he national chronicles, as if the Russian
fleet had sailed over dry land with a brisk and favorable gale. The
leader of the third armament, Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a
moment of weakness and decay, when the naval powers of the empire
were employed against the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the
instruments of defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed
galleys were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the
single tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides
and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid
combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious;
many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt,
leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were
inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers. Yet one third of the
canoes escaped into shallow water; and the next spring Igor was again
prepared to retrieve his disgrace and claim his revenge. [63] After
a long peace, Jaroslaus, the great grandson of Igor, resumed the same
project of a naval invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was
repulsed at the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial
flames. But in the rashness of pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks
was encompassed by an irresistible multitude of boats and men; their
provision of fire was probably exhausted; and twenty-four galleys were
either taken, sunk, or destroyed. [64]

[Footnote 56: The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth, xth, and
xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals, especially those
of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their testimonies are collected in the
Russica of Stritter, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 939-1044.]

[Footnote 57: Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]

[Footnote 58: See Beauplan, (Description de l'Ukraine, p. 54-61: )
his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except the
circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for modern
Cosacks.]

[Footnote 59: It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a
Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,
(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265-391.) After disentangling
some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the years 864 or 865,
a date which might have smoothed some doubts and difficulties in the
beginning of M. Leveque's history.]

[Footnote 60: When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the conversion
of the Russians, the miracle was not