and the rebel's head was triumphantly presented at the foot of the
throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy, Basil instantly called
for his bow, discharged three arrows with unerring aim, and accepted the
applause of the court, who hailed the victory of the royal archer. With
Chrysocheir, the glory of the Paulicians faded and withered: on the
second expedition of the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice, was deserted
by the heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city
was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the mountains:
the Paulicians defended, above a century, their religion and liberty,
infested the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance with
the enemies of the empire and the gospel.

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.--Part II.

About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed Copronymus
by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition into Armenia, and
found, in the cities of Melitene and Theodosiopolis, a great number
of Paulicians, his kindred heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he
transplanted them from the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople
and Thrace; and by this emigration their doctrine was introduced and
diffused in Europe. If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled
with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep root in
a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the storms of
persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with their Armenian
brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their preachers, who solicited,
not without success, the infant faith of the Bulgarians. In the tenth
century, they were restored and multiplied by a more powerful colony,
which John Zimisces transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys
of Mount Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the
destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the Manichaeans: the
warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their valor: their attachment to
the Saracens was pregnant with mischief; but, on the side of the Danube,
against the Barbarians of Scythia, their service might be useful,
and their loss would be desirable. Their exile in a distant 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