Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/153

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 133 by the Venetian republic. ^^ The ancestors of these Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of naviga- tion ; they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days' journey, according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness. The fflorv of the Bulgarians'^ was confined to a narrow scope First kingdom both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries they gariaiu. ad. reigned to the south of the Danube ; but the more powerful nations that had followed their emigration repelled all return to the north and all progress to the west. Yet, in the obscure catalogue of their exploits, they might boast an honour which had hitherto been appropriated to the Goths : that of slaying in battle one of the successors of Augustus and Constantine. The [The war of emperor Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost with Krum] his life in the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he ad- vanced with boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt the roi/al courl, which was probably no more than an edifice and village of timber. But, while he searched the spoil and refused all offers of treaty, his enemies collected their spirits and their forces ; the passes of retreat were insuperably baiTed ; and the trembling Nicephorus was heard to exclaim : " Alas, alas ! unless we could assume the wings of birds, we cannot hope to escape ". Two days he waited his fate in the inactivitv of de- spair ; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians surprised the camp ; and the Roman prince, with the great officers of the empire, were slaughtered in their tents. The body of Valens a.d. su had been saved from insult ; but the head of Nicephorus was ex- posed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the dishonour of the throne ; but they acknowledged the just punishment of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup was deeply tinctured with the manners of the Scythian wilderness ; but they were softened before the end of the same century by a peaceful "See the anonymous Chronicle of the xith century, ascribed to John Sagorninus (p. 94-102), and that composed in the xivth by the Doge Andrew Dandolo (Script. Rerum Ital. torn. xii. p. 227-230) : the two oldest monuments of the history of Venice. '■• The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found, under the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras. The Byzantine materials are collected by Strittcr (Memoriae Populorum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 441-647), and the series of their kings is dispo.sed and settled by Ducange (Fam. Byzant. p. 305-318). [For an ancient Bulgarian list of the early Bulgarian kings see .Appendix 9. For the migration and establishment south of the Danube, and extent of the kingdom, cp. Appendix 8.]
 * ^ * ^ ^ of the Bul-