ich, from the
color of its waters, might be called black. M. Abel Remusat (Recherchea
sur les Langues Tartares, vol. i. p. 320) and M. St. Martin (vol. ix.
p. 373) consider it the Volga, which is called Atel or Etel by all the
Turkish tribes. It is called Attilas by Menander, and Ettilia by the
monk Ruysbreek (1253.) See Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. p. 247. This geography
is much more clear and simple than that adopted by Gibbon from De
Guignes, or suggested from Bell.--M.]

[Footnote 32: Theophylact, l. vii. c. 7, 8. And yet his true Avars
are invisible even to the eyes of M. de Guignes; and what can be more
illustrious than the false? The right of the fugitive Ogors to that
national appellation is confessed by the Turks themselves, (Menander, p.
108.)]

[Footnote 33: The Alani are still found in the Genealogical History of
the Tartars, (p. 617,) and in D'Anville's maps. They opposed the march
of the generals of Zingis round the Caspian Sea, and were overthrown in
a great battle, (Hist. de Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9, p. 447.)]

[Footnote 34: The embassies and first conquests of the Avars may be read
in Menander, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 99, 100, 101, 154, 155,) Theophanes,
(p. 196,) the Historia Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 109,) and Gregory of Tours,
(L iv. c. 23, 29, in the Historians of France, tom. ii. p. 214, 217.)]

Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors may be
ascribed to the embassy which was received from the conquerors of the
Avars. [35] The immense distance which eluded their arms could not
extinguish their resentment: the Turkish ambassadors pursued the
footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik, the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the
Euxine and Constantinople, and at length appeared before the successor
of Constantine, to request that he would not espouse the cause of
rebels and fugitives. Even commerce had some share in this remarkable
negotiation: and the Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the
Turks, embraced the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the
Caspian, a new road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman
empire. The Persian, who preferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stopped
the caravans of Bochara and Samarcand: their silk was contemptuously
burnt: some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia, with a suspicion of
poison; and the great khan permitted his faithful vassal Maniach, the
prince of the Sogdoites, to propose, at the Byzantine court, a treaty of
alliance against their comm