Oleg's Varangian guard, who seem to have been also his council, were parties with him to this treaty, for their assent appears to have been requisite to give validity to an agreement affecting the amount of their gains as conquerors. These warriors swore to the treaty by their gods Perun and Volos, and by their arms, placed before them on the ground: their shields, their rings, their naked swords, the things they loved and honoured most. The gorged barbarian then departed with his rich booty to Kiev, to enjoy there an uncontested authority, and the title of Wise Man or Magician, unanimously conferred upon him by the admiration of his Slavonic subjects.
The First Written Document of Russian History (911 A.D.)
Three years after this event, in 911, Oleg sent ambassadors to Constantinople to renew the treaty of alliance and commerce between the two empires. This treaty, preserved in the old chronicle of Nestor, is the first written monument of Russian history, for all previous treaties were verbal. It is of value, as presenting to us some customs of the times in which it was negotiated.
Here follow some of the articles that were signed by the sovereigns of Constantinople and of Kiev respectively:
"If a Greek commit any outrage on a Russian, or a Russian on a Greek, and it be not sufficiently proved, the oath of the accuser shall be taken, and justice be done.
" If a Russian kill a Christian, or a Christian kill a Russian, the assassin shall be put to death on the very spot where the crime was committed. If the murderer take to flight and be domiciliated, the portion of his fortune, which belongs to him according to law, shall be adjudged to the next of kin to the deceased; and the wife of the murderer shall obtain the other portion of the estate which, by law, should belong to him.
"He who strikes another with a sword, or with any other weapon, shall pay three litres of gold, according to the Russian law. If he have not that sum, and he affirms it upon oath, he shall give the party injured all he has, to the garment he has on.
" If a Russian commit a theft on a Greek, or a Greek on a Russian, and he be taken in the act and killed by the proprietor, no pursuit shall be had for avenging his death. But if the proprietor can seize him, bind him, and bring him to the judge, he shall take back the things stolen, and the thief shall pay him the triple of their value.
X. " If a Russian in the service of the emperor, or travelling in the dominions of that prince, shall happen to die without having disposed of his goods, and has none of his near relations about him, his property shall be sent to Russia to his heirs; and, if he have bequeathed them by testament, they shall be in like manner remitted to the legatee."
The names of Oleg's ambassadors who negotiated this treaty of peace, show that all of them were Northmen. From this we may conclude that the government of the country was as yet wholly in the hands of the conquerors.
THE REIGN OF IGOR
Igor, the son of Rurik, who was married to a Scandinavian princess named Olga (Helga), was nearly forty years of age when he succeeded Oleg in 913. He ascended the throne under trying circumstance, for the death of the victor revived the courage of the vanquished and the Drevlians raised the standard of revolt against Kiev; but Igor soon quelled them, and punished them by augmenting their tribute. The Uglitches, who dwelt on the southern side of the Dnieper, contended longer for their liberty against the voyevod Sveneld, whom Igor had despatched against them. One of their principal towns held out a siege of three years. At last they too were subdued and made tributary.
Meanwhile new enemies, formidable from their numbers and their thirst for pillage, showed themselves on the frontiers of Russia: these were the Petchenegs, famous in the Russian, Byzantine, and Hungarian annals, from
h. w. —vol. xvii. h.
the tenth to the twelfth century. They were a nomad people, of the Turcoman stock, whose only wealth consisted in their lances, bows and arrows, their flocks and herds, and their swift horses, which they managed with astonishing address. The only objects of their desires were fat pastures for their cattle, and rich neighbours to plunder. Having come from the east they established themselves along the northern shores of the Black Sea. Thenceforth occupying the ground between the Greek and the Russian empires, subsidised by the one for its defence, and courted by the other from commercial motives — for the cataracts of the Dnieper and the mouths of the Danube were in the hands of those marauders — the Petchenegs were enabled for more than two hundred years to indulge their ruling propensity at the expense of their neighbours. Having concluded a treaty with Igor, they remained for five years without molesting Russia; at least Nestor does not speak of any war with them until 920, nor had tradition afforded him any clue to the result of that campaign.
The reign of Igor was hardly distinguished by any important event until the year 941, when, in imitation of his guardian, he engaged in an expedition against Constantinople. If the chroniclers do not exaggerate, Igor entered the Black Sea with ten thousand barks, each carrying forty men. The imperial troops being at a distance, he had time to overrun and ravage Paphlagonia, Pontus, and Bithynia. Nestor speaks with deep abhorrence of the ferocity displayed by the Russians on this occasion; nothing to which they could apply fire or sword escaped their wanton lust of destruction, and their prisoners were invariably massacred in the most atrocious manner — crucified, impaled, cut to pieces, buried alive, or tied to stakes to serve as butts for the archers. At last the Greek fleet encountered the Russian as it rode at anchor near Pharos, prepared for battle and confident of victory. But the terrible Greek fire launched against the invaders struck them with such dismay that they fled in disorder to the coasts of Asia Minor. Descending there to pillage, they were again routed by the land forces, and escaped by night in their barks, to lose many of them in another severe naval defeat. By the confession of the Russian chronicles, Igor scarcely took back with him a third part of his army.
Instead of being discouraged by these disasters, Igor prepared to revenge them. In 944 he collected new forces [which included a large number of Scandinavians collected for this special purpose by Igor's recruiting agents], took the Petchenegs into his pay, exacting hostages for their fidelity, and again set out for Greece. But scarcely had he reached the mouths of the Danube when he was met by ambassadors from the emperor Romanus, with an offer to pay him the same tribute as had been exacted by Oleg. Igor halted and communicated this offer to his chief men, whose opinions on the matter are thus reported by Nestor: "If Caesar makes such proposals," said they, "is it not better to get gold, silver, and precious stuffs, without fighting? Can we tell who will be the victor, and who the vanquished? And can we guess what may befall us at sea? It is not solid ground that is under our feet, but the depths of the waters, where all men run the same risks."
In accordance with these views Igor granted peace to the empire on the proposed conditions, and the following year he concluded with the emperor a treaty, which was in part a renewal of that made by Oleg.1 Of the fifty
[* This treaty was not so favourable to the Russians as the one concluded with Oleg—a result, evidently, of the former defeat. Another point of importance is that it makes mention of Russian Christians, to whom there is no allusion in the treaty of 911. From this we may conclude that Christianity had spread largely during this interval. 0] [948 a.d.]