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for greater security the emperor again moved them; then from there again he transferred them to Adrianople, as to a more splendid city and condition. And when the place appeared suitable to them, having formed a clan and tribe as it were of their own, they grew in number 215 and achieved considerable prosperity, preserving their ancestral nobility and keeping their lineage unmixed. 3 But some time later, when Constantine was reigning with his mother Irene, that Maiktes, being himself also of the blood of Arsaces, came to this celebrated Constantinople for some embassy or business; he by chance met a man of the same race, called Leo, and recognizing him from his outward condition and the distinction of his dress not as one of the common and humble sort, but noble and illustrious, and having entered into conversation with him and found this familiar and congenial, when he learned his lineage, he preferred living together, the foreign land over his own, on account of the man’s virtue; and having embraced a marriage connection with him, he married one of his daughters, from whom came the father of the subject of this history, who having been well brought up and reaching manhood through a praiseworthy education and upbringing, and being distinguished by health and strength of body and adorned with all kinds of virtues, stirred many who wished to ally themselves with him by marriage. But a certain noble and respectable woman who had her dwelling in Adrianople, after her husband had departed, was living her widowhood modestly, (for a not entirely obscure rumor was current that she drew her kinship from Constantine the Great) was considered by him more preferable than the others among whom she dwelt, and for this reason he married her daughter, who was distinguished by nobility and beauty of body and adorned with modesty; from whom 216 sprang this royal root, Basil, on his father's side drawing his kinship from Arsaces, as has been said before; and his mother was adorned with kinship to Constantine the Great and on the other side boasted the splendor of Alexander. Having come from such parents, Basil immediately had many symbols of his future glory appearing; for a crimson-dyed band was seen around his head at the first growth of his hair, and purple dyes on his swaddling clothes. 4 And until then the lineage of the descendants of Arsaces was established as a clan of its own, even if it often intermingled with the locals through intermarriages, having its dwelling in Adrianople. But when that Krum, the ruler of the Bulgars, having violated the treaties with the Romans, set up a hostile rampart against Adrianople, and having besieged it for a long time, he took it by surrender due to the lack of necessities, and he carried off all those in it, along with Manuel, the archbishop of that city, to Bulgaria, it happened that along with the others the parents of Basil, still having him in swaddling clothes, were carried off to the land of the Bulgars; where, preserving unadulterated the proper faith of Christians, both that wonderful archbishop and the people with him converted many of the Bulgars to the true faith of Christ (for the nation had not yet been converted to piety) and 217 in many places they sowed the seeds of Christian teaching, drawing the Scythians from their ethnic error and leading them to the light of the knowledge of God. At this, Moutragon, the successor of Krum, moved with anger against them, both the most holy Manuel and the many who were pointed out for this, when he could not persuade them by trying to make them renounce Christ, after many tortures he sent them to death through martyrdom. And so it happened that many of Basil’s relatives achieved the glory of martyrdom, so that he would not be without the dignity from this. But with God now visiting