great boilads," and then for the other boilads, "the inner and
the outer."
There were thus three grades in this order.
We do not know whether the high military offices of tarkan
and kaukhan2 were contined to the boilads. The khan himself
had a following or retinue of his own men, which seems to
have resembled the German comitatus. The kingdom was
divided into ten administrative divisions, governed by officers
whose title we know only under the equivalent of count.

The Bulgarians used the Greek language for their official
documents, and like the ancient Greeks recorded their public
acts by inscriptions on stones. Mutilated texts of treaties and
records of important events have been discovered. They are
composed in colloquial and halting Greek, not in the diplomatic
style of the chancery of Byzantium, and we may guess that they
were written by Bulgarians or Slavs who had acquired a
smattering of the Greek tongue. Among these monuments
are several stones inscribed by the khans in memory of valued
officers who died in their service.
One of them, for instance,
met his death in the waters of the Dnieper, another was
drowned in the Theiss. This use of the Greek language for

1 In Constantine, Cor. 681, we tind the six great boilads (tenth cent.), but in De adm. imp. 154, we learn of the capture of "the twelve great boilads" by the Servians (ninth cont.). It seems plain that inner and outer simply mean a higher and lower grade. For we find exactly the same terms, great, inner, and outer applied to the three Bulgarias. There were the Great Bulgarians on the Danube, the Inner Bulgarians on the Sea of Azov, and the Outer Bulgarians on the Volga See below, p. 410 8.

* Την ταρκάνος (inscriptions) was un. doubtedly a a military commander. We meet this Turkish title in Menander's account of an embassy of the Turkish Khan Dizabul to Justin II. (fr. 20). The ambassador's name was Tagma, ἀξίωμα δὲ αὐτῷ Ταρχάν. See also Cont. Τα. 413, καλουτερκάνος (109. Καλού τερκάνος), and Const. Cor. 681, ό βουλίας ταρκάνos. See Uspenski, op. cit. 199-200; Marquart, Chron. 43-44. For the καυχάνος see inscriptions, Aboba, 220, 233, and Simeon (Cont. Georg. ed. Muralt, 819, ed. Bonn 893), ἅμα καυκάνῳ. Other dignities were βαγατουρ οι βογοτορ (inscriptions; also

Const. Porph. De adm. imp. 1581
άλο-βογοτούρ, as Marquart corrects
for ἀλογοβοτούρ), the Turkish bagadur,
from which the Russian bogatyr
(hero) is derived; and copyor (creo,
in Mansi, xvi, 158; see Uspenski, ib.
204). κολοβρος (κουλουβρος) seems to
have been a title of rank, not a post
or office; Tomaschek equates it with
Turkish qolaghuz, a guide, and Mar-
quart (Chron on.41) compares βουκολαβρᾶς
atta, i. 8. 2, who

the

explains it as μάγος sor ἱερεύς.
θρεπτοὶ ἄνθρωποι, frequent in
inscriptions. See Uspenski's long dis-
cussion, ib. 204 sqq.

Ann. Bert., sub a. 866 (p. 85), “intra
decem comitatus." Silistria was the
chief place of one of the counties:
inscription, Simeon, Ir. Apl. i iii. 186,
κόμης Δμίστρου. Cp. also Theophy-
lactus, Hist. mart., P. G., 126, 201, 213.
See Aboba, 212.

* Some mysterious epigraphic fragments have also been discovered, written, partly at least, in Greek letters, but not in the Grock tongue. They are very slight and little can be made of them. See Aboba, c. viii.

* Aboba, 190-194.

t

1

their records is the most striking sign of the influence which was exercised on the Bulgarians by the civilization of Constantinople. We can trace this influence also in their buildings, and we know that they enlisted in their service Greek engineers, and learned the use of those military engines which the Greeks and Romans had invented for besieging towns. Notwithstanding the constant warfare in which they were engaged against the Empire, they looked to Constantinople much as the ancient Germans looked to Rome. Tervel had been created a Caesar by the gratitude of Justinian II., and two of his successors found an honourable refuge in the Imperial city when they were driven by rivals from their own kingdom. Tserig fled to the court of Leo IV. (A.D. 777), accepted baptism and the title of Patrician, and was honoured by the hand of an Imperial princess. It might be expected that the Bulgarians would have found it convenient to adopt the Roman system of marking chronology by indictions. or even to use the Roman era of the Creation of the world, and we actually find them employing both these methods of indicating time in their official records. But they had also a chronological system of their own. They reckoned time by cycles of sixty lunar years, starting from the year A.D. 659, memorable in their history as that in which they had crossed the Danube and made their first permanent settlement in Moesia. For historical purposes, this system involved the same disadvantage as that of Indictions, though to a much smaller degree; for instance, when an event was dated by the year shegor alem or 48, it was necessary also to know to what cycle the year referred. But for practical purposes there was no inconvenience, and even in historical records little ambiguity would have been caused until the Bulgarian annals had been extended by the passage of time into a larger series. It is possible that the Bulgarian lunar years corresponded to the years of the Hijra, and if so, this would be a remarkable indication of Mohammadan influence, which there are other reasons for suspecting. We know that in the ninth century there must have been some Bulgarians who were acquainted with Arabic literature.

3

But the Bulgarians had other neighbours and foes besides the Romans, and political interests in other directions than in that of Constantinople. It is recorded that the same prince who crossed the Danube and inaugurated a new period in Bulgarian history, also drove the Avars westward, and the record expresses the important fact that in the seventh century the Bulgarians succeeded to the overlordship which the Avar khans had exercised over Dacia in the reigns of Maurice and Heraclius. This influence extended to the Theiss or beyond. Eastward, their lordship was bounded by the Empire of the Khazars, but it is impossible to define the precise limit of its extent. There can be no doubt that in the seventh and eighth centuries Bulgaria included the countries known in later times as Walachia and Bessarabia, and the authority of the khans may have been recognised even beyond the Dniester. At all events it appears to be certain that in this period Bulgarian tribes were in occupation of the coastlands from that river wellnigh to the Don, and this Bulgarian continuity was not cleft in twain till the ninth century. The more easterly portion of the people were known as the Inner Bulgarians, and they were probably considered to belong to the Empire of the Khazars. But we cannot decide whether it was at the Dniester or rather at the Dnieper that the authority of the Khazars ended and the claims of the Great Bulgarians of Moesia began.

South of the Danube, the kingdom extended to the Timok, which marked the Servian frontier. The Bulgarians lived on terms of unbroken friendship with the Servians, and this may perhaps be explained by the fact that between their territories the Empire still possessed an important stronghold in the city of Sardica.

For the greater security of their country the Bulgarians reinforced and supplemented the natural defences of mountain

1

and river by elaborate systems of fortification and entrenchment. Their kingdom, almost girt about by an artificial circumvallation, might be compared to an entrenched camp, and the stages in its territorial expansion are marked by successive ramparts. Beyond the Danube, a ditch and earthen wall connected the Pruth with the Dniester in northern Bessarabia, and a similar fence protected the angle between the mouths of the Sereth, the Danube, and the Pruth." The early settlement of Isperikh at Little Preslav, near the mouth of the Danube, was fortified by a rampart across the Dobrudzha, following the line of older Roman walls of earth and stone, but turned to confront a foe advancing from the south, while the Roman defences had been designed against barbarians descending from the north. When the royal residence was moved to Pliska, a line of fortifications was constructed along the heights of Haemus; and a trench and rampart from the mountains to the Danube marked the western frontier. When their successes at the expense of the Empire enabled the conquerors to bestride the mountains, a new fence, traversing Thrace, marked the third position in their southward advance. The westward expansion is similarly separated by two more entrenchments connecting the Haemus with the Danube, while the right bank of that river was defended by a series of fortresses and entrenchments from Little Preslav to the neighbourhood of Nicopolis.

The main road from Constantinople to the capital of the Bulgarian kings crossed the frontier, east of the Tundzha, near the conspicuous heights of Meleona, which, still covered with

The following brief description is based on Shkorpils, in Halut, c. XX. 503 sqq.; cp. also Priloch. ii. 566-569. Masuoli describes the "dominion" of the Bulgarians as surrounded by a thorn fence, with openings like wooden windows, and resembling a wall and canal (Harkavi, Skazaniia, 126). Uspenski (Abobet, 15) takes "dominion" to mean the royal aula, and relates the description to Aboba. This is a strained interpretation; but possibly Masudi's source mentioned both the circumvallation of the king. dom and the fortifications of Pliska, and Mastuoli confused them.

There was also an entrenchment

the remains of Bulgarian fortifications, marked an important station on the frontier, since they commanded the road. To the north-west of Meleona, the Bulgarians held Diampolis, which preserves its old name as Jambol, situated on the Tundzha. The direct road to Pliska did not go by Diampolis, but ran northward in a direct course to the fortress of Marcellae, which is the modern Karnobad. This stronghold possessed a high strategic importance in the early period of Bulgarian history, guarding the southern end of the pass of Veregava," which led to the gates of the Bulgarian king. Not far to the west of Veregava is the pass of Verbits, through which the road lay from Pliska to Diampolis. The whole route from Marcellae to Pliska was flanked by a succession of fortresses of earth and stone.

1

§ 2. Krum and Nicephorus I.

In the wars during the reign of Irene and Constantine/ VI., the Bulgarians had the upper hand; king Kardam repeatedly routed Roman armies, and in the end the Empress submitted to the humiliation of paying an annual tribute to the lord of Pliska. A period of peace ensued, lasting for about ten years (A.D. 797-807). We may surmise that the

Kormisos, Jireček in the ninth century (ep. Aboba, 568). See below p. 361.