1

3

" 5

North of the Don and extending to the banks of the Dnieper were the tents and hunting-grounds of the MAGYARS or Hungarians." The continuous history of this Finnish people, who lived by hunting and fishing, begins in the ninth century, and if we think we can recognise it under other names in the days of Attila and the early migrations, our conclusions are more or less speculative. It is, however, highly probable that the Magyars had lived or wandered for centuries in the regions of the Volga, had bowed to the sway of the great Hun, and had been affected by the manners of their Turkish neighbours. They spoke a tongue closely akin to those of the Finns, the Ostyaks, the Voguls, and the Samoyeds, but it is likely that even before the ninth century it had been modified, in its vocabulary, by Turkish influence. A branch of the people penetrated in the eighth century south of the Caucasus, and settled on the river Cyrus, east of Tiflis and west of Partav, where they were known to the Armenians by the name of Sevordik or “ Black children.” 5 These Black Hungarians, in the ninth century, destroyed the town of Shamkor, and the governor of Armenia repeopled it with Khazars who had been converted to Islam (A.D. 854-855).

On the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, and extending towards the Dnieper, was the land of the Inner or BLACK BULGARIANS," which thus lay between the Magyars and the

3

Goths. The lower Dnieper seems to have formed the western boundary of the Khazar Empire, but their influence extended up that river, over some of the Eastern Slavs. The Slavs round Kievi paid at one time tribute to the Chagan, who perhaps ensured them against the depredations of the Magyars.

On the central Volga was the extensive territory of the BURDĀS, who were subject to the Khazars, and formed a barrier against the Outer Bulgarians, their northern neighbours, whose dominion lay on the Volga and its tributary the Kama, including the modern province of Kasan.”

If the Burdās served the Khazars as a barrier against the northern Bulgarians, they were also useful in helping to hold the PATZINAKS in check. This savage people possessed a wide dominion between the Volga and the Ural; their neighbours were, to the north-west the Burdās, to the north the Kipchaks, to the east the Uzes, to the south-west the Khazars. It would seem that some of their hordes pressed early in the ninth century, west of the Volga, into the basin of the Don, and became the formidable neighbours of the most easterly Slavonic tribes.

§ 3. The Russians and their Commerce Such, in the early part of the ninth century, was the general chart of the Turkish Empire of the Khazars, their clients, and their neighbours. Before we consider the import of this primitive world for the foreign policy of the Roman Empire, it is necessary to glance at yet another people, which was destined in the future to form the dominant state in the region of the Euxine and which, though its home still lay beyond

2

:

the horizon of Constantinople and Itil, was already known to those cities by the ways of commerce. The RUSSIANS or Rūs were Scandinavians of Eastern Sweden who, crossing the Baltic and sailing into the Gulf of Finland, had settled on Lake Ilmen, where they founded the island town, known as Novgorod, the Holmgard of Icelandic Saga, at the point where the river Volkhov issues from the northern waters of the lake. They were active traders, and they monopolized all the traffic of north-eastern Europe with the great capitals of the south, Constantinople, Baghdad, and Itil. Their chief wares were the skins of the castor and the black fox, swords, and men. The Slavs were their natural prey ; they used to plunder them in river expeditions, and often carry them off, to be transported and sold in southern lands. Many of the Slavs used to purchase immunity by entering into their service. The Russians did not till the soil, and consequently had no property in land; when a son was born, his father, with a drawn sword in his hand, addressed the infant: “I leave thee no inheritance; thou shalt have only what thou winnest by this sword.” They were, in fact, a settlement of

2

3

military merchants—it is said their numbers were 100,000— living by plunder and trade. They had a chief who received a tithe from the merchants.

The Russian traders carried their wares to the south by two river routes, the Dnieper and the Volga. The voyage down the Dnieper was beset by some difficulties and dangers.? The boats of the Russians were canoes, and were renewed every year. They rowed down as far as Kiev in the boats of the last season, and here they were met by Slavs, who, during the winter had cut down trees in the mountains and made new boats, which they brought down to the Dnieper and sold to the merchants. The gear and merchandise were transhipped, and in the month of June they sailed down to the fort of Vytitshev,+ where they waited till the whole flotilla was assembled.5 South of the modern Ekaterinoslav the Dnieper forces its way for some sixty miles through high walls of granite rock, and descends in a succession of waterfalls which offer a tedious obstacle to navigation. The Slavs had their own names for these falls, which the Russians rendered into Norse. For instance, Vinyi-prag' was translated literally by Baru-fors, both names meaning "billowy waterfall,” 7 and this

force” is still called Volnyi, “the billowy.” In some cases the navigators, having unloaded the boats, could guide them through the fall; in others it was necessary to transport them, as well as their freights, for a considerable distance. This passage could not safely be made except in a formidable com

4

pany; a small body would have fallen a prey to predatory nomads like the Hungarians and the Patzinaks. On reaching the Black Sea, they could coast westwards to Varna and Mesembria, but their usual route was to Cherson. There they supplied the demands of the Greek merchants, and then rounding the south of the peninsula, reached the Khazar town of Tamatarkha, where they could dispose of the rest of their merchandise to the Jewish traders, who in their turn could transport it to Itil, or perhaps to Armenia and Baghdad. But the Russians could also trade directly with Itil and Baghdad. The Volga carried them to Itil, where they lodged in the eastern town; then they embarked on the Caspian Sea and sailed to various ports within the Saracen dominion; sometimes from Jurjan they made the journey with camels to Baghdad, where Slavonic eunuchs served as their interpreters.

This commerce was of high importance both to the Emperor and to the Chagan, not only in itself, but because the Emperor levied a tithe at Cherson on all the wares which passed through to Tamatarkha, and the Chagan exacted the same duty on all that passed through Chamlich to the dominion of the Saracens. The identity of the amount of the duties, ten per cent, was the natural result of the conditions..

§ 4. Imperial Policy. The Russian Danger The first principle of Imperial policy in this quarter of the world was the maintenance of peace with the Khazars. This was the immediate consequence of the geographical position of the Khazar Empire, lying as it did between the Dnieper and the Caucasus, and thus approaching the frontiers of the two powers which were most formidable to Byzantium, the Bulgarians and the Saracens. From the seventh century, when Heraclius had sought the help of the Khazars against Persia, to the tenth, in which the power of Itil declined, this was the constant policy of the Emperors. The Byzantines and the Khazars, moreover, had a common interest in the development of commerce with Northern Europe ; it was to the advantage of the Empire that the Chagan should exercise an effective control over his barbarian neighbours, that his influence should be felt in the basin of the Dnieper, and that