f the Danube.
Krum died A.D. 820 or thereabouts.

Another feature in the history of the country, to which we shall refer
more fully hereafter, is the part taken by the dominant race for the
time being in the obstruction or promotion of Christianity, and in the
schism in the Catholic Church. At first we hear of little else than
persecution of Christians, and the successor of Krum is said to have
martyred one Bishop Emanuel, who was preaching the Gospel in his
dominions. Other Bulgarian chiefs or kings, however, courted the favour
of the Christian emperors and adopted their creed, until the country was
annexed to the Greek Empire in 1014 A.D.

A word or two more concerning the prominent events preceding the first
fall of the Bulgarians. About the end of the ninth century the
descendants of the Daco-Romans, recovering from the repeated blows they
had received by the successive barbarian irruptions and conquests, are
said once more to have rallied to power; and several chiefs or kings are
believed to have been of Daco-Roman origin. Of these Simeon (about 887),
Peter (? A.D.), and Samuel (about 976 A.D.), are
conspicuous. The first-named we find at war, first with the Grecian
Emperor Leo (893 A.D.), whom he defeated; then with the same
ruler and his allies the Ungri, under Arpad, their king. Finding himself
hard pressed, Simeon made peace with Leo, and turned his arms against
the Ungri, whom he defeated with great bloodshed and drove out of his
territories. (To the Ungri and their career we shall return presently.)
These feuds continued for a long period, and about 970 A.D. the
Bulgarians crossed the Balkans, but were beaten by the Greeks, whilst
two or three years afterwards the Greek emperor (or rather one of them,
for there were several pretenders to the throne), John Zimisces (? 972),
attacked Marcianopolis, the Bulgarian capital, and took the king, Boris,
prisoner. Before the end of the century another Bulgarian king, Simeon,
had fought the Greeks with varying success, but ultimately the Emperor
Basilius II. (1014 A.D.) completely annihilated the Bulgarian
army, and annexed the whole country as a province of the Greek Empire.
Thus ended the first rule of the Bulgarians.

[Footnote 113: Le Sage, Table 8.]

[Footnote 114: Gibbon, vol. vii. p. 104.]

[Footnote 115: This character is by some writers given to the Wallachs
or Roumanians, and Bonfinius (Book IV.) says that their name is derived
from certain Greek words i