land was softened by a free toleration: the Paulicians held the
city of Philippopolis and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their
subjects; the Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a
line of villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native
Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy. As long
as they were awed by power and treated with moderation, their voluntary
bands were distinguished in the armies of the empire; and the courage of
these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever thirsty of human blood, is noticed
with astonishment, and almost with reproach, by the pusillanimous
Greeks. The same spirit rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they
were easily provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were
often violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy.
In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred Manichaeans
deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, [24] and retired to their
native homes. He dissembled till the moment of revenge; invited the
chiefs to a friendly conference; and punished the innocent and guilty
by imprisonment, confiscation, and baptism. In an interval of peace, the
emperor undertook the pious office of reconciling them to the church
and state: his winter quarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the
thirteenth apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed
whole days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were
fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honors and rewards which
he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city, surrounded
with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified with his own name,
was founded by Alexius for the residence of his vulgar converts. The
important station of Philippopolis was wrested from their hands; the
contumacious leaders were secured in a dungeon, or banished from their
country; and their lives were spared by the prudence, rather than the
mercy, of an emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was
burnt alive before the church of St. Sophia. [25] But the proud hope of
eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by the
invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or refused to
obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they soon resumed their
civil and religious laws. In the beginning of the thirteenth century,
their pope or primate (a manifest corruption) resided on the confines of
Bulgaria,