however, his subjects and could, therefore, leave him at any time; their pay consisted in the booty they won. The Slavs composed the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants; they gradually replaced the Norse warriors and ousted them

completely later, notwithstanding various reinforcements from their northern home. By the end of the eleventh century the Varagian element had almost disappeared. In less than two hundred and fifty years the same fate befell them which shortly before had befallen the Finno-Ugrian Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula. Both races were merged in the Slavonic.

The first hero of the old Varagian style, and at the same time the first genuinely historical ruler, meets us in Oleg (Olag: Norse, Helgi) who in 880 became the head of the Russian State. He conquered (880-881) Smolensk, defeated the petty princes in Kiev in 882, and then transferred thither the centre of the empire. He inflicted on the Khazars and the Bulgarians defeats from which they never recovered. In 900 he forced part of the Chorvats on the Vistula to serve in his army. In this way he founded a Dnieper empire, which reached from the North Sea to the Black Sea, from the Bug to the Volga.

Not satisfied with this, Olav planned an expedition against Byzantium, which like Rome and Italy, was always the coveted goal of every Northman. In the year 907 he went with a mighty army of allies (Chorvats, Dulebi, Tiwerci, etc.) down the Dnieper; the Russian Chronicle states that he had two thousand boats with forty men on each. As the harbour in the Bosphorus was closed, he beached his ships, set them on wheels, bent his sails, and thus advanced against the town, to the horror of his enemies, with his vessels from the landside. A propitious moment had been chosen. The Greek fleet had fallen into decay, and the empire was hard pressed by the Bulgarians. The emperor Leo VI (the Philosopher) determined, therefore, to bribe the Russians to withdraw, after an ineffectual attempt had been made to get rid of them by poisoned food. The Greeks paid twelve Grivnes or six pounds of silver for every ship, and in addition gave presents for the Russian towns. Liberty of trading with Constantinople was then secured to the Russians. Their merchants, however, were to enter the city only by a certain gate and unarmed, under the escort of an imperial official; their station was near the church of St. Mammas. They received also the right to obtain for six months provisions in the city, to visit baths, and to demand provisions and ships' gear (anchor, cables, and sails) for their return voyage. This treaty, having been concluded by word of mouth, was sworn to by the Byzantines on the cross, and by Oleg and his vassals before their gods Peran and Wolas (Volos) and on their weapons. When the Russians left the city, Oleg fastened his shield to the city wall, as a token that he had taken possession of the city. This treaty was reduced to writing in the year 911, noteworthy document. Both parties first promise love and friendship to each other, and fix the penalties to be incurred by any who disturbed their concord through murder, theft, or indiscretion. Then follow agreements as to the ransom of prisoners of war and slaves, as to servants who had deserted or been enticed away, and as to the estates of the Russians (Bápayyot) who had died in the service of the emperor. The proviso as to shipwrecked men is important as a contribution to international law. "If the storm drives a Greek vessel on to a foreign coast, and any Russians inhabit such coast, the latter shall place in safety the ship with its cargo and help it on its voyage to the Christian country and pilot it through any dangerous places. But if such ship, either from storm or some other hinderance, cannot reach home again, then we Russians will help the sailors and recover the goods, if this occurs near the Greek territory. Should, however, such a calamity befall a Greek ship (far from Greece), we are willing to steer it to Russia and

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