History of Russia

When Igor was a young man, his kinsman left him in charge of Kief, and with a fleet of two hundred boats, each holding forty men, and with an army of cavalry, prepared to besiege Constantinople both by land and sea. His galleys rowed down the Dnieper, and the horsemen kept them company along the banks. As they drew near the Bosphorus, the inhabitants, panic-stricken, hastened to Constantinople and entrenched themselves behind palisades. Oleg landed his forces, and began to plunder the land, and burn the churches and convents. He put to the sword, or terribly tortured, all the Greeks whom he met. According to the legend, he fitted wheels to his vessels, and spread the sails, and soon a favorable wind arose and blew his fleet across the fields to the very gates of the city.

VIEW OF KIEV.

Then the Emperor sent ambassadors with food and wine, and promised to pay tribute if Oleg would spare the city. But it was discovered that the food and wine were poisoned, and, as a punishment for their treachery, Oleg obliged the Court to pay his army of eighty thousand men six pounds of silver apiece, besides gifts to all of the Russian cities under his protection. Then he made peace, swearing by the God of Thunder and the God of the Flocks, by Perun and Volos, while the Greek Tsars kissed the crucifix. After fixing his shield upon the Golden Gate, he returned to Kief, taking with him silken stuffs, embroidered in silver and gold, fruits and wines, and all manner of precious things; and Nestor says that "from this time he was called the magician, because his people were foolish and idolatrous."

He afterwards sent ambassadors to Constantinople to renew the treaty, and the Emperor showed them the beauty and magnificence of the city, the gilded churches, the rich treasures which they held in gold, silver, and precious stones, and the instruments of the passion, the crown of thorns, the nails of the cross, the purple robe, and many relics of the saints. Then he sent them home, laden with costly gifts.

One day Oleg asked a soothsayer to predict the manner of his death, and the soothsayer declared that the horse which he best loved would cause his death. Oleg sent away the horse on which he was mounted, and five years later heard that it was;1.dead. So he mocked the sooth sayer, saying:—

"All that soothsayers prophesy is false. My horse is dead, and I am still alive."

Then he went to view the carcass, and dismounting, kicked the skull, and said,—

"Behold the beast which was to be my death!"

Immediately a poisonous serpent came forth and stung the prince in his foot, and he died, greatly lamented by the people of Kief over whom he had ruled three and thirty years.

Oleg was succeeded by Igor, the son of Rurik, and the Forest Folk rose against him, but he subdued them, and allowed his favorite captain, Svieneld, to receive their tribute. And Igor, with many thousand galleys, made a new expedition against Constantinople, but instead of attacking the city he ravaged the provinces with fire and sword, mutilating, crucifying, and torturing his prisoners, destroying churches and prosperous towns. The Byzantine generals, uniting their Macedonians and Thracian and all their Eastern forces, attacked Igor's army and destroyed it. Igor himself put out to sea, pursued by a few brave sailors who hastily manned some unserviceable vessels, and attacked his galleys with "a kind of winged fire which leaped upon the Russians and made them take to the water to save themselves, but many of them were drowned by the weight of their helmets." Those who reached home said to their countrymen:—

"The Greeks have a fire which runs through the air like lightning, and they threw it upon us and burned our vessels, and thus we failed to conquer them."

Three years later Igor organized still another expedition to avenge his defeat. He secured the help of the Petchenegs, a cruel and treacherous tribe which had recently come from the plains of the Ural, and with an innumerable throng of boats set forth. When the Roman emperor heard that he was coming he sent an embassy, offering to pay a greater tribute than had been given to Oleg, and Igor was persuaded to turn back. The Greek ambassadors came to Kief and signed the treaty, and while some of Igor's men went to the Church of St. Elias and took the oath, after the manner of the Christians, Igor himself and most of his captains went to the hill of Perun, where stood an idol to the thunder-god; and there the prince and his heathen followers took the oath before the altar, throwing upon the ground their shields, their naked swords, their rings, and their most valued possessions, and saying

"May we never have help from Perun, and may our shields afford us no shelter, if it enter our minds to break this peace. If any one, prince or subject, violate it, may he be cut in pieces by his own sword, be destroyed by his own arrows, and be a slave in this world and the world to come."