Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/151

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 131 acquired, by war or treaty, the Roman provinces of Dardania, Thessaly, and the two Epirus';'' the ecclesiastical supremacy was translated from the native city of Justinian ; and, in their prosperous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honoured 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 ; ^ and the kindred bands of Servians, 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 ^^ has been degraded ^ These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and. Constantinople (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.u. 869, No. 75). 'The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida, are clearly expressed in Cedrenus (p. 713 [ii. p. 468, ed. B.]). 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 I'Eglise, torn. i. 1. i. c. 19, 23) ; and a Frenchman (d'Anville) is more accurately skilled in the geography of their own country (Hist, de I'Acad^mie des Inscriptions, torn, xx.xi.). •* Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians, Bulgarians, Poles (de Rebus Turcicis, 1. x. p. 283 [p. 530, ed. Bonn]), and elsewhere of the Bohemians (1. ii. p. 3S [p. 73, z7;.]). The same author has marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians. [The Bulgarian conquerors adopted the language of their Slavonic subjects, but they were not Slavs. See Appendix 8.] 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 freefrom the prejudices of a Bohemian. [The statement in the text can partly stand, if it is understood that " kindred bands " means kindred to the Slavs who formed the chief population of the Bulgarian Kingdom — not to the Bulgarian conquerors. The Servians, Croatians, &c. , were Slavs. But in no case does it apply to the Walachians, who ethnically were probably lUyrians — descended at least from those people who inhabited Dacia and Illyricum, before the coming of the Slavs. There was a strong Walachian population in the Bulgarian kingdom which extended north of the Danube (see Appendix 11) ; and it has been conjectured that the Walachians even gave the Bulgarians a king — Sabinos, a name of Latin sound. But this seems highly doubtful ; and compare Appendix 9.] '"Jordan subscribes to the well-known and probable derivation from SLiva, 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. loi, 102). [This derivation has been generally abandoned, and is obviously unlikely. Another, which received the approbation of many, explained the name Slovanie (sing. Slovanjn) from slovo, "a word," in the sense of o^o-yXwTToi, people who speak one language — oppo.sed to Niemi, "the dumb" (non-Slavs, Germans). But this too sounds improbable, and has been
 * See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de Originibus Sclavicis, Vindobonce,