with the Patzinaks. As for the Khazars, he had other checks on them. He cultivated peace with the Alans, who bordered the Khazars on the Caucasian side, with the Uzes who girded them on the east, and with Black Bulgaria on the north frontier of Khazaria, where the Volga and the Kama meet. This Bulgaria must be distinguished from White Bulgaria on the Danube. While the Bulgarians who had moved west had come under the influence of the conquered Slaves and were ultimately merged in them, the remnant who stayed behind in the east remained Turanian; and while the western branch embraced Christianity, the eastern embraced Islam.

Such was the general grouping of the peoples with whom the sovereigns of East Rome had to deal in war and commerce in the tenth century. But this grouping, partly at least, was of recent date. In the latter half of the ninth century it had been something very different; at the beginning of the ninth century it had perhaps been something different still. Under the reign of Constantine's grandfather, Basil, the Magyars had only advanced as far west as the Patzinaks had advanced in his own day; and the Patzinaks were in the remote distance. It is certain that in the reigns of Irene and Nicephorus the Magyars themselves had not yet appeared on the political horizon of Eastern Rome. The following account is given by Constantine of their history. It is to be observed that in his day they were commonly called Turks in Constantinople,—a circumstance which might seem to make for Vámbéry's view, and we shall see that he does not neglect to make use of it.

The first home of the 'Turks,' according to Constantine, was close to the realm of the Khazars in a district named Lebedia, which is irrigated by the river Chidmas or Chingylûs.* He goes on to say that in this first stage of their history they were not called Turks, but for some reason or other' Sabartoasphaloi. They were divided into seven tribes, and had no ruler over them, but each tribe had a ‘voevode' of its own.

6

The

* In Die Ungern, p. 19, Hunfalvy seems to mistranslate Constantine by assuming two rivers; yet he renders the Greek rightly in his Magyarország Ethn., p. 213.

tribes seem to have been arrayed in some order of precedence, for Lebedias, chief of one of the tribes, was the 'first' voevode, and gave his name to the whole district. For three years they dwelled with the Khazars, performing military service for them. And the Chagan of the Khazars rewarded the bravery of Lebedias by giving him a noble Khazar lady in marriage, hoping for a vigorous progeny. But there were no children.

Then the Patzinaks-at the end of the three years apparently-appear upon the scene. Where they dwelled at the time is not specified by Constantine, but they, like the Magyars, bore in their eastern home a strange name. They were called Kangar.* They engaged in war with the Khazars, who proved more powerful than they and drove them out of their former territory. Expelled, they were obliged to seek new homes elsewhere, and they invaded and occupied Lebedia, treating the Magyars as they had themselves been treated by the Khazars. The Magyars in their turn had to migrate. Some of them went to the borders of Persia-clearly to the north shores of the Caspian Sea-and there continued to dwell under the name of Sabartoasphaloi. But the rest bent their steps westward and entered the lands on the coast of the Euxine between the Dnieper and the Danube, where in the ninth century they became known to the East Romans as 'Turks.'

This new home of the Magyars was called by them Atelkuzu. But it was not destined, any more than Lebedia, to be their abiding home. The Magyars were doomed to be chased by the Patzinaks, and the Patzinaks were doomed to be chased by the Khazars. About fifty years before Constantine wrote, that is, about the end of the ninth century, the Khazars and

* In one place Constantine gives Káyyap, in another Káуkap; and explains it as brave and noble. Vámbéry in his Besenyő névlajstrom (p. 444) suggests two Turkish derivations: (1) connection with a word meaning 'to go in quest of adventures,' (2) a compound-blackblooded. Hunfalvy explains it (p. 404) men or children of the Káma; so too Bolgar, children of the Volga; the second part of the words, gar, being same as in gyerek, gyermek, child. But in his later work (Die Ungern, p. 81) he explains it by the Vogulic kant-kar, warrior.

the Uzes combined to drive the Patzinaks out of their land, which then passed into the possession of the Uzes. Some indeed of the conquered nation were allowed to remain in their old country and dwell in subjection to the Uzes (who, as we have seen, were of the same race and language), but the greater part went westward on the path which the Magyars had traced before them. They entered the land of Atelkuzu, and drove the Magyars out of their new home as they had driven them out of the old one,-under what circumstances, we shall presently see.

The chief Lebedias accompanied the Magyars into Atelkuzu and then the king of the Khazars, to whom the Magyars at this time stood in some loose relation of fealty or dependence, proposed to make this tribal chief Lebed ruler of the whole seven tribes, and thus give some unity to the people. But Lebed declined the dignity and suggested that either Salmutzes, another tribal chieftain, or his son Arpad should be chosen to this new dignity. The Magyars preferred the son to the father, and Arpad was made king and raised on the shield 'according to the law of the Khazars.' It was to Arpad then in Atelkuzu, founder of the Arpadian dynasty, and it was to the act of a Khazar sovran that we have to trace back the institution which gives the 'Emperor of Austria' the chief of his complex of prerogatives. This event is a significant instance of the authority possessed by the Khazars over the neighbouring peoples-the Uzes, Patzinaks, Magyars, and Black Bulgarians. The important position of the Khazar empire has been well brought out by Vámbéry (p. 65). They maintained a lively intercourse with Constantinople, with the Sassanid monarchs, and after the fall of the Persian kingdom with the courts of the caliphs. They held the great commercial routes connecting the north and south. Their realm was bounded on the north by the Black Bulgarians, who were tributary to them, on the east by the Patzinaks, until they moved westward; on the south it reached deep into the Caucasian region, to the gate of Derbend and the shore of Rhion, on the west to the Dnieper and the Crimea. The question has been raised by Hunfalvy (p. 215): why did not the Khazars, who appear as

the overlords and friends of the Magyars, protect them in Lebedia from the attack of the Patzinaks? The answer seems to be that they could not help it. When the Magyars lived in Lebedia, the power of the Khazars was on the wane,* and they had perhaps enough to do to guard their own land from the Patzinaks. When they expelled them at a later period, they did so with the help, and chiefly for the sake of the Uzes.

There is no question as to the land meant by Atelkuzu; the more difficult question as to Lebedia will occupy us presently. Constantine tells us that Atelkuzu was the same which the Patzinaks held in his own day. He also says that five rivers flowed through it, and gives strange names, of which we can recognize the Pruth and the Seret, and possibly the Dniester. The name of the land itself seems to be compounded of the names of two rivers-Atel and Kuzu, of which we may guess that one is the Danube and the other the Dnieper.†

The circumstances under which the Magyars left Atelkuzu were as follows. In the year 895 war broke out between the Roman Empire, then ruled by Leo the Wise, son of Basil the Macedonian, and the kingdom of Bulgaria, which under the great Tzar Simeon, was then reaching the height of its power. Leo called in the help of the Turks,' who readily consented to invade Bulgaria. They defeated Simeon, marched up to the walls of his capital Peristhlava, and shut him up in the fort of Mundraga. At this time Arpad was dead and his son Liuntin had succeeded. After peace had been made with the Empire, Simeon sent a message to the Patzinaks to stir them up against the Hungarians. So when the Hungarian warriors had gone forth on some expedition of plunder, the Patzinaks seized their country and drove out the population which had remained behind. The Hungarians did not attempt to drive out the invaders, but moved westward into the land where they dwell to the present day. This story must be supple

* So Vámbéry, p. 128.

+ Roesler, Romänische Studien, p. 154, would amend 'Uzu,' a Turkish name for the Dnieper.

It has been thought that the name Liuntin is the same name as Lebedias, and equivalent to Leventa.

mented by the statement made in another place that the Patzinaks had been driven out of their former home by the Khazars and Uzes; that they groped about to find a new abode, and finally came to Atelkuzu, the Hungary of the ninth century. Simeon, learning that they were seeking a new home, thought it a good opportunity to requite his troublesome neighbours. One wonders whether the Patzinaks would have invaded Atelkuzu, if Simeon had not urged them. If not, his invitation was destined to prove a fatal mistake in Slavonic history, in which he himself holds such a high place. For if the Patzinaks had not for the second time robbed the Hungarians of their home, the Hungarians might never have crossed the mountains, might not have severed the belt of Slavonic peoples which then girded Europe from the northern to the southern sea.

Neither Constantine nor anyone else mentions the duration of this intermediate Hungary-or Turkey as it was called by the Rômaioi—which extended from the Dnieper to the Danube and perhaps took in Walachia. But we have some data which enable us to infer approximately the length of this period. It included the whole reign of Arpad and the succession of his son Leventa; but then we know not whether Arpad reigned a long or a short time. There is however an important piece of evidence which shows that the Magyars were in Atelkuzu in the reign of Theophilus, as early as the year 836. In the reign of Leo V. the Bulgarian prince Crum had transplanted 10,000 Macedonians beyond the Danube. In the reign of Theophilus, these Macedonians determined to return to Romania with the help of the Emperor. Some fought their way through Bulgaria; others were to be taken up by vessels sent by the Emperor. As these were about to depart, a large body of Hungarians appeared. A battle ensued, and the strangers, who had been summoned by the Bulgarians, were defeated. This passage has a special interest because the Magyars are called by their special name Ovyypoɩ— Ungarn, Hungarians—as well as by the general name Turks, which the Emperor Leo and his son

*

George Monachus, p. 818, ed. Bonn.