ld and Dir by name, had made
their way far to the south, where they became masters of the city of
Kief. They even dared to attack Constantinople, but were driven back
from that great stronghold of the South.

It by no means pleased Oleg to find this powerful kingdom founded in the
land which he had set out to subdue. He determined that Kief should be
his, and in 882 made his way to its vicinity. But it was easier to reach
than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were
courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by
force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem and
treachery.

Leaving his army, and taking Igor with him, he floated down the Dnieper
with a few boats, in which a number of armed men were hidden, and at
length landed near the ancient city of Kief, which stood on high ground
near the river. Placing his warriors in ambush, he sent a messenger to
Askhold and Dir, with the statement that a party of Varangian merchants,
whom the prince of Novgorod had sent to Greece, had just landed, and
desired to see them as friends and men of their own race.

Those were simple times, in which even the rulers of cities did not put
on any show of state. On the contrary, the two princes at once left the
city and went alone to meet the false merchants. They had no sooner
arrived than Oleg threw off his mask. His followers sprang from their
ambush, arms in hand.

"You are neither princes nor of princely birth," he cried; "but I am a
prince, and this is the son of Rurik."

And at a sign from his hand Askhold and Dir were laid dead at his feet.

By this act of base treachery Oleg became the master of Kief. No one in
the city ventured to resist the strong army which he quickly brought up,
and the metropolis of the south opened its gates to the man who had
wrought murder under the guise of war. It is not likely, though, that
Oleg sought to justify his act on any grounds. In those barbarous days,
when might made right, murder was too much an every-day matter to be
deeply considered by any one.

Oleg was filled with admiration of the city he had won. "Let Kief be the
mother of all the Russian cities!" he exclaimed. And such it became, for
he made it his capital, and for three centuries it remained the capital
city of the Russian realm.

What he principally admired it for was its nearness to Constantinople,
the capital of the great empire of the East, on which, like th