Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/154

 134 THE DECLINE AND FALL intercourse with the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated region, and tlie introduction of the Christian worship. ^^ The nobles of Bulgaria were educated in the schools and palace of Constantinople ; and Sinieon,^'^ a youth of the royal line, was in- structed in the rhetoric of Demosthenes and the logic of Aris- totle. He relinquished the profession of a monk for that of a AD. 8 8-927. king and warrior ; and in his reign, of more than forty years,i" Bulgaria assumed a rank among the civilised powers of the earth. The Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint con- solation from indulging themselves in the reproaches of perfidy [A.D. 893] and sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan Turks ; [Turiis=Hnn- but Simcon, in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the fii-st, rra TM ail s 1 ^ at a time when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms of that formidable nation. The Servians ^^ were overthrown, made [A.D. 924] captive, and dispersed ; and those who visited the country before 1'' [In the year after his victory over Niccphorus, the Bulgarian prince Krum or Krumn captured the tovvns of Mesembria and Develtus, and in the following year inflicted a crushing defeat on Michael I. at Versinicia near Hadrianople (June, 813) and oroceeded to besiege Constantinople. He retired having devastated the country, but prepared to besiege the capital again in 815. His death was a relief to the Emperor LeoV. (see above, vol. 5, p. 194), who then took the field and gained at Mesembria a bloody victory over the Bulgarians. The prince Giom Omortag, who came to the throne about 817 or 818, made a treaty with Leo for 30 years ; and peace was maintained for more than 75 years, till the accession of Simeon. Omortag is called Mortagon by the Greek chroniclers, and Ombritag by Theophylactus of Ochrida ; but the right form of the name is furnished by his own curious inscription which was discovered at Trnovo (see Appendi.x 10). Omortag had three sons, and it is to be noticed that all three had Slavonic names ; this marks a stage in the growth of Slavonic influence in the kingdom. The youngest, Malomir, came to the throne. He was succeeded by his nephew Boris (circa A.D. 852-888), whose reign is memorable for the conversion of Bulgaria to Christianity (see Appendix 12).] i^Simeonem [emi-argon, id est] semi-Grascum esse aiebant, eo quod a puerilia Byzantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis syllogismos didicerat [leg. didicerit] (Liutprand, 1. iii. c. 8 [= c. 29] ). He says in another place, Simeon, fortis, bellator, Bulgariae [leg. Bulgariis] prseerat ; Christianus sed vicinis Graecis valde inimicus (1. i. c. 2 [= c. s]). [It is important to notice that native Slavonic literature flourished under Simeon — the result of the invention of Slavonic alphabets (see Appendix 12). Simeon himself — anticipating Constantine Porphyrogennetos — instituted the com- pilation of a Sbornik or encyclopaedia (theological, philosophical, historical), extracted from 20 Greek writers. The Presbyter Grigori translated the chronicle of John Malalas into Slavonic. John the Exarch wrote a Shestodnev (Hexaemeron), an account of the Creation. The monk Chrabr wrote a valuable little treatise on the invention of the Cyrillic alphabet (cp. App. 12) ; and other works (chiefly theological) of the same period are extant.] 1' [Simeon came to the throne in 893, and died May 27, 927.] i"* [That is, Servia in the strict sense, excluding the independent Servian princi- palities of Zachlumia, Trevunia, Diocletia, as well as the Narentans. See Const. Porph., De Adm. Imp., chaps. 32-36. The boundary of Bulgaria against Servia in .Simeon's time seems to have followed the Drin ; it left Belgrade, Prishtina, Xitzch and Lipljan in Bulgaria.]