Monomach’s strength with the people swept all men and obstacles before it. Yaroslav, with a foreign army, failed in Volynia, because the people and the boyars would not uphold him, but stood firm for Monomach. Monomach saw the danger of Russia’s falling into a chaos of insignificant and independent principalities, therefore he strove to increase the authority of the Grand Prince, and to restrict the succession to his own descendants, with the provision that if the younger brothers died before the eldest, who was Prince of Kief, their sons were to be excluded forever from the succession. New persons now and dramatic scenes pass before us swiftly. Vladimir Monomach, always spoken of in Russia as Monomach, died in 1125, and with him departed the prosperity of ancient Russia. He had come to the throne with thirty years of experience in statescraft. He had been the right hand of his father, and without him Sviatopolk could not have ruled at all. He was a man who worked always for what he thought to be the good of his country. Like his grandfather, he was a founder of cities and a lawgiver. There is an interesting paper still extant which he compiled for the guidance of his sons, some clauses of which I will quote: “It is neither fasting nor solitude nor monastic life that will procure you life eternal—it is well doing. Forget not the poor, but nourish them. Bury not your riches in the earth, for that is contrary to the teachings of Christianity. [9] Be a father to orphans; judge the cause of widows yourself. Put to death no human being, be he innocent or guilty, for there is nothing more sacred than the soul of a Christian. Love your wives, but beware lest they obtain power over you. When you have learned something useful, strive to retain it in your memory, and work unceasingly for knowledge.” Monomach had eight sons, named here in the order of their ages: Mystislav the Great, who succeeded his father; Izyaslav, killed before Murom in battling against Oleg of Chernigoff; Sviatoslav, given once as a hostage to Kitan and then stolen away in the night at Pereyaslavl on the Alta; Roman, famous in nothing, married the sister of the renowned Vladimirko of Galitch; Yaropolk, who reigned in Kief after Mystislav, and died without issue; Vyacheslav, “of scant mind and simple,” who raised Monomach’s ensign over the Polovtsi contingent at Koloksha, and thus routed Oleg; Yuri, named later on Dolgoruki, or Long-Handed (Grasping); and Andrei, who died rather early.