The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 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 de l'Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin
quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.]

[Footnote 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? The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between
Chazaria and Lazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was
still used in the xith century, (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770.)]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.

Part III.

But the same communication which had been opened for the
benefit, was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period
of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts
to plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was
various, but the motive, the means, and 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 Caesars.
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
Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same
seas for a similar purpose. ^58 The Greek appellation of
monoxyla, or single canoes, might justly be 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 vigor 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 strait of fifteen
miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been
stopped 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 a seasonable
tempest, which determined the retreat of the 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 by Oleg, the guardian of the
sons of Ruric. ^62 A strong barrier 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 favorable gale. The
leader 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 galleys 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. ^63 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 entrance of the
Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But 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 twenty- four galleys were either
taken, sunk, or destroyed. ^64

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 57: Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]

[Footnote 58: See Beauplan, (Description de l'Ukraine, p. 54 -
61: ) his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except
the circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for
modern Cosacks.]

[Footnote 59: It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a
Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,
(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265 - 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.]

[Footnote 60: When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the
conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently
ripe.]

[Footnote 61: Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini
Continuator in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon
Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus,
tom. ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 63: Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p.
263, 264 Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588,
589. Cedren tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and
Liutprand, l. 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.]

[Footnote 64: I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758,
759) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more
weighty and credible as they draw near to their own times.]

Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more
frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval
hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks;
their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no
spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the
hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an
opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse
with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and
inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of
the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest
and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the
hoary sages. "Be content," they said, "with the liberal offers
of Caesar; it is not far better to obtain without a combat the
possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our
desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with
the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of
water, and a common death hangs over our heads." ^65 The memory
of these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar
circle left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By
the vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an
equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed
with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should
become masters of Constantinople. ^66 In our own time, a Russian
armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has
circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital
has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of
war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering
artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as
those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet
behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare
prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date
unquestionable.

[Footnote 65: Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
87.]

[Footnote 66: This brazen statue, which had been brought from
Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to
represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See
Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P.
p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri,
Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100.
They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is immaterial.]

By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and
as they fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions
must often have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the
Scythian hordes. Yet their growing towns, however slight and
imperfect, presented a shelter to the subject, and a barrier to
the enemy: the monarchy of Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed
the dominion of the North; and the nations from the Volga to the
Danube were subdued or repelled by the arms of Swatoslaus, ^67
the son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric. The vigor of
his mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a military
and savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually slept
on the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was
coarse and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, ^68 his meat
(it was often horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals.
The exercise of war gave stability and discipline to his army;
and it may be presumed, that no soldier was permitted to
transcend the luxury of his chief. By an embassy from
Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, he was moved to undertake the
conquest of Bulgaria; and a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of
gold was laid at his feet to defray the expense, or reward the
toils, of the expedition. An army of sixty thousand men was
assembled and embarked; they sailed from the Borysthenes to the
Danube; their landing was effected on the Maesian shore; and,
after a sharp encounter, the swords of the Russians prevailed
against the arrows of the Bulgarian horse. The vanquished king
sunk into the grave; his children were made captive; and his
dominions, as far as Mount Haemus, were subdued or ravaged by the
northern invaders. But instead of relinquishing his prey, and
performing his engagements, the Varangian prince was more
disposed to advance than to retire; and, had his ambition been
crowned with success, the seat of empire in that early period
might have been transferred to a more temperate and fruitful
climate. Swatoslaus enjoyed and acknowledged the advantages of
his new position, in which he could unite, by exchange or rapine,
the various productions of the earth. By an easy navigation he
might draw from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and
hydromed: 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.

[Footnote 67: The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or
Sphendosthlabus, is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M.
Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 94 - 107.)]

[Footnote 68: This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth
book of the Iliad, (205 - 221,) in the minute detail of the
cookery of Achilles. By such a picture, a modern epic poet would
disgrace his work, and disgust his reader; but the Greek verses
are harmonious - a dead language can seldom appear low or
familiar; and at the distance of two thousand seven hundred
years, we are amused with the primitive manners of antiquity.]

Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had
introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John
Zimisces, ^69 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 a warlike
prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the
injured Bulgaria. The passes of Mount Haemus had been left
unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was
formed of the immortals, (a proud imitation of the Persian
style;) the emperor led the main body of ten thousand 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, ^70 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
Drista, 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 valor 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 valor, 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
Borysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted; the season was
unfavorable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they
could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and
oppressed by the neighboring tribes with whom the Greeks
entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. ^71 Far
different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his
capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviors 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. ^72

[Footnote 69: This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian
language. 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 l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar.
Graec. p. 1570.)

Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives another
derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag, which means
a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the East. He
was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written in
Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo
Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist. - M.]

[Footnote 70: In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba
implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena,
(Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus
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.)]

[Footnote 71: The political management of the Greeks, more
especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first
chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]

[Footnote 72: 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.]

Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was
equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek
church on the conversion of the Russians. ^73 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 metropolitan, might
administer the sacraments in the church 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 aera of
Russian Christianity. ^74 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. In a moment
of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to
Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has
described, with minute 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. ^75 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 labors 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 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 in the minds of the prince and people:
the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to
baptize: 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. ^76
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. ^77 At his despotic
command, Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long adored,
was dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy
Barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was
indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict
of Wolodomir had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites
of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their
prince; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands
of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence
of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his
boyars. In the next generation, the relics of Paganism were
finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died
without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave, and
sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.

[Footnote 73: Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut.
It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the
Russian nation, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it
become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian
idolaters. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists.]

[Footnote 74: 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, 92, 113 - 121, 124 - 129, 148, 149,
&c.)]

[Footnote 75: See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15,
p. 343 - 345: the style of Olga, or Elga. 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.]

[Footnote 76: See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri,
(Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione
Russorum.]

[Footnote 77: 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., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes an inscription, which
seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not
confound this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula,
with a new city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth
of the Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable
interview of the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]