Book III THE TWO EAGLES
CHAPTER I
Emperor of the Bulgars and the Romans
By his wife, christened Maria, Boris had six children —Vladimir, Gabriel, Symeon, Jacob, Eupraxia, and Anna. [1] Gabriel probably died young, and possibly Jacob also; Eupraxia became a nun, and Anna no doubt married—it may be, into the Moravian royal house [2]; Symeon had entered the church; and Vladimir was to succeed his father on the throne.
Vladimir had been a crown prince for too long. He must now have been nearing his fortieth year, for he had accompanied his father to the Serbian war in the old heathen days. And, like all impatient crown princes, he was filled with the spirit of opposition to his father’s policy. Of the inward history of his reign we know little, save that he received an embassy from King Arnulf of Germany in 892. [3] It seems that no sooner was Boris safely hidden from the world in his monastery than the new Khan upset all his reforms. The old Bulgar aristocracy, that Boris had so firmly cut down, had grown up again to an effective height; and Vladimir fell under its influence. The bоyars had disliked Boris’s Christianity, with its austere
1. The names of the royal family are given in the marginal notes to the Cividale gospel as patronising some monastery (Rački, Documenta Historiae Chroaticae, pp. 382-3). Vladimir is called there Rosate, probably his pre-Christian name.
2. The Anonymous Hungarian historian says that King Salanus (Svatopulk II) of Moravia was connected by marriage with the Bulgar king (at that time Symeon). Such a statement from him must naturally be taken with reserve; but if, as is quite likely, there was such a connection, it would almost certainly be through one of Symeon’s sisters marrying the Moravian King. It is unlikely that Symeon’s first wife could have been a Moravian princess (Anonymi Historia Ducum Hungariae, p. xli.).
3. Annales Fuldenses, p. 408. The envoys entered Bulgaria down the River Save. Vladimir is called Landimir or Laodimir.
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and autocratic tendencies. In contrast, Court life became extravagant and debauched, and there was even an official attempt to reintroduce the old pagan rites and idolatries.
But Vladimir and his boyars had reckoned without Boris. Immured though he was in his monastery, he knew what was going on outside. For four years he let them be; then, when he saw his life-work being too seriously endangered, he emerged. His prestige as a terrible saint was enormous; with the help of a few older statesmen he easily took possession of the Government. Once again in power, he sacrificed his paternal feelings for the good of his country. Vladimir was summarily deposed and blinded, and so passes out of history. [1]
This was the last attempt of a pagan revival—its dying throe. It was doomed to fail; no one could expect the lower and middle classes to revert to a cruder and more oppressive religion at the behest of semi-alien overlords, and the overlords themselves were guided more by political than by spiritual motives. Boris had only to reappear to cause the whole business to collapse. But it was rather a delicate situation for Boris. In dethroning his son he had saved Christianity, but he had endangered its corollary. He acted warily. Summoning a congress from all his kingdom (how it was composed we cannot tell—probably of the Court nobility, the provincial governors or their representatives, the ecclesiastical authorities, and any other outstanding citizen), he justified his interference on the grounds of religion, and then bade them accept as their monarch his younger son, the monk Symeon. [2]
1. Regino, p. 580: Manegold, p. 364: Sigebert, p. 341: Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, Historia XV Martyrum, p. 213; Chudo Sv. Georgiya, pp. 19-20.
2. Regino, loc. cit. Boris threatened Symeon that he would treat him similarly should he relapse—a needless threat to a pious monk, but one probably calculated to show that only on religious grounds could the monarch be deposed, and only Boris as an ex-monarch could effect the deposition.
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At the same time, he took the opportunity of the presence of the congress to complete his last great reform. The seed that Clement was sowing in Macedonia—work uninterrupted, it seems, by Vladimir’s reign—and that Nahum was sowing nearer to the capital, had taken root sufficiently; it was time to replace the Greek tongue by the Slavonic throughout the Bulgarian Church. [1] There were several reasons for doing this now; it is probable that there was a vacancy in the Bulgarian archiepiscopate; it is possible that the Greek clergy was too closely connected with the Court aristocracy; and certainly it was a good moment for a measure that might displease the Empire—Basil and Photius were dead, and the Emperor Leo and his brother the Patriarch were too indifferent and weak to oppose the fulfilment of a movement that even their great predecessors had regarded as inevitable. Moreover, Boris calculated, the enforcing of Slavonic as the one national language of Bulgaria would submerge for ever the conscious exclusiveness and superiority of the old Bulgars. The Children of the Huns were to lose their identity; Bulgarian was to mean now Slav and Bulgar alike, any subject of the Bulgarian monarch—who was the Sublime Khan no longer, but the Knyaz, the Slavonic Prince. With the change in the language, it is probable that the organization of the Bulgar Church was completed, to fit the new state of things. Some time about now the country was divided up between seven metropolitans under the Archbishop of Bulgaria—the metropolitans of Dristra, Philippopolis, Sardica, Provadia, Margum (or Morava), Bregalnitsa, and Ochrida. [2] Most of their dioceses had
1. See Zlatarski, Istoriya i., 2, pp. 254 ff. It is inherently probable that the change was effected now and his arguments are, I think, conclusive, though I think that the process was more gradual than he allows; the Greek language did not fall entirely into disuse.
2. Zlatarski, op. cit., pp. 207 ff., dates their creation in 864; but it seems obvious from Saint Clement’s career that Ochrida at least dates from later.
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been organized before, particularly those in Eastern Bulgaria; the diocese of Bregalnitsa was being organized in 889. [1] The diocese of Ochrida had probably not yet come into being—Macedonia was still too wild. But Clement’s missionary work had advanced now far enough for a bishopric to be created for him. He became bishop of the dual see of Debritsa (Drembitsa) and Belitsa, two small towns between Ochrida and Prilep. [2] Later their importance was overshadowed by Ochrida.
In connection with these ecclesiastical reforms another great change was made. Joseph, the new Archbishop of Bulgaria, had his archiepiscopal seat not at Pliska, but at Preslav. [3] The capital was being moved. [4] Pliska, the Hunnish capital, with its memories of the great heathen Khans, was no longer suitable. The Christian Prince should dwell at Preslav, close by the monastery of the Panteleimon and the Christian college of Nahum.
When all this was done, Boris returned to his cloister. His work was really finished now. Before, he had rested too soon; Vladimir had been a broken reed. But this time he was certain. He could devote himself for ever now to religion; nor would he help his country ever again save by his prayers. He had helped it enough already— enough to have his name everlastingly revered as the greatest of all its benefactors.
1. See above, p. 129. Boris’s transference of relics from the Greek town of Tiberiupolis to Bregalnitsa was clearly incidental to the founding of the new diocese.
2. Vita S. Clementis, p. 1228. Zlatarski (op. cit., pp. 269 ff.) identifies Drembitsa and Belitsa. The Vita S. Clementis says that Clement was ap pointed by Symeon (who succeeds Vladimir on Vladimir’s death, which is mentioned without comment), but that he was the first Slav bishop—i.e. his was probably the first appointment made after the change of language, or else the Archbishop Joseph was of Greek origin.
3. His name is supplied in the Sinodik Tsaria Borisa (ed. Popruzhenko, Odessa 1899), pp. 74-5, and in the Chudo Sv. Georgiya, loc. cit. For the whole question see Zlatarski, Bulgarski Arkhiepiscopi Patriarsi, passim.
4. A note to a copy of the Book of Isaiah informs us that Symeon moved the capital.
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The new Prince, Symeon, was a far better son than Vladimir. He was about thirty years of age. [1] Much of his life had been spent at Constantinople, living, it seems, in the precincts of the Palace and studying probably not only at Photius’s Slavonic college but also at the University. Certainly he became a proficient Greek scholar, with a taste for the works of Aristotle and Demosthenes. Indeed, he was sometimes known as Hemi-Argus, the half-Greek. [2] Of recent years he had taken monastic orders, being, it may be, designed by his father for a Bulgar patriarchate, and was living in a Bulgarian monastery, probably with his father in the Panteleimon. His Christian zeal was undoubted. Nevertheless, there were some unfavourable comments when he renounced his vows and resumed a very secular life in order to ascend the throne. [3]
If the statesmen at Constantinople had hoped that the accession of the ‘half-Greek’ meant the revival of their influence in Bulgaria, they were sadly disappointed. Symeon’s devotion to Greek literature only had the effect of making him wish for it to be translated into the vernacular. The decade following the official adoption of the Slavonic language and alphabet bore an amazing crop of literature. The Bulgarian people, long restricted in their writing to Greek characters and language or perhaps a few runic signs, [4] suddenly had found a means of expression. But the blossoming was not altogether spontaneous; a heathen illiterate empire, however great, will not at once turn into a vigorous bed of flowering culture. Bulgarian
1. Nicholas Mysticus (Ep. xxix., p. 181) calculated in 923 that Symeon was then over 60.
2. Liudprand, Antapodosis, p. 87.
3. Liudprand (loc. cit.) speaks of the incident with disapproval; but he gathered his material about Symeon in Constantinople, after Symeon’s wars against the Empire.
4. Khrabr implies that the Slavs employed such signs, but certainly no traces of them survive in the Balkans.
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literature only became a natural growth a century later, when Christianity and letters had had time to permeate through. [1] At present it was called into being by the active patronage of the Prince. Symeon wished his people to enjoy the treasures of Byzantine civilization; he encouraged translations to be made not only of holy and patristic works, but also of suitable romances. Consequently the first Bulgarian writers were mainly translators; and their work has that somewhat artificial air given when the matter is more sophisticated than the language.
Nevertheless, it was a creditable beginning for any literature. Already, ever since he had settled in Macedonia, Clement had been busily translating. He had found himself greatly handicapped by the prevalent ignorance of Greek; and the people were very stupid. [2] The only hope lay in copious translations. But Clement was indefatigable. He could draw on the works of his great masters, Cyril and Methodius, and he supplemented them as best he could. By the end of the century he had made Ochrida one of the most renowned centres for the dissemination of Christianity and culture; and when he began to retire from active life his work was amply carried on by his old fellow-disciple, Nahum, who came over from Preslav to take on the bishopric of Ochrida. [3]
But at present Clement’s Macedonian school was overshadowed by the royal school of Preslav. There translations were being made on all sides. Symeon himself even superintended a collection of explanatory extracts from the Fathers; and the preface paid a flattering tribute to
1. The Bogomil legends really represent the first spontaneous Bulgarian literature.
2. Vita S. Clementis, p. 1229.
3. Vita S. Clementis, loc. cit. and ff.: Zhitya Sv. Naum, pp. 4—5: Zlatarski, Istoriya, i., 2, pp. 351 ff.
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his patronage, calling him the ‘new Ptolemy, who like the industrious bee gathers the juice of all the flowers, to spread it over the bоyars.’ [1] A Bishop Constantine translated some homilies for holy days and the works of Saint Athanasius [2]; the Presbyter Gregory translated the chronicle of John Malalas, and also a romantic tale of Troy for the ‘book-loving Prince.’ [3] John the Exarch, at the behest of the royal monk Duks, brother of Boris, translated John Damascene and wrote a Shestodniev, an adaptation of Saint Basil’s Hexameron. John, writing probably a little later than the others, was more adventurous, and wrote chapters of his own composition. To his John Damascene he wrote a preface that gave a short history of Slavonic letters and discoursed on the difficulties of a translator—what is one to do when the words are of different genders in Greek and in Slavonic?—and to his Shestodniev he added an epilogue praising the glories of Symeon’s Court at Preslav. [4] Even the royal family produced an author, Tudor (or Theodore), son of Duks; but only a small prologue of his survives. [5]
But all these translations were valueless unless the public could be persuaded that Slavonic was a suitable medium for literature. It was to justify its use that the first original Bulgarian work was written. Shortly after the adoption of the Slavonic liturgy the monk Khrabr wrote a little apologia on the Slavonic alphabet, in which he pointed out that though Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
1. Sbornik na Tsar Simeona, preface.
2. Given in Archbishop Antony’s Ep. Konstantin Preslavski. I do not think that Constantine’s see can be identified; it cannot have been Preslav, which had other occupants.
3. Kalaïdovitch, Ioann Eksarkh, pp. 138 ff.
4. Idem, op. cit., p. 138: John the Exarch, Shestodniev, which gives full text.
5. Given in Pripiskata na Tudora Chernorizets Doksov, by Gorky i Nevostruev, pp. 32—3. His relationship to Symeon has been worked out by Zlatarski, Koi e bil Tudor Chernorizets Doksov (see Bibliography).
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were the languages sanctified by their use in the Scriptures and by the Fathers, that did not exclude the permissibility of Slavonic; for, after all, the Greeks once used the Phoenician alphabet, and, anyhow, the Greek alphabet was created by a heathen, whereas the Slavonic was created by that Christian saint, Constantine or Cyril. The treatise is a conscientious piece of polemic writing, occasionally naive in style and argument, and just occasionally bearing the mark of one who felt that the ice was thin. But it must have served its purpose well, making the advocates of the new alphabet feel that they had divine sanction in adopting it. [1]
There was, however, one more difficulty about the new alphabet; but it seems to have died a natural death. Saint Cyril’s ingenious brain had evolved two alphabets, those known to-day as Cyrillic and Glagolitic. The former was based on the Greek alphabet supplemented by the Hebrew, and probably represented his first attempt, destined for the Balkan Slavs near his home at Thessalonica. But when he arrived in Moravia, where anything suggesting Greek propaganda was deeply suspect, he found his alphabet a liability, and began again, arbitrarily distorting the Greek letters, to disguise their origin, and generally elaborating the whole affair. This was the alphabet to which Clement had been educated; he brought it to Bulgaria with him, and in it some of the earliest Bulgarian manuscripts were written. But in a land where Greek culture was not suspect, but, on the contrary, highly fashionable, there was no reason for the existence of Glagolitic. Cyrillic, the alphabet that was no
1. Khrabr, in Kalaïdovitch, op. cit. pp. 190—2 passim. Zlatarski, Istoriya, i., 2, pp. 853 ff. discusses his identity, deciding that he was neither John the Exarch (Ilinsky’s theory) nor a disciple of the school of Ochrida (Mazon’s theory). But his suggestion that he was Symeon in his monastic days (ibid., p. 860) seems to me too fanciful. Also I think he is wrong in dating the work before 893. It seems to me to have the unmistakable air of an apologia after the event.
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doubt taught at the Slavonic college at Constantinople, was far simpler and far more practical. Glagolitic inevitably gave way before it; but whether the victory of Cyrillic was in any way hastened by official action we cannot tell. [1]
The literary richness was balanced by a growth of the arts and luxuries. Symeon had seen in Constantinople the aureole of splendour that surrounded the Emperor and emphasized his sanctity as the Viceroy of God; he understood its value for the cause of autocracy. In his new capital of Preslav, Great Preslav, the renowned, [2] he attempted to magnify himself likewise. The city began to blossom with churches and with the palaces built by the courtiers who followed the prince’s lead. But the royal palace was the centre of it all; the glory radiated from Symeon. The effect was the more overwhelming in that it was so suddenly created; nothing had ever been seen like it in Bulgaria before. John the Exarch, in the dedicatory chapter of the Shestodniev, attempted to describe the sensations of a visitor from the provinces, how he would be overcome by the sight of all the great buildings, with their marbles and their frescoes—‘the sights of heaven adorned with stars, sun, and moon, earth with the grass and trees, and the fishes of the sea of all sorts, come upon him, and his mind is lost. He comes back despising his own home and wishes to build himself as high as heaven.’ [3] In the midst of it all sat Symeon, ‘in a garment studded with pearls, a chain of medals round his neck and bracelets on his wrists, girt with a purple girdle, and a golden sword by his side.’ [4] John’s eloquence breaks down under the strain of describing it
1. For the Cyrillic-Glagolitic question, see Appendix IX.
2. Preslav means renowned. The name was frequently given to cities all over the Slav world.
3. John Exarch, Shestodniev, p. 47.
4. Ibid., p. 46.
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all; he can only complain that he is guilty of understatement. His visitor departs to exclaim to his friends that ‘it is impossible to tell of the splendour, beauty, and orderliness, and each of you must see it for yourselves.’ [1] Symeon’s object seems, therefore, to have been achieved; but it is doubtful if beneath this surface gorgeousness there was what to the eyes of Constantinople would have seemed a respectable standard of civilization and comfort. [2] Moreover, outside the capital there were no luxuries to be found; John the Exarch’s visitor lived in a house of straw. [3] Even in Ochrida the oldest stone-built churches date from a century later. [4] But that perhaps was not unintended. Symeon wished Preslav to be the centre of Bulgaria, even as Constantinople was of the Empire. His hope was forlorn; his capital, like his literature, had been artificially forced. Geography, that had made Constantinople the greatest port and market of the mediaeval world, had given no such lasting advantages to the little inland valley among the low mountains where Preslav lay. To-day of that great city, which even three centuries later [5] covered an area far greater than any other Balkan town, only a few meaningless ruins remain.
Indeed, though the traveller to-day may still marvel at the greatness of the site, [6] it is hard for him to envisage its past glory. Of Symeon’s vast palace little has been
1. John Exarch, Shestodniev, p. 46.
2. Certainly in 927 Maria Lecapena took all her furniture, etc., with her to Bulgaria. See below, p. 179.
3. John Exarch, op. cit., p. 46.
4. Probably coastal towns such as Anchialus or Develtus, built and still largely inhabited by Greeks and Armenians, had higher standards; and the formerly Imperial fortresses inland probably retained a few buildings; the Red Church at Philippopolis seems to date at least from the early ninth century. The first Ochridian churches date from Samuel’s reign.
5. In the days of Nicetas Acominatus (p. 486).
6. It was shaped roughly as a solid pentagon, its sides averaging some 2 kms. in length. The Great Palace or Inner City occupied about 1/8 th of the whole area. The walls of both cities can be traced, the latter’s still in part standing.
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unearthed, but what is bare reveals only foundations and a few marble columns. The city has for centuries been a quarry for the Turks, just as it itself was probably built from old Roman cities, such as Marcianopolis. [1] The churches that have been excavated—Symeon’s in the outer city [2] and Boris’s at Patleïna—bear greater traces of splendour. To anyone coming from Constantinople, their size is unimpressive and their decoration must have seemed coarse. It consisted of marble slabs and mosaics, applied, as far as can be judged, without much delicacy; but its main characteristic was the copious use of ceramic tiles, some plain, others ornamented with simple patterns singularly free from Byzantine influence, resembling rather peasant art as it is found throughout the world. But at Patleïna a ceramic icon of St. Theodore has been found, quite Byzantine in feeling and showing a high state of technique. To-day it stands unique, but whether it was always a unique climax of the art of Symeon’s Golden Age, we cannot now know. [3]
Though literature and refinement might need an artificial stimulus, Bulgarian trade and commerce were flourishing naturally. The main industry of the country was agriculture, and probably Bulgarian cereals and beasts helped to feed the Imperial cities of the coast and Constantinople itself. Mines were worked, and their produce swelled the royal revenues. Moreover, the Bulgarian dominions lay across great trade routes. The busy trade that passed between the Steppes of Russia and Constantinople went as a rule by the sea along the western shore of the Black Sea; but some of it must have
1. The marble is certainly from Asia Minor. Symeon may have added to his stores in his raids on the suburbs of Constantinople.
2. Built, according to a MS. at Moscow, in 907.
3. Now in the museum at Preslav. The workmanship seems to me to be certainly native. The circumstances of its discovery clearly indicate that it dates from the first monastery on the site, i.e. before A.D. 900.
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travelled overland through Preslav and Adrianople or by a coast road, and some through Dristra to Thessalonica. There was another trade route, almost equally important, which could not avoid Bulgaria; this was the route from Central Europe, which entered the Balkan peninsula at Belgrade and, like the railway to-day, forked at Nish, one branch leading through Sardica (Sofia) and Philippopolis to Adrianople and Constantinople, the other cutting due south across to Thessalonica. This meant a steady flow of merchandise passing through Bulgaria, and enriching on its way the Bulgarian traders or the Greek and Armenian subjects of the Prince. [1]
Symeon watched with care over his country’s commercial welfare; and, early in his reign, his intervention in its interests set going a train of circumstances which for a moment seemed likely to destroy Bulgaria and all its new-born culture, and which in the end served to confirm for ever the Balkan destiny that Boris had planned for his country. Ever since Tervel’s day trade between Bulgaria and the Empire had been carefully organized, and by now the Bulgarians had their counters at Constantinople (probably in the Saint Mamas quarter, along with the Russian counters) where they took their merchandise to distribute it to the Imperial merchants. In the year 894 [2] an intrigue in the Imperial Court resulted in two Greek merchants, Stauracius and Cosmas, securing the monopoly of the Bulgarian trade. They thereupon not only put heavy duties on the goods, but also insisted on moving the counters to Thessalonica—corruption was easier to manage at some distance from the capital. All this naturally upset the Bulgarians, and they complained to Symeon. He at once made representations before the
1. The trade routes are given by Constantine Porphyrogennetus, De Administrando Imperio, pp. 79, 177. The Thessalonican routes must, however, be considered in connection with the episode related below.
2. I discuss the date below.
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Emperor. But the dishonest Greek merchants were under the protection of Zaützes, the Basileopator, the all-powerful father-in-law of the Emperor; Leo therefore ignored Symeon’s embassy and the scandal went on. Symeon thereupon decided to have recourse to arms, and prepared to invade Thrace. The main Imperial armies, under Nicephorus Phocas, the hero of the Italian wars, were away in the East fighting the Saracens; Leo could only send against the invaders unseasoned troops, under Procopius Grenites and an Armenian, Curticius. These, in spite of their numbers, Symeon had no difficulty in routing; the two generals were slain in battle, and the captives had their noses slit. The Bulgars then advanced through Thrace up to the capital itself.
Leo next tried diplomacy. He had sent that year an embassy to Ratisbon to King Arnulf—probably before the war broke out, as a counterblast to Arnulf’s embassy to Vladimir in 892—but his ambassador was not well received. [1] But now he had a far better plan. Ever since the days of Omortag the wild Magyars had been established on the Steppes right up to the Bulgarian frontier on the River Dniester, if not by now to the Pruth. In 895 he sent the patrician Nicetas Sclerus to the Magyar settlements and proposed to the Magyar chieftains, Arpad and Kurson, that they should invade Bulgaria; he promised that ships should be sent to convey them across the Danube. The Magyars gladly agreed, especially as they were feeling somewhat pressed on their eastern borders by an even wilder nation, the Petchenegs; they gave hostages and the treaty was concluded. Leo then summoned Nicephorus Phocas from Asia and fitted out the Imperial fleet under the Admiral Eustathius. These
1. Annales Fuldenses, p. 410. The ambassador had only one audience, and left the same day. There was a second and more successful embassy in 896, but it is doubtful if it had any great bearing on the Bulgarian war (ibid., p. 413).
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latter preparations were really intended just to overawe the Bulgarians. Now that Symeon was going to have the Magyars to deal with, Leo would have preferred not to fight; he had no wish to magnify Magyar power at the expense of Bulgarian, and, besides, his tender Christian conscience made him dislike to fight fellow-believers. He sent the Quaestor Constantinacius to warn Symeon of the coming Magyar invasion and to suggest a peace treaty. But Symeon was suspicious and truculent; he had learnt in Constantinople how subtle Imperial diplomacy could be, and probably he disbelieved in the story about the Magyars. Constantinacius was put in custody, and no answer was returned.
Symeon was soon disillusioned. As he prepared to meet Nicephorus Phocas in Thrace, news came to him that the Magyars had arrived. He hurried north to meet them, but was defeated. In despair he retreated to the strong fortress of Dristra. [1] The Magyars advanced, pillaging and destroying. At the gates of Preslav they met Nicephorus Phocas, to whom they sold Bulgarian captives in thousands. The Bulgarians were in despair. They sent to Boris in his monastery to ask for advice; but he could only suggest a three days’ fast and offered to pray for his country. The situation was saved by far less reputable means—by Symeon’s diplomatic trickery.
When he realized the seriousness of his state, he sent through Eustathius to ask the Emperor for peace. Leo was glad to comply. He ordered Phocas and Eustathius to retire, and sent the Magister Leo Choerosphactus to discuss terms. This was exactly what Symeon had wished. When the Magister Leo arrived he was detained under guard at the fortress of Mundraga: while Symeon, free of the embarrassment of half of his enemies, set out to
1. Dorostolum, the modern Silistria.
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attack the remainder, the Magyars. In a great battle he succeeded in defeating them and driving them back across the Danube. The struggle was so bloodthirsty that even the Bulgarians were said to have lost 20,000 knights. Victorious over the Magyars, Symeon informed the Magister Leo that his terms now included the release of all Bulgarian captives recently bought by Phocas from the Magyars. The unhappy ambassador, who had not been able meanwhile to communicate with his Government, returned to Constantinople, along with a certain Theodore, a familiar of Symeon’s, to see what could be done.
Leo wished for peace, and was prepared to give up the prisoners. He had never regarded the war with enthusiasm, and just recently he had lost the services of Nicephorus Phocas, another victim to his evil genius, Zaützes. Symeon, discovering this, determined to fight on. He waited until all the prisoners were returned to him, then, declaring that some had been kept back, he appeared again in full force on the Thracian frontier. The new Imperial commander, Catacalon, lacked Phocas’s ability. He came with the main Imperial army upon Symeon at Bulgarophygon, and was utterly routed. His second-in-command, the Protovestiarius Theodosius, was killed; he himself barely escaped with a few refugees. The battle had been so ghastly that one of the Imperial soldiers determined thereupon to renounce the world, and retired to receive beatitude later under the name of Luke the Stylite. [1] It was now the year 897.
Symeon was again master of the situation; and Leo Choerosphactus again set out to make the best peace that he could. It was a thankless task. Much of his correspondence with Symeon and with his own Government survives, and shows the trials that he had to face. Symeon
1. Vie de Luc le Stylite, pp. 300-1.
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was in turns cunning, arrogant, and suspicious; he felt, it seems, that his adversaries were his mental superiors, and so he mistrusted their every gesture lest it should hold some sinister further meaning that he did not see. His letters would contain phrases on the verge of being offensive; he declared that ‘neither your Emperor nor his meteorologist can know the future’—a remark very galling to a monarch who prided himself on his prophecies. [1] The chief difficulty was that Symeon was unwilling to give up, even at a price, the prisoners, estimated at 120,000, that he had recently taken. Ό Magister Leo,’ he wrote, Ί promised nothing about the prisoners. I never said so to you. I shall not send them back, particularly as I don’t clearly see the future.’ [2] But the prisoners were eventually returned, and the ambassador secured a better peace than might have been expected. The Emperor agreed to pay a yearly subsidy, probably not large, but we do not know its size, to the Bulgarian Court [3]; but Symeon, so far from making any new annexation of territory, gave back thirty fortresses that his lieutenants had captured in the theme of Dyrrhachium [4]; and the Bulgarian counters apparently remained at Thessalonica. [5]
The reason for this moderation was not far to seek. The contemporary Arab historian Tabari told a story of how the ‘Greeks’ were at war with the ‘Slavs,’ and the Greek
1. Leo Choerosphactus, Ep. iii. (Symeon to Leo), p. 381. The Emperor Leo prophesied correctly his brother’s reign, and had a great reputation for his predictions, whence came his surname ‘The Wise.’
2. Ibid., Ep. v. (Symeon to Leo), p. 382. This was the complete letter.
3. That this tribute existed we know from Alexander’s refusal to continue the arrangement made by Leo (Theophanes Continuatus, p. 378, and Nicholas Mysticus, Ep. vii., p. 57). He suggests that the arrears should be paid up.
4. Leo Choerosphactus, Ep. xviii. (to the Emperor Leo), p. 396.
5. In the De Administrando (loc. cit.) the trade routes are calculated from Thessalonica.
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Emperor was reduced to the expedient of arming his Moslem captives, who defeated the Slavs, but were thereupon promptly disarmed again. [1] The story is obviously fanciful; at most the Emperor may have provided arms for the duration of the emergency to the settlements of Asiatics in Thrace. Symeon was held in restraint by events from a very different quarter. When the Emperor called in the Ma