8

was translated from the native city or Justinian; and, in their prosperous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida was honored with the throne of a king and a patriarch. 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 Servi ans, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians, &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 f glory to that of servitude.10 Among these colonies, the

between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A. D. 869, No. 75.)

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, 1. 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'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)

7 Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians, Bulgarians, Poles, (de Rebus Turcicis, 1. x. p. 283,) and elsewhere of the Bohemians, (1. ii. p. 38.) The same author has marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians.

See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de Originibus Sclavicis, Vindobonæ, 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.†

• 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 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 Selavonian captives, not of the Bohemian, (exclaims Jordan,) but of Sorabian race. From thence the

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.

We have at length a profound and satisfactory work on the Slavonian mes, Shafarik, Slawische Alterthümer, B. 2, Leipzig, 1843. M. 1845.

ans.

Chrobatians, 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 Basi. to reserve a smaii acknowledg. ment of their fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual tribute, the wrath of these irresistible BarbariThe kingdom of Croatia 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 hun dred 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.

The glory of the Bulgarians 13 was confined to a narrow

word was extended to general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of the last Byzantines, (see the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange.) The confusion of the Esopio, or Servians with the Latin Servi, was still more fortunate and familiar, (Constant Porphyr. de Administrando Imperio, c. 32, p. 99.)

"The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most accurate for his own times, most fabulous for preceding ages, describes the Sclavo. nians of Dalmatia, (c. 29-36.)

12 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. 227230;) the two oldest monuments of the history of Venice.

13 The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found, under the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras. The Byzantine

scope both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth cen› turies, 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

Two

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." 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

materials are collected by Stritter, (Memoria 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 Simeonem semi-Græcum esse aiebant, eo quod à pueritiâ By zantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis syllogismos didicerat, (Liutprand, 1. iii. c. 8.) He says in another place, Simeon, fortis bellator, Bulgariæ præerat; Christianus, sed vicinis Græcis valde inimicus 1 i. c. 2.)

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 the Achelöus, 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 galley 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 fellowChristians. Has the thirst of riches seduced you from the bless, ings 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 ambas sadors 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 succes

18

Rigidum fera dextera cornu

Dum tenet, infregit, truncâque à 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 The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek excuses, cum Christopheri 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 præponantur, honorertur, diligantur, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482.) See the Ceremoniale o. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82, tom. ii. p. 429, 430, 43: 435, 443, 444, 446, 447, with the annotations of Reiske.

sors 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 Bulga rians. His avarice was in some measure gratified by a treas. ure 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 ven geance 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.

II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Europe, above nine hundred years after the Christian æra, 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. 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

17 A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted this 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 The two national authors, from whom I have derived the most assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes and Annales veterum Hungarorum, &c., Vindobonæ, 1775, in folio) and Stephen Katona, (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariæ Stirpis Arpadianæ, Pæstini, 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.

• Compare Engel, Geschichte des Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Nebenander, 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 the Hungarian nation. Compare vol. vi. p. 35, note. - .M.