Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/141

 OF THE liOMAN EMPIUE 121 and Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred heretics. As a favour or punishment, he transphmted them from the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace ; and by this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in Europe.-'' If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith of the Bulgarians.-'-* In the tenth century, they were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which Jolni Zimisces ^^ transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount Haeraus. The Oriental clergy, who would have preferred the destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the Mani- chseans ; the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their valour ; their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the barbarians of Scythia, their service might be useful and their loss would be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a free toleration ; the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis and the keys of Thrace ; the Catholics were their subjects ; the Jacobite emi- grants their associates : they occupied a line of villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus ; and many native Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy. As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation, their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the empire ; and the courage of these dagx, ever greedy of war, ever thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit ren- ItauAiKiarwi/, savs Cedrenus (p. 463 [ii. p. 10]), who has copied the annals of Theo- phanes. [Su6 a.m. 6247.] ^Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice (a.d. 870) for the ran- som of captives (p. 764), was informed of their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the Historia Manichceorum, to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians (P- 754 [p- 1241, ed. Mignej). [For Petrus Siculus, cp. Appendix 6.] •"'The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites, transplanted by John Zimisces (a.d. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned by Zonaras (torn. ii. 1. xvii. p. 209 [c. i]) and Anna Comnena (Alexiad, 1. xiv. p. 450, &c. [c. 8]). [This colonisation must have taken place a//er the conquest of Eastern Bulgaria and the war with: Sviato- slav ; and therefore not before A. D. 973. Cp. Schlumberger, L'(5popi?e byzantine, p. 181. Scylitzes (= Cedrenus ii. p. 382) says that it was Thomas, Patriarch of Antioch, who suggested the transplantation. He realised that in the Eastern provinces the Paulicians were dangerous allies of the Saracens.]
 * Copronymus transported his o-vyyti-c-r?, heretics ; and thus e-Aorvi-er) 17 aipein?