The Gepids reign as the most powerful people north of the Danube, but a new rival supported by the Roman empire threatens to dismantle their kingdom, all while a horrifying illness makes its appearance in the Balkans.

Here’s what the region looked like in the 540s after the Lombards settled west of the Gepids at Justinian’s invitation. Note how the Gepids held lands along the south bank of the Danube to better protect their capital at Sirmium, and how the Romans still held the city of Sucidava on the north bank of the river, such that each side had bridgeheads in the other’s territories.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 1, Episode 26: Blood feud

Last time, we saw how the Gepids and the Romans took advantage of fresh opportunities and shifting alliances to expand their realms. While the empire focused on North Africa and Italy, the Gepids took the city of Sirmium from the Goths before the Romans had a chance to get to it.

As we saw last episode, this move infuriated Justinian, who sent a force to capture the city in 538. But the attack failed, and what’s worse, the Gepids killed the Roman general in charge and then used the momentum of their victory to counterattack. Gepid forces expelled Roman garrisons on the south bank of the Danube, from the vicinity of Sirmium in the West to the Iron Gates in the East – forcing Justinian to quickly sign a peace treaty in 539. In the accord, the empire recognized the territorial gains of the Gepids and confirmed their previous status as xymmachoi, meaning allies who received subsidies in return for their military support.

But just because the treaty said the two sides were allies doesn’t mean that all was friendly between them. Justinian felt humiliated by the defeat, and he had no intention of letting the Gepids remain south of the Danube. So, the emperor sent envoys to the Lombards, a Germanic people living beyond the Alps, and invited them to migrate to Pannonia, which he had recently reconquered from the Goths. As such, the Lombards became allies of the empire and would act as a counterweight to the Gepids, whose lands they directly bordered to the West.

You can check out this episode’s map to have a better idea of the situation. As a sidenote, I’ve also added a page to the website where you can see all the maps for the podcast so far, from newest to oldest. This way, if you want to check out an older map to see how our region has changed, you don’t have to scroll through all the episodes; just head to the maps page and look for the date that interests you.

Getting back to the story, though the Romans had lost land along the Danube, they still held a key position on its north bank: the city of Sucidava. The imperial army had turned this ruined settlement into a fortified position, and artisans and merchants had soon settled nearby, knowing that Roman soldiers had the coin to pay for their goods and services. The emperor had also encouraged civilians to repopulate the settlement, and so, within a decade, Sucidava shifted from a purely military outpost to a respectable town, similar to any you would find in the Balkans. Its population grew enough that imperial authorities had to construct a church to serve its inhabitants, and the building became the centre of town where people congregated several times a week.

Sucidava became so prosperous that authorities organized a market outside its walls to oversee trade with nearby barbarian communities. With the Romans and Gepids at peace, commerce between the two banks of the Danube intensified, as is attested by the archeological record. Roman merchants came with wine, oil, vases, jewellery, and lamps, while traders from the Gepid kingdom brought grain, cattle, honey, wax, and salt. In fact, Sucidava was a node in a wide commercial network that went far into the Carpathian Mountains; coins struck during Justinian’s reign have been found in several settlements in the Gepid kingdom, reaching as far north as the old Roman cities of Apulum and Potaissa.

It’s likely that the Romance peoples living in the Gepid kingdom facilitated these commercial transactions. Since they spoke the language of the Romans – or, at least, a dialect of it – they could act as interpreters for their Gepid overlords or even strike out as independent traders, heading to Sucidava with wares from their nearby communities and returning with highly-coveted Roman goods.

Of course, through commerce also came culture; archeologists have found workshops in several Gepid villages that made Christian crosses as well as Roman-style vases, beads, rings, and medallions. These local sites and objects suggest that trade with the empire reinforced Christianity within the Gepid kingdom as well as the attraction of its inhabitants to Roman styles and fashions.

As goods and ideas were being traded across the Danube, an unseen traveller hopped on a merchant ship heading north. Sometime in 541, people in Sucidava began experiencing headaches and fever, and went to their beds to recover. Within a few days, parts of their skin turned black, and swells known as buboes developed on their groins, armpits, and necks. Their health continued to deteriorate, and coughing and aches were accompanied by vomit tinged with blood; the most unfortunate among these victims saw their skin decompose and felt their organs failing. After weeks of extreme suffering, these poor individuals drew their last breath, never knowing what had afflicted them, or why.

 The terrible illness which had just arrived on the shores of the Danube was the bubonic plague. Carried by fleas on the backs of rats, this disease had appeared somewhere in the Far East and travelled along trading routes to Egypt, and from there spread to Constantinople, then to the Balkans, and then hit the Danube frontier.

Procopius was a historian who actually lived through this first-ever outbreak of bubonic plague. He wrote: “This calamity embraced the entire world, and blighted the lives of all men, respecting neither sex nor age. … In this disease, there was no cause which came within the province of human reasoning … No device was discovered by man to save himself, so that either by taking precautions he should not suffer, or that when the malady had assailed him, he should get the better of it; but suffering came without warning and recovery was due to no external cause.

… in the beginning each man attended to the burial of the dead of his own house, and these they threw even into the tombs of others, either escaping detection or using violence; but afterwards, confusion and disorder everywhere became complete. For slaves remained destitute of masters, and men who in former times were very prosperous were deprived of the service of their domestics who were either sick or dead, and many houses became completely destitute of human inhabitants. … Work of every description ceased, and all the trades were abandoned by the artisans, and all other work as well …. Certainly, it seemed a difficult and very notable thing to have a sufficiency of bread …”

Scholars believe that up to a quarter of the population of the Eastern Mediterranean died of the plague. That’s one in four people – an absolutely traumatizing number. Urban environments were presumably harder hit since people lived in closer proximity to rats, but the plague also spread to the countryside and undoubtedly devastated the communities in the Gepid kingdom as well. Traders that dealt with the Romans brought the plague back to their own villages, and from there it spread to their family, friends, neighbours, and associates. Farmers perished in their homes, artisans abandoned their workshops, warriors were unable to pick up their swords, and the Gepid king and his advisors could do nothing but pray and watch their kingdom wither.

The whole Danube region felt the effects of the plague, and the Heruli which defended the Roman frontier with the Gepids lost their king to the epidemic. One faction among the Heruli sent envoys to Justinian, asking him to appoint a successor; but another faction sent envoys to their brethren beyond the borders to bring back a member of the Herule royal line. The Heruli were obviously divided about their relationship with the empire, unsure of whether to remain loyal to it or to embrace their traditional elites. When Justinian threatened to use force to install his choice as king, two-thirds of the Heruli refused to obey. They crossed the Danube and sought refuge among the Gepids, leaving Justinian’s man with only a third of the original population. The Gepids were glad to receive the Herule refugees, as they would reinforce the border at a time when the plague was dangerously weakening their army.

Of course, welcoming the rebellious Heruli did strain relations with the empire, but neither the Gepids nor the Romans wanted a fight. The Gepids were focused on their western border with the Lombards, who were acting increasingly belligerent. Meanwhile, the Romans were dealing with crises in both East and West. The Persians had launched a massive invasion and their forces had reached all the way to the Mediterranean; while the Goths had swept from northern Italy down the peninsula and imperilled imperial control of the region. At the same time, the Romans were still dealing with near-constant raids across the Danube from the Antes, Sclaveni, and Bulgars.

In 544, imperial agents managed to remove one of these threats through diplomacy: the Antes agreed to make peace with the Romans and fight alongside them in exchange for land along the Danube. Yet their fellow Slavic brethren, the Sclaveni, remained hostile to the empire, and war soon erupted between these two peoples as their interests and allegiances diverged. Unfortunately, we have no details about their conflict, but it seems the Sclaveni had a significant advantage over the Antes, since they were able to invade the empire in 547 and roam its provinces for four whole years. During this time, they repeatedly defeated imperial forces, assaulted fortresses and cities, enslaved citizens, stole goods, and even neared the outskirts of Constantinople. When the Sclaveni decided to head back home with their loot in 551, they were safely ferried across the Danube by the Gepids, who made each person pay one gold coin for the passage. This payment shows that the Gepids were willing to collaborate with the empire’s enemies for their own benefit, but it also hints at the immense amount of riches the Sclaveni must’ve plundered from the Balkans to be able to pay such a fare.

During these years of raiding, Sclaveni warriors gained lots of experience fighting the Romans and began to arm themselves with captured equipment. Gone were the days of shirtless warriors hiding in the brush, ambushing imperial forces with javelins; now, Sclaveni raiders had Roman swords, shields, and armour, and their commanders had learned the tactics needed to face imperial units in the open.

The Gepids were happy that the Sclaveni were focused on the empire – and not them – because relations with the Lombards had grown increasingly tense over the course of the 540s. Perhaps the Gepids had made some diplomatic slight which insulted their neighbours and demanded a response, or perhaps the Lombards wished to display their prowess in war and gain riches. While we don’t have the details of the dispute, we do know that the two sides were getting ready for war, as they were eager to put their rival in their place. Both the Gepids and the Lombards sought the empire’s support in the coming conflict, and in 549, envoys from the two sides arrived in Constantinople. The Gepid king Thurisind knew that Justinian resented him for taking Sirmium, but he reminded the emperor of their decade-long alliance, and promised to fight his enemies if their pact held. Thurisind understood he was unlikely to get Justinian’s enthusiastic support, but he at least hoped to secure his neutrality. Unfortunately, the emperor still saw the Gepids as a threat, especially since they held lands south of the Danube, and so he decided to send an army in support of the Lombards.

That same year, in 549, Roman forces crossed the Danube and engaged the Heruli which had defected to the Gepids; but before the Romans could link up with the Lombards, the war was already over. To the north, the Gepid and Lombard armies had marched against each other to settle the conflict in one decisive engagement. On the night before the battle, a full moon rose among the stars and turned its usual silver radiance into a deep crimson colour. Sentries couldn’t help but look up at this blood-red moon, and as word spread from one man to another, the opposing camps were soon awake and awestruck; it was a clear sign that the gods were displeased, and the warriors on both sides refused to fight the next day. A lunar eclipse had just saved the earth from being soaked in blood.

With their men unwilling to face each other, the Gepid king Thurisind and his Lombard counterpart had no choice but to agree to a truce, and they decided not to attack each other for two years. This respite was just what the Gepids needed; they had come dangerously close to being attacked from two sides, and there was no way they’d be able to defeat the Lombards and the Romans at the same time. So, Thurisind used these precious two years to improve relations with Justinian. The Gepid king wanted their treaty of alliance to be reinstated, and promised to prevent Sclaveni raiders from crossing the Danube. Justinian accepted the terms, in return for a contingent of Gepid troops joining his forces in Italy against the Goths. To ensure the emperor wouldn’t go back on his word, Thurisind asked for the Roman senate to swear to uphold the treaty, and twelve senators did indeed make the promise.

When the truce between the Gepids and Lombards expired in 552, the two sides immediately sent an army into the field, and Justinian promptly decided to break his treaty with Thurisind; he argued that the Gepids had continued to ferry raiders across the Danube, so he was justified in aiding the Lombards. This time, no divine intervention would stop the war. The Lombards marched on Sirmium, and the Gepids sent their entire army to stop them. The ensuing battle was one of the bloodiest fought in the region, with thousands of warriors killed on either side; the outcome was decided when the son of the Lombard king fought the son of the Gepid king in single combat – and won. Thurisind saw his army defeated and his heir killed, and had no choice but to retreat from the battlefield.

Though the Lombards had won a resounding victory, they didn’t sweep into Sirmium. You see, Justinian didn’t want one enemy to replace another; he wanted to create stability in the region by balancing these two barbarian peoples against each other. So, he ordered his Lombard allies to immediately make peace with the Gepids; in the resulting pact, the Gepids were forced to cede all the territory they held south of the Danube, except for their capital at Sirmium. Justinian probably felt he didn’t have the forces to conquer and keep the city, especially since his armies were still fully engaged in Italy against the Goths and in the East against the Persians. He was content with the status quo, and actually recognized the Gepids as xymmachoi once again; by treating both the Lombards and the Gepids as allies, Justinian hoped to dissuade one from attacking the other so he could maintain peace in the region and focus on his other crises.

Thurisind died soon after the end of the war and was succeeded by his son Cunimund. The Gepid kingdom had lost a large part of its army, territory, and wealth in the previous few years, but the peace imposed by the empire actually protected it from further Lombard advances, and allowed it to recover and even to prosper. Indeed, in the 550s, Cunimund established a mint in his capital of Sirmium and began striking silver coins, which were copies of imperial ones, since that was the accepted currency in the region. Minting such coinage required skilled artisans as well as a steady supply of silver – both of which hint at a sturdy network of mines and workshops in the Gepid kingdom.

During the same period, Cunimund also appointed a bishop to sit in Sirmium. As you know, the Gepids were Christians, but they didn’t recognize the authority of the patriarch in Constantinople, who was closely associated with the emperor. For the past century, they’d practiced their faith in a rather decentralized way, but, by the middle of the 6^th century, the Gepid king felt the need to structure the religion in his realm. Cunimund’s bishop was probably tasked with overseeing the priests who served in various Gepid villages, and settling disputes between believers as the court travelled around the realm.

These twin developments – minting coins and establishing a church structure – were significant advancements for the Gepid kingdom that were moving it in the direction of a state, on par with those barbarian kingdoms which had risen in the West. As the 560s began, the defeats and humiliations at the hands of the Lombards and Romans a decade earlier were receding, and Cunimund was planting the seeds of institutions which would strengthen his realm and make its people more prosperous.

Meanwhile, the steppes to the East were brewing with unrest. A renowned Turkic clan known as the Ashina had come to lead a huge tribal confederation which extended from Mongolia in the East to the Caucasus in the West.  The supreme ruler of this immense confederation was called the khagan, and he dominated hundreds of different peoples through military might. But of course, not everyone was happy with serving the Ashina clan, and there were some peoples on the fringes of their confederation who decided to flee rather than submit.

One such group of rebels lived on the western edge of the confederation and, in the middle of the 6^th century, they elevated a khagan of their own to unify their communities and lead them to freedom. These renegades likely consisted of various ethnicities; but by choosing a single leader, they declared their claim to independence, marked themselves as different from the subjects of the Ashina, and gained a new shared identity. They chose to call themselves the Avars, which was probably the name of some now-forgotten prestigious clan.

The khagan of the Avars led them westwards and, by 558, they arrived on the borders of the Roman empire near the Caucasus Mountains. They sent a delegation to Constantinople offering their military services in exchange for land and coin, but Justinian refused; he could deal with his enemies on his own, thank you very much. Unable to secure a spot for themselves inside the borders of the Roman empire, the Avars travelled even further West, with families following the lead of thousands of experienced horse archers. These agile and resilient warriors tore through the flatlands of Europe, and Avar parties went as far as the kingdom of the Franks in search of the best pastures on which to settle.

Having explored this new land of Europe for a few years, the Avar khagan, a man named Baian, decided that the best place to settle would be on the banks of the Danube in the Balkans; the grasslands there were plentiful, and he could extract tribute from the rich, sedentary empire nearby, as nomadic peoples were used to doing. In 563, Baian sent a second embassy to Justinian, and though the emperor did give him a large sum of money to avoid raids, he wouldn’t accept Avar migration on imperial land. Baian was furious, but he wasn’t ready to take on the Romans; his mounted warriors had easily subjugated the decentralized peoples north of the Danube, but the empire was massive, organized, and capable of fielding formidable armies; taking territory from it would prove difficult. Thankfully for Baian, there was an easier alternative: the Carpathian Basin held rich grasslands, and the Gepids who lived on them seemed a much weaker foe than the Romans.

And so, in 566, Baian sent envoys to the Lombard king Alboin, proposing to attack the Gepids together and to share the spoils evenly. Alboin jumped at the chance to defeat his hated enemies and accepted the alliance. The following spring, in 567, the Lombards invaded the Gepid kingdom from the West, while the Avars did the same from the East. Faced with a two-pronged invasion, the Gepid king Cunimund focused first on the Avars; he left Sirmium with as many warriors as he could muster and headed straight for the khagan. But the enemy proved too powerful to overcome; the Gepid army was crushed and king Cunimund died on the battlefield alongside his warriors.

The victorious Baian dragged Cunimund’s body to his camp, decapitated him, and made his skull into a drinking cup, which he then presented to his ally Alboin. This gruesome present was less of a gift and more of a message: this is what happens to those who cross the Avars. The Lombard king understood the threat and, the following year in 568, he packed up his part of the spoils, ordered his people to put their belongings on carts, and led them to Italy to find a place to settle well away from these unpredictable nomads. Alboin chose Italy because the peninsula had been ravaged by three decades of war between the Goths and Romans, and he figured that his eager warriors would have an easy time capturing a part of it for themselves.

As for the Gepids, their kingdom completely collapsed after Cunimund’s defeat. The king’s daughter was captured and forced to marry Alboin, while his nephew escaped alongside his bishop and sought refuge in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Avars streamed unopposed into the Carpathian Basin, and some Gepid communities actually decided to follow the Lombards to Italy, as they were terrified of these approaching conquerors. But others decided to stay in place, and their chieftains and village elders were the only ones left to speak for them. Having heard of the disastrous defeat and death of their king, these individuals now scanned the horizon as they awaited the inevitable arrival of the nomads.

Next time, we’ll follow these communities as they adjust to Avar rule, we’ll see the khagan set his sights on the empire, and we’ll bring the narrative of season one to a close.