The Rise of the Russian Empire. Saki

of its former glory. It would have been a wiser policy to have left untouched, for the time being, the integrity of a State which was no longer formidable, and which interposed a civilised barrier between the Russian lands and the barbarian hordes of the East, and to have pursued instead a war of extermination against the Petchenigs. Sviatoslav was himself to experience the disastrous results of this mistake.

      968

      In the following year the centre of interest shifts from the south-east to the south-west. The Greek Emperor, Nicephorus Phocas, irritated against his vassal Peter, King or Tzar of Bulgaria, in that he had not exerted himself against the Magyars, who were raiding the Imperial dominions, turned for help, according to the approved Byzantine policy, to another neighbour, and commissioned Sviatoslav to march against Bulgaria. A large sum of Greek gold was conveyed to Kiev by an ambassador from the Emperor, and in return the Russian Prince set out for the Danube with a following of 60,000 men. The onset of the invaders was irresistible, and the Bulgarians scattered and fled, leaving their capital, Péréyaslavetz, and Dristr, a strongly fortified place on the Danube, in the hands of the conqueror. To complete the good fortune of Sviatoslav the Tzar Peter died at this critical moment, and the Russian Prince settled down in his newly-acquired city, undisputed master of Bulgaria. East and west his arms had been successful, but in the very heart of his realm he had left a dread and watchful enemy, who would not fail to take advantage of his absence. While his army was at quarters in the head city of the Bulgarians, his own capital was being besieged and closely pressed by the Petchenigs, that “greedy people, devouring the bodies of men, corrupt and impure, bloody and cruel beasts,” as the monk of Edessa portrays them; in which certificate it is to be hoped they were over-described. The folk in the beleaguered city, among the rest the aged Olga and the young sons of Sviatoslav, were in straits from want of food, and must have succumbed if one of their number had not made his way by means of a feint through the enemy’s camp, and carried news of their desperate condition to a boyarin named Prititch who was luckily at hand with a small force. On his approach the Petchenigs drew off, thinking that the Prince himself had returned with his army, and Kiev was relieved from the straits of famine. Sviatoslav meanwhile had learned of the danger which threatened his realm and household and hastened back from Bulgaria. Even this narrowly staved-off disaster did not open his eyes to the menace which these undesirable neighbours ever held over him and his, and he contented himself with inflicting a severe defeat on them and concluding a worthless peace. Possibly he found it hard to arouse among his followers any enthusiasm for a campaign against an enemy who had no wealthy cities to plunder or riches of any kind available for spoil. In any case he was bitten with the desire, to which rulers of Russia seem to have been periodically subject, of shifting the seat of his government to a fresh capital. Before his mother and his boyarins he declared his project of fixing his seat at Péréyaslavetz in preference to Kiev, and enumerated the advantages of the former. From the Greeks came gold, fabrics, wine, and fruits; from Bohemia and Hungary horses and silver; from Russia furs, wax, honey, and slaves. To Olga, with the hand of death already on her, the question was not one of great moment, and four days later she had made her last journey to a vault in the cathedral of Kiev. A certain compassion is excited by the contemplation of the aged queen, dying lonely in a faith that her husband had never known, which her son had not accepted, just as the realm over which she had ruled so actively was to be enlarged and its political centre shifted. Her death removed the last obstacle to Sviatoslav’s design, the last that is to say with which he reckoned. Before departing for Bulgaria the Prince set his sons, who could not at this date (970) have been of a very mature age, in responsible positions, Yaropalk, the elder, becoming governor of Kiev, and Oleg prince of the Drevlians. The Novgorodskie, who had been left for many years to the hireling care of Sviatoslav’s deputies, demanded a son of the princely house as ruler, threatening in case of refusal to choose one from elsewhere for themselves; here the stormy spirit of Velikie Novgorod shows itself for the first time. Happily the supply of sons was equal to the demand; by one of Olga’s maidens named Malousha the Prince had become father of Vladimir, destined to play an important part in the history of Russia, and to him, under the guardianship of his mother’s brother Drobuinya, was confided the government of the northern town. Having thus arranged for the present security and future confusion of his territories by instituting the system of separate appanages, Sviatoslav set out for his new possession beyond the Danube. “A prince should, if possible, live in the country he has conquered,” wrote the political codist of mediæval Italy, and the Russian monarch found that even his brief absence had lost him much of the fruits of his victory. The Bulgarians mustered to oppose his march with a large force, and a desperate battle ensued, in which defeat was only staved off from the invaders by the heroic exertions of their leader. Péréyaslavetz was retaken, and Sviatoslav again became master of the Balkan land, permitting, however, Boris, son of the late Tzar, to keep the gold crown, frontlet, and red buskins which were the Bulgarian marks of royalty. The Greeks now repented their folly in having established in their immediate neighbourhood, within a few short marches of Constantinople, a prince who was far more dangerous to them than ever the Bulgarian Tzars had been. John Zimisces, who had succeeded the ill-fated Nicephorus on the precarious throne of the Eastern Empire, called upon Sviatoslav to fulfil the engagement made with his predecessor and evacuate the Imperial dependency. The Prince in possession contemptuously refused to comply with this demand, and threatened instead to march against Constantinople and drive the Greeks into Asia. Fortunately for the Empire at this crisis her new ruler was a soldier of proved ability, and knew also who were the right men to rely on for active support and co-operation. On the other hand Sviatoslav prepared for the coming struggle by enlisting the aid of the Bulgarians themselves, the Magyars, and even roving bodies of Petchenigs. With this mixed force he burst into Thrace, ravaging the country up to the walls of Adrianople, where the Imperial general Bardas-Scleras, brother-in-law of Zimisces, had entrenched himself. Here in the autumn of 970 the fierce bravery of the Russians and their allies was matched against the Greek generalship, with the result that Sviatoslav was forced to retire into Bulgaria. The recall of Bardas to suppress an insurrection in Capadocia prevented him from following up his advantage, and gave the Russians an opportunity for retiring from a position which was no longer safe. Sviatoslav, however, either did not see his danger, or chose to disregard it rather than return home baffled and empty-handed. Accordingly he spent the year 971 in aimless raids into Macedonia, while his wily enemy made the most elaborate preparations for his destruction. In the spring of 972 Zimisces advanced with a large army into Bulgaria, while a Greek fleet blocked the mouths of the Danube, cutting off the Russian line of retreat. Sviatoslav with the bulk of his army was encamped at Dristr, and here tidings came that the Emperor had crossed the Balkans and, after a stubborn resistance, taken Péréyaslavetz—“the Town of Victory”—and possessed himself of the person of Prince Boris. Nothing daunted, Sviatoslav led his army against that of Zimisces, and a battle ensued which, from the heroic valour with which it was contested and the important issues involved, deserves to be recognised as one of the decisive battles of history. Both leaders showed the utmost personal courage, and victory for a long while hung doubtful, but at length the Greek forces prevailed and Sviatoslav was driven back upon Dristr, his last stronghold in Bulgaria. This time the Imperial success was followed up, and the town was attacked with a vigour and determination which was only equalled by the stubbornness of the defence. The Russians made sorties by day, retreating when outnumbered, under the protection of their huge bucklers, to within the walls of the town, from whence they issued at night, to burn by the light of the moon the bodies of their fallen comrades, and sacrifice over their ashes the prisoners they had taken. By way of propitiating their gods, or possibly the Danube, which was covered with the boats of their enemies, they drowned in its waters cocks and little children.[14] The Magister John, a relation of the Emperor, having fallen into their hands in a skirmish, was torn in pieces and his head exposed on the battlements. The besieged, however, were daily reduced in numbers and weakened by want, and Sviatoslav resolved on a last bid for victory. Swarming forth from behind their battered ramparts, the men of the North met their foes in open field, and the wager of battle was staunchly and obstinately contested. Sviatoslav was struck off his horse and nearly killed, but the Russians did not give way until mid-day, when a dust-storm blew into their faces and forced them to yield the fight, leaving outside the walls of Dristr, according to the Byzantine annalists, 15,000 slain. The monkish chroniclers, as usual, attributed the hard-won victory to supernatural intervention, and while the Imperial soldiers were resting