Never before had a convert come with such conditions. The princess Anna had no desire for marriage with this haughty barbarian, but reasons of state were stronger than questions of taste, and the emperors (there were two of them at that time) yielded. Vladimir, having been baptized under the name of Basil, married the princess Anna, and the city he had taken as a token of his pious zeal was restored to his new kinsmen. All that he took back to Russia with him were a Christian wife, some bishops and priests, sacred vessels and books, images of saints, and a number of consecrated relics. Vladimir displayed a zeal in his new faith in accordance with the trouble he had taken to win it. The old idols he had worshipped were now the most despised inmates of his realm. Perune, as the greatest of them all, was treated with the greatest indignity. The wooden image of the god was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged to the Borysthenes, twelve stout soldiers belaboring it with cudgels as it went. The banks reached, it was flung with disdain into the river. At Novgorod the god was treated with like indignity, but did not bear it with equal patience. The story goes that, being flung from a bridge into the Volkhof, the image of Perune rose to the surface of the water, threw a staff upon the bridge, and cried out in a terrifying voice, "Citizens, that is what I leave you in remembrance of me." In consequence of this legend it was long the custom in that city, on the day which was kept as the anniversary of the god, for the young people to run about with sticks in their hands, striking one another unawares. As for the Russians in general, they discarded their old worship as easily as the prince had thrown overboard their idols. One day a proclamation was issued at Kief, commanding all the people to repair to the river-bank the next day, there to be baptized. They assented without a murmur, saying, "If it were not good to be baptized, the prince and the boyars would never submit to it." These were not the only signs of Vladimir's zeal. He built churches, he gave alms freely, he set out public repasts in imitation of the love-feasts of the early Christians. His piety went so far that he even forbore to shed the blood of criminals or of the enemies of his country. But horror of bloodshed did not lie long on Vladimir's conscience. In his later life he had wars in plenty, and the blood of his enemies was shed as freely as water. These wars were largely against the Petchenegans, the most powerful of his foes. And in connection with them there is a story extant which has its parallel in the history of many another country.