equipped with stately caparisons, and conducted by a numerous train to
the royal village in the plains of Hungary. He surveyed the enormous
beast with surprise, with disgust, and possibly with terror; and smiled
at the vain industry of the Romans, who, in search of such useless
rarities, could explore the limits of the land and sea. He wished, at
the expense of the emperor, to repose in a golden bed. The wealth of
Constantinople, and the skilful diligence of her artists, were instantly
devoted to the gratification of his caprice; but when the work was
finished, he rejected with scorn a present so unworthy the majesty of a
great king. These were the casual sallies of his pride; but the avarice
of the chagan was a more steady and tractable passion: a rich and
regular supply of silk apparel, furniture, and plate, introduced the
rudiments of art and luxury among the tents of the Scythians; their
appetite was stimulated by the pepper and cinnamon of India; the annual
subsidy or tribute was raised from fourscore to one hundred and twenty
thousand pieces of gold; and after each hostile interruption, the
payment of the arrears, with exorbitant interest, was always made the
first condition of the new treaty. In the language of a Barbarian,
without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to complain of the
insincerity of the Greeks; yet he was not inferior to the most civilized
nations in the refinement of dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor
of the Lombards, the chagan asserted his claim to the important city of
Sirmium, the ancient bulwark of the Illyrian provinces. The plains of
the Lower Hungary were covered with the Avar horse and a fleet of large
boats was built in the Hercynian wood, to descend the Danube, and to
transport into the Save the materials of a bridge. But as the strong
garrison of Singidunum, which commanded the conflux of the two rivers,
might have stopped their passage and baffled his designs, he dispelled
their apprehensions by a solemn oath that his views were not hostile to
the empire. He swore by his sword, the symbol of the god of war, that he
did not, as the enemy of Rome, construct a bridge upon the Save. "If
I violate my oath," pursued the intrepid Baian, "may I myself, and the
last of my nation, perish by the sword! May the heavens, and fire, the
deity of the heavens, fall upon our heads! May the forests and mountains
bury us in their ruins! and the Save returning, against the laws of
nature, t