FOUNDATION AND HISTORY 47
session of this stronghold by the following stratagem. After having bribed the commanders of the garrison by promising them land and honours in the city, they allowed a large consignment of wine to fall into the hands of the enemy; while the latter were making merry on it the burghers issued forth and put them all to the sword. The castle was destroyed, and the church of San Niccolo in Prijeki1 erected on its site. These events are recorded as having occurred some time during the eleventh or twelfth century, but the accounts are by writers who lived several hundreds of years later. Probably there were wars with the Slaves in which incidents of a similar character occurred, but the seven years’ siege is pure fiction, and the name of Bodino is not found in any history of the Serbs or Croatians.
  Another Servian war, on which we possess somewhat more reliable information, is that which broke out in 1184 between the Ragusans and Stephen Nemanja, King of the Serbs. An army commanded by the King himself attacked the city from the land side,2 while a fleet under his brother, Miroslav, attacked it by sea. The citizens, under Michele Bobali, completely defeated the besiegers, who were ignorant of siege operations and quite unprovided with necessaries. On the Feast of the Three Martyrs,3 September 27, 1186, peace was concluded.4
   1	Prijeki means “ beyond ” in Serb, and the church was so called because it was beyond the channel.
   2	The figures given by Engel (§ 19)—20,000 horse and 30,000 foot— are probably exaggerated.
   3	The Three Martyrs of Cattaro were saints murdered by the heathen, or, as some assert, by heretics.
   4	The treaty is published in the Monum. sped, llistoriam Slav. Merid., Agram, vol. i. Document xvii.