The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1876]
[Footnote 69: This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I may be indulged in the question in the play, "Pray, which of you is the interpreter?" From the context, they seem to signify Adolescentulus, (Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar. Graec. p. 1570.)
Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives another derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag, which means a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the East. He was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written in Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist. - M.]
[Footnote 70: In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus and the Lower Danube, it appears to fill the ground, or at least the station, of Marcianopolis. The situation of Durostolus, or Dristra, is well known and conspicuous, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]
[Footnote 71: The political management of the Greeks, more especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]
[Footnote 72: In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968 - 973) is more authentic and circumstantial than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660 - 683) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 205 - 214.) These declaimers have multiplied to 308,000 and 330,000 men, those Russian forces, of which the contemporary had given a moderate and consistent account.]
Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on the conversion of the Russians. ^73 Those fierce and bloody Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of Russian Christianity. ^74 A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the superior majesty of the purple. ^75 In the sacrament of baptism, she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and nation