BULGARIA. 



8.5 



when the Bulgarians had added to their dominions, 

 * v * by war or treaty, the provinces of Dardania, Thes- 

 , and the two Epirus's ; and the obscure town of 

 I ,yc hnidus had been converted into the capital of the 

 Bulgarian king. Their manners had been softened 

 by thi-ir intercourse with the Greeks, and the intro- 

 duction of the Christian religion ; and Simeon, the 

 heir of the throne, was educated in the schools and 

 in tlu> religion of Constantinople. Under his go- 

 vernmcnt, Bulgaria began to assume a name among 

 civili/td nations ; and his genius and valour rendered 

 her the terror of the neighbouring kingdoms. The 

 Romans had been dispirited by repeated defeats ; 

 Adrianople was in his power ; and preparations were 

 making for the siege of the capital. But the pro- 

 gress of Simeon was arrested, by a demand for a per- 

 sonal conference with the Emperor Romanus. The 

 Bulgarian dictated the conditions of peace ; and the 

 reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance. This 

 friendship, however, \vas soon disturbed by the death 

 of Simeon, with whom also died the glory and in- 

 dependence of Bulgaria. His feeble successors were 

 consumed by dissension, and presented their country, 

 an easy prey to the first invaders. 



The Russians, who had also been incited to foreign 

 conquest by the fertile regions of the south, landed 

 an army of 60,000 men on the shores of the Danube, 

 and entering Bulgaria, ravaged the country with fire 

 and sword. In a desperate encounter, the Bulgarian 

 horse yielded to the swords of the Russians with the 

 loss of their king and the captivity of his children. 

 Swatoslaus, the Russian chief, now advanced to the 

 south. He invested the city of Adrianople in spite 

 of the remonstrances of the Roman emperor, and even 

 threatened the capital itself. But his numbers were 

 unable to withstand the attack of 12,000 Romans, 

 under the command of the valiant Zimisces. Mar- 

 cianopolis was taken by storm, and 8500 Russians 

 put to the sword. The sons of the Bulgarian king 

 were rescued from prison, and invested with the dia- 

 dem of their father; and Swatoslaus was compelled 

 to take refuge in the strong fortress of Dristra, on the 

 banks of the Danube, and at last allowed to escape 

 only by the generosity of his conqueror. The Bul- 

 garians immediately submitted to their deliverer. 

 But their submission ended with his life in 975, when 

 they shook off the Roman yoke, and renewed their 

 former devastations in the empire. After a long and 

 doubtful struggle, the Emperor Basil at last prevail- 

 ed, and was honoured with the surname of the Slayer 

 of the Bulgarians. His avarice was gratified by ten 

 thousand pounds weight of gold, which he found in 

 the palace of Lychnidus ; and his vengeance was sa- 

 tiated, by depriving 15,000 captives of their sight, 

 except one of each hundred, to whom he left a sin- 

 gle eye, that they might conduct their blind centu- 

 . ry to the presence of their sovereign. This terrible 

 example awed the nation to obedience ; aad their 

 king it said to have died of horror and grief, at the 

 sight of his wretched Hiibjects. Dispirited, and cir- 

 cumscribed within a narrow province, they conti- 

 nued for nearly two centuries the patient subjects of 

 the Roman emperor ; and, on account of their power- 

 ful assistance against the Turks and Latins, they 

 were allowed to chowse a king of their own nation, 



who acknowledged himself a vassal of the empire. Bt.:, 

 The Eastern empire, however, was fast hastening to 

 decay. Its schism with the Latin church, and the 

 profligacy and rapacity of its princes, presented a fa- 

 vourable opportunity for throwing off their subjec- 

 tion. The Bulgarians had been exasperated by the 

 plunder of their flocks and herds, which had been 

 carried off to supply the luxuries of the royal table, 

 and by the denial of equal rank and pay in the mili- 

 tary service. Their former injuries had long been re- 

 membered in silence, and were aggravated by the 

 present insults ; but the arms and policy of their 

 sovereign Calo.John delivered them from oppression, 

 and firmly established the independence of the king- 

 dom. He renounced all submission to the religion, 

 as well as to the laws of Constantinople, and, dispatch- 

 ing an embassy to Pope Innocent III., acknowledged 

 himself a disciple of the Latin church ; and received 

 from the Vatican a royal title, a Latin archbishop, 

 a holy banner, and the licence of coining money. 

 His enmity to the Greeks, however, was soon turn- 

 ed into compassion and alliance. Upon the subver- 

 sion of that monarchy by the Latins in 1204', and 

 the accession of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, to the 

 empire of the East, Calo-John, as a votary of the 

 Pope, claimed the honour of being a friend and asso- 

 ciate ; but his ambassadors were dismissed with a 

 haughty message, that their rebel sovereign must de- 

 serve a pardon, by bowing before the footstool of the 

 imperial throne. The Bulgarian suppressed for a 

 while his resentment, but cherished the insult. He 

 inflamed the discontent of the Greeks, and promised 

 them his friendship and support. He joined to his 

 own forces a body of 14,000 Tartars, which he had 

 drawn from the Scythian wilderness ; and when the 

 flower of the emperor's army was transported beyond 

 the Hellespont, the signal was given for the general 

 massacre of the Latins. Adrianeple was taken. Bald- 

 win, who had come to besiege the rebels, was defeat- 

 ed, and taken prisoner ; and the remainder of his 

 troops were saved from destruction, by a masterly 

 retreat, of three days, to the shores of the Propontis.. 

 The success of the Bulgarians continued till the juris- 

 diction of the Latins was confined to the capital and 

 a few adjacent fortresses ; but his career of victory 

 was stopped at the siege of Thessalonica, where he 

 fell a victim to domestic treason, being stabbed du- 

 ring the night in his tent. His successor was unable 

 to prosecute his schemes of ambition and revenge ; 

 and, after several defeats, the Bulgarian king was 

 compelled to conclude an honourable peace with the 

 successor of Baldwin. The independence of Bulga- 

 ria, however, was not of long continuance. In 1275, 

 Stephen IV., king of Hungary, having vanquished 

 and cut to pieces the army of the Bulgarians, com- 

 pelled them to acknowledge him as their sovereign^ 

 But revolting from the Hungarians, and joining with 

 the emperor of Constantinople against the Turks, 

 they were totally defeated by Amurath L, whose 

 successor, Bajazet, completed the conquest of the 

 whole country in 1396, and reduced it to a province 

 of the Turkish empire, in which state it has ever 

 since remained. See TURKEY. 



Bulgaria is divided by the Turks into four San- 

 giakships, viz. Widin, Sardice, Nicopoli, and 



