the generals of Justinian, probably about 538-540 A.D., who defeated and drove them back over the Danube.  Meantime they had come under the yoke of the Avari, and it was not until the middle of the seventh century (about 678-680), when that warlike tribe had been broken up by Heraclius, that the Bulgari, under the leadership of a powerful chief Kuvrat, obtained the ascendency in Dacia.  This chieftain formed an alliance with Heraclius, and he and his successor Asparich succeeded by their prowess in bringing not only Trajan’s Dacia, but also Moesia, and what is now Servia, under the Bulgarian rule, and in founding a State which subsisted to the beginning of the eleventh century.

Of the condition of the people under this regime we have already spoken, and there is too much similarity between its incidents and those which preceded and followed, to justify our dwelling upon it at any length.  It consists of a series of victories over, or defeats by, the Byzantine emperors.  At one time we find the Bulgarians losing battle after battle and their power on the wane; then we hear of a Bulgarian chief going to Constantinople, embracing Christianity, and forming a marriage alliance with a niece of the empress (Irene, 780-802).  Next a powerful and savage king, Krum or Krumus, comes to the throne (probably reigning 807 to 820 A.D.), and commences hostilities against the Emperor Nicephorus (802-811).  Having defeated and slain him, he is said to have illustrated the custom already referred to by making a goblet of his skull.  The succeeding emperor (Michael, 811-813) fared little better, having suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of Krum, who pressed forward to the very gates of Constantinople.  Thence, after dictating terms of peace, he withdrew into his own territories, taking with him, it is said, 50,000 Daco-Romans who had been made slaves by the Byzantines, and settling them on the north bank of the Danube.  Krum died A.D. 820 or thereabouts.

Another feature in the history of the country, to which we shall refer more fully hereafter, is the part taken by the dominant race for the time being in the obstruction or promotion of Christianity, and in the schism in the Catholic Church.  At first we hear of little else than persecution of Christians, and the successor of Krum is said to have martyred one Bishop Emanuel, who was preaching the Gospel in his dominions.  Other Bulgarian chiefs or kings, however, courted the favour of the Christian emperors and adopted their creed, until the country was annexed to the Greek Empire in 1014 A.D.

A word or two more concerning the prominent events preceding the first fall of the Bulgarians.  About the end of the ninth century the descendants of the Daco-Romans, recovering from the repeated blows they had received by the successive barbarian irruptions and conquests, are said once more to have rallied to power; and several chiefs or kings are believed to have been of Daco-Roman origin.  Of these Simeon