ogs and
wolves were good omens, significant of success or plenty.

We first hear of the Bulgari towards the close of the fifth century when
they were situated near the mouth of the Volga, from whence they moved
into Dacia. Meeting with little opposition and joined by other tribes,
they soon became formidable invaders of the Eastern Empire, and are said
to have carried their arms time after time through Thrace, Epirus,
Thessaly, as far as Peloponnesus in Europe, and into Asia Minor, until
at length they were met by Belisarius, one of the generals of Justinian,
probably about 538-540 A.D., who defeated and drove them back
over the Danube. Meantime they had come under the yoke of the Avari, and
it was not until the middle of the seventh century (about 678-680), when
that warlike tribe had been broken up by Heraclius, that the Bulgari,
under the leadership of a powerful chief Kuvrat, obtained the ascendency
in Dacia. This chieftain formed an alliance with Heraclius, and he and
his successor Asparich succeeded by their prowess in bringing not only
Trajan's Dacia, but also Moesia, and what is now Servia, under the
Bulgarian rule, and in founding a State which subsisted to the
beginning of the eleventh century.

Of the condition of the people under this _regime_ we have already
spoken, and there is too much similarity between its incidents and those
which preceded and followed, to justify our dwelling upon it at any
length. It consists of a series of victories over, or defeats by, the
Byzantine emperors. At one time we find the Bulgarians losing battle
after battle and their power on the wane; then we hear of a Bulgarian
chief going to Constantinople, embracing Christianity, and forming a
marriage alliance with a niece of the empress (Irene, 780-802). Next a
powerful and savage king, Krum or Krumus, comes to the throne (probably
reigning 807 to 820 A.D.), and commences hostilities against
the Emperor Nicephorus (802-811). Having defeated and slain him, he is
said to have illustrated the custom already referred to by making a
goblet of his skull. The succeeding emperor (Michael, 811-813) fared
little better, having suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of
Krum, who pressed forward to the very gates of Constantinople. Thence,
after dictating terms of peace, he withdrew into his own territories,
taking with him, it is said, 50,000 Daco-Romans who had been made slaves
by the Byzantines, and settling them on the north bank o