from meeting great resistance, they were welcomed by the numerous enemies of the Visigoths. This was the happy era of the Caliphs, and the Arabs might well pass for liberators in comparison with the tyrants of the North. Tarik's army, soon swelled to twenty thousand men, defeated Rodrigo at Jerez and reduced the kingdom to submission. In time, several millions of the inhabitants of Mauritania crossed the sea and settled in Spain; and if their numerous migrations cannot be regarded as descents, still, they form one of the most curious and interesting scenes in history, occurring between the incursions of the Vandals in Africa and the Crusades in the East.
A revolution not less important, and one which has left more durable traces, marked in the North the establishment of the vast empire now known as Russia. The Varangian princes, invited by the Novgorodians, of whom Rurik was the chief, soon signalized themselves by great expeditions.
In 902, Oleg is said to have embarked eighty thousand men in two thousand boats on the Dnieper: they passed the falls of the river and debouched in the Black Sea, while their cavalry followed the banks. They proceeded to Constantinople, and forced Leo the Philosopher to pay tribute.
Forty years subsequently, Igor took the same route with a fleet said to have consisted of ten thousand boats. Near Constantinople his fleet, terrified by the effects of the Greek fire, was driven on the coast of Asia, where the force was disembarked. It was defeated, and the expedition returned home.
Not discouraged, Igor re-established his fleet and army and descended to the mouths of the Danube, where the Emperor Romanus I. sent to renew the tribute and ask for peace, (943.)
In 967, Svatoslav, favored by the quarrel of Nicephorus with the King of Bulgaria, embarked sixty thousand men, debouched into the Black Sea,