Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/78

 60 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. ants of a people which had been settled in the peninsula sub- sequent only to that which had seen the settlement of the Greeks and Albanians. They were possibly an offshoot of that division of the Aryan race which passed across into Italy, and to which the Romans belonged. What is certain is that they had settled in the Balkan peninsula before the entry of most of the various other peoples I have mentioned, and that they had come under Eoman influence. In any case, their numbers to the north of the Danube had been added to by the descendants of the Eoman colonists who had settled in Dacia.' Whoever the Wallachians were, they contributed not a little Attacksbythe tie to the weakenins: of the empire, and especially Wallachs on the empire, during the last years of the twelfth century, when all sorts of troubles were crowding thick upon it. In 1186, Isaac attacked them in the Balkans. They were aided by the Bulgarians. The troops of the emperor suc- ceeded in driving them across the Danube. Then and there they sought the aid of the Patchinaks and returned to meet the imperial troops. Cantacuzenos, the general acting for Isaac, was defeated. Ilis successor, Branas, was more fortu- nate, but, after harassing the rebels, he himself revolted against his sovereign and marched towards the capital. There- upon the Wallachs, Patchinaks, and Bulgarians made a de- structive raid, in 1189, upon Thrace, where for a considera- ble time they held their own against the imperial troops. In 1193 they ravaged Thrace, and the imperial troops were beaten. The war continued without interruption during the next two years, during which the Emperor Isaac left Con- stantinople to take the field himself against them. In 1196, while the new emperor, Alexis the Third, was chasing a pre- tender to the throne, the imperial troops w^ere decisively beaten and their general captured. The Wallachs and Bulga- rians advanced as far as Rodosto, where, after they had pil- laged all the country round, they were met by the imperial ^ At an early period the Wallachs of Dacia were believed to be of Latin descent. Leo, about 890, being at war with Hungary, ordered a levy from them. " Vlaquos, qui quondam fuisse colonia Italorum memorantur^ ex locis Ponto-Euxino xicinis irrumpere Hunnicam jubeV