Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/150

 130 THE DECLINE AND FALL public and private lives was neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty of the Byzantine throne re- pelled and survived their disorderly attacks ; the greater part of these barbarians has disappeared without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of, I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and III. Russians, I shall content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be remembered. The conquests of the, IV., Normans, and the monarchy of the, V., Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and empire of Constantine. Emigration of I. lu his march to Italy, Theodoi'ic - the Ostrogoth had trampled garians. A.D. ou the amis of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the name and the nation ai-e lost during a century and a half ; ^ and it may be suspected that the same or a similar appellation was revived by strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga. A king of the ancient Bulgaria "* bequeathed to his five sons a last lesson of moderation and concord. It was received as youth has ever received the counsels of age and experience : the five princes buried their father ; divided his subjects and cattle ; forgot his advice ; separated from each other ; and wandered in quest of fortune, till we find the most adventurous in the heart of Italy, under the protection of the exarch of Ravenna.^ But the stream of emigration was directed or impelled towards the capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the southern banks of the Danube, was stamped with the name and image which it has retained to the present hour ; the new conquerors successively 2 [Above] Hist. vol. iv. p. 177. •* [The Bulgarians continued to live north of the Danube and formed part of the Avar empire in the latter half of the sixth century. They appear as the subjects of the Chagan in Theophylactus Simocatta.] ■*Theophanes, p. 296-299 [s7/i A.M. 6171]. Anastasius.'p. 113 [p. 225 sqq. ed. de Boor]. Nicephorus, C. P. p. 22, 23 [p. 33, 34, ed. de Boor]. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria on the banks of the Atell or Volga [old Bulgaria lay between the rivers Volga and Kama. There is still a village called Bolgary in the province of Kazan] ; but he deprives himself of all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine Sea. [For the legend of King Krovat's sons see Appendix 7.] ^ Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. 1. v. c. 29, p. 881, 882. The apparent differ- ence between the Lombard historian and the above-mentioned Greeks is easily reconciled by Camillo Pellegrino (de Ducatu Beneventano, dissert, vii. in the Scrip- tores Rerum Ital. torn. v. p. 186, 187) and Beretti (Chorograph. Ilaliaj medii .<Evi, p. 273, &c.). This Bulgarian colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium [at Bovianum, .Sergna, and Sipicciano], and learned the Latin, without forgetting their native, language. I