Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/183

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 163 in her new religion ; but her labours in the propagation of the Gospel were not cro^vned with success ; and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule of his companions ; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his 3'outhful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices : in the choice of the victim, a citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater ; and the father who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult. Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep though secret impression on the minds of the prince and people : the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to baptize ; and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St. Sophia : the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and order of the ceremonies ; they were edified bv the alternate succession of devout silence and harmonious song ; nor was it difficult to persuade them that a choir of angels descended each day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. ^^ But the conversion of Wolodomir ^^"^^rg^- was determined, or hastened, by his desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the Christian pontiff; the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the brother of his spouse ; but the brazen gates were transported, as it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church as a trophy of his victory and faith.^**" At his despotic command, Peroun, the god of thunder, ''"See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri (Imperium Orirntale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113), de Conversione Russorum. [Reprinted in vol. iii. of Bonn ed. of Constantine Porph. p. 357 sqq. ; but since published in a fuller form from a Patmos Ms. by W. Regel in Analecta Byzantino-Russica, p. ^4 sqq. (1891). But the narrative is a later compilation and mixes up together (Regel, op. cit. p. xxi. ) the story of the earlier conversion by Photius, and the legend of the introduction of the Slavonic alphabet by Cyril and Methodius.] ^"^ Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein (apud Pagi, tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir's baptism and m.irriage ; and both the tradition and the gates are still preserved at Novogorod. Yet an observing traveller transports the brazen gates from Magdeburg in Germany (Co.x'e's Travels into Russia, &c. vol. i. p. 452), and quotes an inscription, which seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not confound this eld Cherson of the Tauric or Crimcean peninsula [situated on the southern shore of the bay of Sebastopol] with a new city