and his reign as the most brilliant period of their history. He had spent
his childhood at Constantinople and been educated there, and he became
such an admirer of Greek civilization that he was nicknamed _Hèmiargos_.
His instructors had done their work so well that Simeon remained
spellbound by the glamour of Constantinople throughout his life, and,
although he might have laid the foundations of a solid empire in the
Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and to be recognized as
basileus--an ambition which was not to be fulfilled. His first campaign
against the Greeks was not very fruitful, because the latter summoned the
Magyars, already settled in Hungary, to their aid and they attacked Simeon
from the north. Simeon in return called the Pechenegs, another fierce
Tartar tribe, to his aid, but this merely resulted in their definite
establishment in Rumania. During the twenty years of peace, which strange
to say filled the middle of his reign (894-913), the internal development
of Bulgaria made great strides. The administration was properly organized,
commerce was encouraged, and agriculture flourished. In the wars against
the Greeks which occupied his last years he was more successful, and
inflicted a severe defeat on them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917;
but he was still unable to get from them what he wanted, and at last, in
921, he was obliged to proclaim himself _basileus_ and _autocrat[=o]r_ of
all Bulgars and Greeks, a title which nobody else recognized. He
reappeared before Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more
than the customary devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a
solemn reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were
clever enough to prevent the Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their
return journey, and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was
anxious to see them and enter into direct relations with Rome. In the same
year Simeon tried to make an alliance with the Arabs, but the ambassadors
of the latter were intercepted by the Greeks, who made it worth their
while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.