Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/457

Rh wherever else the Northmen went. Quite 100,000 coins have been secured, and many more have been kept secret and melted, or lie still in the bosom of the ground, so that Jacob's estimate — a million — is certainly much too low.

The oldest written history of the Slavs can be shortly summarised — myriads of slave-hunts and the enthralment of entire peoples. The Slav was the most prized of human goods. With increased strength outside his marshy land of origin, hardened to the utmost against all privation, industrious, content with little, good-humoured, and cheerful, he filled the slave markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It must be remembered that for every Slavonic slave who reached his destination, at least ten succumbed to inhuman treatment during transport and to the heat of the climate. Indeed, Ibrāhīm (tenth century), himself in all probability a slave-dealer, says: "And the Slavs cannot travel to Lombardy on account of the heat which is fatal to them." Hence their high price.

The Arabian geographer of the ninth century tells us how the Magyars in the Pontus steppe dominated all the Slavs dwelling near them. The Magyars made raids upon the Slavs and took their prisoners along the coast to Kerkh where the Byzantines came to meet them and gave Greek brocades and such wares in exchange for the prisoners. The Slavs had a method of fortification, and their chief resort was the fortresses in winter and the forest in summer. The Rōs (Vikings, Norse pirates) lived on an island (probably the old commercial town Ladoga between the Ladoga and Ilmen lakes). They had many towns, and were estimated at 100,000 souls. They made war on the Slavs by ship and took them as prisoners to Khazarān and Bulgār (the emporia of the Chazars and Bulgars on the Volga). The Rōs had no villages, their sole occupation was trading with sable and other skins. A hundred to two hundred of them at a time would come into Slavland and take by force the objects that suited them. Many of the Slavs came to them and became their servants for the sake of safety.

We see then the Slav surrounded on the north by pirates, on the south by mounted nomads, and hunted and harried like the beast of the forest. Jordanes' words, "Instead of in towns they live in marshes and forests," cover the most terrible national martyrdom in the history of the world. The "fortifications" — simple ramparts — mentioned by the Arabian geographer were not impregnable; indeed, the strongest fortifications of Europe and Asia were stormed by the nomads and Northmen. "Mauricius" states: "Settled in places very hard of access, forests, rivers, lakes, they provide their dwellings with several exits with a view to accidents, and they bury everything that is not absolutely necessary. ... When they are suddenly attacked they dive under the water, and lying on their backs on the bottom they breathe through a long reed, and thus escape destruction, for the inexperienced take these projecting reeds for natural; but the experienced recognise them by their cut