30,) the
two oldest monuments of the history of Venice.]

The glory of the Bulgarians [13] was confined to a narrow scope both of
time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries, they reigned to the
south of the Danube; but the more powerful nations that had followed
their emigration repelled all return to the north and all progress to
the west. Yet in the obscure catalogue of their exploits, they might
boast an honor which had hitherto been appropriated to the Goths: that
of slaying in battle one of the successors of Augustus and Constantine.
The emperor Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost his
life in the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he advanced with
boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt the royal
court, which was probably no more than an edifice and village of timber.
But while he searched the spoil and refused all offers of treaty, his
enemies collected their spirits and their forces: the passes of retreat
were insuperably barred; and the trembling Nicephorus was heard to
exclaim, "Alas, alas! unless we could assume the wings of birds, we
cannot hope to escape." Two days he waited his fate in the inactivity of
despair; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians surprised the
camp, and the Roman prince, with the great officers of the empire,
were slaughtered in their tents. The body of Valens had been saved
from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was exposed on a spear, and
his skull, enchased with gold, was often replenished in the feasts
of victory. The Greeks bewailed the dishonor of the throne; but they
acknowledged the just punishment of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup
was deeply tinctured with the manners of the Scythian wilderness; but
they were softened before the end of the same century by a peaceful
intercourse with the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated region, and
the introduction of the Christian worship. The nobles of Bulgaria were
educated in the schools and palace of Constantinople; and Simeon, [14]
a youth of the royal line, was instructed in the rhetoric of Demosthenes
and the logic of Aristotle. He relinquished the profession of a monk for
that of a king and warrior; and in his reign of more than forty years,
Bulgaria assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth. The
Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint consolation from
indulging themselves in the reproaches of perfidy and sacrilege. They
purchased the aid o