Back to Homepage Annuario 2003
p. 19
The Lower Danube Frontier
During the 4th-7th Centuries.
Stelian
Brezeanu,
Hélène Ahrweiler
rightly noticed that the Empire of the New Rome had not “one frontier”, but
“frontiers”, just similarly to the empire of the Rome settled on the Tiber,
which he had inherited. Regarded as political and military frontier that
strictly limited in a certain moment the Roman territory and its neighbours’
one, the state frontier does not necessarily coincide to frontier of culture,
linguistics and solidarity with the imperial metropolis[1].
This statement is to be connected to the Fernand Braudel’s one, asserted in his
definition given to the Mediterranean civilization. The latter noted that
“there is not only one, but hundreds of frontiers” that also represent the
levels of economic, political and civilization influences[2].
In other words, besides the lining, determined, counted frontiers, there are
also “the unseen frontiers”[3]
of the empire, which are difficult, if not impossible, to be detected in space.
The Lower Danube in the 4th-7th centuries perfectly
illustrates the ambiguity of the Roman-Byzantine frontier’s determination.
The Lower Danube becomes natural frontier of Rome in the
times of Augustus and of his immediate successors. During one century, it
divides the Empire and the Dacians in the Carpathian Mountains, transformed in
a remarkable enemy for the Romans. Trajan solves the question conquering Dacia
and transforming it in an imperial province, which would represent a real
outpost against the Barbarians for a century and a half. In this new shape, the
new province plays an essential part in the Rome’s defensive system in the
North. Its importance grows up also because of the shifting of the Empire’s
East-West commercial and military routes towards the Danube Valley and the
Balkans during the 3rd-4th centuries and because of the
decay of Italy, which loses its former economic and military predominance in
the Roman political system[4].
Under the new economic and military circumstances, the Balkans becomes a real
turning point joining the West to the East. The motion of the Empire’s centre
from Italy towards the East and the building of a metropolis on the Bosphorus
by Constantine the Great represent the logical result of this evolution during
the 3rd-4th centuries.
The military events in the 3rd-4th
centuries would hasten this evolution. During the first decades of the 3rd
century, the Goths from the Baltic area appear in the Pontic
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steppes between the Danube’s
mouth and Cherson. They become a ferocious enemy for Rome, especially after
they associate the tribes of the Dacians and the Sarmatians on the Moldavian
territory in their expeditions in the Balkans and Asia Minor. The ravaging
attacks of the Goths, Dacians and Sarmatians culminate in the 5th-8th
decades of the 3rd centuries. They have the abandonment of Dacia by
the Roman authorities under the Emperor Aurelian as the first result. Between
the Iron Gates and the Black Sea, the Lower Danube becomes again the Empire’s
natural frontier, while the Balkan area becomes capital for the Empire’s fate
during the subsequent centuries, especially after the foundation of
Constantinople.
The modern scholars have brought the Balkans Peninsula’s
political and military importance in the 3rd-4th
centuries into the light. Almost all the emperors in this period, from Maximine
the Thracian (235-238) to Phokas (602-610), originate in the Balkan romanity.
It would be only the dynasty of Thedosius the Great to interrupt their series
for three generations, between 379 and 450. Among these emperors originating in
the Balkans, there are famous names in the Roman and Byzantine history, such as
Aurelian and Diocletian, Galerius and Constantine the Great, Marcian and
Justinian. It was V. Beševliev who considered the state of the Caesars in this
period as “a Roman Empire of Thracian race”[5].
These emperors’ hand of force saved the Empire in front of the migratory
peoples in the 3rd-4th centuries. Meanwhile, their
reformatting work assured another two existing centuries to the Empire in the
West and brought the vitality to the Roman East becoming gradually the Empire
of the New Rome. The Southern Danube Romanity did not give only the most
numerous and important emperors to the Empire. Commanders originating in the
Balkan Romanity also dominate the military scene. Their military acts represent
the raw material for the Roman annals in the 3rd-7th
centuries. There are also famous names, including the last brilliant commanders
of the Empire, such as Aetius, coming from Durostolon on the Danube, then the
hero at the Campus Mauriacus, and Belisarius, who is to be connected to the entire
work of Reconquista enterprised by
Justinian[6].
Finally, the Roman army fighting on the all fronts for the Empire surveillance
has the military units recruited among the Balkan shepherds and villagers as
its spinal column.
Emperors, generals and soldiers originating in the Balkan
Peninsula’s romanized populations followed the imperial Rome’s destiny. How
could one explain their devotion to the Roman world’s values?
During their two thousand years of history, Rome and its
successor on the Bosphorus owed their career to the populations from one
province or another, representing the Empire’s centre in a certain moment. For
Rome, there were first Italy and then the West. For Constantinople, it was the
East. All these put their material and human resources in the name of the
emperors and of their civilization, embracing their values. During the 3rd-6th
centuries, there was the Balkan population to share this part, due to the
exceptional position of the area in the new evolution of the Empire’s
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economic and military
situation. Such as previously, in its republican period, Rome had owed its
special career to the robust Italian peasantry, it was during this new stage
when the rural masses in the Balkans identified their fate with the Rome’s and
then the Constantinople’s one. Henceforth, we have the right to suppose that,
although the contemporary sources allow us to regard this fact as cum grano salis, the values of the Roman
civilizations, once the privilege of a political and intellectual elite,
penetrated deeply in the Southern Danube Romanity’s strata. This process was
also favoured by the spread of Christianity among the people’s milieu in the
Peninsula after Constantine the Great.
This supposition is first supported by the famous assertion
provided by Constantine the Great that “My Rome is Serdica”[7].
This emperor’s Balkan patriotism, which has nothing to do with his affection
towards the patria communis that is
the Empire itself, is to be connected to Constantine’s brilliant decision to
found the new imperial metropolis on the Bosphorus. Once with Gilbert Dagron,
it is to be mentioned that Constantine’s intention was not the division,
subsequently imposed by the events, but the unity of the Empire and the safety
of Rome[8].
Anyhow, it is to be underlined the fact that the emperor previewed that the
Empire’s destiny occurred in the Balkans and nowhere else. Another emperor
coming from the same Romanity, that is Justinian, considers that “if someone
says Thracia, we are to think about the idea of manhood, multitude of armies,
wars and fight”[9]. Since these
two proofs come from the side of two emperors, although originating in the
Peninsula’s people milieu, the latter is the full expression of an attitude,
essentially people. To the end of the period that we deal with, towards 580,
when the crisis of the Danube frontier worries more than ever the Balkan
populations, a citizen from Sirmium, menaced by the Avars, scratched awkwardly
an invocation to God on a tile, saying that “Oh, God, save Romania!”[10]
It is the supreme demonstration of the Roman and Christian values’ assimilation
by the Balkan populations, which identified their own cause with the one of the
entire Roman community, of the “common land”, that is Romania.
There are material (the economic and military position of the
Peninsula, the birth of the New Rome) and mental (the devotion of the Balkan
populations to the Empire’s cause and the feeling that their own body was
menaced by the attacks from the Northern Danube) facts that fully underline the
particular importance of the frontier in the 3rd-6th
centuries. The very fact that the main attention of the Latin and Greek sources
is directed to this frontier illustrates the importance that the witnesses
attributed to the Lower Danube as an advanced outpost of the metropolis on the
Bosphorus.
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In the eyes of the Greek world, the Danube is depicted many
centuries before the late Roman period. Become then natural frontier of Rome,
and later being surpassed through the agency of the Roman province of Dacia,
the Danube enters gradually in the conscious of the Roman world. The late
antique writing contains many common places from the classic Greek-Roman
literature, but also new observations connected to the new function of the
Danube frontier.
While Danube had been noticed by the antique writers as Danubius or Istros, is this time considered as the longest river in Europe and
the second from all over their universe, after the Nile. They are all impressed
by its features: length, the number of the tributaries collected from the
territories that it wanders through, the number of its mouths to the Pont.
For Ammianus Marcellinus, interested in the physical features
of the great river, “the Danube, [...], having the source in a mountain neighboured
to the boundaries of Raetia, wanders through a huge territory and, collecting
60 tributaries almost all navigable, flows into the sea through six mouths on
this Scythic shore”[11].
Procopius of Cesarea shifts the accent of his describing on the human realities
of the river’s area. “The river of Ister lets down from the mountains of the
Celts that now are called as Gauls, goes round a huge territory almost entirely
deserted and settled here and there by the Barbarians, which live like the
animals and have no connection with either people”[12].
In the neighbourhood of the Dacia of Aurelian, “for the first time it
represents the border between the Barbarians settled on the left side of the
river and the Roman land on its right side. That is why the Romans name this
part of Dacia as Ripensis, since
‘bank’ is called by the Latins as ripa”[13].
John Lydus offers some details about the river’s name. For
this author, the river also comes “from the mountains of Raetia that Caesar
considers [...] as belonging to the mountain region of Celtia, from a single
source, the Rhine and the Ister flows towards the sea, both of them without
changing their names”[14].
Nevertheless, the author of the De
magistratibus contradicts himself afterwards in connection to the river’s
name, noting that, when it “flows near Thracia, it changes its name for those
inhabitants and becomes Danubius”[15].
Here is a point where Lydus comes into contradiction with the entire scholar
tradition of the antiquity. According to this, the river is called as Ister on
its lower course according to the name given by the Southern Danube Thracians
and taken by the Greeks, while the other name is especially attributed to its
upper and middle flow. The Byzantine author also proposes a naive etymology for
Danubius: “the Thracians called so,
because the air in the neighbourhood of the Northern mountains and the wind of
Northeast is almost always loaded with clouds because of the excessive
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dampness and they consider
it as the reason for the continuous rainfalls. They name Danubius the cloud-bringer in their fatherly language”[16].
The most suggestive depiction of the river is offered by
Jordanes, the Romanized Goth author, who was born in Moesia and knew directly
the Lower Danube region. According to him, the Danube “originates in the fields
of the Alamans and, from its source to its mouth to the sea, it collects 60
tributaries from the left and the right, on a distance of 1,200 miles, having
the shape of a fish’s back where the rivers are thrusted in, like the ribs; and
generally speaking, it is the largest river”[17].
The Goth historian correctly explains the river’s naming by the Southern
Thracians, whom he came into contact. The river “is called as Hister in the
language of the Besses (lingua Bessorum)
and in the deepest river bed it has the water’s depth of no more than 200 feet.
The Danube surpasses all the other rivers, excepting the Nile.”[18]
The last antique author
offering information about the river is the Hiberian encyclopedic Isidore of
Seville, who summarizes all the ancient world’s knowledge in his Etymologies. He also proposes an
etymology for the name of Danubius,
proving the same naivety as John Lydos does. According to Isidore, “it is said
about the Danube, river of Germany, that is called in this way because of the multitude
of snows, which determines its even more growth. It is the most famous
throughout Europe”[19].
On the contrary, the Hiberian author is correct explaining the modification of
the name, suggesting thus that among others he also relies upon Jordanes’ work.
“It is the same as the Ister, for it changes its name and collects stronger
powers while passing through the numerous populations. It sources in the
mountains of Germany and the Western parts of the Barbarians, makes for the
East, collects 60 rivers in its river bed and flows in the Pont through seven
mouths”[20].
Heir of the Rome on the Tiber, the New
Rome was a centralized state, which political foundations were finalized by the
reforms of Diocletian and Constantine. Constantinople took the essence of
Rome’s political, juridical and cultural values, to which Constantine the Great
and his successors added the Christianism as state religious. These values
found a space of synthesis in the new empire on the Bosphorus and made indeed
Byzantium the first real European State, as rightly Paul Valéry noted. Its
centralized structures and its clear consciousness on the values of its
civilization made Constantinople to assume since the very beginning its main
task, that is the security of its frontiers in front of the dangers from
outside. The 4th-6th centuries are characterized
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by
the effort to defence the Danube frontier, which holds an undeniable prime
position among the other frontiers of the Empire.
As the sources assert, the contemporaries
regarded the Lower Danube between the Iron Gates and the Pont as the
pre-eminently natural border. It separates “the Roman soil” (Romanum solum) and “the Barbarian soil”
(Barbaricum solum)[21].
In the terms of the Roman official ideology, the Danube limes strictly limits the grounds of civilization and of barbarity.
In his enthusiastic style, George Pisides notes that “neighboured with the
Pont, the Ister could with difficulty stop such a savageness, like a moving dam
and like a defending wall”, in order to do not permit to the Barbarians to
overflow on “the charming flower of our lands”[22].
Lining limitation between the grounds of civilization and of barbarity, the
Danube frontier is not immutable. The act of transforming Dacia in a Roman
province is praised by the antiques as a ‘snatching’ from “the ground of
barbarity”[23]. It
occurred through the implementation of the Roman values in the Northern Danube,
while its abandon by Aurelian is lamented by Orosius as “its eternal
kidnapping” (in perpetuum)[24]
by the barbarity. On reverse, the colonization of a Northern Danube population
“in the Roman country”, where Constantine offers it lands to work, represented
for Eusebius of Cesarea the accepting by the newcomers of “the Roman freedom in
exchange for the Barbarian savageness”[25].
How do authors represent the Roman
values in the 4th-7th centuries? They are seldom defined
in explicit terms, just that in opposition to the barbarity of the world beyond
the Danube limes.
The Danube is a material line separating
respublica Romana or the
Constantinopolitan politeia and the
Barbarian space. On the one side there is a universal community of the free
citizens, while on the other side there is the multitude of Barbarian gentes or ethne. On the one side there is the citizens’ freedom, on the other
the Barbarian slavery. “The Roman soil” or “the Emperor’s land” is constituted
in a monarchy, regarded as the ideal
structure of political organization, legitimated and protected by God[26].
The Roman territory is divided in praefecturae,
dioceses and provinces and in its cities and villages it is inhabited by public
and cultural buildings, churches, as a symbol of the people’s persistence and
as the background of the civilized world’s expression. Having its classical
expression in the writing of Eusebius of Cesarea, the idea that the Roman
monarchy is the terrestrial copy of the heaven’s Empire represents the most
important ideological foundation of the Byzantine state
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organization
during 11 centuries. The harmony in heaven should have the terrestrial order on
the earth (kosmia) as correspondence.
On the contrary, the Barbarian space has no organizational principle. The
disorder (akosmia) and the polyarchia characterise the Barbarians,
since some of them are ruled by more than one king[27].
They are divided in “tribes and clans”[28]
and have no idea about the sedentary life, but wander continuously. Their space
ignores the cities and the villages and is dominated by tents and shelters[29],
as a sign of lack of stability. The expression of the entire lack of stability
is to be detected in the classical description provided by Ammianus Marcellinus
to the Huns. Without home, without constant shelters, they live like eternal
fugitives, accompanied by their carts where they live in and where their wives
weave cloths and give birth to their children, while on horseback “every man
from this race, day and night, buys and sells, drinks and eats and lied down on
the animal’s narrow nape he falls asleep profoundly”[30].
Finally, the Roman civilization means the existence and the respect of laws; on
the other side, the Barbarians live “without order and without laws” (sine cultu vel legibus”)[31].
The two worlds’ values are different
also in their manner of life. In the Roman world, the villagers till the soil, while
the craftsmen in the cities offer their products to the Empire’s inhabitants.
Both of them procure welfare and comfort to the life, in a society dominated by
peace. On the contrary, according to pseudo-Caesarios, in the Barbarian lands
“one could not find any usurer, sculptor or painter, any architect, teacher of
music or poem performer, as could in our places”[32].
But there are not only the arts that definitely are absent around the
Barbarians. Many of them have no idea even about the agriculture. Ammianus
Marcellinus knows that among the populations beyond the Ister “there are only
few of them that feed themselves with cereals, while the others wander through
deserted places that have never known the plough and the seed and [...] they
live in the shameful manner of the savage animals”[33].
The same historian depicts their savageness in its clear shape of the Huns.
Among them, “there is no one to plough and nobody has ever touched the plough”[34].
Therefore, the Huns “do not need the fire or the cooked food, but they feed
themselves with roots of savage grass and with meat of every kind of animal,
half raw, which they heat only a little, putting it between their feet and the
horses’ back”[35].
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These contrasts in the life style
explain also the different values of the two worlds as regards the peace and
the war. The Romans are depicted as ‘peace’-makers. Pax Romana or pax Christiana
are the supreme goods of the Roman and then Byzantine world. The emperor wears
“the message of peace”[36]
and he is the defensor pacis; when he
is obliged to fight against the Barbarians, he does it in order to “defend the
justice”[37]. In the
Roman view, the Barbarians are on the contrary, the symbol of violence and war.
The late Imperial annals include hundreds of pages describing the “life of
robbery”[38] of the
populations on the Northern Ister. For Libanius, the Goths (‘Scythians’ in his
text) are “the bloodiest people, inclined exclusively to Ares and regarding the
peace as a misfortune”[39].
These “wild beasts” break out in the Balkans in 378, “provoking murders,
plunders, bloodshed, fires and profaning the Roman citizens’ bodies”[40].
Confronted by this violence, repeated almost yearly
in the Southern Danube provinces in some periods, the Empire promotes a
defensive policy. Only seldom it takes the initiative, attacking the enemies in
the North of the river, as it was the case in the 4th century under
Constantine the Great and Valens. More often, the emperors prefer the
diplomatic means: the discord inside the enemies and the paying of a yearly tribute.
The 4th century historians mention the success of the Byzantine
diplomacy, when the Bulgarian tribes of the Utrigurs and the Kutrigurs are
discorded and fight among them until their disappearance[41],
or when the Avars are opposed to the Slavs[42].
However, the most frequent mean – and also the most expensive for the public
treasure – is the pay of the year tribute in order to calm the enemies. Just
that, when the Empire has not in addition efficient military means at its
disposal, “the insatiable greed” of the Barbarians makes it to grow up the
tribute consequently. Priscus of Panion demonstrates the inefficiency of this
kind of policy in the relationship between Theodosius II and Attila[43],
when an energetic action of the Empire is absent. The situation is the same
during the last decades of the 6th century, in the relationship
between Constantinople and the Avars. The Khan Bajan breaks the treaty with the
emperor any time and “rings the trumpet, the war’s friend, gather the troops”
in order to increase the tribute or to conquer the cities in the Roman
territory[44]. After he
makes a relation about such an event in one of his penetrating pages,
Theophylaktus Simocatta raises an essential question for the Empire’s policy at
the Danube frontier: how useful could be the defensive policy with enemies
whose “savageness is by nature”[45],
especially since “the
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peace
neglects the protection and is not farseeing for the future”[46].
The efficiency of the diplomatic means is even more limited for George Pisidis,
who underlines the danger of the unification of the Barbarian populations
against the Empire. At the turning point between the 6th and the 7th
centuries, Constantinople is obliged to fight “against some different
populations, but united among them; it was because the Slav and the Hun
understood each other, the Scythian and the Bulgarian, the Median and the
Scythian, although the spoke different languages and came from different
places”[47].
This question brings a light upon the profound causes of the fall of the
Imperial domination in the Balkans at the beginnings of the 7th
century and of the failure of the Constantinople’s policy at the Danube.
The Military Frontier
The political Danube frontier as limit between the
Roman monarchia and the Barbarian polyarchia is even more clearly
materialized from the military viewpoint. The limes is marked out on both banks by castles and fortresses, which
had the function to stop the perils coming from the Barbarian space. As long as
this fortified limes had troops and
sufficient financial resources at its disposal, its efficiency was uncontested.
George Pisidis, the deacon of the great church of St. Sophia in Constantinople
in the first half of the 7th century, assists to the fall of the
Danube frontier, so that he is credible when he makes an evaluation for this
event’s importance. For him, “as far as the waters [of Ister] were in the
middle and protected these borders with an undepictable determination, it was
good [...], because the Roman army hindered [the Barbarians] from penetrating
in our lands”[48].
The first fortifications on the Danube limes are dated under Augustus and his
successors. Their effort had the cessation of the Northern Danube Dacians’ and
their allied Sarmatians’ incursions as the main purpose. Trajan installs the
Roman domination in Dacia and Southern Moldavia, so that the Danube frontier
loses ground in importance. The new province and the fortifications at the
North of the river’s mouths take the defensive tasks. The Goths’ irruption and
the abandon of Dacia radically modify the matter, and the limes at the Lower Danube regains its importance. Even since
Aurelian, but especially under Diocletian and Constantine, the fortification of
the Danube frontier is retaken. “Fortresses and military castles” are erected
on the both sides of the river, and in 328 it is Constantine who builds up the
bridge at Sucidava on the Danube[49].
Under the same ruler, the Roman garrisons are implemented in the Northern
Danube fortresses of Drobeta, Sucidava and Constantiniana Daphne. The entire
frontier between the Iron Gates and the Pont is divided in three self-commanded
fields: the Illyrian limes
corresponding to the part of Moesia Superior and Dacia Ripensis, the Thracian
one in front of Moesia Inferior, and the Scythian one in Scythia
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Minor[50].
The system proves to be efficient during the first three quarters of the 4th
century, while the Empire also promotes an energetic policy at the North of the
river under Constantine the Great and Valens.
The situation is dramatically changed by
the irruption of the Huns on the political scene of the Eastern Europe on 376.
The ancient authors register this turning point in the evolution of the
defensive Danube system, culminating with Attila’s great expeditions in the Balkans
to the middle of the 5th century. Contemporary to the events,
Priscus of Panion suggests that the Hun king destroyed the Roman fortresses on
the river’s both sides, since Attila took a portion of land in possession, on
the Southern bank of Ister, “from Pannonia towards Novae, in Thracia, having a
depth of five days” in the Roman territory[51].
More clearly, Procopius of Cesarea suggests a century later the entire
proportion of the Hun king’s action on the limes.
“The former Roman emperors”, the historian notes, “covered all the bank of this
river with fortifications, not only on the right side, but they also built
fortified cities and fortresses here and there on the opposite side [...].
Later however, when Attila with a large army came to invade, he destroyed these
forts completely and deserted the greatest part of the Roman territory without
any resistance”[52]. The limes lost its military function at the
middle of the 5th century. This situation seems to be extended after
500, when new populations, such as the Bulgarians and the Slavs appear on the
North of the river.
Justinian assumes the responsibility of rebuilding
and extending the defensive system of his forerunners. According to Procopius
of Cesarea, who describes this activity in all its proportion in his apologetic
work De aedificiis, the emperor
wished “to transform the Ister in our and all the Europe’s most powerful
defence”[53]. In the
Byzantine terms, Europe meant the Balkan territories of Constantinople. In
parallel with every kind of fortifications on the Danube, Justinian also
strengthened the fortresses inside of the Peninsula, in order to sustain thus
the Danube limes and to consolidate
the security of the Imperial citizen. Drawn out by Procopius, the list of the
fortresses rebuilt or newly constructed on the limes and in its immediate proximity is impressive. One could find
here the great Danube metropolis, known even since the Imperial beginnings of
Rome. Other fortifications are to be found for the first time, not always easy
to be detected on the ground[54].
There are two remarks around this list of the Danube fortifications. First,
there is the presence of some couple of fortresses on the both sides of the
river, with the obvious purpose to control also the Northern bank and, in case
of danger, to retreat the defenders on the Southern bank. Among them, there are
Novae-Lederata, Pontes-Theodora (Drobeta), Palatiolum-Sucidava and
Transmarisca-Constantiniana Daphne[55].
The other remark is connected to the number and importance of the
fortifications in Scythia Minor, both on the river’s bank and inside of the
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province.
This very fact indicates the exceptional importance of the region in the
Constantinople’s strategic view, connected to the security of the metropolis on
the Bosphorus. The importance of the “Scythians” is emphasized by Sozomenos,
who knew that “they are brave and, through the agency of the settlements’
position, necessary to the Roman world, being settled like a wall in front of
the Barbarian peril”[56].
The same care could be concluded from the set up of a commandment of the
maritime provinces – Scythia Minor, the Cyclade islands, Caria and Cyprus – led
by prefectus of Scythia, having
Odessos as centre[57].
His task was to preview any attack on the sea against the Empire’s capital.
While examining the contemporary sources, one could
distinguish Justinian’s and his successor’s strategic view. That supposes the
consolidation of the two flanks of the Balkan front, that is Scythia Minor with
an extension to the Southern Moldavia, and Moesia Superior and Dacia Ripensis
in front of Banat. These are the points where the Empire could also control the
Wallachian field and where the migratory populations from the Northern Pontic
steppes and Pannonia could penetrate. Nevertheless, this savant defensive
system proved to be frail in front of the attacks after the middle of the 6th
century, under the circumstances of the less number of troops in the Balkans
and of the lack of financial means. Thus, Justinian paid for his inadequate
policy in the West, where he had mobilized the main human and financial
resources in order to conquer again the ancient Roman territories in the
Mediterranean space from the Germanic peoples. Thus, he had neglected the vital
areas for his state, that is the Balkans and the East[58].
The Slavs and the Avars penetrate the Danube defensive and plunder almost every
year the Balkan provinces, thus weakening also the back of the Ister front.
Finally, the Gepides and the Avars conquer the key positions on the left flank
of the Constantinople front, at the South of the river – that is, Sirmium,
Singidunum and Viminacium –, so that the whole defensive system drawn out by
Justinian is broken. On their turn, the overwhelming masses of Slavs establish
themselves gradually, first in a reduced number, on the territory of the Balkan
provinces, without any energetic reaction from the Byzantine authorities’ side.
The new evolution during the last decades of the 6th century
announces the dramatic events occurred on the Danube area at the beginning of
the subsequent century. In the second half of the 6th century, the
fate of the Empire’s military frontier at the Lower Danube and, on a larger
scale, of the Peninsula are played.
The sources in the second half of the 6th
century and in the first decades of the subsequent one suggest a general view
of the decline and fall of the military frontier on the Danube. Ina first
stage, the Slavic-Bulgarian attacks in the first half of the century touch the limes’ back. Their plundering
expeditions closer and closer have thousands or even tenths of thousand
prisoners, devastations of the settlements in the northern regions of the
Peninsula as results, although the Imperial forces still have the power to
retort. The fact that these attacks weaken the economic life in the region and
deprive the
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limes’ defenders of resources is
even more serious. A new stage commences for the situation of the Danube
frontier to the middle of the 6th century, once the Avars arrive in
Pannonia. The Slavic mass finds a leader in the person of the Avars. This
Avar-Slavic alliance has devastating effects for the entire Peninsula. It is a
consequence of the entire defensive system’s weakening, having the acute lack
of resources in Constantinople as background, as a result of the Justinian’s
policy in the West. The Byzantine diplomacy makes an attempt and sometimes is
succeeds to divide the forces and to separate the Avars and the Slavs.
Nevertheless, this policy was not able to give results on a long term, under
the concrete circumstances of the Empire in the last two decades of the 6th
century. There is a detail in the history of Thephylaktos Simocatta that brings
a significant light on the military crisis in the Peninsula. After the
successful expedition against the Avars in Banat, the general Comentiolus,
being ill wished to come back to the metropolis on the eve of the winter. He
had in intention to use the “Trajan’s way”, from Novae to Constantinople. Very
probably, it is about the famous diagonal of the Balkans, the Roman via militaris, often frequented during
the previous centuries. The historian speaks about the general’s difficulties
to find out a guide, since the Imperial armies had not frequented the way for
90 years[59]. The last
stage in the history of the Danube frontier during this period takes place in
the first years of the 7th century. It begins with the revolt of the
Roman troops on the limes, without
the previous discipline, and with the proclaiming of Phokas as emperor. The
revolted army abandons the frontier and takes the direction to Constantinople,
where it overthrows the Emperor Maurikios and substitutes him with the usurper.
The rule of Phokas coincides with the abandon of the Danube frontier, invaded
by the huge mass of Slavs and Avars. The formers literally flood the Peninsula
towards the Peloponnesus, while the latter assault to 613-614 the great Roman
metropolis in the Balkans, that is Serdica and Naissus. The Empire’s military
frontier on the Danube ceased to exist anymore.
The Juridical Frontier
Rome considered itself as a universal
state, through the agency of the values that it proposed to the populations
that took a place in its political, juridical and cultural community. The
Christianism introduced by Constantine the Great in the state structures would
give the most solid argument in order to sustain the Roman universal
pretensions, through the vocation to become the entire humankind’s religion:
the unity of the human type would have the unity of faith as correspondent.
Therefore, the universality of Rome and of its successor on the Bosphorus is an
undeniable fact, through the values of the message proposed to its neighbours,
despite the length of its military and political frontiers in a certain moment[60].
According to this view, any territorial concession to the Barbarians was to be
nothing more than a temporary renunciation, under the pressure of violence.
When they have the necessary means, the
p. 31
emperors
are obliged to ‘save’ the territories taken by force by the Barbarians[61].
This ideology represents the juridical basis of the Justinian’s Reconquista and, after centuries, of the
re-conquest of the Balkans to the Danube by the ‘soldier-emperors’ from the
Macedonian dynasty.
Under these circumstances, the Empire’s
juridical frontiers are not be confounded with its military and political
frontiers and they also do not present the linearity or the materiality in
space. These frontiers are reflected under two respects: the territorial one
and the human one.
The matter of the abandon of Dacia
operated by Aurelian under the pressure of the migratory populations
illustrates admirably the vision of Constantinople upon the status of a lost
territory. The Roman and Byzantine rhetors, but also the historians do not
forget the Dacia had been previously Imperial territory. In a panegyric speech
in 297 dedicated to the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, Constantine the Great’s
father, an anonymous also includes the recovery of Dacia (Dacia restituta) among emperor’s deeds[62].
The panegyrist does not waste the occasion to explain the loss of some territories
by the Empire, “either because of the careless as regards the political
affairs, or because of a change of fate”[63].
During the subsequent century, the Emperor Julian writes “The Banquet”, or “The
Caesars”, an allegoric work, where he convokes to an imagery judgement some of
his most illustrious forerunners: Caesar, Trajan and Constantine the Great. The
latter begins his speech and considers himself in comparison with Trajan as
“undoubtedly equal to him for the recovery of the regions that the latter had
achieved formerly, if it does not value more to conquer again something than to
conquer it”[64]. In the
speech, the allusion to Dacia is obvious and it refers to the expedition of
Constantine in 332 to the North of the river against the Goths, resulted in a military
success of the emperor. John Lydos regards Justinian under the same merit. The
emperor, “as an intelligent person and finding out from books that this country
[nn. Dacia] is rich in wealth and strong in armies [...], had the desire to do
not be inferior to Trajan and decided to preserve for the Romans the Northern
region that some time ago had liberated itself”[65].
Neither in the case of Constantine, nor in the Justinian’s one, there was anything
about the recovery of Dacia for the Roman land. It is the conception that is
important here, dominating the Imperial ideology, and it refers to the
belonging de jure of Dacia to the
Roman territory. The idea could be also detected in the reaction of Aurelius
Victor, confronted by the Goths’ and Taifals’ pretension to dominate Thracia
and Dacia “as some native lands” (genitates
terrae)[66]. It does
not matter that the author has most probably the Aurelian’s Dacia into
consideration. The idea that the two territories
p. 32
belong
to the Empire, while the Barbarians are “foreigners and aliens”, but also
usurpers of a Roman right, has value also for the Trajan’s Dacia in the other
above contexts.
The historians also illustrate such a
conception in the 6th century in two situations. The first case
refers to the city of Turris, at the North of the Danube, probably the Roman
fortress from Barboşi, near Galaţi. Procopius of Cesarea refers to the proposal
made by Justinian to the Slavs at the North of the river to offer them the
city, in order to stop the plunders in the Balkan provinces. Erected by Trajan,
the city had been remained “deserted for a long time, because it had been
plundered by the Barbarians in the region”. The emperor considered himself as
having the right to attribute the fortress and the surrounding territory to the
Slavs, “since it belonged to the Romans since the very beginning”[67].
The other episode is to be found out in the work of Thephylaktos Simocatta and
is to be connected to the war between the general Priscus and the Avar Khan
Bajan. Priscus passes the Danube leading his army and reaches Novae, in the
Banat. In such an occasion, the historian narrates the dialogue between the
Roman commander and the khan. The latter reproached with Priscus that the
Romans that had penetrated “on the foreign land” infringed the treaty between
the Avars and the emperor. The Roman commander replies that “the land is Roman,
but the Barbarian [pretends] that the Romans lost it through the agency of the
armies and of the law of war”. Priscus reproaches to Bajan that he is a nothing
but a stranger, a fugitive from the East[68].
The debate clearly shows the two sides’ conceptions. On the one side, the
Romans invoke their right on a territory that had previously belonged to them,
and afterwards some aliens from the East infringed it. On the other side, the
khan makes referrals to the law of the armies and war, in order to defence his
pretensions. The juridical frontiers between the two worlds are thus extremely
vague from the territorial viewpoint.
The human respects of the juridical
frontiers are even more uncertain. Since its first expansions, Rome used the
institution of the “allies” (socii populi
Romani) or the one of the foederati
(Gr. symmachoi), as a first stage of
inclusion of the surrounding populations. Later, the empire continued the
practice for the same purposes, when it promoted an offensive policy. Still,
during the periods of defensive policy, it used the foederati for the protection of its own frontiers, in the exchange
of some yearly tributes. “Allies” or subjects, the foederati’s status in connection to Rome remains uncertain and is
in function of the forces’ relationship between the two sides. On the one side,
the empire maintains the protection of the frontiers and sustains its
pretensions towards the dominium mundi,
as long as it has not the necessary force to transform these pretentious in
effective reality[69].
On the other side, the status of foederati
assured to the populations at the frontiers yearly considerable amounts of
money. It also offered the possibility of commercial exchanges, indispensable
for a warrior elite, more and more attracted by the advantages of the Roman
life. Still, the materiality of the juridical
p. 33
frontier
is getting weaker through the agency of other consequences of the status of the
foederati, especially when these are
in the situation to dictate to the empire. Indeed, when they have the force at
their disposal, the Roman emperors have the possibility to pretend the
belonging of the territory and even of the populations of the empire’s
“allies”. On reverse, the foederati
pretends the empire to give back the refugees from its territory. Most often,
these refugees are Roman prisoners, captured during the raids of the migratory
peoples in the Southern Danube provinces and succeeding to run away from their
masters and to return in the empire. The Byzantine authors’ works, including
Priscus of Panion, Procopius of Cesarea and Thephylaktos Simocatta, contain
tenths of pages regarding the drama of these prisoners, returned home and then
taken again by force from their home by the Huns, the Lombards and the Avars to
be resettled in Barbaricum. The
Imperial authorities are in impossibility to participate to this drama, as long
as the bilateral treaties between Romans and foederati includes clear clauses concerning this matter. In one of
the most suggestive pages referring to these prisoners, Procopius refers to the
Lombards, who “wandered through the Roman empire as foederati and immediately after discovered some of the fugitives,
they captured them, as if their slaves were to run away from home, snatched
them from their parents and took them without any resistance from anybody”[70].
During the 4th century, the
Romans are the ones to offer the peace, and not to buy it[71].
The empire exploits the clauses of the treaties with the foederati on their own advantage and extends its juridical
frontiers beyond the military and political ones. On the contrary, having the
imperial defensive policy at the Danube frontier as background, during the 5th-6h
centuries the migratory populations impose their conditions to the Roman State.
More seriously, during the last decades of the 4th century, the
imperial authorities have to offer the Southern Danube provinces in order to be
colonized to the Visigoth foederati.
A century later, the history is the same, in the case of the Ostrogoths. The
barbarity moves from the left side of the river to the right one, on the
imperial soil, while the materiality of the Danube frontier loses thus any
consistency.
The Economic Frontier
Lucien Musset noticed that “the
organization of the Barbarian armies had as basis the service of every free
person able to defend, to equip and to furnish himself”[72].
The migratory peoples represented real “wanderer armies”, looking for resources[73].
In a first stage of the contacts with the empire, booty and prisoners
represented the main source for the migratory peoples’ existence. In their
great majority, the great treasures from the Northern Danube space dated from
the 4th-6th centuries comes from the plunder expeditions
enterprised by the Vizigoths, Gepides, Ostrogoths and Avars in the Balkans and
even in Asia Minor. The capture of the empire’s inhabitants had the same
profit.
p. 34
The
figures delivered by the sources as regards the prisoners taken especially from
the Northern provinces of the Peninsula dominated by the Romanized population,
alternate between some thousands and hundreds of thousand on every expedition.
Certainly, these latter figures are clearly thickened by the Byzantine authors,
either under the profound impression that these dramatic events had on
Constantinople, or, as the case of Procopius in his “Secret history” provides,
for interest. Anyhow, the practice of capturing of prisoners was extremely
fruitful for the migratory peoples. Some of these prisoners, especially the
rich ones, were ransomed with huge amounts of money by their families remained
in the empire. Some other times, the imperial authorities ransomed them. Still,
the most of them remained at the North of the river, where they integrated
themselves with the sedentary population in the area, which exploitation in the
calm periods for the Roman-Barbarian relationship represented the most
important source for the migratory peoples’ existence. The migratory peoples
preserved almost entirely the structures of the sedentary society in order to
turn its resources in good account, especially because the institution of the foedus was a guaranty for their
domination on the settlers and on the prisoners of war. In one of the pages of
his narration about the messengers at the Attila’s court, Priscus refers to the
village in Banat, dominated by one of the widows of Blede, the Hun king’s
brother[74].
The successful domination of the Germanic clans in the West has its explanation
in the exploitation of the sedentary societies that they overlapped on[75].
Beside the booty and the explotion of the sedentary
peoples, the third source for the migratory peoples’ existence was represented
by the commerce between them and the empire. Stipulated in the treaties, these
contacts were profitable for both sides. The sources referring to the goods
taken from the empire and brought in the Barbarians’ regions are less explicit.
However, it is beyond any doubt that they were raw materials and products of
strictly necessity, absent or extremely seldom in the empire. It is for sure
that they included the salt, abundantly in the space of the ancient Dacia, but
absent in the Balkans, so that the Peninsula was dependent for thousands of
years by the Carpathian region. Among other goals, the Roman control on the
lower course of the Sereth river had also the purpose to procure the salt from
the Eastern Carpathians, indispensable for the inhabitants in the Scythia Minor
and in the other Danube provinces of the empire. Beside salt, just like later,
during the Ottoman period, the empire brought from the North of the river the
wood, necessary for the upsurge of the town activity in the first centuries of
the New Rome, under the circumstances of the demographic progress of the great
metropolis[76].
On the other side, the information about
the needs of the warrior elite is much richer. More and more attracted by the
empire’s economic and cultural values, the members of the warrior elite demand
especially luxurious things, produced in the craft workshops and in the
manufactures in Constantinople and in other towns and brought into light by the
archaeological investigations. As far as the Christianism is diffused in
p. 35
the
Barbarian milieu and especially among the sedentary populations in the North of
the Danube, there are things of Christian cult (like the donarii discovered in the Romanian space) to be detected in the
Balkans. They were brought by missionaries or through the commercial activities.
There are also the great masses of the migratory and sedentary populations that
take advantage from these commercial activities. The goods in these exchanges,
like the cheap ceramics, the agricultural tools and the modest things of cult
are to be detected everywhere, from the Danube and until farther, in Marmarosch
and Bukovine, in the Dacian territory. These exchanges occurred in “the fares
near the Ister”, held “according to the ancient custom”, and where also “the
Romans came, in order to buy their needs”, according to the testimony of
Priscus of Panion[77].
Before becoming emperor, Maximinus the Thracian practised “the commerce with
the Goths”, from which activity he bought great properties in Thracia[78].
The existence and activity of this kind of fares were stipulated in the foedus between the empire and the
Barbarians. This “usual supply” of the foederati,
as it is called by Themystius, was a mean of pressure by Constantinople against
the migratory peoples, who were dependent of the empire’s products. Valens
obliged the Goths to make the commerce in “the squares of two cities on the
river”, and not as it had been previously, when “the commerce and the
commercial activities” between the Goths and the Romans “allowed them to settle
everywhere they wanted with every kind of liberty”[79].
It seems that the commanders of the guard posts and of the military units on
the river took an important part in these exchanges, since the same Themystius
accuses them of being rather “merchants and slave sellers, having the care the
sell and buy as more as possible”[80].
The inventory of the goods bought or
received by the Barbarians from the empire could very well be drawn out relying
upon the period’s testimonies. Theophylaktus Simocatta indicates that the Avars
received from the Romans, beside the usual tribute, also “different cloths from
the merchants”[81]. The same
historian narrates a not normal event in the Roman-Avar relationship, retaken
by Theophanes the Confessor. During the conflict between the Roman general
Priscus and the Khan Bajan occurred in Moesia Inferior, there happened a great
lack of food in the imperial camp, exactly before the Easter ceremonies.
Informed about this, the khan requires a few days truce to the Romans and
offers to Priscus “four hundred wagons with food to the hungry Romans”; in
exchange, Bajan asked for “spices from India”, and finally he received “pepper,
laurel leafs, aromas, cinnamon and other goods”[82].
The same kind of exotic products are also gifted to the Hun queen by the Roman
envoys: “silver cups, skins painted in red, dates, pepper and others”[83].
It could be observed that the khan and the
p. 36
members
of his military elite were accustomed to the luxurious goods from the imperial
metropolis brought from abroad. This inventory is substantially completed by
the imperial legislation referring to the interdictions imposed to the exports
by the authorities in case of war against the Barbarians. In a period of
dissension between the empire and the Goths, as it was between 370 and 375,
when the anti-Christian persecutions promoted by Athanaricus affect also the
political relationship between the two sides, a decree signed by Valens,
Valentinian and Gratianus stipulated that “nobody has any right to transport
wine, oil and beverages in the Barbarian regions, not even in order to be only
tasted or to destined to commercial destinations”[84].
The conflict situation is the one that certainly explains these interdictions
with foods, which during the peace times represented the object of the
bilateral exchanges. A totally different situation occurred for the strategic
products in the empire, especially the weapons and the metals. There is the
order of the Emperor Marcianus in the years 455-457 addressed to another
dignitary, which clarifies the situation of these goods. The order stipulated
that “nobody to dare to sell links, shields, bows, arrows, swords or any other
sort of weapons [...] to the Barbarians abroad, of every kind of race and also
any kind of missiles, and that nobody is allowed to alienate even a piece of
iron, even processed or not”[85].
Then, the emperor specified the punishment for the violation of this
disposition, “because it is harmful for the Roman Empire and almost a treason
to equip the Barbarians with weapons, which they better miss, in order to be
not more powerful”[86].
Henceforth, the sanctions stipulated in case of violation of this order were
extreme, since the guilty one was to “have all the goods confiscated and given
to the public treasure, and he himself to be subject of the capital punishment”[87].
In relation to the Byzantine products, the
numismatics in the Northern Danube area represents another dense net. The foederati – Goths and Sarmatians, Huns
and Gepides, Lombards and Avars – received yearly tributes from the empire,
representing often more than a hundred thousands nomismae or solidi, the
silver coin of Constantine the Great. The highest tributes were sent to Attila,
who made the law in the Balkans in front of the incapable Theodosius II. What
happened to these huge amounts of golden coins beyond the empire’s frontiers? A
great part of them returned to the Roman state as an exchange for the luxurious
goods, achieved by the Barbarian elite in the fares on the limes or even at their residence centres. A crowd of Romans swarmed
at the court of Attila and there were many merchants among them, according to
Priscus’ testimony[88].
Some other pieces were transformed in golden rods, as they have been discovered
by the archaeologists in the treasures[89].
Finally, a small part of them is to be found in the treasures in their initial
shape, as Imperial nomismae. However,
beside the golden pieces, there are to be found also pieces more modest, of
silver and
p. 37
especially
of copper, in the treasures. They reveal a world different to the conquering
clans, meaning the world of the sedentary populations, which resources are
exploited by the migratory peoples. The less valued coins indicate exchanges
inside of the sedentary society, modest daily exchanges of a poor population or
impoverished by the storms coming from the Northern Pontic steppes. These
pieces came also from the empire, on ways more difficult to be established.
Many of them were to be achieved by the natives at the fares on the limes, some others were to be brought by
the Roman prisoners transferred to the South of the river by the migratory
peoples.
The two categories of coins sketch the
existence of two distinct societies on the same space. The silver and copper
coins illustrate a world accustomed for centuries with the Roman coin and with
the daily exchanges of small value inside of the sedentary society, utilizing
food products primarily. On the contrary, the golden pieces suggest the
plundering society of the migratory clans; they originate in the robbery
expeditions to the Southern Danube and in the tributes paid by Rome and
Constantinople for assuring the peace at the frontiers. Meanwhile, they sketch
a frontier of nomisma or an empire of
solidus, which frontiers included not
only Europe, but also the Muslim world in Asia and Africa, surpassing
considerably the territorial reality of the Roman State. Thus, the golden
pieces are also the proof of the empire’s military weakness, paid in gold, but
also of the economical and also political prestige of a state which coin would
remain for a thousand years the coinage standard of the medieval world[90].
The Cultural Frontier
On the cultural ground, the Danube is
less a frontier than a way of communication for the material goods and for the
ideas. The echo of the Byzantine influence is propagated in waves to the
Northern Danube Barbarian world, open to receive it. Before analyzing them, it
is the proper moment to underline the complexity of the concept of Barbarian world at the North of the
Danube, often excessively simplified, in order to understand the entire
proportion of the Byzantine culture. On the one side, there are the migratory
clans looking for booty and tributes from the empire. They represent a warrior
minority, in comparison with the huge mass of sedentary population, “the basic
population” (Grunbevölkerung),
without which the migratory peoples’ political basis were in impossibility to
exist[91].
This “basic population” is formed by the Dacian-Romans remained in the region
at 271, by the Southern Danube prisoners and perhaps by groups of migratory
peoples gradually converted to a sedentary life. The cultural
p. 38
influenced
from the New Rome should be regarded at different levels and intensities, in
function of the Barbarian society’s structures.
Put in evidence by the archaeological
excavations, the material and cultural goods were retaken by the Barbarian
world in a first stage directly from the empire, by commercial exchanges or in
other way, and then they were produced by the Barbarians themselves, although
somehow awkwardly. The archaeologists have established more cultural areas in
the space of the ancient Dacia, all of them being influenced, in an extent or
another, by the empire’s material culture, so that some have talked about the
Romanian space’s inclusion in the great area of the Byzantine provincial
civilization[92]. For the
explanation of this phenomenon, we should consider the tradition of the local
handicraftsmen remained in Trajan Dacia, the human contacts between the two
banks of the river through Banat and Oltenia that were not abruptly interrupted
in 271, but also the part taken by the Roman prisoners. These latter were in
the favor of the migratory clans and put to work for their new masters. It is
the one manner to understand the proportion of the Byzantine material culture’s
influences, but also the different degree of fidelity towards them, from one
cultural area to another.
On a different level, the lecture of
Ammianus Marcellinus and Priscus of Panion offer a classical example of
cultural assimilation to the modern historian. At their arrival in Europe, the
Huns, according to Ammianus, were regarded as the symbol of the pure
savageness, because of their life style and of violence. After two centuries,
Priscus reveals a completely different society, profoundly modified under the
Roman civilization’s influence coming through different channels. In 450, the
image of the court of Attila surpasses everything that one knows about the
other migratory clans halting at the North of the Danube. At the Hun king’s
court, Priscus comes into contact with illustrious characters of the Western
and Eastern Roman world. Some of them are only in mission to the king; some
others are willingly established there, looking for profit. Anyhow, the most of
the Romans are war prisoners that had played an essential part in the
transformation of the Hun society at its superior level. Among them, there are
king’s secretaries, engineers, craftsmen and merchants. They built the
sumptuous buildings of the king’s dignitaries, endowed with Roman baths. In the
palace of Attila, which impresses Priscus through its wealth and good taste,
there are feasts that suppose bowls and cups in gold and silver[93].
Here is the superior level of migratory peoples’ cultural assimilation,
brilliant, but superficial, as long as their huge mass remains attached to the
nomad traditions and “the life of robbery”. The death of the great king was
sufficient to let the brilliance of the Attila’s court and of his military
elite’s buildings to disappear almost without any trace.
The diffusion of the Roman
civilization’s values at the migratory mass’ level is more important and more
lasting. It supposes the assimilation of a sedentary life style’s basis by the
Barbarians. The contemporary sources offer data about the integration and then
the entire assimilation of the migratory population settled in the empire’s
Balkan
p. 39
provinces.
It is the case of the Bastarns, mentioned by Zosimus, who considers them as “a
Scythic race subdued [by the Emperor Probus, who] settled them in Thracia and
when gave them lands there. They lived then continuously under the Roman laws”[94].
Two centuries afterwards – the event takes place in 280 –, the Byzantine
historian notices the stages of the Bastarns’ integration and assimilation. Almost
at the same times, the Carps were transferred on the Roman territory, where
they were rapidly assimilated[95].
One of their descendants completely romanized, that is Maximinus, became deputy
of prefectus in Rome, after his
father had been archivist of a military garrison[96].
At this level, the last case of cultural assimilation is represented by “the
little Goths”, Christianized by Wulfila, who was their bishop. In the times of
Jordanes, they lived in great number in Moesia Inferior, in the region of
Nikopolis, “but poor and peaceful”[97].
The Barbarians enrolled in the favor of empire, as soldiers deserve a special
attention. Some of them became commanders of the Roman armies and the best
defenders of the Roman civilization against the assault of their relatives, as
it is the case of the famous general Stylicon, whose example is not singular.
There is poorer information in the
sources about the Roman influences on the migratory populations outside their
military elite. These influences are to be rather supposed than documented. In
this sense, the Goths represent a special case. During their arrival in the
Northern Pontic steppes and at the Danube’s mouths, they were not different
than other migratory peoples. On the contrary, the Goths borrow elements of
civilization from the Iranic tribes in the region, in contact with the
Mediterranean world. In a first stage, during almost a century, the Goths
plunder the Balkan provinces and Asia Minor. Then, in another stage, they
become foederati of the Romans. In
all this period, they assimilate the cultural influences from the Greek-Roman
world, becoming some of the most civilized Barbarians, according to the ancient
authors. They are transformed in an almost sedentarized population, are
converted to Christianism – not without tensions inside their own community –,
and Wulfila invents a Goth alphabet and translates the Bible in their language[98].
The success of the Rome’s work of cultural assimilation had not ever been such
great among the Barbarians outside the frontiers. Nevertheless, the Goths were
not ready to establish a state on their own in the Dacian space. It would be
after some other decades, that is after the abandon of the Northern Danube
settlements, when the Vizigoths would create a state at the other extremity of
the empire, that is in the Southern Gaul and in Hispania. Meanwhile the
Ostrogoths would imitate them a century later, in Italy. Still, as Orosius
underlines, the first Vizigoth king in the Gaules, that is Athaulf, is constrained
to renounce to the
p. 40
substitution
from Romania to Gothia and he puts himself in the favour of Rome. It was after
he had convinced himself that the Goths’ barbarity had been able to be
controlled exclusively through the Roman laws[99].
A century later, the ideal of the great Ostrogoth king Theodoricus would be the
same. The political conception of the two kings is the great lesson assimilated
by the most civilized migratory peoples for their political successes and a
supreme homage for the Roman civilization.
A last respect of the cultural
influences in the Northern Danube space regards the expansion of the Latin
language in the Barbarian world. The contemporary sources are plentiful neither
here. Some signs about the phenomenon are not absent, while some others could
be indirectly inferred. During his embassy to the court of Attila, Priscus
concludes that there were “the language of the Huns, the one of the Goths and
the one of the Ausones” to be usually
spoken at the king’s residence[100].
The last of them was to be the Latin language, become a real international
language in the space of the Northern Danube Barbarian world. For the
historian, the presence of a Greek speaking the Greek language at the king’s
court represents an exceptional fact, since the Greek language could only be
spoken by “the prisoners from Thracia and from the Illyrian coast[101],
that is in Greece. The detail recorded by Priscus is important also for our
investigation, since it allows us to evaluate the proportion of the Latin
language’s circulation at the North of the Danube in 4th-7th
centuries. The ambassador from Constantinople specifies indirectly that all the
other Roman provinces in the Balkans were Latinophone. Here is the point for
the conclusion that the prisoners transferred by the migratory peoples from the
Balkans to the Danube’s left side spoke the Latin in an overwhelming majority.
Two other informations confirm this
conclusion about the importance of the Latin language’s circulation at the
North of the river. The first one is advanced by Procopius and is connected to
the episode of the false Chilbudios. Slav by his origins and then Roman
general, Chilbudios gets in the service of Justinian, who names him as
commander of the armies on the Danube, in order to stop the Barbarians’
assaults. His success is complete, but after three years he disappears in an
expedition on the left side of the river. At the advise of a Roman prisoner,
who had come into contact with the general, an Ant slave strikingly resembled
with Chilbudios, comes to the Roman authorities, pretending that he was the
imperial commander. The false Chilbudios “spoke Latin and had learned many of
the Chilbudios’ manners and he was able to imitate him”[102].
The general Narses’ perspicacity was necessary that the trick be revealed. The
episode permits the conclusion that the Roman prisoners in the Wallachian field
spoke Latin and the slaves themselves used it as a lingua franca. The other information is to be detected in the
Pseudo-Maurykius and it refers to the so-called “refugees” (rhephugoi). A Latin technical term which
meaning is not entirely clear in the modern research, it defines the guides of
the imperial armies in the Barbarian territory. “Although they were Romans”,
mentions the author of the “Strategikon”,
p. 41
“they
obtained in time this position [of refugees], forgot their habits [the Roman
ones] and are closer to the enemies”[103].
Either Roman prisoners returned in the empire, or Romans definitely settled at
the North of the Danube, their life together with the Slavs created solidarity
of interests between the two communities. This solidarity vanished their
feeling of affection towards the Roman society’s values, preferring the
Barbarian life style. The Greek-speaking prisoner met by Priscus at the court
of Attila also develops an ample pleading in the favor of “the Scythic way of
life” and a harsh critic of the Roman society[104].
The Religious Frontier
When it becomes the state religion of
the empire in the 4th century, the Christianism also becomes the
most important component of the Roman civilization, defining its identity. The
Rome’s universal community becomes “the people of the Christians” or “the race
of the Christians”[105],
“the Romans” are to be confounded with “the Christians”, and the metropolis of
Constantine is also called “the Christian city” (Christianopolis)[106].
The universal values of the new faith explain its success in the conquest of
all the Roman community’s strata. Still, the Romans begin meanwhile to
propagate the Christianism outside their territory either, a policy initiated
by the emperor himself, who regarded himself as having the mission of “bishop
of the outsiders”[107].
The advantages of this policy could not be ignored. On the one hand, its
success among the Barbarians meant the confirmation of the emperor’s prestige
and the affirmation of the empire’s universality. On the other hand, the
Christian faith brought a ‘taming’ of the wild races and a more security at the
frontier, the emperor being convinced that “he will make the peace more solid
through the community of thoughts”[108].
The beginnings of the Christian
penetration to the North of the Danube regions dominated by the Barbarians are
still not connected to the undertaking of an emperor, but by the Goths’
plundering expeditions in the empire’s provinces. During the 3rd century
expeditions in the Balkan provinces and in Asia Minor, where the progress of
the new faith was already relevant, the Goths brought tenth of prisoners with
them, among whom there were also Christians. Among their descendants there is
Wulfila, the apostle of the Goths, and Sava the Goth the martyr. Probably,
these Christian prisoners were the first missionaries of the new faith, and the
circle of the believers from Gothia
p. 42
extended
among the natives and the pagan prisoners. The number would increase at the
beginning of the 4th century, especially because of the Roman
merchants coming with business in the region, among whom there were certainly
some Christianism’s disciples. The existence of a larger Christian community at
the North of the Danube in the first decades of the 4th century
explains the undertaking of the Christian church in the empire to settle a
“bishopric of the Goths”. Its titular in 325, by name Theophilus, is mentioned
among the participants to the ecumenical council of Nicaea[109].
The modern research is under controversy as regards the settling of this
bishopric, oscillating between the mouths of the Danube in the space controlled
by the Vizigoths and the Northern Pontic steppes dominated by the Ostrogoths[110].
The debate is mainly useless, since the Christian church in the empire did not
distinguish to 320 between the two branches of the Goths. In such a condition,
the bishopric was to cover the entire territory controlled by the Goths from
Chersonesus to the Danube and its titular was the shepherd of all the
Christians in Gothia. On the other side, the existence of some Christians,
others than those in the space dominated by the Goths, is attested also in the
territory of the former Roman province of Dacia, by the Christian cult objects
discovered by the archaeological excavations[111].
A new stage in the expansion of the new
faith in the Northern Danube Barbarian world begins to 340 and is connected to
the missionary activity of Wulfila, descending from some of the Christian
prisoners from Cappadocia. The Goth bishop’s activity is known from the
numerous ecclesiastical historical writings and from other later ancient works.
It takes place during seven years in Gothia. Subsequently, the Goth apostle is
obliged to take refugee in the empire, consequently to the persecution
enterprised by the Goth group hostile to the progress of Christianism. However,
his followers continued their propaganda, enlarging the circle of the Gothic
Christians by 370, when the anti-Christian great persecution commences. Led by
the King Athanaricus, the persecution would have the death of Sava the Goth as
consequence. The reasons for this persecution are obvious. The progress of
Christianism threatens the Gothic “ancient faith” with disappearance[112]
and the unity of the Gothic people with breaking, while the empire was to
achieve peacefully what was not able to get by the force of the army. This
latter respect explains also the “hatred against the Romans”[113].
From our viewpoint, the fact that Gothia was the ground of the confrontation
between the Orthodoxy and some heresies, especially the Arianism, is less
important. It is because, irrespective of the confession, the Christianism
becomes the most important way of propagation for the Roman civilization’s
values among the Northern Danube Germanic populations in the 4th-6th
centuries.
p. 43
Nevertheless, the message of the Gospel
was not limited to the Germanic populations at the North of the Danube –
Vizigoths and Ostrogoths, Gepides and Lombards – and it was not addressed to
them in a first stage, as we underlined above. Before Wulfila, the first
missionaries had the Roman prisoners in Gothia and the sedentary population in
the region into consideration. Sava the Goth and Nicetas spread the seed of
their faith in the whole milieu at the North of the Danube, irrespective of the
population’s ethnic origins. The activity in the region of Audios deserves a
special mention. He was the founder of a Christian sect condemned in the empire
and put the basis of “monasteries, where the monks’ rule flourished, [...]
together with an extremely severe asceticism”[114].
Surely, Gothia was the ground for the activity of some missionaries from the
empire’s Balkan provinces, especially from Scythia Minor. Here is attested a
very intensive Christian life with numerous establishments in the Roman cities
on the right side of the river in the 4th-6th centuries.
Here is the starting point for the missionaries in the Southern Moldavia,
where, according to Evagrius the Scholastic at the middle of the 6th
century, “the Romans had founded towns, military camps and some stations of
veterans and colonies sent by the emperors”[115].
The undeniable proof of the religious life in this region is delivered at the
middle of the 10th century by Constantine the Porphyrogenitus, who
has knowledge about six deserted cities (eremocastra)
between Dniester and the Danube’s mouths. At his times, there were traces of
churches and stone crosses[116].
In a larger and less precise perspective, Cosmas Indicopleustes has knowledge
of the fact that the Christ’s gospel was announced also “in the Northern
regions of the Scythians, [...] Bulgarians”[117]
and other peoples tat could very well include the Danube territories.
For the empire, the Christianism becomes
soon a weapon for the weakening of the pressure at the North of the Danube
frontier, being more efficient even than the institution of the foederati. Henceforth, the emperor’s
purpose was the christianization of the Barbarians and the achievement of “the
community of thoughts” between the Romans and the Barbarians towards the
latter’s gradual ‘taming’. Before this achievement, some Christians’ virtues
were to prepare the way. Sozomenos narrates the profound impression made by the
Bishop Theotimus of Scythia on the Huns, just arrived at the Lower Danube.
Amazed by the behaviour of the high “Scythic” prelate, the Huns named him as
“the God of the Romans”. Although “savage by nature”, they were “gradually
directed towards gentleness, being treated and attracted by gifts”[118].
The fruits of this missionary work, culminating with the christianization of
the Barbarian peoples, began to appear gradually. Previously assuring its
cohesion, the
p. 44
ancient
tribal solidarity begins to be broken in the middle of the Barbarian world.
Some other new, relying upon the new faith appear. The reaction of Athanaricus
represents the sign that the peril is consciously understood, but the
attraction of the new faith was more powerful. Theophanes the Confessor
narrates an episode of the fight between the Romans and the Slavs illustrating
this fact. The general Priscus is directed inside of the Barbarian region by “a
Gepide man, dominated by the Christian faith”, who had taken refugee among the
Romans[119]. Because
of him, the general achieves a complete victory. The progress of the Christian
faith in the Barbarian world weakened even more the consistency of the military
and political frontier at the Danube of the empire. As an essential element of
the Roman civilization since the 4th century, the Christian values
irradiate the Barbarian space, alleviating the tensions between the Romans and
the Barbarians and weakening the pressure of the Christian peoples on the
military frontier.
The Feature of a Frontier
By the appearance of Islam, the empire
had not come into contact with enemies presenting clear values and universal
message at its frontiers. It would only the Islam to oppose to the Romans a
world with a clear identity defined by political, cultural and religious values
with universal vocation. Therefore, the Eastern frontier, non-penetrable at
“the other’s civilization”, put two powers face to face. Their rivalry has the
domination over the world as purpose[120].
Later, through Charles the Great, the Great Schism and especially the crusades,
the West builds its identity, through the contact with Constantinople and
against it, through values settled upon the Greecized New Rome.
At the end of Antiquity, there is
nothing similar at the empire’s Danube frontier. Here are two civilizations
aware of themselves in confrontation. Constituted in gentes, the Barbarians have no values with universal vocation and
have nothing to propose to their neighbours. On the contrary, they are
preoccupied to preserve the tribal, linguistic, political and religious
individualities. Only after the contact with the empire, through and against
Rome, the Barbarian peoples achieve gradually the conscience of their identity.
In a first stage, they promote the identity values, essentially of war. Still,
the irresistible economic contacts with the empire bring the first breaches in
the Barbarian world’s closed structures. Attracted by the rich booties and the
Roman life’s brilliance, their military elite is the first to feel the need of
communication with the imperial civilization. After the booties and the Roman
luxury goods, the institution of foederati
and the Christianism are afterwards the main channels that the Roman values
penetrate through to the Barbarian world. As F. Braudel noticed, as the voltage
difference is increasing between the two civilizations, as the waves that the
inferior society absorbs the advanced society’s influences are more powerful[121].
One should not ignore the part of referee taken in this process by the
sedentary population on the territory controlled by
p. 45
the
Barbarians, strongly penetrated by the influences of the Roman world through
very lasting contacts. Here is the part taken by the captives from Cappadocia
in the Christianization of the Goth and the part, inimitable especially in the
archaeological sources, played by the Dacian-Romans in the assimilation of the
influences from the migratory peoples’ material civilization. Through these
channels, many times invisible, the two Gothic peoples at the Danube and the
Black Sea were prepared for their brilliant political career in the West.
The prestige of the Roman civilization in the world
of the migratory peoples gave a great ambiguity to the notion of frontier. The
absorption of the very diverse Roman values by the migratory peoples created
not only a frontier at the Danube, but numerous frontiers, sketching the same
number of concentric circles having Constantinople in the middle of them, as
the vital centre of the imperial civilization. The most restricted among those
circles corresponded to the political and military frontier separating the
Roman citizens’ community and the Barbarian world. This frontier, which
includes also the one at the Lower Danube, has the task to assure the security
for the Roman community’s values in front of the Barbarian violence and
disorder. At the other extremity, the circle with the largest radius includes
the empire of the Byzantine golden coin, which expansion does not take the
policy and the religion into consideration, but the practical interests of the
human beings and of the societies. However, the empire outlined by the nomisma during a thousand years is also
the sign of prestige and of power of an economy and civilization. Between these
two extremes there are other concentric circles, “the invisible frontiers” of
the cultural and religious expansion, which is not by all means directly
proportional with the military strength of the empire in a certain moment. It
was rather the voltage difference between the civilization of Constantinople
and that of its neighbours that really mattered. The influences of the Byzantine
ideology and institutions from the last centuries of a dying empire are
reversibly proportional with the New Rome’s military resources.
The fall of the Danube frontier remains
under discussion. It would be followed by the loss of the Balkan provinces by
the empire, two centuries after the conquest by the Germanic peoples of the
Rome’s Western territory, despite its civilization’s superiority. The reasons
are multiple and they take alike the migratory peoples and the empire into
account. On the migratory peoples’ side, the Slavs and the Avars around the
year 600 do not look like the Goths in the 4th century and
therefore, they were not prepared to receive the values of the Byzantine
civilization. Some other few centuries were necessary for the Slavs to come
into a fruitful dialogue with Constantinople, after their establishing in the
Balkans. Still, the causes in the Byzantine camp are more important and more
complex. During the last antique centuries, the society of the New Rome accuses
more and more the vices that had provoked the fall of the empire in the West.
That is the sclerosis of the institutions that became more and more
anachronistic, the excessive bureaucracy beginning with Diocletian and
Constantine, the overwhelming fiscality. The dialogue between Priscus and the
Greek prisoner at the Attila’s court brings light on the lack of equity in the
Roman justice. The erosion of the solidarity in the Roman world explain the
sympathy, if not the alliance between the Goths and the poor population in the Peninsula
in the empire’s difficult moments,
p. 46
connected
to the catastrophe at Adrianople in 378. The phenomenon brings also light on
the duplicity of the Roman “refugees” that lives together with the Slavs at the
North of the Danube, being suspected by Pseudo-Maurikius to taking the cause of
the latter during the struggle with the Imperial troops.
There is also another reason, maybe more
profound. As in the migratory peoples’ world, under the Roman civilisation’s
influences, there is elaborated a new solidarity that would represent the basis
of the medieval peoples. The empire of the New Rome during the 4th-6th
centuries is the witness of the gradual appearance of other solidarity that
gave a new identity to the Roman state in the East. The offensive of the Greek
language and cultural elite in the Eastern metropolis provokes the violent
reaction of the Semitic populations, which come back to their national
traditions, under the shadow of the heresies developed here. This evolution
directs to their definite breaking off in the 7th century with the
cause of Constantinople and their passing in the Islamic camp. However, the
offensive of the Hellenism comes into contact also with the Romanity in the
Balkans, which had had the difficult task to save the empire in the East. In
the Constantine’s metropolis, definitely conquered by the Hellenism in the 6th
century, the Latin language, which had been the official language in the empire
by then, loses the primacy in administration and justice. Afterwards, around
the year 700 it would be even considered as “a Barbarian language” in the eyes
of the new elite in Constantinople[122].
This evolution continues during the subsequent two centuries, modifying
radically the identitary values of the empire, transformed in a Greek national
state.
This transformation profoundly affected
the Romanic population of the Peninsula. Certainly, the great invasions gravely
influenced the Southern Danube Romanity, as being in the first line of the
resistance against the Barbarian assaults. The losses suffered by the imperial
troops, mainly recruited from its lines, the human casualties provoked by the
invasions and the settlement of hundreds of thousands Roman prisoners to the
North of the Danube weakened the Roman element’s vitality. The settling of the
Slav mass in the Peninsula accomplished its decay. Dislocated and pressed by
the migratory peoples in the high regions of the Balkans, the Romans continue
their existence in islands, being surrounded by the Slavic population. The
offensive of the Hellenism provoked not only in the East, but also in the
Peninsula the reaction of the local population, settled on a secondary position
by the Constantinople’s political and intellectual elite. This very fact
provoked a gradual alienation of this Romanity from the cause of the Greecized
empire. This explains the dissolving phenomena in the Balkan territories, as
expressed by the historians. After 700, according to Constantinople, the Romans
in the Balkans, together with their language, were included in the Barbarian
camp and the evolution comes to its final point.
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Whether you intend to utilize it in scientific purposes, indicate the
source: either this web address or the Annuario. Istituto Romeno di cultura
e ricerca umanistica 5 (2003), edited by Şerban Marin, Rudolf Dinu, Ion
Bulei and Cristian Luca, Bucharest, 2004
No permission is granted for commercial use.
© Şerban Marin, March 2004, Bucharest, Romania
[1] H. Ahrweiler, “La frontière et les frontières de
Byzance en Orient”, in Actes du XIVe
Congrès International des Etudes byzantines, Bucarest, 1971, I,
Bucharest, 1974: 209 ff.
[2] F. Braudel, La
Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II,
Paris, 1949: 141.
[3] E. Kornemann, Die unsichtbaren
Grenzen des römischen Kaiserreiches, Budapest, 1934.
[4] R. Rémoundon, La crise de
l’Empire romain, de Marc Aurèle à Anastase, Paris, 1964: 297;
P. Pétit, La paix romaine, Paris, 1967: 342-346.
[5] V. Beševliev, Studii
Clasice 3 (1961): 263.
[6] For the great personalities
originating in the Balkan Romanity in the 3rd-7th
centuries, see I. I. Russu, Elemente traco-getice în Imperiul Roman şi
în Byzantium, veacurile III-VII, Bucharest, 1976.
[7] Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale. Constantinople et ses institution de 330
à 451, Paris, 1974: 27.
[8] Ibidem: 29 ff.
[9] Corpus Iuris Civili, Iustiniani Novellae: XXVI; Fontes Historiae Daco-Romaniae , 4 vols.,
Bucharest, 1964 [hereafter, FHDR]: II, 381.
[10] G. I. Brătianu, Privilèges et franchises municipales dans l’Empire byzantin,
Paris-Bucharest, 1936: 63-65, presenting the whole matter.
[11] Ammianus Marcellinus, Istoria
romană: XXIV, 3, 9; FHDR: II,
119.
[12] Procopius of Cesarea, De
aedificiis: IV, 5, 9; FHDR: II,
463.
[13] Ibidem: IV, 5, 10-1; FHDR:
II, 463.
[14] Ioannes Lydos, De
magistratibus populi Romani: III, 32; FHDR:
II, 495.
[15] Ibidem.
[16] Ibidem. For the etymology of the hydronym of Danube, see G. Schramm, Eroberer und Eingesessene. Geographische Lehnamen als Zeugen der Geschichte
Südosteuropas im ersten Jahrtausend n. Chr., Stuttgart, 1981: 229-233, with
the biography of the subject.
[17] Jordanes, Getica:
75; FHDR: II, 419.
[18] Ibidem.
[19] Isidore of Seville, Etimologiae:
III, 21, 28; FHDR: II, 575.
[20] Ibidem.
[21] Paul Orosius, Historiae
adversum paganos: VII, 28, 29; VII, 32, 9; FHDR: II, 194. For other terms utilized for the Roman space, see Ahrweiler, “La frontière et les
frontières”, cit.: 212-213.
[22] Giorgio di Pissidia, Poemi,
in Panegirici epici (ed. by Agostino Pertusi), Ettal, 1959; FHDR: II, 567.
[23] Rufius Festus, Breviarium
rerum gestarum populi Romani (ed. by W. Foerster),
Vienna, 1874: VIII; FHDR: II, 42.
[24] Paul Orosius, op. cit.:
VII, 23, 4; FHDR: II, 194.
[25] Eusebius of Cesarea, Vita
Constantini: IV, 6, 2; FHDR: II,
17.
[26] Sozomenos, Kirchengeschichte
(ed. by J. Bidez), Berlin, 1960:
IX, 5, 3; FHDR: II, 230.
[27] Pseudo-Maurikios, Strategicon
(ed. by H. Mihăescu), Bucharest,
1970: XI, 4, 30; FHDR: II, 560.
[28] Priscus Panites, Excerpta
de legationibus (ed. by Carolus de
Boor), Berlin, 1903: 130; FHDR:
II, 259; pseudo-Maurikios, op. cit.: XI, 2, 10; FHDR: II, 554.
[29] Pseudo-Maurikios, op.
cit.: XI, 2, 10; FHDR: II, 555; Theodoret of Cyrus, Istoria ecleziastică: V, 31, 1; FHDR: II, 237.
[30] Ammianus Marcellinus, op.
cit.: XXXI, 2, 6; XXXI, 2, 10; FHDR:
II, 128, 130.
[31] Ibidem: XXVII, 4, 10; FHDR:
II, 122.
[32] Pseudo-Caesarios, in FHDR:
II, 483.
[33] Ammianus Marcellinus, op.
cit.: XXII, 8, 42; FHDR: II, 116.
[34] Ibidem: XXXI, 2, 10; FHDR:
II, 130.
[35] Ibidem: XXXI, 2, 3; FHDR:II,
128.
[36] Themistios, Opera
(ed. by L. Dindorf), Leipzig,
1832: 132; FHDR: II, 56.
[37] FHDR: II, 58.
[38] Pseudo-Maurikios, op.
cit.: XI, 4, 9; FHDR: II, 556.
[39] Libanius, Opera
(ed. by Foerster): IV, 252; LIX,
89; FHDR: II, 93.
[40] Ammianus Marcellinus, op.
cit.: XXXI, 8, 6; FHDR: II, 149.
[41] Agathias, Historiae:
V, 25, 3-5; FHDR: II, 479, 481.
[42] Menander Protector, Excerpta
de legationibus (ed. by de Boor):
48; FHDR: II, 519.
[43] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.; FHDR: II, 259.
[44] Theophylaktus Simocatta, Historiae
(ed. by de Boor): I, 4; FHDR: II, 532.
[45] Sozomenos, op. cit.:
VII, 26, 8; FHDR: II, 229.
[46] Theophylaktus Simocatta, op.
cit.: I, 4; FHDR: II, 532.
[47] George Pisidis, Poemi;
FHDR: II, 568.
[48] Ibidem: 566.
[49] Aurelius Victor, Caesares:
13, 4; 41, 18; FHDR: II, 24.
[50] Scriptores Historiae Augustae: 13, 1; FHDR: II, 106.
[51] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 579; FHDR: II, 291.
[52] Procopius of Cesarea, De
aedificiis: IV, 5, 6; FHDR: II,
463.
[53] Ibidem: IV, 1, 33; FHDR:
II, 461.
[54] Ibidem: IV, 5-11; FHDR:
II, 462-474.
[55] Ibidem: IV, 6, 3; IV, 6, 18; IV, 6, 34; IV, 7, 7; FHDR: II, 463-469.
[56] Sozomenos, op. cit.:
VI, 21, 6; FHDR: II, 225.
[57] Corpus iuris civilis, Novellae:
XLI; FHDR: II, 381; Ioannes Lydos, op. cit.: II, 29; FHDR:
II, 495.
[58] G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte
der byzantinischen Staaten, Munich, 1963: 58 ff.
[59] Theophylaktus Simocatta, op.
cit.: VIII, 4; FHDR: II, 551.
[60] S. Brezeanu, “Ideea de imperiu în Occidentul medieval în lumina
cercetărilor din ultimele decenii”, Revista
de istorie (1978), 2: 273-298.
[61] D. Obolensky, “The Principles and Methods of Byzantine
Diplomacy”, in Actes du XIIe
Congrès d’Etudes byzantines, vol. I, Belgrade, 1963: 56-58.
[62] FHDR: II, 80.
[63] Ibidem: 82.
[64] Julian, Caesares:
24; FHDR: II, 31.
[65] Ioannes Lydos, op. cit.:
II, 28; FHDR: II, 493.
[66] Aurelius Victor, Epitome
de Caesaribus: 47, 3; FHDR: II,
26.
[67] Procopius of Cesarea, About
the Wars: VII, 14, 32-33; FHDR:
II, 443-445.
[68] Theophylaktos Simocatta, op.
cit.: VII, 7; FHDR: II, 545.
[69] Obolensky, “Byzantine Frontier Zones and Cultural Exchanges”,
in Actes du XIVe
Congrès International d’Etudes Byzantines, Bucharest, 1974: I,
310-311.
[70] Procopius of Cesarea, op.
cit.: VII, 33, 12; FHDR: II, 445.
[71] Themistios, Speeches,
in FHDR: II, 59.
[72] Lucien Musset, Les invasions. Les vagues germaniques, Paris, 1969: 236.
[73] Ibidem: 82-83.
[74] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 131; FHDR: II, 261.
[75] Musset, op. cit.:
63.
[76] Dragon, op. cit.
[77] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 587-588; FHDR: II, 297.
[78] Scriptores Historiae Augustae: 4, 4; FHDR: II, 100.
[79] Themystius, op. cit.;
FHDR: II, 81.
[80] Ibidem.
[81] Theophylaktus Simocatta, op.
cit.: I, 3; FHDR: II, 531.
[82] Ibidem: VII, 13; Theophanes
the Confessor, Chronographia
(ed. by de Boor), Leipzig, 1883:
278; FHDR: II, 545, 611.
[83] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 132; FHDR: II, 261.
[84] Corpus iuris civilis, The Justinian’s Codex: IV, 41, 2; FHDR: II, 373.
[85] Ibidem.
[86] Ibidem.
[87] Ibidem.
[88] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 123 ff.; FHDR: II, 261.
[89] Istoria României, I, Bucharest, 1960: 797-798.
[90] Brătianu, Etudes
byzantines d’histoire économique et sociale, Paris, 1938: 59 ff.; G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte des Byzantinischen Staates, Munich, 1963: 34-35.
[91] W. Pohl, “Die Gepiden und die Gentes an der mittleren Donau nach
der Zerfall des Attilareichs”, Denkshriften
der Österreichische Akad. der Wiss., Philos.-Hist. Kl. 145 (1980): 282; Musset, op. cit.: 63 underlines the essential part taken by the sedentary
silent population, from the perspective of the contemporary sources, in the
existence of the Barbarian empires in the ancient Dacian area.
[92] L. Bârzu and Brezeanu,
Originea şi continuitatea românilor.
Arheologie şi tradiţie istorică, Bucharest, 1991: 206-208.
[93] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 143-133; FHDR: II, 277.
[94] Zosimus, Historia nova
(ed. by L. Mendelssohn), Leipzig,
1887: I, 71; FHDR: II, 306.
[95] Eusebius of Caesarea, Cronica
universală, in FHDR: II, 10.
[96] Ammianus Marcellinus, op.
cit.: XXVIII, 1; FHDR: II, 126.
[97] Jordanes, op. cit.:
267; FHDR: II, 430.
[98] For the Goths at the Danube
and in the Northern Pontic steppes and the Greek-Roman influence upon them, see
H. Wolfram, Geschichte der Goten. Von den Anfängen bis Zur Mitte des sechsten
Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1979; Musset,
op. cit.: 52 ff.
[99] Orosius, op. cit.:
7, 43, 5.
[100] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 135; FHDR: II, 264.
[101] Ibidem.
[102] Procopius of Cesarea, op.
cit.: VII, 14, 36; FHDR: II, 445.
[103] Pseudo-Maurikios, op.
cit.: XI, 4, 31; FHDR: II, 560.
[104] Priscus Panites, op.
cit.: 135-136; FHDR: II, 265,
267.
[105] Epiphanios, About the
Schism of the Arians, in FHDR:
II, 174; according to, for another period, Ahrweiler,
op. cit.: 210-211.
[106] Auxentius of Durostorum, Letter
about the Faith, Life and Death of Wulfila, in FHDR: II, 112.
[107] For the relationship
between policy and religion in this period, see H.-G. Beck, “Christliche Mission und politische Propaganda im
byzantinischen Reich”, in Settimane di
studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, XIV, Spoleto, 1967:
649-674 [reprinted in idem, Ideen und
Realitäten in Byzanz, London, 1972.
[108] Theodoretus of Cyrus, The
Ecclesiastical History, in FHDR:
II, 234.
[109] The St. Nicetas’ Sufferings, in FHDR:
II, 723.
[110] For the whole debate, see
E. Popescu, Christianitas Daco-Romanae, Bucharest, 1994: 178 ff.
[111] For the many respects of
the matter, see ibidem: 74-91.
[112] Socrates, Ecclesiastica
Historia: IV, 33, 7; FHDR: II,
219.
[113] Epiphanius, op. cit.,
in FHDR: II, 175.
[114] Ibidem: 173.
[115] Evagrius the Scholastic, The
Ecclesiastical History (ed. by Bidez
and L. Parmentier), London, 1898:
V, 1: 196; FHDR: II, 527.
[116] Constantine the Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio (ed. by Gy. Moravcsik), Budapest, 1949: 37, 58-67; FHDR: II, 666.
[117] Cosmas Indicopleustes, The
Christian Topography (ed. by E. O. Winstedt),
Cambridge, 1909: II, 169 C-D; FHDR:
II, 399.
[118] Sozomenos, op. cit.:
VII, 26, 8; FHDR: II, 228.
[119] Theophanes the Confessor, Chronographia:
271; FHDR: II, 607.
[120] Ahrweiler, op. cit.:
225.
[121] Braudel, op. cit.:
105; Obolensky, Byzantine Frontier Zones, cit.: 304-305.
[122] H. Zilliacus, Zum Kampf
der Weltsprachen im oströmischen Reich, Helsingfors, 1935.