§ 4. The Bulgarian Siege of Constantinople (A.D. 813)

After his victory over the army of Michael, the king of the Bulgarians resolved to attempt the siege of two great cities at the same time. He had good reason to be elated by his recent successes against the Roman Empire; he might well dream of winning greater successes still. He had achieved what few enemies of the Empire in past time could boast that they had done. He had caused the death of two Emperors and the downfall of a third ; for he might attribute the deposition of Michael to his own victory; and within two years he had annihilated one Roman army and signally defeated another. In point of fact, these successes were due rather to luck than to merit; the Bulgarian king had shown craft but no conspicuous ability in generalship; the battles had nou been won by superiority in tactics or by signal courage.

But the facts could not be ignored; the head of a Roman Emperor was al drinking-cup in the palace of Pliska, and in large Roman army had been routed near Hadrianople.

It was an ambition of Leo the Armenian, as has been already noticed, to emulate the great Isaurian Emperors of the previous century; and fortune gave him, at his very accession, an opportunity of showing how far he could approach in military prowess the Fifth Constantine, whom the Bulgarians had found so formidable. Krum left his brother to blockade the city of Hadrian, and advanced hiinself to lay siege to the city of Constantine. He appeared before it six days after the accession of the new Emperor. In front of the walls he made a display of his power, and in the park outside the Golden Gate he prepared sacrifices of men and animals. The Romans could see from the walls how this “ new Sennacherib” laved his feet on the margin of the sea and sprinkled his soldiers ; they could hear the acclamations of the barbarians, and witness the procession of the monarch through a line of his concubines, worshipping and glorifying their lord.? He then asked the Emperor to allow him to fix his lance on the Golden Gate as an emblem of victory; and when the proposal was refused he

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retired to his tent.' Having produced no impression by his lieathen parade, and having failed to daunt New Rome, he threw up a rampart and plundered the neighbourhood for several days. But there was no prospect of taking the queen of cities where so many, greater than he, had failed before, and he soon offered terms of peace, demanding as the price a large treasure of gold and raiment, and a certain number of chosen damsels. The new Emperor Leo saw in the overtures of the chemy a good opportunity to carry out a design, which in the present age public opinion would brand as an infamous act of trenchery, but which the most pious of contemporary monks, men by no means disposed to be lenient to Leo, l'egarded as laudable. The chronicler Theophanes, whom Leo afterwards persecuted, said that the failure of the plot was due to our sins."

The Emperor sent a message to Krum: “Come down to tlie shore, with a few unarmed men, and we also unarmed will proceed by boat to meet you. We can then tilk together and arrango terms." The place convened was on the Golden llorn, just north of the soutwall; and at night thrco arined men were concealed in a house outside the Gate of Blachern, with directions to issue forth and slay Krum when a certain sign was given by one of Leo's attendants.

Next day, the Bulgarian king duly rode down to the shore, with three companions, namely his treasurer,' a Greek deserter, Constantine Patzikos, who had married Krum's sister, and the son of this Constantine, Krum dismounted and sat on the ground; his nephew held his horse ready, “suddled and bridled."" Leo and his party soon arrived in the Imperial

; barge, and while they conversed, llexabulios," who was with Leo, sudlenly covered his face with his hands. The motion oftended the sensitive pride of the barbarinn ; highly oftended he stilrted to his feet and leaped upon his horse. Nor Wils he too soon; for the gesture was the concerted sign, and the

Theopil.. 503. Simeon transcribes 3 Theophanes, however, clearly Theophanes with inconsiderable vorbal wroto these pages in the first years of changa (Loco Cir. 207).

Loco's reign. ? και κοράσια επίλεκτα ποσότητα τινα. These facts and the details of the

• ν δωματίοις τισιν των Γάλλης.

λογοθέτης. attempt to slay Krum are recorded liy the scriptor licortus. Loparev (op.cit. στρωμένον χαλινωμένον (Scr. Ιμα. 316) suggests that Kruni was insist. 343). ing on the fultidiment of the treaty of ? Doubtlosy Johu lloxabulios (see kormisos or, as he thinks, of Tervel, above, p. 27).

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armed ambush rushed out from the place of hiding. The attendants of Krum pressed on either side of him as he rode away, trying to defend him or escape with him; but, as they were on foot, the Greeks were able to capture them. Those. who watched the scene from the walls, and saw, as they thought, the discomfiture of the pagan imminent, cried out, “The cross has conquered "; the darts of the armed soldiers were discharged after the retreating horseman; but though they hit him he received no mortal wound,' and escaped, now more formidable than ever, as his ferocity was quickened by the thirst of vengeance. His treasurer was slain; his brotherin-law and nephew were taken alive.

On the next day the wrath of the deceived Bulgarian blazed forth in literal fire. The inhabitants of the city, looking across the Golden Horn, witnessed the conflagration of the opposite suburbs, churches, convents, and palaces, which the enemy plundered and destroyed.” They did not stay their course of destruction at the mouth of the Golden Horn. They burned the Imperial Palace of St. Mamas, which was situated opposite to Scutari, at the modern Beshik-tash, to the south of Ortu Keui." They pulled down the ornamental columns, and

" carried away, to deck the residence of their king, the sculptured images of animals which they found in the hippodrome of the palace and packed in waggons.' All living things were butchered. Their ravages were extended northwards along the shores of the Bosphorus, and in the inland region behind." But this was only the beginning of the terrible vengeance. The suburbs outside the Golden Gate, straggling as far as Thegion, were consigned to the flames, and we cannot. suppose that their energy of destruction spired the palace of Hebdomon.

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The fort of Athyras and a bridge of remarkable size and strength over the river of the sime name, which flows into

? the Propontis, were destroyed. Along the western highrond the avenger advanced till he reached Selymbria, where he destroyod the churches and rased the citadel. The fort of Daúnin? was lovelle, and the first obstacle in the path of destruction was the strong wall of Heraclea which had once defied Philip of Macedon. Unable to enter it the Bulgarians burned the suburbs and the houses of the harbour. Continuing their course, they rased the fort of Rbaedestos 3 and tho castle of Apros. Having spent ten days there, they marched southward to the hills of Ganos,' whither men and beasts had fled for concealment. The fugitives were easily dislodged from their hiding-places by the practised mountaineers; the men were slain; the women, children, and animals were sent to Bulgaria. After a visit of depredation to the shore of the Hellespont, the desolater returned slowly, capturing forts as he went, to Hadrianople, which his brother had not yet Succeeded in reducing by blockade. Poliorcetic engines were now applied ; hunger was already doing its work; no relief was forthcoming; and the city perforce surrendered. All the inhabitints, including the archbishop Manuel, were transported to “ Bulgaria” beyond the Danube," where they were permitted to live in a settlement, governed by one of themselves and known as “ Macedonia."

" It was now, the turn of the Imperial government to inako overtures for peace, and of the victorious and offended Bulgarian to reject them. Leo then took the field himself?

and by a stratagem, successfully executed, he inflicted an overwhelming defent on the army of the enemy, or a portion of it which was still active in the neighbourhood of Mesembriu. Entrenching liimself near thut city and not far from the Bulgarian camp, he waited for some days. The Roman troops had command of abundant supplies, but he soon heard that the Bulgarians were hard pressed for food. Confiding his plan only to one officer, Leo left the camp by night with a company of experienced warriors, and lay in ambush on an adjacent hill. Day dawned, and the Romans, discovering that the Emperor was not in the camp, imagined that he had fled. The tidings reached the camp of the enemy before evening, and the barbarians thought that their adversaries were now delivered an easy prey into their hands. Intending to attack the Roman camp on the morrow, and meanwhile secure, they left aside the burden of their arms and yielded to the ease of sleep. Then Leo and his men descended in the darkness of the night and wrought great slaughter. The Roman camp had been udvised of the stratagem just in time to admit of their cooperation, and not soon enough to give a deserter the opportunity of pertidy. The Bulgarians were annihilated; not a firebearer, to use the Persian proverb, escaped. This Huccess was tollowed up by an incursion into Bulgaria ; and Leo's policy was to spare those who were of riper (12-13), who drew here from it common bearing on the question, as his chronicle source which is most fully reproduced ends with the capture of Hadrianople, in Cont. Th. The campaign must be and Leo's expedition was certainly placed in the lato autunn of A.1). 813, later. George's notices of military after the capture of Hadrianople, events are so scrappy and meagre that which probably determined Lco to his silence proves nothing. The Scr. suu for reace. Jireček assigns it to luc, says that during the Bulgarian 1.1. 814 (lieschichte, 146), placing ravages which he has described Leo Krum's death in 1.d). 815. But it is did not leave the city (3-46 kal houTWY clear from the narrativo of the Script. γενομένων ο Λέων της πόλεως ουκ εξήλθεν). Inc. that only one winter passed be. This was literally true, but the author, tweeni Leo's accossion and krim's death bitterly hostilo to Leo, cannot be (316 sq.). Hirsch (125-126) reyards considered incapable of having deliberthis episodio us at legend, suggesting utely suppressed a subsequent success, that it was invented to explain the and his silence is not a convincing namo Bourds doutos. His grounds argument. The inputation of Ignatius seem to be the silence of Theoplanos camo similarly from the hostilo camp, an. Simeon, it statement of the Sor. which employed every worpion of Inc.“liber den unginstiyon l'erlauf calumny against the iconoclast. Tho des Feldzuges," and tho charge of details in Cort. Th. do not suggest a imactivity brought against Leo in leyend, and the account has been Ignatius, l'it. Vierph. c. 31. But acer poted by all historians (including thiese arguments leve no weight. Finlay, Hopf, und Hertzberg). The silence of Theophane's has 110