The Varangians
In 980 emperor Basil II received an unusual gift from Czar Vladimir (Valdemar)
of Russia. He got an army of 6,000 Scandinavian-Russian Vikings.
He incorporated them into his own army as a single unit. It became known as
the "The Axe-toting Guard" - after the huge double-edged axes they
used in battle. Posterity knows this unit as the "Varangians" - the
sworn. They were the best paid troops in the empire. They were so well paid that
you had to bribe the right people in order to get in. The Varangians were also
allowed to keep the booty they managed to scrape up from the battlefields and
towns they conquered. They also had a right to "polutasvarv" (palace
plundering) whenever the emperor died. They then went through the palaces in the
capital and grabbed all the treasures and valuables they could carry. The
Northerners served the emperor for over 300 years.