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the son and successor of Decius, was to relieve himself as quickly as possible of the victors,; and having yielded to them all they required, the Goths returned well satisfied to their settlements in the Ukraine, A.D. 251.

As it is not our intention to record Gothic history any farther than it is connected with the train of events which brought about the "Origin of the Russians," we will only remark (in faintly tracing their movements during a long interval), that the sixty miles from the banks of the Borysthenes to the isthmus now called Perekop, was easily passed, and the Goths having driven out the Alani,* overran and long possessed Taurica Chersonesus.

Either by open force or secret treachery they seized Ponticapæum (now Kertsch), and once the capital of Mithridates, situated on the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and this advantage giving them the possession of ships, their adventurous ardour was excited by the prospect of the spoils of the opulent shores of Asia.

The daring voyagers passed the Circassian coast, and accomplishing a sweep of three hundred miles, the riches and captives of the luxurious Trebizond encumbered their flat-bottomed boats.

Impatient of the limits of the Euxine, they steered through the Thracian Bosphorus, until they floated in the waters of Propontis, and following their winding way through the Hellespont and the islands of the Egæum, anchored in the classic harbour of Piræus.

Neither enervated Athens nor degenerate Sparta could throw before their sacred precincts one remnant of the valour of Miltiades, or the devotion of Leonidas; nor could Corinth, Thebes, or Argos, defend their crumbling walls. The spirits of the heroes of Marathon and Thermopyla might sigh upon the blast, as the groves of Academus, still breathing the precepts of Socrates and Plato, were profaned by barbarian shouts, and no Spartan fortification to encircle the devoted cities could be formed from their pusillanimous sons.

A general conflagration blazed over Greece from Attica to Epirus; but the recklessness of barbarians was evi

denced by their total neglect of the security of their vessels, which were sunk or dispersed by the brave Dixippus, who, having witnessed the sack of Athens with a bleeding heart, secured the assistance of the engineer Cleodamus, and, in some measure, avenged the sufferings of his country.

The indolent Gallienus, who at this period occupied the throne, reluctantly leaving his palace and his pleasures, at last led the Roman army to oppose the ravagers, and the Goths became suddenly aware of the extent of their danger, while they perceived their fa tal disregard of the means of retreat.

The disorganised multitude embraced the hasty resolution of breaking into Mosia, and forcing their way over the Danube into their distant settlements in the Ukraine; while the jealousies, the divisions, and the consequent procrastination of the Imperial commanders, alone permitted the success of the desperate attempt.

During the long interval from the commencement of the Dioclesian era, A.D. 284, until the empire was finally divided into east and west, between Valentinian and Valens, in 364, five Roman Emperors had succeeded to, and sunk under the weight of, the diadem, until Constantine united under his single sceptre the far separated limits of the Roman world.

The venerable city of Augustus saw, with grief and indignation, the seat of government transferred from the hills of the Tiber to the shores of the Bosphorus, and the patricians wept as they beheld their newly-erected habitations reflected in the waters of the Golden Horn.

The Goths had long respected the sceptre of the great Constantine, whose power they had experienced, and by whose liberality they had benefited, and under him and his successors they had extended their dominions, while scrupulously regarding the Roman limits.

At this period, the aged Hermaneric, King of the Ostrogoths, and the noblest descendant of the heroic Amala, had compelled the nations deriving from a common stock to acknowledge him as their sovereign; the chiefs of the Visigoths relinquished the royal dignity, and governed under him with

* Reuilly, p. 35.

the modest appellation of "judges;" while the Gepidæ submitted to his authority, and the success of his arms reduced all the Sclavonian, and many of Burgundian and Vandal tribes, under his supreme control. His dominions extended from the Danube to the Baltic, comprising the ancient seats and subsequent acquisitions of his people; while the Romans viewed with complacency the progress of a power which they never imagined could be danger ous to their invincible name.

However necessary are the convulsions of the world to the accomplishment of the decrees of Heaven, the philosopher will pause with satisfaction on a period, when mankind seemed to suspend contention, and to rest, as if by tacit consent, from mutual destruction, for at the time to which we now allude, the clash of arms for a while subsided along the frontiers of the empire.

But this repose was at length rudely disturbed by a tempest sweeping from the north, until it fell with fury, in its southward course, upon the Gothic nation, precipitating it over the Imperial boundaries.

This was the first appearance of the Huns from the vast wilds on the north of the great wall of China, to which empire they had, under their fierce Tanjous, been often formidable; and previous to the Christian era, their conquests had extended to the Corea and the Japanese sea on the east, and to the head of the Irtish, the valleys of Imaus and ancient Bulgaria, on the

west.

China was oppressed by their depredations and exactions, until Vouti, the fifth in descent in the powerful dynasty of "Han," instead of the timid and defensive policy of his predecessors, boldly surprised the camp of the Huns, in the midst of sleep and intemperance, and though the Tanjou bravely cut his way through the enemy, the bodies of fifteen thousand of his best warriors attested the severity of his defeat.

Among the most prominent of his vassal hordes who immediately disclaimed his authority, were the Siempi, a tribe of oriental Tartars, and who were soon pre-eminent in revenging the cruelties they had formerly endured. Placing themselves under the

banners of Vouti, they harassed the vanquished Huns, who retained in their reverses the unconquerable spirit of their ancestors, and the free shepherds of the North resolved to seek a remote settlement in the western world, beyond the reach of these unceasing persecutions.

The formidable exiles were soon across the mountains of Imaus; but still pressed by the vindictive Siempi, during a progress of three thousand miles, it is probable their constant apprehension of the same power impelled them on the frontier of Europe.

After a tedious and protracted emigration, the increased multitude of the Huns, with their floeks and herds, their dependants and allies, collected by the way, passed the Volga A.D. 870, and boldly advanced into a strange country, where the tents of the Alani and painted Agathyrsi covered the plains between the Volga and the Tanais.

A collision was inevitable; but the impossibility of retreat rendered the Huns invincible, the King of the Alani was slain, and the greater part of his nation embracing the offer of union with the victors, the accumulated torrent rolled southwards on the devoted Goths.

Hermaneric vigorously prepared to meet the shock with the entire force of his extended dominions; but he also was soon fatally convinced how frail is the bond which unites conquered and unwilling nations to the iron hand of power. The oppressed Sclavonians discovered more anxiety to assist than to repel the invaders; and the Roxo lani especially, burning with rage at indignities inflicted on the wife of one of their chiefs, fled to the Huns, after the brothers of the unfortunate princess had pierced Hermaneric with their daggers.

We before particularly noted the "Roxolani," as originally encountered by the Goths, with whose fortunes they remained connected, and we now find this obscure tribe of the great stock of the Sclavi aiding the Huns, and we shall endeavour to explain the power ful causes which forced them from amid the stormy convulsions of the northern provinces of the empire, until we shall discover them, under their

* De Guignes' “History of the Huns,” i., p. 189.

Grecian appellation, "the 'Pas," seated, A.D. 860, near the northern shore of Lake Ilmen.

The majority of the Sclavonians joined in the revolt referred to, procuring for themselves thereby only a change of tyrants, the Goths yielded to their fate, and the royal line of the Amali might afterwards be found among the descendants of the haughty Attila.

The routed and flying subjects of Hermaneric gladly placed themselves under the judge of the Visigoths, who had escaped the slaughter, and who had wisely resolved on fortifying the mountains between the Danube and the Pruth; and would have secured southern Dacia (now Wallachia), but the terrified crowd could feel no safety north of the latter river, and their ambassadors fell prostrate in the dust, while imploring the gracious permission of Valens, then Emperor of the East, to pass into the empire, and cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, under the protection of the Roman government.

Valens heard, with astonishment and alarm, the account of a race of savages, differing from the rest of the human species by their flat noses, sunken eyes, and faces destitute of beard, and whose misshapen bodies the hatred of the Goths represented as the offspring of witches and evil demons. The Imperial prefects and generals also were not ashamed, in their panic, to disgrace their decorations by seconding the petition of the Goths, and to extol the fortune which prepared a suppliant and hitherto valiant nation, as a defence to the throne of Valens, against the savage hordes of the north. The prayer of the Goths was granted; orders were immediately directed to the military governors to permit their free ingress to the provinces, and from that fatal hour, renouncing the precarious condition of aliens, they asserted their rights, as possessors of land, citizens, and Imperial soldiers, nor ever receded until a descendant of Amala was seated on the throne of Italy.

The reign of the great Theodosius, to which we next pass on, is more celebrated for polemical contests than barbaric victories; for, while Arianism decayed and the Emperor was baptized -while Priscillian suffered and Am

brose triumphed the fiery and eager disputants seemed equally forgetful of the paternal hand that swayed the sceptre, under which they enjoyed the blessings of leisure and security for the fierce disquisitions and subtle intrica cies of theological contention.

But in every age of the world has mankind appeared insensible to present advantages, until the eternal progress of change may prove the stern contrast of altered circumstances, and compel, when too late, a just appreciation of the past. The Roman Empire was a striking illustration of this after the month of January, 395, for before the end of the winter its subjects were made fully aware how great had been their obligations to the deceased Theodosius.

The tranquillity which his power had enforced, and his ability preserved, was speedily disturbed by the trumpet of the famous Alaric, of the noble line of “the Baltha” or “the Bold,” which yielded only to the royal dignity of the Amali; and the Goths, deserting the wearisome pursuits of industry at the sound, joyfully flocked to the standard of that artful and intrepid leader.

Greece was again devastated from the Ionian to the Egean shore, and the fair plains of Italy were indented with the deep and bloody traces of their march. Twice was the eternal

city" invested by their arms. Eleven hundred and sixty years after its foundation was it given over to their fury, and the suppliant senate received a vassal king, at the dictation of the haughty barbarian, before the stern grief of the Gothic warriors turned aside the waters of the Busentinus, and a grave being opened in its bed by a doomed band of captives, the body of Alaric was there deposited amid untold treasures. The river was then let back into its course, and the unhappy excavators of the sepulchre preserved the secret of the exact locality in the silence of death.

During this period the Huns, wearied with their long wanderings, were satisfied with the Ukraine, and the broad country to the confines of Dacia (from which they had expelled the Goths), until the whole north of Europe becoming, at last, inadequate to their growing power and prosperity,

* D'Anville. “Empire de Russie,” pp. 1–10.

they were thoroughly aroused by the tiger-spirit of Attila, when Sclavonians, Goths, and Romans were overwhelmed in one common oppression beneath the destructive course of that ferocious devastator.

How strange the reflection, that, after the revolution of sixteen centuries, the descendants of a tribe of these very Sclavonians should be as discontented with this self-same space, and little less eager for aggression, plunder, and blood.

Attila, the son of Mundzuck, collected a tribute of furs from the nations inhabiting almost to the Northern Ocean, while it would be impossible to define the limits of his dominions towards the East. During his lifetime, neither the leader of the Ostrogoths, nor the chief of the Gepidæ, imagined a revolt against the great conqueror, whose imperious message could remind the Roman monarch that "he was his neighbour both in Europe and Asia, as he touched the Danube with one hand, while he stretched the other over the Volga;" and the Emperor was made to understand the result of this terrible proximity, when seven hundred thousand barbarians, laden with spoil, retreated from the prostrate and depopulated empire.

The same immutable laws, however, which forbid the perpetual enjoyment of good, also mercifully put a period to the continuance of evil, and the world slowly resuscitated on the disappearance of "the scourge of God.” Among the nations who asserted their independence after the death of Attila, the Ostrogoths first usurped Pannonia and Noricum; the Visigoths moved farther to the west: while on the opposite side of the Danube, the plains now called Upper Hungary, and the Transylvanian hills, were possessed by the Gepida.

The fifty years immediately succeeding the downfall of the Western Empire, and the occupation of Italy by the Goths, have been better rescued from oblivion by the monarchs of that people, than by the names of three insignificant emperors of the East, until A.D. 527, when commenced the long reign of Justinian, so memorable for the success, the renown, and the misfortunes of Belisarius. The victories of the Imperial general soon compelled the Ostrogoths to withdraw from Pannonia and Noricum for the defence of

Italy, and the Visigoths having already penetrated into the western peninsula, the passes of the Danube were left open to the first invader.

The Gepida speedily transported themselves from the opposite bank of the river, and occupying the deserted settlements of their ancient kinsmen, erected their standards on the walls of Sirmium and Belgrade. The apology of "the loiterers " was ironical and insulting for their self-authorised location; they pleaded that "the dominions of Cæsar were so extensive, he willingly relinquished those useless possessions, and his faithful allies had anticipated his gifts, and shown a just confidence in his bounty." The indignation of the Emperor was natural and deserved; but the mode of his revenge was the artifice of a weak and vindictive mind, more injurious in its effects, as is ever the case, to the punisher than the punished.

Justinian's course was this: He adopted the fatal expedient of opposing an equally dangerous influence to that of the insolent invaders, and he invited the Longobards, a people of the Vandals, into the empire, to check the rising power of the Gepida. The Longobards strictly performed their contract, and the enraged Gepidæ gratified their revenge by inciting the Sclavonian tribes to carry their depredations to the very walls of the Imperial city.

But a more savage element was at this juncture infused into those fierce contentions by the sudden appearance of the Avars, whose formidable alliance with the Longobards was to prove the final destruction of the Gepida.

And with the arrival of a strange and uncouth race, whose name was hitherto unknown in the Roman world, we may contemplate one of those wonderful coincidences, which are ever destined by an unsearchable power to work together for the accomplishment of future events. The very first movements of a newborn nation, that was yet to overwhelm the Empire of the East, and to possess the city of Constantine, forcibly impelled the Avars from the deserts beyond the Volga, to be the immediate cause of the northern flight of the Sclavonians, and the first development of Russian power.

The sides of the Altai mountains, often termed the girdle of the earth, and which mark the centre of Asia,

have ever abounded in minerals, and there the Turks (or rather a captive portion of the Turcomans, from between the Caspian and the Aral Seas), the most oppressed slaves of the great Khan of Geougen, formed weapons of war in glowing and subterranean forges. From the same mines,* in striking connexion with the first coincidence, has the industry of their implacable enemies, the Russians, been long employed in extracting iron for their destruction.

It is beyond our province to speculate on the future, but the mindˇirresistibly ponders on the mysterious combination of circumstances by which the obscure origin of the Ottomans was instrumental in producing the insignificant beginning of their northern foe, whose power was to expand, until the Russian should possess the cradle of the Turk, and who, gradually following in his early steps, should at last stalk before him, with menacing aspect, as the predictor of his dissolution, and the hungry expectant of his dominions.

During their long servitude under the Geougen, the numbers of the Turks had become formidable, from the contempt or indifference of their tyrants, and it needed but the voice of decision and daring to remind them that muscular arms, habituated to the ponderous hammer, might fatally wield the blades they were tempering for the service of the great Khan.

Bertezena spoke the bold words in their ears, the scimitars flashed in their swarthy hands, the Turks sallied from the mountain of Ir-ganakon, and a bloody battle almost exterminated the nation of the Geougen. A sceptre was the reward of the intrepid leader, and while the emancipated Turks swept over and subdued the north, the royal encampment was seldom out of sight of the forges of their fathers.

Seated on his rude throne, in a valley of the Golden Mountain, the proud successor of Bertezena, with a power that might seem fabulous to the effeminate ruler of Stamboul, could, at the same moment, dictate an alliance to the Monarch of China, and give orders to the myriads of his cavalry to sweep the banks of the Volga.

For ages the Turks dreaded and

* "History of Siberia," p. 842.

avoided the prediction, that "when they shut themselves up within the walls of cities, their destruction would be inevitable;" and the annual, though now forgotten, ceremony of the prince and the nobles hammering the red iron on the anvil, attested their pride in their humble origin.

In the career of their first conquests they fell upon the Avars, who dwelt along the dark waters of the Tula, and the body of the Chagan of that nation and three hundred thousand of his subjects, covered the space of a journey of four days.t

The survivors of the Avars followed the course of the Volga in their flight, and after a wearisome march, constantly pursued and distressed by the Turkish cavalry, they reached the foot of Mount Caucasus, where they first heard the name of the Roman empire. At the humble request of the outcasts, the Governor of Lazica permitted their ambassadors to cross the Euxine to Constantinople; and the curiosity of the luxurious citizens was excited, and their imaginations terrified, at the sight of new barbarians, whose hair, bound with many-coloured strings, hung in long tresses to their heels, and whose wild and flashing eyes gazed with equal wonder at the habitations of civilised man.

The aged Emperor was anxious to behold such unknown beings; and on admission to his presence, Candish, their chief, extolled the invincible valour of the Avars, who, "having heard of the splendour of his liberality, had come to offer him their services, and to vanquish and destroy all the enemies that disturbed his repose." The feeble-minded Justinian at once conceived he had found a ready and fortunate means of distracting and curbing, in their turn, the licentiousness of his late allies the Longobards; he assured the Avars of his friendship and of speedy employment, while the servile senate submitted to this mistaken policy. Thus these fugitives, who had fled from the Turkish arms, were permitted to pass the Tanais and the Borysthenes, A.D. 560, and advancing boldly into Dacia, abused the authority of the Emperor in their fearful ravages, and remorseless use of victory. The Longobards were not slow in

† De Guignes, tom. i., p. 58.

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