The history of Hungary and the Magyars

Front matter

Book ■

THE

AND

Chapter I. — Roman Period . . . , . . . . . . . . 1

„ II.— The Huns— Attila . . . . . . . . . . 7

„ III. — The Magyars — Origin, manners, first appearance in Enrope, their I'avages in Germany and Italy — Final overthi'ow by Otho the Great . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

„ IV.— The Dynasty of Arpad . . . . . . . . . . 32

„ V, — Dynasty of Arpad continued . . . . . . ... 51

„ VI. — -Ascension of the House of Anjou — Charles llobert . . . . 69

„ VIII. — Maria and Sigismond — The Turks . . . . . . 91

„ XI. — Ladislaus III. — Regency of Hunyadi . . . . . . 116

„ XII. — Mathias Corvinus . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

„ XIII. — Ladislaus IV. and Louis II. — Peasant War and Turkish Conquests 134 „ XIV. — Ferdinand I. and John Szapolyai . . . . . . . . 144

„ XV. — John Sigismond and Stephen Bathori . . . . . . . . 175

„ XVI.— Wars of Gabriel Bethlem and Ferdinand II. and III. . . 197

„ XVII.— The Reign of Leopold . . . . . . . . . . 205

„ XVIII.— Rebellion of -Francis Rakotski .. .. .. .. 246

„ XIX.— Charles III. and Maria Theresa . . . . . . . . 263

„ XX. — Troubles in the Reign of Joseph II., and Leopold II., and Francis I. 284 „ XXI. — Conflicts between the Diet and the Government — ^Progress of Reform 293 „ XXII.— War of Independence .. .. .. .. ..324

„ XXIII.— The Horrors of the Peace . . . . . . . . 352

,, XXIV,— The Hungarian Constitution — Variety of Races . . . . 370

A

T,

^V

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TABLE OP REFERENCES TO THE FIGURES IN THE MAP.

[At places marked thus *, battles wore fought in the War of Independence.]

1. Defile of Jablunka (passage of the

llussians).

2. Deven.

3. Tyrnavia.

4. Kailway from Presburg to Tyrnavia.

5. Trencin.

6. Beczko.

7. lUava.

8. Arva.

9. Kossuth (patrimony of the Kossuth

family).

10. Teplitz.

11. Streczen.

12. Leopoldburg.

13. Nitra.

14. *Sarlo.

15. Sttigonia.

16. Comom.

17. Arabon.

18. Posonia (Presburg). l'>. Kesmark.

20. Leocsa.

21. Eperies.

22. Befile of Dukla (passage of the Russians) .

23. Bartfa.

24. Kremnitz (gold mines).

25. Tokay (vine district).

26. Zemplin.

27. Unghvar (seat of Huns).

28. Mungacs.

29. Szigeth.

30. Mount Tatra.

31. Bisztricz.

32. Gyarmath.

33. Vacz.

34. Miskolcz.

35. Agria.

36. Onod,

37. *Kapolna.

38. Tiszafured.

39. Mount Matra.

40. Parad.

41. Gyongeos.

42. Buda.

43. Pesth.

44. Gcodoelloe.

45. Pi,ailway from Pesth to Vienna.

46. .Jasbereny.

47. Debreczin,

48. Szolnok.

49. Railway ixom Pesth to Debreczin.

50. Grreat Varadin.

51. Szeguedin.

52. Arad.

53. Vilagos.

54. Kolosvar (capital of Transylvania) .

55. TJdvarhely (chief town of the Szeklers).

56. Cibina (capital of Saxon Land). •57. Corona.

•58. Karlburs.

59. *Piska.

60. Deva.

61. Vajda Hunyad.

62. Detile of the Red Tower (passage of the

Russians) .

63. Orsova (by which Kossuth escaped).

64. Temesvar.

65. Bega Canal.

66. Berzava Canal.

67. Panczova.

68. Fehertemplom (Weiskirchen)

69. Kevi (Kubin).

70. Semlim.

71. Tetel.

72. Petervaradin.

73. TJjvidek.

74. Roman Ruins.

75. St. Thomas.

76. Great Becskerek,

77. Mehadia.

78. Batz.

79. Eszek.

80. Five Churches.

81. Vukovar.

82. Posega.

83. Szigethvar.

84. French Canal.

85. Sarvitz Canal.

86. Alba Regia.

87. *Velentze.

88. Raczkevi Island.

89. Lake Balaton.

90. Tihany.

91. Szigligeth.

92. Kesztholy.

93. Bakony Mountains and Forests.

95. Vesprim.

96. Neusidlesee Lake.

97. Soprony.

98. Papa.

99. Kerszey (Guns). 100. Szala.

102. Kanisa.

103. Isle of Mur.

104. Varadin.

106. Port Royal.

107. Fiume.

108. Fured.

109. Segna.

110. Mohatz.

111. Lugos.

112. Visegrad.

113. Ikervar (birth-place of Count Louis

Batthyanyi) .

115. River Save.

116. Plain of liakos.

117. Plain of Hortobagy.

BRBATA.

Page 2, line 32, Jot Tusculam, read Tusoulum.

90, „ 39, for remains, read remain ; and in tlie line following:, for was, read -were. 159, ,, 17, for or title, read and title. 202, ,, 7, from below, /or them, reaf^liim. 246, ,, 14, from below, /or a no less, ?-ca(i no less. 344, last line, for grand armee read grande armee.

HISTORY OF HUNGARY.

CHAPTER I.

ROMAN PERIOD.

If the reader will look at a map of the Roman Empire, as it was in the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, he will find that large tract of country noAV surrounded by the modern empires of Austria, Turkey, and Russia, set down as Pannonia and Dacia. This formed the north-western frontier, and was the scene of the fiercest struggles recorded in history. As it lay right in the course of all the hordes of various races who poured from the forests of the north and the plains of the east, during the earlier part of the Christian era, hurried on, as if by an irresistible impulse, to precipitate themselves upon the declining empire, it was seized and ravaged now by one and now by another — belonging to all of them by turns, but to none of them long.

The Romans were the first to lift up the veil which shrouded all that region in ancient times. The Greeks, who knew more of everything than they did of geography, had a vague notion that it was peopled by a simple pastoral race whom they called Peones. The face of the country was covered by vast forests, with here and there a swampy meadow, intersected by great rivers rolling on darkly to the ocean, with no sound on their banks but the howl of the wolf or the cry of the heron. The Gauls, it is said, invaded this district about the year 587 B.C., one detachment settling in the part now known as Western Hungary, and the other pushing on into Greece, where, amongst other outrages, they pillaged the temple at Delphi. The Romans themselves for a long time peopled northern and western Europe Avith ogres, until Caesar's victories in Gaul helped to dissipate their delusions. The legions under Drusus, Germanicus, and Tiberius, were engaged in the subjugation of Dalmatia, when they Avere suddenly assailed by wild hordes from the banks of the Danube and the Teyss, whom it required all the strength of the

i;

empire to beat back. But Tiberius did not rest satisfied with repulsing them ; he followed them to their fastnesses, and, after a tremendous struggle, Pannonia and Dacia became provinces of the empire.

It was part of the wise policy of the Romans never to rest content with subduing ; they always endeavoured to assimilate as well. No sooner was resistance at an end, than the work of civilization commenced. Scholars, lawyers, artists, merchants, artizans, nobles, even, settled in the newly- conquered territory, and soon made it reflect back the image of the mother country. In this way, Pannonia and Dacia were soon numbered amongst the most flourishing and civilized of the provinces. The frequent visits of the lieutenants of the emperors, or of the emperors themselves, for the purpose of repelling the incursions of the barbarians who hung about the north-Avest boundary of their dominions, brought, every year, fresh bands of colonists, who mixed freely with the natives, and soon inspired them with the tastes as well as the wants of civilized life, taught them their ^ language, the rich and sonorous Latin, made them sensible of the advantages of a well-admini^ered system of law.

The face of the country soon became changed. Cultivated fields and smiling meadows took the place of the waving sedge of the marshes and the halfscorched reeds of the steppe. The axe of the Eoman backwoodsman soon opened fields and roads in the heart of the thick oak forests, wherein the Avolves had howled, and the Druids sacrificed for centuries before ; and the ploughman, with his goad and his rudely-yoked oxen, following in the track of tlie pioneer, soon presented to the astonished gaze of the natives a smiling garden, on the groiind where previously stood the thick fastnesses through which their forefathers hud hunted the Avild boar. The labours of the legionaries soon covered the provi:ice with a net-work of great roads, built as if to last for ever, and private enterprise lined them all along with inns, and post-houses, and farms, and gorgeous villas ; and on all the sunny slopes, the vine, the present of the Emperor Probus, flourished under the watchful eye of the husbandman. Wherever a military fort had been built, splendid inansions of the rich provincials sprang up around it, furnished with all the luxury that distinguished the voluptuous retreats at Tiburnum or Tusculam. Cities soon rose, which received their priests and magistrates from Rome, and ^were decorated with magnificent temjDles, and statues of Greek workmanship instead of the rude images of the Celtic divinities. The Roman polytheism supplanted the Gallic pantheism ; and the transition was the easier, as many of the divinities difiered only in name. Phoran was another Jupiter, Hesus another Mars, and Baal an Apollo.

But this period of glory and prosperity did not last long. Even when Dacia and Pannonia were conquered Rome was in her decline. While her hands were stretched forth to grasp the uttermost ends of the earth, a cancer — the cancer of corruption and vice— was preying at her vitals. Slowly, and not without many a struggle, did she succumb to the assaults of her enemies. But the crisis, so long averted.

HO^kLlK PERIOD. 6

came at last ; the legions slowly retired, and the barbarians of the north sv/ept like an avalanche across these scenes of luxury, art, and wealth, leaving naught behind but a howling waste, in which children, amidst blackened ruins, sought nourishment from the slaughtered bodies of their mothers.

Of all the great works executed during the period of Roman domination, a few remains only are to be seen at the present day, and these can give but a faint idea of the splendour they have outlived. Below Columbacz the Danube rushes rapidly between high walls of rock, which give an air of grandeur to its course. In this neighbourhood traces of the Roman occupation become more numerous, and at last the most remarkable of any is seen after having 'passed Rogacs. This is known as Trajan's Tablet, and is an elegant piece of sculpture graven in the solid rock, and containing the inscription

TEIB. P. O. XSX.

The tablet is supported by two wings, and is stirmoiinted by a Roman eagle. It is supposed that this was intended to commemorate the piercing of the rocks by the legions when making the great road called after the emperor Via Trajana.

Another of his mighty works is seen in the remains of the bridge which he threw across the Danube, near the modern town of Orsova, in his expedition against the King of Dacia. It was erected over a formidable rapid that no boat could pass without imminent danger. Upon each side of the river there still stand two enormous piles of masonry, about twenty feet in height, v>'hich were no doubt used as supports for the two arches at the extremities, spanning the bed of the river ; the piles upon which the others rested still remain, until the debris has formed a small island around them. Dion Cassius, v\'ho was governor of part of Pannonia in the reign of Adrian, Trajan's successor, has left some few details of the construction of this gigantic work. According to him, every buttress v.'as sixty feet in circumference, a.nd the distance from one to another 170 feet. The passage was defended by two towers of solid marble, one at each end. The erection of the whole was superintended by Apollodorus, the architect of the Forum, and of Trajan's Column at Rx)me. The bridge was destroyed seventeen years after its erection, by Adrian, in the year 120, upon pretence of securing the frontiers against the incursions of the barbai-ians, or, as some say, through mere jealousy.

The last relic of this period which we shall notice is one in some respects more interesting than any.

About two leagues from Karansebes, upon a hill in the midst of a charming landscape, stands a small square tower of great antiquity. This is known as OvicPs Tower, and popular tradition asserts that in it the poet was confined, when he was banished by Augustus, professedly because of the immorality ot his

b2 treatise " De Arte Amandi," but in reality for some crime which history has not recorded. Classical scholars and commentators assert that his real place of oytd's towek.

Trajan's tablet on the danube.

banishment was Tomi, in Thrace ; but the popular tradition which transfers it to this romantic spot will, without doubt, in the case of most people, outweigh

KOMAN FERIOD.

the soberer testimony of history. An English tourist, '^ who has given a good deal of attention to the subject, sides with the Transylvanians, and in support of his arguments, asks, and not without plausibility, where could Ovid with more of truth than in this country have exclaimed,

It scarcely falls within our province to balance the arguments on either side.

BUINS OF THE GOTHIC CHURCH OF ZAMBEK,

It is at least certain that the memory of Trajan and Ovid still lives amongst the Wallacks ; and the peasant of the valley of Temes still tells, with an air of authority, that when the Koman army passed that way, the soldiers crowded eagerly to visit the prison in which their great countryman had been confined.

* Paget's " Hungary and Transylvania," London, 1839.

After the Roman power had been overthrown, and the crowd of unknown races rushed across the Danube and laid waste Pannonia, Dacia, and Dalmatia, no people, of all those who from time to time occupied Hungary, left any permanent records of their stay except the Goths. These were converted to Christianity, at a very early period of their occupation, by a bishop named Ulphus, and in the ruins of their religious edifices which still remain, we have ample testimony to the ardour of their faith, and the rapid progress in the arts which they had made through contact with the people whom they had vanquished in arms.

One of the most beautiful of these relics is the ruins of the Gothic church of Zambek. It is supposed to have been built by the Visigoths, who, when dominant in Hungary, sent forth armies ±o the conquest of Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and Spain. It is a splendid specimen of the first attempt at a style of architecture which has since covered Europe with some of the grandest monuments which have ever been raised in honour of religion.

Chapter II, The Huns — Atiiia.— A.d, 337-453

The vast plains to the north of China, from time immemorial, were peopled, or rather possessed, by a number of hardy nonaade tribes, who were known to the Greeks and Romans under the general appellation of Scythians, and who bid defianee to the mightiest conquerors of the ancient world. The skill and discipline of the armies of Cyrus and Alexander were useless against a foe whose valour exhausted itself in a single onset, or in distant discharges of arrows, and whose retreats were so rapid that pursuit was out of the question. Their whole wealth lay in their horses, flocks, and herds. They were bound by no tie to any one spot on the vast expanse of their native steppes more than to another. Removal caused them no regret, for they left behind neither houses nor the fruits of labou.r. The worst that an invader could do vv^as to drive them prematurely from a luxuriant pasturage, but without reaping any reward for his pains. Wherever he turned he found himself assailed in flank and rear by an active and vigilant enemy, who continually attacked, but never gave battle. Discomfiture and disaster were the unvarying result of all the attempts we read of that Avere made to subjugate them. But in those early times in no instance were they the offenders. If unmolested, they were content to roam peaceably from one grassy plateau to another ; and they were known to the v/estern nations only as a distant and barbarous people, of exceeding fierceness, who skirmished on horseback, and whose subjugation was the topmost point in the ambition of their great military leaders.

But to the old and civilised empire of China they proved troublesome neighbours. When chance brought them to the borders of the celestial dominions, they could not help looking with greedy eyes upon the wealth and magnificence which the skill and industry of the inhabitants had created, and the Great Wall remains to our day a gigantic testimony to the fierceness of their marauding attacks and the terror with which they inspired the Chinese. The latter, with rare condescension, ascribe to these Tartars an origin as remote as their own. Their historians relate that previous to the year 200 B.C., many dynasties had reigned over them, and that they had had chiefs and legislators, renowned for their valour and wisdom, who ruled an extent of territory wider than that of the Roman empire in its palmiest days. The same authority informs us that under the reign of an emperor rejoicing in the euphonic appellation of Pou-nou-Tanjou, g HISTOKY OF HUNGARY.

a great nation amongst these Tartars or Scythians,— the Huns became greatly enfeebled by a devastating famine, and that their old enemies, taking advantage of their forlorn condition, proceeded to wreak vengeance upon them for all their former outrages. So heavily did the weight of their misfortunes press upon them, that they determined to separate into two tribes or divisions, one of which was subjugated, and remained in bondage on their native soil for a long period. The other, called the northern tribe, set off in search of a newcountry and better fortune. This was about the year 87 of the Christian era.

After having wandered about Asia for more than two centuries, this tribe had the hardihood once more to attack the Chinese, who, however, inflicted upon them so signal a defeat, that they turned their faces towards Europe, and bid adieu to Asia for ever. This was the commencement of that series of inroads upon the Roman empire which ended in its fall. The southern Huns, some centuries afterwards, followed the example of their brethren, and appeared in Europe under the name of Turks, and established their head-quarters in Constantinople. It is from the former, however, that the modern Hungarians claim descent, and to them, therefore, our attention must be confined.

But if we omitted to mention that a great deal of what we have been here stating rests upon no better foundation than vague tradition, which national, and certainly pardonable, vanity puts forward as history, Ave should be concealing a part of the truth. Very little of what the Chinese tell us of their own origin is credible, and the temptation to give exaggerated accounts of the power and numbers of the Huns was increased by the fact, that the greater their strength could be made to appear, the greater would be the glory of having defeated and expelled them from their territory. Gibbon is of opinion that the connexion between the modern Hungarians and the ancient Huns, in point of descent, is feeble and remote in the extreme, but he acknowledges the identity in origin of the Turks and Magyars. Recent philological researches have, however, gone far to show that the Fins, the Turks, Magyars, as well as the Mogols, and the less civilised Tartars of central Asia, all belong to the same stock, just as the different nations of modern Germany ; but in the vast political changes which they have undergone, have lost their similitude of language. This question of origin, however, is one which, with regard to nations as with regard to great men, it is almost always difiicult to settle satisfactorily. It is, therefore, gratifying to know, that in neither case is it of much moment, and in ceasing to trouble its headabout it the world shows that it is making some advance in good sense.

When the Huns precipitated themselves upon Europe, they found that the Goths and Vandals had preceded them, had done their share in the work of devastation, and were already enfeebled by luxury and success. They drove them before them triumphantly, and abandoned themselves without restraint to plunder and rapine. But they, too, soon exhausted their strength in intestine quarrels and petty predatory excursions, so that their power seemed on the point of disso-

TliE HUJ^S — ATTILA. 9

lution, when a leader arose in the person of Attila, whose valour, ferocity, and ability restored to their name its ancient terror. ,

His uncle and predecessor, Rugilas, was a, man of great power and ability, and was distinguished by his warlike exploits. In his time, beyond all doubt, the Huns did encamp in the country now called Hungary, and thus placed, as it were, midway between the eastern and the western empires, were enabled to keep both in a continual state of alarm. At the solicitation of the celebrated consul Aetius, on behalf of the usurper John, Rugilas, upon one occasion, marched 60,000 men to the very borders of Italy ; but nothing short of the total cession of the province of Pannonia was sufficient to induce them to return. He also threatened Constantinople itself, and with such appearance of sincerity, that Theodosius, the Greek emperor, was obliged to ward off his displeasure by the payment of an annual tribute of 3001bs. of gold. So open an acknowledgment of the greatness of their power was not the Avay, however, to pacify the rude barbarians, whose impatience occasionally broke through all bounds ; and war was impending, and only prevented by tedious negotiations, when Rugilas died. (a.d. 434). His nephews, Attila and Bleda, succeeded him, and by them a treaty was concluded, by which the unfortunate Greeks underwent still greater humiliation. Bleda was soon deposed and executed, and Attila became the sole sovereign of the Hunnic nation. This extraordinary man is claimed by the Magyar historians as one of their kings, and this, independently of the wonderful part he played in the history of his time, entitles him to a full share of our attention.

The modern Hungarians trace his .descent till, in the thirty- fifth degree, it reaches Ham, the son of Noah ; but, unfortunately, they are not acquainted with the real name of his father. He himself, with less ambition, was content to deduce it from a noble or royal house amongst the old Huns who had battled with the Chinese along the Great Wall. The only descriptions of him that have come down to us have been traced by the hands of enemies, who had every reason for hating him, and A^ery little scruple about doing him injustice. His portrait, however, presents all the features which characterise a Calmuck Tartar at the present day — a large head, swarthy complexion, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in place of a beard, and a short sqtiare body possessing great muscular strength. But. whatever might be the disadvantages of his jaersonal appearance, he had the soul of a hero. In his walk, in his look, almost in every act of his life, he gave evidence of conscious superiority to the rest of mankind. He had a custom of rolling his eyes in a peculiarly fierce fashion, and seemed highly to enjoy the terror Avhich his very looks inspired. He was fond of war, and was undoubtedly in possession of great personal courage ; but it was not his mere valour which gained him sway over his countrymen, so much as his skill in working upon their passions and credulity. The latter is a prominent characteristic in all barbarous nations. The more wonderful an affair is, and the less support it receives in the shape of evidence derived from experience, the greater is their disposition to believe it. Craft, therefore, is the quality which amongst them is the surest guarantee of power and influence. In Attila this was united with great military talent, an iron will, and a commanding presence. By making a good use of the national superstition, he gained an ascendancy over his countrymen which no amount of warlike success could ever have bestowed upon him. The Huns, like all other nations of antiquity, worshipped the god of war with more than ordinary devotion ; but too. rude to mould a statue, they adored him under the form of an iron scimitar. One of their shepherds having perceived a wound in the foot of a heifer, followed the track of the blood, till it led to an old sword sticking up out of the ground. He dug it up and presented it to Attila, who received it with a devout air, declared that it was the sword of Mars, and that he, as its possessor, had a divine right to the dominion of the earth. He henceforth assumed, in the eyes of his subjects, the character of a deity, in whose service it Avas as honourable to fight as it Avas glorious and fortunate to die.

He may be said from this time to have divided the empire of the Avorld Avith the Ilomans. They possessed the civilised portion of it — he the barbarian. jX ot only did he hold undisputed sAvay over the Scythian tribes, but over the German also.

The Franks and Burgundians trembled at his nod ; lie received a tribute of furs from the cold regions of northern l^kiropc, which more civilised potentates had assailed in vain ; his power was felt on the banks of the Volga ; the Geuo-ens thought him a magician, who, by means of the enchanted stone gezi, coidd excite storms of Avind and rain. He made an alliance upon equal terms with the Emperor of China, and the great and powerful tribe of the Ostrogoths were ahiongst the most submissive of his supporters. All the kings and chiefs — and their name was legion — who acknowledged his supremacy, took it in turn to attend on his person as guards and domestics ; and when he took the field, he could muster an army of five, or as some say seven, hundred thousand men.

When Attila ascended the throne, he was by no means disposed to continue the negotiations which his uncle had been carrying on with the Greek emperor Theodosius, and only wanted a pretext for commencing hostilities. This was a thing which no barbarian ever wanted long, and particularly a Hun in the fifth century. A free market was at that time held on the northern, or Himnic, side of the Danube, under the protection of a lloman fort called Constantia. The Huns one day made a foray into the market-place, killed the traders, and levelled the fortress witli the ground, and justified the outrage by asserting that it was committed by way of reprisal for the trespass of the Bishop of Margus, who entered their territory with the design of discovering and concealing a secret treasure belonging to their king, and they demanded the extradition of the prelate, and of those who aided and abetted him. But the Byzantine court had not yet reached so low a pitch of degradation as to surrender a Christian into the hands of pagans, and refused to comply. The people of Margus were amongst the first to applaud the emperor's firmness. When the Huns, however, crossed the frontier with fire and sword, and destroyed two towns in their immediate vicinity, the citizens changed their minds, and began to think of surrendering the bishop themselves. But that worthy individual, however, was not of opinion that a bishop should be sacrificed to save a town, but, on the contrary, that a town ought to be, by all means, sacrificed to save a bishop. Ho, therefore, sent a secret message to Attila, secured his pardon by a solemn oath of allegiance, and testified the sincerity of his submission by opening with his own hand, at an appointed hour, the gates of the city to a chosen band of the barbarian army.

The career of the invader was after this but a series of successes. Town after town fell before him, and the Avhole extent of Europe, from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was laid waste and desolate. The Roman armies, hastily collected from various quarters of the empire, wanted both the courage and the skill to make an effectual resistance. They were defeated in three successive battles, and the ravages of Attila were extended to the very walls of Constantinople itself. tScvcnty cities of the eastern empire, rich in all that the art, iiidustry, and commerce of the time could achieve or collect, and crowded by a busy, civilised, and luxurious population, were totally destroyed and up-rooted, so that nothing save charred and blackened ruins marked their sites. From this one fact alone some idea may be formed of the ferocity of the invader, and the terrible calamities the unfortunate inhabitants had to undergo. Gibbon *' endeavours, in the absence of all positive testimony upon the subject, to form some idea of the treatment of the vanquished by the Huns, by supposing an analogy between their practice and that of the Moguls, men of the same race and same manners. The mode of procedure followed by the latter upon the capture of a town has been accurately recorded. The inhabitants, if they had surrendered at discretion, were assembled in some open space near the city, and divided into three classes. The first, consisting of the young men able to bear arms, \yere either enlisted^ in the ranks of their conquerors, or slaughtered on the spot. The second, consisting of young and beautiful women, artificers, professional men, or merchants, from whom a ransom might be expected, were distributed in equal shares. The remainder, consisting of the old, and decrepid, and poor, were dismissed, with contemptuous pity, and obliged to pay a tax for being permitted to live amidst the ruins of their homes.