History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
_Bulgarians_, II. _Hungarians_, and, III. _Russians_, I
shall content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be
remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy of the,
V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable Crusades to the Holy
Land, and the double fall of the city and empire of Constantine.
I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric the Ostrogoth had trampled on the
arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the name and the nation are
lost during a century and a half; and it may be suspected that the
same or a similar appellation was revived by strange colonies from the
Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga. A king of the ancient Bulgaria
bequeathed to his five sons a last lesson of moderation and concord.
It was received as youth has ever received the counsels of age and
experience: the five princes buried their father; divided his subjects
and cattle; forgot his advice; separated from each other; and wandered
in quest of fortune till we find the most adventurous in the heart of
Italy, under the protection of the exarch of Ravenna. But the stream
of emigration was directed or impelled towards the capital. The modern
Bulgaria, along the southern banks of the Danube, was stamped with
the name and image which it has retained to the present hour: the new
conquerors successively acquired, by war or treaty, the Roman provinces
of Dardania, Thessaly, and the two Epirus; the ecclesiastical supremacy
was translated from the native city of Justinian; and, in their
prosperous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honored
with the throne of a king and a patriarch. The unquestionable evidence
of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the original
stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian, race; and the
kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians,
&c., followed either the standard or the example of the leading tribe.
From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of captives, or subjects,
or allies, or enemies, of the Greek empire, they overspread the land;
and the national appellation of the slaves has been degraded by chance
or malice from the signification of glory to that of servitude. Among
these colonies, the Chrobatians, or Croats, who now attend the motions
of an Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty people, the
conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime cities, and of these
the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the aid and instructions of the
Byzantine court: they were advised by the magnanimous Basil to reserve
a small acknowledgment of their fidelity to the Roman empire, and
to appease, by an annual tribute, the wrath of these irresistible
Barbarians. The kingdom of Croatia was shared by eleven _Zoupans_, or
feudatory lords; and their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand
horse and one hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with
capacious harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight
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