Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/157

 OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 137 country : they were deprived of sight ; but to one of each hundred a single eye was left, that he might conduct his blind centurv' to the presence of their king. Their king is said to [Death of Tsar TP/^ii 1- 111- Samuel. AD. have expired ot griei and horror; the nation was awed by thi.sioi4, Sept. is] terrible example ; the Bulgarians were swept away from their settlements, and circumscribed within a narrow province ; the surviving chiefs bequeathed to their children the advice of patience and the duty of revenge. II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Emigration of Europe, about nine hundred years after the Christian a?ra, they Hungarians. were mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and Magog of the Scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the end of the world. -^ Since the introduction of letters, they have explored their own antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of patriotic curiosity.-^ Their rational criticism can no longer be amused with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns ; but they complain that their primitive records have perished in the Tar- tar war ; that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long since forgotten ; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle -'^ must be painfully reconciled with the contemporaiy though foreign intelligence of the Imperial geographer.-" Magiar is [Magyar] the national and Oriental denomination of the Hungarians ; but, among the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the ^A bishop of Wurtzburg [leg: Verdun] submitted this opinion to a reverend abbot ; but /te more gravely decided that Gog and Magog were the spiritual perse- cutors of the church ; since Gog signifies the roof, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from the roof, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once commanded the respect of mankind (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. torn. xi. p. 594, &c.). ^ The two national authors, from whom I have derived the most assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes ad Annales veterum Hungarorum, &c., Vindobonse, 1775, in folio) and Stephen K.itona (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis Arpadianre, Pa-stini, 1778-1781, 5 vols, in octavo). The first embraces a large and often conjectural space ; the latter, by his learning, judgment, and per- spicuity, deserves the name of a critical historian. ^ The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary of king B61a. Katona has assigned him to the twelfth century, and defends his character against the hyper- criticism of Pray. This rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records, since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis rusticorum, et garrulo cantu joculatorum. In the .wth century, these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist. Critica Ducum, p. 7-33. [Cp. Appendix 13.] ^ See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4, 13, 38-42. Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work to the years 949, 950, 951 (p. 4-7). [Cp. App. 4.] The critical historian (p. 34-107) endeavours to prove the existence, and to relate the actions, of a first duke Almus, the father of Arpad, who is tacitly rejected by Constantine. [Constantine, c 38, says that Arpad was elected chief, and not his father Salmulzes (Almos).]