and the hero; the native and the stranger. [The battle was fought near Anchialos in Bulgaria (Leo Diac. p. 124). There was a river named Achelous in the neighbourhood (Theoph. Contin. p. 389; cp. Pseudo-Sym. Mag. p. 724), and the name misled Gibbon. Cp. Finlay, ii. p. 288 note.]
Ref. 070
[The peace was concluded after Simeon’s death in ad 927. Th. Uspenski has published (in the Lietopis ist. phil. obschestva, of the Odessa University. Viz. Otd. ii., 1894, p. 48 sqq.) a curious jubilant sermon preached at Constantinople on the occasion of the conclusion of the peace. It presents great difficulties, owing to the allusiveness of its style, which has been ingeniously discussed by Uspenski, who is tempted to identify the anonymous author with Nicolaus Mysticus, the Patriarch, a correspondent of the Tsar Simeon. But chronology seems to exclude this supposition; for Nicolaus died in 925; and, though the preliminaries to the peace may have occupied a considerable time, the sermon must have been composed after the death of Simeon in 927 (as M. Uspenski seems to forget in his concluding remarks, p. 123).]
Ref. 071
The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek excesses, cum Christophori filiam Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus conjugem duceret, Symphona, id est consonantia, scripto [al. consonantia scripta]. juramento firmata sunt, ut omnium gentium Apostolis, id est nunciis, penes nos Bulgarorum Apostoli præponantur, honorentur, diligantur (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482 [c. 19]). See the Ceremoniale of Constantine of Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82 [c. 24, p. 139, ed. Bonn], tom. ii. p. 429, 430, 434, 435, 443, 444, 446, 447 [c. 52, p. 740, 742, 743, 749, 751, 767, 771, 772, 773], with the annotations of Reiske. [Bulgarian rulers before Simeon were content with the title Knez. Simeon first assumed the title tsar (from tsesar, ts’sar; = Cæsar). It may have been remembered that Terbel had been made a Cæsar by Justinian II. (Nicephorus, p. 42, ed. de Boor). The Archbishopric of Bulgaria was raised to the dignity of a Patriarchate. Simeon’s residence was Great Peristhlava; see below, p. 66, note 90.]
Ref. 072
[In ad 963 Shishman of Trnovo revolted, and founded an independent kingdom in Macedonia and Albania. Thus there were now two Bulgarian kingdoms and two tsars.]
Ref. 073
[The kingdom of Eastern Bulgaria had been conquered first by the Russians and then by the Emperor Tzimisces (see below, p. 67), but Western Bulgaria survived, and before 980, Samuel, son of Shishman, came to the throne. His capital was at first Prespa, but he afterwards moved to Ochrida. His aim was to recover Eastern Bulgaria and conquer Greece; and for thirty-five years he maintained a heroic struggle against the Empire. Both he and his great adversary Basil were men of iron, brave, cruel, and unscrupulous; and Basil was determined not merely to save Eastern, but to conquer Western, Bulgaria. In the first war (976-986) the Bulgarians were successful. Samuel pushed southward and, after repeated attempts which were repulsed, captured Larissa in Thessaly and pushed on to the Isthmus. This was in ad 986. To cause a diversion and relieve Greece, Basil marched on Sophia, but was caught in a trap, and having endured immense losses escaped with difficulty. After this defeat Eastern Bulgaria was lost to the Empire. (The true date of the capture of Larissa and the defeat of Basil, ad 986, has been established, against the old date 981, by the evidence of the Strategikon of Kekaumenos, — for which see above, vol. viii. p. 407. Cp. Schlumberger, L’épopée Byzantine, p. 636. On this first Bulgarian war, see also the Vita Niconis, ap. Martène et Durand, ampl. Coll. 6, 837 sqq.; and a contemporary poem of John Geometres, Migne, P.G. vol. 106, p. 934, and cp. p. 920, a piece on the Cometopulos, i.e. Samuel, with a pun on κομήτης, “comet.”) There was a cessation of hostilities for ten years. The second war broke out in ad 996. Samuel invaded Greece, but returning he was met by a Greek army in the plain of the Spercheios, north of Thermopylæ, and his whole host was destroyed in a night surprise. In ad 1000 Basil recovered Eastern Bulgaria, and in the following year South-western Macedonia (Vodena, Berrœa). Again hostilities languished for over ten years;Basil was occupied in the East. In ad 1014, the third war began; on July 29 Nicephorus Xiphias gained a brilliant victory over the Bulgarian army at Bielasica (somewhere in the neighbourhood of the river Strumica); Samuel escaped to Prilêp, but died six weeks later. The struggle was sustained weakly under Gabriel Roman (Samuel’s son) and John Vladislav, his murderer and successor, last Tsar of Ochrida, who fell, besieging Durazzo, in 1018. The Bulgarians submitted, and the whole Balkan Peninsula was once more imperial. If Samuel had been matched with a less able antagonist than Basil, he would have succeeded in effecting what was doubtless his great aim, the union of all the Slavs south of the Danube into a great empire. For a fuller account of these wars see Finaly, vol. ii.; and for the first war, Schlumberger, op. cit., chap. x. Jireček, Gesch. der Bulgaren, p. 192-8, is remarkably brief. There is a fuller study of the struggle by Rački in the Croatian tongue (1875).]
Ref. 074
A bishop of Wurtzburg [leg. Verdun] submitted this opinion to a reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided that Gog and Magog were the spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies the roof, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from the roof, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once commanded the respect of mankind (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 594, &c.).
Ref. 075
The two national authors, from whom I have derived the most assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes ad Annales veterum Hungarorum, &c., Vindobonæ, 1775, in folio) and Stephen Katona (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariæ stirpis Arpadianæ, Pæstini, 1778-1781, 5 vols. in octavo). The first embraces a large and often conjectural space; the latter, by his learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a critical historian.
Ref. 076
The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary of King Béla. Katona has assigned him to the twelfth century, and defends his character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records, since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis rusticorum, et garrulo cantu joculatorum. In the xvth century, these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist. Critica Ducum, p. 7-33. [Cp. Appendix 7.]
Ref. 077
See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4, 13, 38-42. Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work to the years 949, 950, 951 (p. 4-7). [Cp. vol. ix App. 9.] The critical historian (p. 34-107) endeavours to prove the existence, and to relate the actions, of a first duke Almus, the father of Arpad, who is tacitly rejected by Constantine. [Constantine, c. 38, says that Arpad was elected chief, and not his father Salmutzes (Almos).]
Ref. 078
Pray (Dissert. p. 37-39, &c.) produces and illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries, Bonfinius and Æneas Silvius.
Ref. 079
[Cp. Appendix 7.]
Ref. 080
[Voivods, “war-leaders,” a Slavonic word. Cp. Appendix 7.]
Ref. 081
Fischer, in the Quæstiones Petropolitanæ de Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the learned Bayer (Comment. Academ. Betropol. tom. x. p.
