But a trade grievance soon enabled Simeon to
enter upon a war against the feeble Greek Emperor then on the throne in
Constantinople--Leo, known as the Philosopher. The Grecian forces were
defeated and, following the ferocious Balkan custom of the times, the
Grecian prisoners were all mutilated by having their noses cut off, and
thus returned to their city. Constantinople in desperation appealed for
help to the Magyars, who had recently burst into Europe from the steppes
of Russia and occupied the land north of the Danube. The Magyars
responded to the appeal, and at first were successful against the
Bulgars, but King Simeon's strategy overcame them in the final stages of
the campaign. He took advantage then of the temporary absence of their
army in the west, and descended upon their homes in the region now known
as Bessarabia and massacred all their wives and children. This act of
savage cruelty drove the Magyars away finally from the Danube, and they
migrated north and west to found the present kingdom of Hungary.

Relieved of the fear of the Magyars, King Simeon now attacked the
Grecian Empire again, captured Adrianople, and laid siege to
Constantinople. There were two emperors in the city then, in succession
to Leo the Philosopher--Romanus Lecapenus and Constantine
Porphyrogenitus. For all the grandeur of their names they rivalled one
another in incompetency and timidity. Simeon was able to force upon the
Grecian Empire a humiliating peace, which made Bulgaria now the
paramount Power in the Balkans, since Servia had been already subdued by
her arms. From the Roman Pope, Simeon received authority to be called
"Czar of the Bulgarians and Autocrat of the Greeks." His capital at
Preslav--now in ruins--was in his time one of the great cities of
Europe, and a contemporary description of his palace says:

If a stranger coming from afar enters the outer court of the
princely dwelling, he will be amazed, and ask many a question as
he walks up to the gates. And if he goes within, he will see on
either side buildings decorated with stone and wainscoted with
wood of various colours. And if he goes yet farther into the
courtyard he will behold lofty palaces and churches, bedecked
with countless stones and wood and frescoes without, and with
marble and copper and silver and gold within. Such grandeur he
has never seen before, for in his own land there are only
miserable huts of straw. Beside