settlers, members of an unknown tribe, lived on the hills overlooking the Scenes from History Moldau where they felt secure against attacks. During the later stone age they (Wechsberg, J. Prague: The Mystical City, pp 92-160) had settlements all over the heights, in the form of a large P, which Prague's mystics have interpreted as a symbolical monogram of the future capital of THE EARLIEST DESCRIPTION OF Prague was written exactly one thousand Bohemia. Traces of stone-age civilization have been found on the heights of years ago by Ibrahim Ibn Jacub, an educated Jew of Spanish-Arab origin, long Hradčany, Vyšehrad, Libeň, Bubeneč and Střešovice, where people lived long believed to have been a merchant who came to Bohemia to buy slaves for the before "Praha," down by the river, became settled. Gradually people dared Caliph of Cordoba. Recent research, however, proved that Ibrahim's report descend toward the Moldau. There was a ford near today's Rudolphinum and was not a mere traveler's account, as had been assumed, but a diplomatic another between today's Charles Bridge and Manes Bridge. Merchants from memorandum written in the second half of the tenth century for the Caliph, abroad stayed at the settlement before fording the river, to barter goods and ruler of the Pyrrhenean peninsula. It was published in the Book of Voyages and catch their breath. Prior to the Christian era, Celtic and Teutonic tribes lived Countries, edited by the renowned Cordoba geographer-philosopher, Abu here. There was the short-lived empire of the Marcomanni and Quadi, and at Obaid al Bakri. (The book was discovered toward the end of last century in the the end of the first century A.D. the Roman Empire advanced its northern imperial library in Constantinople.) Ibrahim reports that Fraga (sic) is "made of frontier toward the Danube. An inscription on a rock below Trenčín Castle in stone and lime and is the biggest merchant center, where Russians and Slavs Western Slovakia reports of the victorious battle fought by the Second Roman come from Cracow with goods. From Turkey come Muslims, Jews and Turks Legion in 172 under Emperor Marcus Aurelius who completed his Meditations also carrying merchandise and coins, and export slaves, tin and various furs." on the bank of the river Hron. He died eight years later in Vindobona. In 965, Ibrahim, accredited ambassador of Caliph Al Hakam II to the German Dramatic events occurred around Prague but, as an anonymous chronicler Emperor, Otto I, visited Utrecht, Paderborn, Mainz and Prague. Historians complains, "there was none in these days to set down in writing the deeds of remained doubtful about his report because they couldn't imagine so many their time." The first Slav tribes probably came from the region beyond the buildings being "made of stone and lime" in Prague at that early time. The only Carpathians. The tribe of the Czechs became installed on territory formerly known stone buildings were inside the Castle. Modern research takes a less occupied by the Boiens; other Slavs settled in Slovakia and Moravia. Then skeptical viewpoint of Ibrahim's report. The proximity of the Great Moravian came the rise of the Great Moravian Empire, so powerful that both the Franks Empire, a powerful state extending in the eighth century from the Baltic all the in the West and the Byzantines in the East tried to conquer it. The Byzantine way to Moravia, Bohemia and Austria, with many stone dwellings that have Emperor Michael III sent two educated Greek monks, Constantine (Cyril) and now been found by the archeologists, makes it highly probable that they Method, to spread the gospel to the Slavs. They were brothers from Salonika existed in Prague too. Prague was an important market center. Ibrahim called and prepared themselves for their task by creating, from the Greek alphabet, Bohemia "the best country of the north, and the best supplied with food special characters for the Slav sounds and translating from the Bible some stuffs," and he wrote that you can buy for one kinshar [a silver coin used at the passages into Old Slavonic. They also introduced native language into the tenth-century exchanges of Christian Europe] as much wheat as a man will prayer books. (The Popes later forbade the use of Slav prayer books.) The need for one month, and for the same price as much barley as an animal Great Moravian Empire broke up around 907 after an invasion of the Magyars, transport will need for forty days, and further, for one kinshar ten hens. In the but the Cyrillic alphabet has remained to this day, in Russia and Yugoslavia. city of Fraga one makes saddles, bridles and thick shields. In the country of Cyril and Method are venerated as the patron saints of Moravia. Bujima [Bohemia] scarves are sold of thin linen, made to no practical purpose. During the past fifteen years, new archeological discoveries have shed more The price is always ten scarves for one kinshar. These are used for exchange light on the foundation of Prague. The "stone book" of Hradčany, the Prague amongst themselves as well as for business. They have chests full of them; they Castle - its history and architecture that can be read in the various strata of buy wheat, slaves, horses, gold, silver, and everything else with it. It is strange stone - proves that a fortified castle had been built there in the second half of that most inhabitants have brown or dark hair; the blond type is rare. the ninth century. "Prague is a sarcophagus of past centuries, petrified history, Ibrahim ends with a statement that is now much quoted by Czech historians, the heart of the Czech nation turned to stone," wrote Ferdinand Gustav "The Slavs are courageous and brave, and were they not split up into several Kühne. Hradčany is younger than the settlement down by the river. Centuries tribes and groups, no nation could overcome them by force." earlier, in the vicinity of today's Old Town Square, the two great European Prague's early history reaches back into the early stone age, when the first trade routes crossed each other - the north-south "amber" route and the West- concluded a peace treaty with Henry I and received a precious relic, the arm of East route between the Frankish Empire and Byzantium. The two routes St. Vitus (who later became the patron saint of neighboring Saxony). To crossed exactly where today's Rudolphinum (which was built in the 1880s as a enshrine the relic, Wenceslas built a Roman rotunda; its foundations were later concert hall, later served as the Parliament during Masaryk's Republic and now discovered under the present Chapel of St. Wenceslas. Wenceslas was mur- is again a concert hall, known as "House of the Artists") stands. There the dered by his brother Boleslav I who disapproved of the Good King's friendly caravans of Frankish, Byzantine, Arab and Jewish merchants forded their politics toward the German Empire. goods across the river. The nearby Jewish ghetto became a bartering place for During the next two centuries, the Přemyslids were involved in numerous agricultural products, textiles, leather goods and slaves. fights against the Poles and the Magyars; one of them, Vladislav II, helped Only later were the two castles of Prague built, overlooking the river: Frederick Barbarossa in the conquest of Milan. In 1212, Přemysl I was Hradčany and Vyšehrad ("The High Castle"), which lost much importance recognized as King of Bohemia by both the Pope and the German Emperor; after the tenth century, and is now mainly a national symbol, the Czech the double-tailed lion in the Czechoslovak coat of arms dates from that time. pantheon where the nation buries its great dead. (The graves of Smetana and The Czech kingdom prospered but today Marxist historians take a dim view of Dvořák are there; of the poets Karel Hynek Mácha, Július Zeyer, Josef Hora that era. ("The leading positions in the administration, trade and economic life and Vitězslav Nezval; of the writers Božena Němcová, Jan Neruda and Karel of the royal towns were occupied by the wealthy burghers and patricians of Čapek; of the painter Mikoláš Aleš; of the sculptor Jan Myslbek; of the violinist German origin, and a tiny minority dominated the Czech people," writes Miloš Jan Kubelík; and of many others.) The castles were built to protect the growing Kratochvíl. "The Czech inhabitants were craftsmen, less wealthy burghers, trade center of Prague which, in turn, owes its importance to the river. The laborers and the poor. This created ... a future discord capable of producing an Czechs say that it was the Moldau that founded Prague. They have a deep explosion.") mystical love for their river, which flows through the entire length of Bohemia, King Přemysl Otakar II who ascended the throne in 1253 made his empire from north to south. The people of Prague never get tired of watching the wild as big as later Austria-Hungary was. He extended his rule all the way to the ducks and sea gulls on the Moldau embankment, sitting or flying there, always Adriatic, conquered Austria, Styria, Carinthia. (He also founded Malá Strana, in pairs. Prague's most aristocratic district, whose Baroque beauty has survived all of The first rulers of the Slav tribe of the Czechs were the ambitious Přemyslids Přemysl Otakar's former acquisitions.) His prestige was great in Europe. Dante who subjugated other tribes and gave the whole country the name "Čechy" saluted him in the seventh canto of his "Purgatorio" as the future liberator of (the Latin name was "Bohemia.") Modern Czech historians assume that the Italy, and the Austrian poet, Franz Grillparzer, made him the hero of his play, Přemyslids were "inspired" to create their own state by the example of the König Ottokars Glück und Ende.