had subdued, rose in revolt against him. They gathered, in immense
numbers, at one of the cataracts of the Dnieper, where it would be
necessary for the Russians to transport their boats for some distance
by land. They hoped to cut off his retreat and thus secure the entire
destruction of their formidable foe. The situation of Sviatoslaf was
now desperate. Nothing remained for him but death. With the
abandonment of despair he rushed into the thickest of the foe, and
soon fell a mangled corpse. How much more happy would have been his
life, how much more happy his death, had he followed the counsels of
his pious mother. Kouria, chief of the Petchénègues, cut off the head
of Sviatoslaf, and ever after used his skull for a drinking cup. The
annalist Strikofski, states that he had engraved upon the skull the
words, "In seeking the destruction of others you met with your own."

A few fugitives from the army of Sviatoslaf succeeded in reaching
Kief, where they communicated the tidings of the death of the king.
The empire now found itself divided into three portions, each with its
sovereign. Yaropolk was supreme at Kief. Oleg reigned in the spacious
country of the Drevliens. Vladimir was established at Novgorod. No one
of these princes was disposed to yield the supremacy to either of the
others. They were soon in arms. Yaropolk marched against his brother
Oleg. The two armies met about one hundred and fifty miles north-west
of Kief, near the present town of Obroutch. Oleg and his force were
utterly routed. As the whole army, in confusion and dismay, were in
pell-mell flight, hotly pursued, the horse of Oleg fell. Nothing
could resist, even, for an instant, the onswelling flood. He was
trampled into the mire, beneath the iron hoofs of squadrons of horse
and the tramp of thousands of mailed men. After the battle, his body
was found, so mutilated that it was with difficulty recognized. As it
was spread upon a mat before the eyes of Yaropolk, he wept bitterly,