was in flames; forty-three churches were
consumed; and, after the massacre of the people, they spared about two
hundred wretches who had gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a
vague exaggeration) from the smoking ruins of their country. In these
annual excursions from the Alps to the neighborhood of Rome and Capua,
the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful litany: "O,
save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians!" But the saints
were deaf or inexorable; and the torrent rolled forwards, till it was
stopped by the extreme land of Calabria. [33] A composition was offered
and accepted for the head of each Italian subject; and ten bushels
of silver were poured forth in the Turkish camp. But falsehood is the
natural antagonist of violence; and the robbers were defrauded both in
the numbers of the assessment and the standard of the metal. On the side
of the East, the Hungarians were opposed in doubtful conflict by the
equal arms of the Bulgarians, whose faith forbade an alliance with the
Pagans, and whose situation formed the barrier of the Byzantine empire.
The barrier was overturned; the emperor of Constantinople beheld the
waving banners of the Turks; and one of their boldest warriors presumed
to strike a battle-axe into the golden gate. The arts and treasures
of the Greeks diverted the assault; but the Hungarians might boast, in
their retreat, that they had imposed a tribute on the spirit of Bulgaria
and the majesty of the Caesars. [34] The remote and rapid operations of
the same campaign appear to magnify the power and numbers of the Turks;
but their courage is most deserving of praise, since a light troop of
three or four hundred horse would often attempt and execute the most
daring inroads to the gates of Thessalonica and Constantinople. At this
disastrous aera of the ninth and tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted
by a triple scourge from the North, the East, and the South: the Norman,
the Hungarian, and the Saracen, sometimes trod the same ground of
desolation; and these savage foes might have been compared by Homer
to the two lions growling over the carcass of a mangled stag. [35]
[Footnote 30: See Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungar. p. 321-352.]

[Footnote 31: Hungarorum gens, cujus omnes fere nationes expertae
saevitium &c., is the preface of Liutprand, (l. i. c. 2,) who frequently
expatiated on the calamities of his own times. See l. i. c. 5, l. ii. c.
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; l. iii. c. 1, &c., l. v.