In the last narrative episode of season one, the Avars spring out of the Carpathian Basin and into the Balkans, while Slavic tribes roam the lands on either side of the Danube seeking a permanent place to settle.

Here’s what the Balkans looked like after the Romans stabilized the Danube frontier in 602 CE. Though the Avars controlled lands from the Alps to Crimea, they had mostly settled their families on the Pannonian Plain (the grasslands on either side of the Middle Danube, basically where the river takes a sharp bend north of Sirmium).

Inside the Avars’ huge realm lived dozens of different peoples; among others, there were Slavic communities along the Danube in the West, Gepid and Romance villages on the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in the centre, and Bulgar clans on the steppes to the East.

It’s important to note that there were also hundreds of Slavic communities living inside the Roman empire at this point. Settled in the rough, mountainous terrain of the central Balkans, these bands ruled themselves independently, though they were in constant conflict with Roman troops who sought to reestablish imperial control over the region.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 1, Episode 27: Gentes et regna

We’ve arrived at the final chapter of season one, which ends with the 6^th century; but this is not the last episode of the season. After we finish the chronological story of season one, we’ll take a look at the themes that have emerged so far to gain a broader perspective on the past few centuries. I’ll say more about that upcoming content at the end of the episode; but for now, we have a story to finish.

Last time, we saw the Gepids reach the zenith of their power, and then saw their kingdom crumble. Years of plague and a decades-long rivalry with the Lombards had critically weakened their army, such that when the nomadic Avars appeared from the steppes to the East, the Gepids were unable to defend their sovereignty. Their warriors were defeated, their king was killed, and their communities were left adrift.

In 568, the Avars pressured the Lombards to leave for Italy, allowing their horsemen to gallop unopposed into the Carpathian Basin. Some people still lived in the old Roman cities of the region, though not as urban communities; as we’ve seen, a century ago when the Huns had been defeated, families had returned to these abandoned cities, made their homes in deserted buildings, and set up farms in the suburbs. Yet these ruined urban centres with their sprawling structures would’ve been glaring targets for the nomads – much more intriguing than the modest villages of the countryside. And so, the families which lived in these old Roman centres headed for nearby hills and forests where they could hide from the horse riders and start a new life. Their exodus was quite dramatic; once the Avars turn up, we find no more archeological evidence of people living in the old cities which the Romans had built north of the Danube.

Besides these fleeing refugees, there were also numerous Gepid and Romance village communities which had remained in place and which now had to brace for the arrival of the Avars. Their warriors had gone off to fight and many had died alongside the king. Some men must’ve made it back to their villages, but they were undoubtedly exhausted and too few in number to resist the nomads. Village elders had no choice but to submit to the approaching Avars, hoping that their offers of food, goods, and access to pastureland would secure the safety of their communities.

After subjugating these various groups, the Avar khagan, a man named Baian, settled his clans on the Pannonian Plain – the same area which had been the heartland of the Huns. Just like those previous nomads, Baian’s people needed wide grasslands to graze their herds, gallop about freely, and set up their yurts to last the winter. They didn’t care to mingle with the agricultural communities they dominated; they just wanted tribute to be delivered in full and on time, since they needed it to sustain their way of life. Indeed, while the nomads could live well off of their animals – extracting meat, milk, cheese, wool, bone, horn, and more – they needed the farmers and artisans of agricultural societies to grow grains and vegetables, and to craft tools and weapons. As long as these goods and services were provided, the Avars didn’t interfere in the affairs of the Gepid and Romance communities which they ruled. Their attention was directed outwards, as the Avars valued martial prowess above all else, and every rider, from the youngest recruit to the khagan himself, wanted to gain glory and loot in raids.

And so, after settling their families on the fertile fields of the Pannonian Plain, the Avars sought to fight their neighbours, not to govern their subjects. In the 570s, Baian sent troops in all directions: West towards the Alps, East towards the Black Sea, and South towards the Danube.

Their western advance hit Roman positions in Dalmatia and severed the empire’s link with the Italian peninsula. Since the Romans were engaged in a difficult war against the Persians, they couldn’t effectively retaliate and instead turned to diplomacy; in 574, the emperor offered the khagan annual subsidies to prevent further attacks. The deal suited Baian just fine, as he was also fighting the Sclaveni south of the Carpathian Mountains.

The Sclaveni who lived between the mountains and the Danube River resisted ferociously; but after several years, their leaders figured that it wasn’t worth it to stand their ground when what they really wanted was to settle in the Roman empire. So, in 578, tens of thousands of armed Sclaveni crossed the Danube, overcame the empire’s defenses, and streamed into Thrace. Unable to halt this massive invasion, the Romans actually appealed to the Avars for help, saying: “Defeat the Sclaveni for us, and we’ll let you keep their lands north of the Danube.” Baian was delighted at the proposition and agreed to have his horsemen ferried across the river on Roman ships. His troops engaged the Sclaveni in Thrace, defeated them, and forced them back across the river, where they became just one more subservient group in the khagan’s growing confederation.

By 579, the Roman empire’s treasury had been drained by relentless wars against the Persians, and the emperor was unable to pay the Avars the agreed-upon subsidies for the year. So, Baian decided to remind him why the payments were necessary and sent troops to besiege Sirmium. The city had been captured by the Romans once the Gepid kingdom had collapsed, and it now housed a solid garrison; but as one month morphed into another, their supplies began to dwindle, and there was no hope of reinforcements, as the empire couldn’t spare forces from other fronts. After three gruelling years, Sirmium’s defenders surrendered, and the Avars streamed through the gates to plunder and burn at will.

The capture of Sirmium was a great victory for the nomads. Having cracked this key stronghold south of the Danube, the Avars easily breached the surrounding towns and forts, thus puncturing the imperial defenses in the region. Accordingly, in the early 580s, the Avars were able to drive deep into the Balkans, pillage a great many settlements, steal vast amounts of riches, and enslave numerous citizens, who were brought back north to work as labourers and servants for their captors.

The Sclaveni, for their part, saw the breakdown of imperial defenses and decided to take advantage of the situation for themselves. You see, though the Sclaveni were technically subjects of the Avars, the khagan couldn’t really control them; they’d been defeated in battle, yes, but their fighting force hadn’t been broken, and they were still a formidable threat; so, as long as they paid their tribute, the Avars let them do as they wished. In 580, the Sclaveni crossed the Danube in their biggest and most ferocious invasion to date. Íoánnis of Ephesus, who was a bishop at the time, wrote how the Avars and Sclaveni breached numerous forts and cities, plundered and burned them, and stole any gold, silver, weapons, and herds they could take with them. The chaos engulfed the entire Balkans. The town of Sucidava on the Danube, which the Romans had reconstituted under Justinian, was overcome and set alight; the city of Tomis on the coast of the Black Sea fell and was looted; and even the city Thessaloniki in Greece was besieged, though it did in the end repulse the invaders.

Although the Sclaveni attacked in tandem with the Avars, their objective differed from that of their overlords; they didn’t intend to simply pillage Roman provinces and head home with the loot; their aim was to permanently settle south of the Danube. The Sclaveni had looked to the empire as a land of safety and prosperity for generations, which is why they had settled near it and why they had raided it when they’d been denied entry. Now that they were subjects of the Avars, the Sclaveni had an additional reason to head South: escaping their overlords and gaining their freedom. And so, after defeating local imperial forces, Sclaveni chieftains carved out enclaves for themselves where they could live independently of both the emperor and the khagan. The Balkans soon became a checkerboard of Roman- and Slavic-controlled areas, and the emperor couldn’t even negotiate a truce with the invaders, as there was no overall leader; each chieftain fought for his own community. The Sclaveni had managed to force their way into the empire, and they had no intention of leaving nor submitting.

Though there was a great migration of Slavic tribes towards the South, there was also substantial movement to the north of the Danube. As we’ve seen in previous episodes, when the Antes and Sclaveni had first journeyed towards the empire, they had avoided the Carpathian Mountains for several reasons: they couldn’t easily practice their agricultural way of life in hilly and mountainous terrain, the Gepids staunchly defended the borders of their kingdom against incursions, and the Roman empire was the place everyone wanted to reach. But by the late 6^th century, the situation had changed; the Gepids had been defeated and the region had become engulfed in a war between the Romans and Avars, so those Slavic tribes who remained north of the Danube had to find more suitable lands on which to settle.

Some went around the Carpathian Mountains and made their homes on the Middle Danube, while others entered the undefended mountain passes and crossed into the Carpathian Basin. It’s important to note that, by the late 6^th century, the Avars controlled all the lands from the Alps to Crimea, so these Slavic tribes had to be careful not to incur the wrath of the khagan. But the Avars were preoccupied with their wars against the empire, so they weren’t going to police the movements of these tribes; as long as they paid tribute and didn’t interfere with their pasturage, the nomads didn’t much care about these migrating farmers.

And so Slavic tribes began arriving in the Carpathian Basin for the first time in the late 6^th century and encountered Gepid and Romance communities which had lived in the region for generations. Judging from the archeological evidence, it seems that it didn’t take long for these newly-arrived settlers to build links with their long-established neighbours. Excavations in Slavic villages have unveiled vases made with the potter’s wheel and ploughs with metal parts, which were both items that had long been used by the Romans and their descendants, and had also been adopted by the Gepids. Archeologists have also found fibulas, pendants, bracelets, and belts made in both Gepid and Roman fashions, hinting at commercial transactions between the Slavic immigrants and the local population.

Based on this evidence, it appears that the Slavic migration into the Carpathian Basin occurred rather peacefully. Indeed, the Slavic, Gepid, and Romance communities of the region had no interest in fighting each other; they all had a similar way of life as farmers and benefitted from trading with one another, as each community sought to deliver the tribute demanded by their nomadic overlords and to have enough left over for themselves.

Regarding the Romance communities of the region, we have a remarkable document that mentions them and gives us an insight into their development. A contemporary historian named Theofýlaktos Simokáttis recorded how, in 587, a Roman army was shadowing the khagan’s forces just south of the Danube. As the imperial troops were marching towards the enemy, Theofýlaktos writes that, “a beast of burden … shucked off his load … as his master was marching in front of him. … the ones who were coming from behind and saw the animal dragging his burden after him, … shouted to the master to turn around and straighten the burden. Well, this event was the reason for a great agitation in the army and started a flight to the rear, because the shout was known to the crowd: the same words were also a signal, and it seemed to mean ‘run,’ as if the enemies had appeared nearby more rapidly than could be imagined. There was a great turmoil in the host, and a lot of noise; all were shouting loudly and goading each other to turn back, calling with great unrest in the language of the country ‘torna, torna, fratre,’ as if a battle had suddenly started in the middle of the night.”

Theofýlaktos’ account reveals quite a few things. The call “torna, torna, fratre,” is a form of Latin and would’ve meant something like: “turn around, turn around, brother.” I say it’s “a form of Latin” because the correct way to say brother is “frater”, not “fratre.” The two words are of course very similar, but the slight difference is important, because it shows that the language spoken by these soldiers was probably a dialect of Latin. But this dialect was also close enough to proper Latin for it to be understood as a command; the Roman army still issued orders of Latin origin, which is why the call “was known to the crowd” despite the fact that, by this point, the empire was mainly composed of Greek speakers.

But if most of the empire was composed of Greek speakers, why would soldiers in the imperial army speak a dialect of Latin between themselves? Well, Theofýlaktos mentions that the soldiers were “goading each other to turn back … in the language of the country,” implying that the language of the country was different from that of the empire. Indeed, the imperial army was accustomed to filling its ranks with locals for specific campaigns by this point, and the area along the Danube had been much more heavily influenced by the Latin West than the Greek East when the Romans had arrived in the region. As such, these recruits were probably Roman descendants who spoke a version of Vulgar Latin.

All these little hints amount to a significant conclusion. In effect, Theofýlaktos’ account confirms that Romance communities along the Danube had maintained a distinct identity for centuries despite various barbarian incursions, and that their language had begun to evolve from Vulgar Latin into a new dialect.

Over the course of the 580s, the Romans had endured repeated defeats at the hands of the Avars and Sclaveni, in great part because they were engaged in a long and exhausting war against the Persians. In 591, however, the empire won a decisive victory and signed a peace treaty with their adversary, allowing it to turn its full attention back to the Balkans. Once reinforcements trekked back West, the Roman army campaigned against the Avars and Sclaveni almost every year in the 590s. Imperial forces pushed these invaders back across the Danube and even won battles on the far side of the river. The result of this constant campaigning was that the Romans were able to reform their defensive line along the Danube by the end of the 6^th century; even though the Avars maintained control of Sirmium and Sclaveni chieftains still held enclaves in the Balkans, the empire managed to stop the unmitigated flow of raiders into its provinces. And after a decade of steady progress, the Romans inflicted a crushing defeat on the Avars and Sclaveni in 602, forcing the khagan to sign a peace deal and officially end hostilities; and you can see what borders were agreed upon in this episode’s map.

The treaty of 602 was, in fact, a significant achievement. Avar power had grown continuously ever since their victory over the Gepids in 567, and they had expanded their realm immensely over the 570s and 580s; but the Avars had finally been checked in their advance, and not by subsidies as before, but by military might, which was the only factor that would ensure they kept their word. The khagan had, at last, discovered just how far he could push the limits of his realm. The Avars thus transformed from an explosive new player on the board, to a dreadful and permanent fixture north of the Danube.

And that is where we will end the story of season one: in the year 602, with the Romans and Avars at a standstill, and with Romance, Gepid, and Slavic communities living alongside each other in the Carpathian Basin. As we pause the narrative, let’s take a quick look at the Mediterranean world to see how these various groups fit in with the surrounding peoples and kingdoms.

The Orient looked much the same as it had for the past seven hundred years, divided between the Persian and Roman empires. Though the two sides had traded some forts and cities in their bouts of recurrent warfare, the frontier remained largely the same, since neither side had the resources to conquer and integrate the provinces of the other. The main contested region lay along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, while Armenia to the north was alternatively vassalized by either side, and chieftains in the deserts of Arabia to the south were given subsidies to fight as auxiliary forces. The Roman citizens of Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were largely spared from the conflict – as they had also been spared from much of the turmoil of the past few centuries. In fact, it was the Romans living in these regions that had provided most of the taxes and recruits which had allowed the empire to overcome repeated crises and to remain the dominant power in the Mediterranean.

Their contribution is, in large part, what allowed Justinian to reconquer the lost lands of North Africa and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearics – lands which were still under imperial control. Though the Vandals had established a kingdom over these territories for over a century, most of the population had remained Roman and was easily reincorporated into the administrative system of the central government.

Italy was a different matter. Justinian had retaken almost the entire peninsula from the Goths, but decades of fighting between the two sides had left the region impoverished and exhausted. Accordingly, when the Lombards migrated to Italy after their victory over the Gepids, they were able to establish a power base in the north and, by the late 6^th century, had conquered about two-thirds of the peninsula. To be sure, the empire still controlled key cities, especially along the coasts, such as Genoa, Ravenna, Rome, Neapolis, Tarentum, and Rhegium; but because imperial forces were needed on other fronts, the generals in Italy were mostly on their own and grew increasingly autonomous, as they prioritized protecting their own districts as opposed to contributing to the wider empire.

Justinian had also managed to retake a few towns on the south coast of Hispania, but the vast majority of that peninsula was under Gothic control. As you may recall, the Goths who had sought refuge in the empire at the approach of the Huns had had a fraught relationship with the Romans, sometimes aiding them as foederati and sometimes fighting for themselves. In the chaos of the collapse of the western Roman empire, they’d subjugated the people of Hispania and established their own kingdom there. These Goths ruled as a minority military elite over a population of Roman descendants, which caused considerable friction between the two groups. Yet in the late 6^th century, the Goths abandoned their own Arian Christianity and adopted the Nicene Creed of their subjects, which helped stabilize internal affairs and paved the way for them to look outside their realm and plan to expulse the empire from the south of the peninsula.

North of the Gothic kingdom of Hispania, in the former Roman province of Gaul, the Franks were the dominant group. This Germanic people had lived on the borders of the empire since the 3^rd century and at times raided the frontiers and at times acted as foederati. As the western half of the Roman empire collapsed, they had migrated deeper into Gaul. By the 6^th century, the Franks had subjugated the other Germanic peoples in the region, such as the Alemanni and Burgundians, and converted to Nicene Christianity. Yet infighting within their royal line led to the emergence of several Frankish kingdoms in Gaul, each developing in a slightly different manner as they collaborated and mingled with the Roman descendants which they ruled.

To the East of the Franks, there were dozens of Germanic and Slavic tribes living in Central Europe, tribes which fiercely defended their independence from the stronger players around them. The strongest one, of course, was the Avar khaganate, which had become the single most formidable power north of the Danube since the Huns.

We’d need a dozen seasons to get into the histories of all these peoples in the detail they deserve, but hopefully, this rough sketch gave you a better grasp of the wider European context in 602. While the chronological story of season one is now over, we can’t just leave it at that; there are some crucial threads running through the past twenty-seven episodes of narrative that merit a closer look. What impact did Dacian civilization and culture have on the region? How did Romanization affect communities living inside and outside the empire?  What were the links between the two banks of the Danube, and how did the peoples on either side influence each other? How did Christianity affect the region, and what lasting impacts did it have? How can we discern ethnicity from historical and archeological sources, and how can we know how peoples identified themselves?

Join me in two weeks as we delve into these and many more rich questions, and pluck out some answers too. Until then, if you’ve enjoyed the narrative of season one, please take a moment to rate the show wherever you’re listening. It would mean a lot to me and it would make the show more visible to others who might be interested in the subject. Thank you for listening.