Bayer, a learned German, who spent
his life and labors in the service of Russia. A geographical tract of
D'Anville, de l'Empire de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens,
(Paris, 1772, in 12mo.,) has likewise been of use. * Note: The later
antiquarians of Russia and Germany appear to aquiesce in the authority
of the monk Nestor, the earliest annalist of Russia, who derives the
Russians, or Vareques, from Scandinavia. The names of the first founders
of the Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman. Their language
(according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat. Imper. c. 9) differed
essentially from the Sclavonian. The author of the Annals of St. Bertin,
who first names the Russians (Rhos) in the year 839 of his Annals,
assigns them Sweden for their country. So Liutprand calls the Russians
the same people as the Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians,
call the Swedes, to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Rootslaue.
See Thunman, Untersuchungen uber der Geschichte des Estlichen
Europaischen Volker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm. Societ. Regbcient. Gotting.
xiii. p. 126. Schlozer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de 'Europe, vol.
i. p. 60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p. 378.--M.]

[Footnote 44: See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut aureis in
tabulis rigatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum, (in Script. Ital.
Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A.D. 839, twenty-two years before
the aera of Ruric. In the xth century, Liutprand (Hist. l. v. c. 6)
speaks of the Russians and Normans as the same Aquilonares homines of a
red complexion.]

[Footnote 45: My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M. Leveque,
Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these ancient
annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning of the xiith
century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was published at
Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. xvi.
Coxe's Travels, vol. ii. p. 184. * Note: The late M. Schlozer has
translated and added a commentary to the Annals of Nestor; and his
work is the mine from which henceforth the history of the North must be
drawn.--G.]

[Footnote 46: Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is
differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. iv. p.
275-311.]

As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and
conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians, distributed
estates and subjects to their faithful captains,