Avar Blitzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders,

and Roman Special Ops:

Mobile Warriors in the 6th-Century Balkans

Florin Curta

But archers of the present are excellent horsemen and are able without difficulty to
shoot their bows to either side while riding at full speed, and to shoot an opponent, whether
1
in pursuit or in flight. Thus wrote Procopius of Caesarea in the mid-6th century, cont-
rasting the weakness of the Homeric archers with the mounted and armored archers of his
own lifetime. Many have taken this to be the description of an ideal dual-purpose horse-
man, without noting that Procopius real intention at this point may have been a veiled cri-
2
tique of the mounted archers prominence in 6th-century warfare. There is now general
agreement among military historians that a major change took place in Roman battlefield
tactics when the cavalry replaced the infantry as the main offensive tactical arm of the Ro-
man army. While the change has been previously dated to the 4th century, an attentive
reading of Procopius of Caesarea, Agathias, or Theophylact Simocatta shows that it was in
3
the 6th century that the cavalry replaced the infantry as the main operational force. More-
over, the ability of the 6th-century Roman cavalrymen to employ bows, lances, and, if
necessary, swords for hand-to-hand combat, as well as to dismount and fight on foot, has
4
encouraged many to take Procopius remarks at face value. Such developments have so far
5
been discussed in relation to the Gothic wars in Italy. The situation in the contemporary

1 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars I 1.12 and 14, ed. J. Haury (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914),
6; English translation by H. B. Dewing (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 2014), 4.
2 Ilkka Syvnne, The Age of Hippotoxotai. Art of War in Roman Military Revival and Disaster (491636)
(Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2004), 445; Anthony Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea. Tyranny,
History, and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004),
224.
3 Hugh Elton, Warfare in Roman Europe AD 350425 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1056;
John F. Haldon, Warfare, State, and Society in the Byzantine World, 5651204 (London: University
College of London Press, 1999), 190217. The victories the Romans obtained in 533 against the
Vandals at Tricamerum and Ad Decimum were achieved by cavalrymen alone.
4 Gilbert Dagron, Modles de combattants et technologie militaire dans le Stratgikon de Maurice, in
Larme romaine et les barbares du IIIe au VIIe sicle, eds. Franoise Vallet and Michel Kazanski (St.
Germain-des-Prs: Association Franaise d'Archologie Mrovingienne et Muse des Antiquits
Nationales, 1993), 27984, at 2812; Haldon, Warfare, 195.
5 E.g., Philip Rance, Narses and the battle of Taginae (Busta Gallorum) 552: Procopius and sixth-
century warfare, Historia 54 (2005): 42472.
70 Florin Curta

Balkans was fundamentally different for at least two reasons. First, unlike Italy, the goal of
the Roman armies operating in the Balkans was not to conquer or reconquer any territory
which was not already under Roman rule. Second, shifting the emphasis from infantry to
cavalry and turning cavalrymen into highly versatile warriors on horse-back was a response
to the kind of warfare waged upon Romans, ever since the early 5th century, by their
6
nomadic neighborsHuns, Bulgars, and Avars. The primary area of contact with those
nomads has always been the Balkan region. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light
on the mobile military forces operating in that region during the 6th century, whether
Roman or barbarian. I will first discuss the dramatic changes in military tactics introduced
by the Avars, with a special emphasis on the mobility and versatility of mounted archers
and lancers. I will then contrast the Avar heavy cavalry, which secured qagan Bayans vic-
tories in the late 6th and early 7th century, with the lightly armed Bulgar and Slavic raiders
led by a number of leaders, whose ephemeral power was entirely based on their military
skills. The mobility of the Avar troops was associated with a form of social and political
organization very different from that of the Bulgar and Slavic marauders. I will then turn to
the Roman response and analyze Emperor Maurices campaigns against Avars and Slavs
in order to highlight the importance of the mobile special-ops in the Roman general
strategy in the Balkans.
Following the fall of Sirmium in 582, the new qagan of the Avars, perhaps in an attempt
to consolidate his position internally, launched a campaign along the Danube.7 The first
target of the attack was Singidunum, which the Avars took by surprise, as some of its in-
habitants were still outside the city walls working in the fields. Despite the heavy fighting
by the city gates, the Avars managed to take the city, which they thoroughly plundered.8 In
quick succession, two more cities fell into the hands of the AvarsViminacium next to the
mouth of the Morava, and Augusta, at the mouth of the Ogost. Theophylact Simocatta, our
main source for the events of 584, claims that immediately (parautika) after that, the qa-
gan made his appearance on the Black Sea coast, under the walls of Anchialos, at a distance
of 575 km from Viminacium, as the crow flies.9 Given that under normal circumstances
cavalry forces could cover between 64 and 80 km per day, the entire campaign may have
lasted no more than a couple of weeks.10 It is important to note that the Avars appear to

6 Haldon, Warfare, 195; Philip Rance, Drungus, drouggos, and drouggisti: a Gallicism and continuity in
late Roman cavalry tactics, Phoenix 58 (2004): 96130, at 125.
7 For the chronology of the Avar rulers, see Terz Olajos, La chronologie de la dynastie avare de Baan,
Revue des tudes byzantines 34 (1976): 1518. Bayan, the only qagan known by name, must have died
shortly after the conquest of Sirmium. He was succeeded by his son.
8 Theophylact Simocatta, History I 4.13, eds. Carl de Boor and Peter Wirth (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner,
1972), 467; English translation from Michael and Mary Whitby, The History of Theophylact Simocatta
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 25.
9 Theophylact Simocatta, History I 4.4, 47. That this was a definitely an amazing military feat results
from the fact that from Augusta to Anchialos, the qagans army had to cross the Stara Planina range of
mountains.
10 Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 101. The speed of infantry troops on the move varied between 11 and 32
km per day.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 71

have left untouched a number of important towns along the Danube, such as Bononia and
Ratiaria. If one can trust Theophylacts testimony on this issue, it seems that the goal of the
Avar campaign was more to surprise the Romans than to sack as many cities as possible.
Theophylact claims that the Avars remained in Anchialos for three months, but according
to John of Ephesus the qagan quickly returned to Sirmium when learning about the app-
roach of the Kk Turks from the east.11 As Emperor Maurices two envoys reached them in
the winter, the return of the Avars must have been just as swift as their campaign along the
Danube and then, across the mountains, into eastern Thrace. There were probably no ox-
driven wagons carrying the booty back to Sirmium, or else the army would have been en-
cumbered and not really in a position to cover the distance in such a short period of time.
One year later, the Chagans men ravaged all the environs of Scythia and Mysia, and
captured many cities, Rateria [Ratiaria], Bononia, Aquis, Dorostolon, Zaldapa, Pannasa,
Marcianopolis, and Tropaion.12 Again, the distance between Aquis (modern-day Prahovo,
near Negotin, in Serbia) and Tropaion (present-day Adamclisi in southern Dobrudja, Ro-
mania) is over 400 km. The speed of the conquest to which Theophylact referred as the
suddenness of the invasion (tes athroas epiphoiteseos)13 betrays the use of exclusively
cavalry forces. This time, however, the Avars wintered on Roman soil, for the operations
began in 586 where they had stopped at the end of 585. Cornered by Comentiolus troops
near Sabulente Canalis, the qagan managed to avoid a direct confrontation with the Roman
troops, took an alternative route and sacked Mesembria on the Black Sea coast.14 The Avars
then moved quickly to the west and attacked without success Beroe (Stara Zagora), Diocle-
tianopolis (Hisar), Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and Adrianople (Edirne). Theophylact insists
that the attack on Beroe was at the cost of a very great waste of time, and that the qagan
willingly abandoned the fight at Philippopolis, seeing that the siege would have taken
much too long for his plans.15

11 Theophylact Simocatta, History I 4.6, 47 John of Ephesus, Historia ecclesiastica VI 49, ed. E. I. Brooks
(Louvain: Secretariat du Corpus SCO, 1935), 260. For the Kk Turks, see Denis Sinor, The es-
tablishment and dissolution of the Trk empire, in The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, ed.
Denis Sinor (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 285316. See also Walter
Pohl, Die Awaren. Ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa, 567822 n. Chr. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2002), 79
80.
12 Theophylact Simocatta, History I 8.10, 54; English translation from Whitby, 31. According to Pohl, Die
Awaren, 87, Apiaria (now Rakhovo near Ruse, Bulgaria) must have also fallen during this same cam-
paign, and not in 586 as implied by Theophylacts account.
13 Theophylact Simocatta, History I 8.11, 54; English translation from Whitby, 31.
14 Theophylact Simocatta, History II 12.6, 94; English translation from Whitby, 60. According to Michael
Wendel, Der Kriegszug der Awaren im Jahr 586/587 n. Chr. durch Nordthrakien, in Pontos Euxeinos.
Beitrge zur Archologie und Geschichte des antiken Schwarzmeer- und Balkanraumes. Manfred Op-
permann zum 65. Geburtstag, eds.Sven Conrad, R. Einicke, A. E. Furtwngler, H. Lhr and A. Slawisch
(Langenweissbach: Beier & Beran, 2006), 44760, at 454, the analysis of Theophylacts account of the
586/7 war in Thrace suggests that the Avar army moved freely back and forth across the Stara Planina
range covering more than 1,000 km in a single campaign season.
15 Theophylact Simocatta, History II 16.1217.4, 103; English translation from Whitby, 667.
72 Florin Curta

The extraordinary mobility of the Avar mounted warriors results also from the events of
592. While Emperor Maurice appointed Priscus as commander over the army operating in
the Balkans, the Avars crossed the Sava River at Sirmium. And so the Chagan marshaled a
detachment of his force, and ordered it to hasten ahead and give the Romans a frightening
encounter with authority.16 It took five days for the Avar horsemen to cover the over 300
km-long distance between Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica, in northern Serbia) and Bononia
(Vidin, in northwestern Bulgaria), where the nearest Roman troops had been stationed.17
When negotiations with Priscus failed, the qagan dispatched his forces to Dalmatia, in
which they were able to sack forty forts and to take Bonkeis (an otherwise unknown city).18
Although not explicitly mentioned, it is likely that the Avar forces consisted primarily, if
not exclusively, of horsemen. Even more impressive in terms of tactical mobility is the
campaign of 597. The Avars moved swiftly along the Lower Danube and into Thracian
Mysia and suddenly appeared under the walls of Tomis (present-day Constana).19 Feeling
threatened by a pincer movement of Comentiolus troops who arrived in Nicopolis ad Ist-
rum (Nikiup, northern Bulgaria), the qagan moved back to the Lower Danube to meet the
Romans near Iatrus (present-day Krivina, near Cenovo in northern Bulgaria). Following the
debacle of the Roman army on the banks of the river Iantra, the Avars moved quickly to the
south to block the passes across the Stara Planina range, and then crossed the mountains
pursuing Comentiolus all the way to Drizipera (modern Bykkartran, between Llebur-
gaz and orlu, in European Turkey), more than 300 km to the southeast.20
Theophylact Simocattas account of the Balkan war thus leaves one with the impression
that the Avars waged a Blitzkrieg, in that their goal was to concentrate overwhelming force
at high speed and constant motion in order to keep the enemy off-balance and to make it
difficult for the Romans to organize an adequate response at any given point, before the
Avar horsemen would move somewhere else. The psychological effect of this strategy may
explain why cavalry troops could so easily take a number of important cities and forts both
along the Danube and in Thrace (e.g., Drizipera) without getting bogged down in long-

16 Theophylact Simocatta, History VI 4.6, 226; English translation from Whitby, 163. Theophylact relied
at this point on an official report of the campaign, which Haussig rightly called Feldzugsjournal. This
was most probably the source of the information about the time the Avar horsemen took to reach Bono-
nia. See Hans Wilhelm Haussig, Theophylakts Exkurs ber die skythischen Vlker, Byzantion 23
(1953): 275462, at 296.
17 See Istvn Bna, Die Awarenfeldzge und der Untergang der byzantinischen Provinzen an der Unteren
Donau, in Kontakte zwischen Iran, Byzanz und der Steppe im 6.7. Jahrhundert, ed. Csand Blint
(Budapest: Institut fr Archologie der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000), 16384, at
166.
18 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 12.1, 265; English translation from Whitby, 195.
19 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 13.1, 267; English translation from Whitby, 196. See ukasz R-
ycki, RomanAvar relations from the perspective of the military campaign of 597 and the siege of To-
mi, in Barbarians at the Gates. A Monograph Based on Material from the VI International Study Ses-
sion on the History of Peoples on the Baltic Sea, Wolin, 57 August 2011, eds. Maciej Franz and
Zbigniew Pilarczyk (Toru: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszalek, 2013), 11533.
20 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 14.8 and 11, 270; English translation from Whitby, 199.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 73

drawn sieges. Fundamental for the understanding of the Avar strategy is also the fact that
none of those cities and forts was actually occupied in the aftermath of their conquest.
Captives were either ransomed for money or moved inside the qaganate, as in the case of
the famous Sermesianoi (former inhabitants of Sirmium) mentioned in the Miracles of St.
Demetrius.21 In fact, after the fall of Sirmium (the value of which appears to have been
more symbolic than practical to both Avars and Romans), the Avars were not any more
interested in conquering or even claiming any piece of the imperial territory.22 The main
reason for the qagan waging war on the Empire in the Balkans appears to have been to keep
the prestige economy going, as this was the only way for him to acquire large amounts of
Roman gold either as stipends (which reached 120,000 solidi per year at the end of the
century) or as gifts to be redistributed among the members of the Avar elite (and army), in
order to secure their loyalty.23
Who exactly were the Avar elite horsemen? Although his account is rich in detail about
the movements of the Avar armies in the Balkans, Theophylact Simocatta has nothing to
say about individual warriors or groups of warriors.24 The late 6th- or early 7th-century
military treatise known as the Strategikon describes the Avar horsemen as doubly armed;
lances slung over their shoulders and hanging bows in their hands, they make use of both as
need requires.25 The horses of the illustrious men wore iron or felt protection.26 As a
matter of fact, a great number of animals stallions and mares are said to have followed
the mounted Avar warriors, and they were used as reserve horses for increased mobility and
speed, as well as for food (meat, blood, and milk).27 Those were relatively large animals,

21 Miracles of St. Demetrius II 5, ed. Paul Lemerle (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
19779), 22234. See Michel Pillon, L'exode des Sermsiens et les grandes migrations des Romains de
Pannonie dans les Balkans durant le Haut Moyen Age, Etudes Balkaniques 38 no. 3 (2002): 10341.
22 Walter Pohl, Ergebnisse und Probleme der Awarenforschung, Mitteilungen des Instituts fr ster-
reichische Geschichtsforschung 96 (1988): 24774, at 264.
23 Walter Pohl, Historische berlegungen zum awarisch-byzantinischen Austausch, A Wosinsky Mr
Mzeum Evknyve 15 (1990): 916, at 94; Walter Pohl, Zur Dynamik barbarischer Gesellschaften: das
Beispiel der Awaren, Klio 73 (1991): 595600; Walter Pohl, Krieg, Raub und Handel in der awa-
rischen Gesellschaft, in Reitervlker aus dem Osten. Hunnen + Awaren. Burgenlndische Landesaus-
stellung 1996. Schlo Halbturn, 26. April-31. Oktober 1996, eds. Falko Daim, Karl Kaus and Pter
Tomka (Eisenstadt: Amt der Burgenlndischen Landesregierung, 1996), 3489.
24 The names of two commanders of Avar cavalry troops appear in Theophylacts workSamur and Ap-
sich (History VI 4.11 and VIII 5.56 and 13, 227 and 2923). Samur commanded 8,000 horsemen,
while Apsich was dispatched with soldiers to destroy the nation of the Antes, which was in fact allied
to the Romans. Nothing else is known about the two commanders.
25 Strategikon XI 2, ed. George T. Dennis (Vienna: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1981), 362; English translation from George T. Dennis (transl.), Maurices Strategikon.
Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 116.
26 Strategikon XI 2, 362.
27 Strategikon XI 2, 363. The reserve horses are specifically mentioned as being kept next to the battle
field or tied together to protect the rear of the battle line (Strategikon XI 2, 362 and 364). Moreover, the
unknown author of the Strategikon notes that since the Avars depended upon their horses, they were
74 Florin Curta

with a mean estimated withers height of just under 1.40 m.28 Horse skeletons buried either
separately or together with males (presumably their owners) are commonly of animals
sacrificed at an adult age, which strongly suggests that those horses have been used in
combat for some time.29 Horse skeletons are often associated with stirrups and lance
heads.30 Although taking the archaeological record as a mirror of social reality is an app-
roach fraught with problems, there is no point in denying the military posturing of those
who were buried together with their horses, stirrups, and lances. In addition to lance heads,
Early Avar-age horse or horseman burials also produced swords, armor plates, bone rein-
forcement plates for composite bows, arrow heads, and battle axes. Such weapons appear to
have been associated more often than not with a group of professional warriors, who
were often accompanied in death by their warhorses. It is perhaps not too far-fetched to see
this group of warriors as the shock force of the Avar army, the mobility of which appears so
prominently in Theophylact Simocattas account of the Balkan wars in the late 6th century.
If we are to trust the Strategikon on this point, in addition to high mobility, the Avar
horsemen had a remarkable ability to switch quickly between different weapons lance,
bow, and sword while in combat. Such ability must have been developed through long and
meticulous training of both men and horses, the quality of which must have been on a par

particularly vulnerable to shortage of fodder (Strategikon XI 2, 364). For reliance on reserve horses as
the key to understanding the greater mobility of the Avar troops during the Balkan campaigns, see Sy-
vnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 358.
28 There is absolutely no basis for the widespread stereotype according to which the Avars rode ponies
(Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 360).
29 Istvn Takcs, Tams Somhegyi, and Lszl Bartosiewicz, Avar kori lovakrl Vrs-Papkert B temet
leletei alapjn, Somogyi Mzeumok Kzlemnyei 11 (1995): 17381, at 184. As Lszl Bartosiewicz,
Animal remains from the Avar period cemetery of Budakalsz-Dunapart, Acta Archaeologica Acade-
miae Scientiarum Hungaricae 47 (1995): 24155, at 244 points out, foal skeletons are very rare in Hun-
gary during the Avar age. For the mean estimated withers height of Early Avar horses, see Istvn Ta-
kcs and Lszl Bartosiewicz, Lcsontvz leletek Vrs-Papkert avar kori lelhelyrl, A Herman Ot-
to Mzeum vknyve 3031 (19931994): 597604; Istvn Vrs, A bkssmsoni kora avar kori sr
lova, Mra Ferenc Mzeum vknyve. Studia Archaeologica 4 (1998): 3736; Gabriel T. Rustoiu and
Marius Ciut, Mormntul de clre avar recent descoperit la Unirea-Veremort (jud. Alba), Apulum
45 (2008): 7198, at 95.
30 Florin Curta, The earliest Avar-age stirrups, or the stirrup controversy revisited, in The Other Eu-
rope in the Middle Ages. Avars, Bulgars, Khazars, and Cumans, ed. Florin Curta (Leiden /Boston: Brill,
2008), 297326, at 3123. Lances and spears appear more often with males buried with horses or in
horse burials. In fact, more than half of the known Avar-age lances are associated with horses. The vast
majority of those lances are dated to the Early Avar age. See Gergely Csiky, Armament and society in
the mirror of the Avar archaeology. The Transdanubia-phenomenon revisited, in Proceedings of the 1st
International Conference Interethnic Relations in Transylvania. Militaria Mediaevalia in Central and
South Eastern Europe, Sibiu, October 14th17th, 2010, ed. Ioan Marian iplic (Sibiu: Lucian Blaga
University Publishing House, 2011), 934, at 15.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 75

with that recommended by the author of the Strategikon for Roman cavalrymen.31 That
much results from what is known about the highly disciplined troops the qagan led into
several campaigns across the Balkans, even though not much can actually be said about
training or the general lifestyle of the Avar horsemen. That larger sections of the Avar
mounted army were led by specifically designated generals, whose names were also known
to their Roman adversaries, suggests a strongly hierarchical organization of the Avar ar-
my.32
A different picture emerges from the examination of the sources mentioning raids and
invasions by people alternatively called Huns or Bulgars.33 Although not specifically
mentioned as horsemen, their devastations are always directly or indirectly attributed to the
great mobility of their troops. For example, in 499, the Bulgars crossed the Danube and
quickly reached Thrace, where they defeated a large Roman army on the banks of the river
Tzurta.34 In a panegyric written in 507 for Theoderic the Great, Magnus Felix Ennodius
gives an indirect explanation for the remarkable speed of the Bulgar raids: the Bulgars use
their horses not only for riding, but also for food, as they drink mare milk.35 The Bulgar
raiders returned to the Balkans in 502, when no army was available any more to resist
them.36 A third Bulgar raid into Thrace was intercepted in 530 by magister militum per
Illyricum Mundo.37 According to John Malalas, Mundo even managed to capture the king
of the Bulgars, no doubt the warlord responsible for the raid.38 Subsequent Bulgar raids
were intercepted before crossing the Stara Planina range into Thrace. In 535, the magister
militum praesentalis Sitta crushed a Bulgar raiding army on the banks of the river Iantra.39
Four years later, two Roman generals attempted to stop a raid organized by two Hunnic
kinglets into Scythia Minor and Moesia. They were defeated and killed in the process,

31 Strategikon I 2, 7684. For a discussion of this section of the treatise, see Syvnne, Age of Hippo-
toxotai, 437.
32 According to the author of the Strategikon, the military success of the Avars could be explained in terms
of the despotic power the qagan exercised over his subjects (Strategikon XI 2, 360).
33 Khristo Dimitrov, Khuno-blgari i onoguriguri v stepite na severnoto Chernomorie prez VI vek, in
Blgarite v Severnoto Prichernomorie. Izsledvaniia i materiali, ed. Petr Todorov (Veliko Trnovo:
Universitetsko izdatelstvo Sv. sv. Kiril i Metodii, 1996), 438.
34 Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, ed. Theodor Mommsen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1894), 94; Brian Croke,
Count Marcellinus and his Chronicle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 69.
35 Ennodius, Panegyric 5, ed. Friedrich Vogel, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 7 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1885),
2056.
36 Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, 96; Croke, Count Marcellinus, 70.
37 Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, 103. For Mundos appointment as magister militum per Illyricum, see
Samu Szdeczky-Kardoss, Geschichte des Attila-Abkmmlings Mundo und ihre Chronologie bei
Theophanes, Acta classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 1011 (19741975): 16574, at
169; Brian Croke, Mundo the Gepid. From freebooter to Roman general, Chiron 12 (1982): 12535,
at 132.
38 John Malalas, Chronographia, ed. Ludwig Dindorf (Bonn: E. Weber, 1831), 451; Croke, Count
Marcellinus, 701.
39 Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, 104.
76 Florin Curta

and the Huns crossed the mountains into Thrace, which they thoroughly plundered. They
were finally intercepted by another Roman army led, among others, by the magister militum
per Illyricum Askum, who managed to kill the two kinglets. Meanwhile, however, a
different Hunnic raiding party ambushed the victorious Romans, and two of their generals
were taken captive.40
According to Procopius, in 539 or 540 a mighty Hunnic army crossed the Danube and
devastated the Balkan provinces, taking 32 forts in Illyricum and reaching all the way to the
Long Walls erected by Emperor Anastasius in the hinterland of Constantinople. Some of
them are even said to have crossed the Dardanelles and devastated the coast in Asia Minor.
In another invasion, the Huns plundered Illyricum and Thessaly and attempted to storm
the wall at Thermopylae; and since the guards on the walls defended them valiantly, they
sought out the ways around and unexpectedly found the path which leads up the mountain
which rises there. As a consequence, they devastated Achaia, but could not reach Pelo-
ponnesos, no doubt because of being stopped at the wall across the Isthmus of Corinth.41
The Long Walls; Thermopylae; and Peloponnesosthose are place names rarely, if ever
associated with raids across the 6th-century Danube frontier of the Empire. The geographic
reach of the 539 invasion is enormous and even a very critical approach to Procopius
account will have to begin with the incontrovertible fact that the Huns covered very large
distances within a relatively short period of time. The implication is that the raiders were
horsemen.42
The same is true for the 12,000 Kutrigurs who in 551 came under different commanders
(one of whom was named Chinialon) all the way from the western side of the Maeotic
Lake to provide military assistance to the Gepids at war with the Lombards.43 They would
later cross the Danube with Gepid assistance and plunder the Balkan provinces of the
Empire. This raid is in sharp contrast to the 2,000 Huns who came to the Danube frontier

40 John Malalas, Chronographia, 437. For the year 539 as the date of those events, see Veselin Beshevliev,
Die protobulgarische Periode der bulgarischen Geschichte (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1981), 82.
41 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars II 4.911, 2889. The mention of another invasion has led Ewald Kis-
linger, Ein Angriff zu viel, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 91 (1998): 4958, at 556 to the conclusion that
Procopius was confused or deliberately invented a second invasion, which in fact never took place. The
scenario of the 539 invasion is suspiciously similar to that of the Kutrigur invasion of 558/9.
42 Vasil Giuzelev, Voennoto izkustvo na prablgarite (IVVII v.), in Trinadeset veka v mir i bran, ed.
Boris Khristov (Sofia: Voennoe izdatelstvo, 1978), 2634, at 31.
43 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VIII 18.1415; English translation by Henry B. Dewing (Cambridge: Har-
vard University Press, 1962), 239. Chinialon must have been a paramount commander, for he is men-
tioned again as receiving the envoys from Emperor Justinian announcing the Utigur attacks on the Kut-
rigur lands (Wars VIII 19.3). See Denis Chernienko, The rulers of European nomads and the early me-
diaeval Byzantine historiography, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 58 (2005): 171
8, at 177. For the location of the Kutrigur lands, see Irina E. Ermolova, Kochevniki evropeiskikh ste-
pei epokhi Velikogo pereseleniia narodov, in Velikoe pereselenie narodov. Etnopoliticheskie i social'-
nye aspekty, eds. V. P. Bulanova, Anton A. Gorskii and I. E. Ermolova (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi
istorii RAN, 1999), 222311, at 2624; Oleksyi V. Komar, Kutrigury i utigury v severnom Pri-
chernomor'e, Sugdeiskii sbornik 1 (2004): 169200, at 170.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 77

shortly after 551 to request asylum in the Empire in the aftermath of the Utigur attack on
the Kutrigur lands. According to Procopius, they were bringing with them their wives and
children and one of their leaders was Sinnion, a veteran of Belisarius expedition to Vandal
Africa.44 The contrast between Chinialon and Sinnions Kutrigurs is not just one between
warriors and an entire people, but also one between different degrees of mobility, even
though it is quite possible that the Kutrigur refugees reached the Danube on horseback or in
wagons. That the names of the Kutrigur warlords were known to Procopius is perhaps a
consequence of that contrast, given that some Kutrigurs were friends, others were foes. The
latter is clearly the case of Zabergan, the Kutrigur leader who emerged in the years
immediately following the Utigur attack on the Kutrigur lands. In the winter of 558, he
crossed the frozen Danube into Scythia Minor and Moesia Inferior with a large army, which
he then divided into three sections. One of them moved rapidly into Greece reaching as far
south as Thermopylae, while the other two raided the Thracian Chersonesus and the out-
skirts of Constantinople.45
Again, the extraordinary distances covered in a relatively short period of time by Za-
bergans Kutrigurs suggest that they were all mounted warriors. In fact, 2,000 Huns said
to have advanced on the Roman camp at Chiton came at a gallop.46 It is the mobility of
those warriors that made them so difficult to defeat that Emperor Justinian had to appoint
the retired Belisarius as commander of a small army, whose task was to push the Kutrigurs
away from the Long Walls and the vicinity of the Capital. However, unlike Chinialons
Kutrigurs, Zabergans warriors did not come all the way from the western side of the
Maeotic Lake, which at any rate must have been in Utigur hands by 558. According to
Agathias, prior to the invasion of 558, the Hunnic tribes had moved south from their
abodes and had encamped not far from the banks of the Danube.47 In other words, Zaber-
gans Kutrigurs were raiders from the vicinity, and not an expeditionary corps like the
12,000 warriors who had arrived in the Lower Danube region seven years earlier.
If so, there are no material culture remains that could be associated with the presence of
the Huns, Bulgars, or Kutrigurs on the left bank of the Lower Danube. All secondary
inhumations in prehistoric barrows have been found in the steppe lands to the east from the
river Bug.48 The analysis of the associated grave goods has demonstrated that with few ex-

44 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VIII 19.67; English translation by Dewing, 245. For Sinnion as partici-
pating in Belisarius expedition to Vandal Africa, see Wars III 11.12. The Kutrigur refugees were even-
tually settled in Thrace.
45 Agathias, Histories V 1112, ed. Rudolf Keydell (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967), 1769. For Agathias
account of the Kutrigur invasion of 558, see Georgi Bakalov, Les ouvrages d'Agathias de Myrene
comme source de l'histoire des territoires balkaniques pendant la premire moiti du VI-e sicle, E-
tudes Balkaniques 10 nos. 23 (1974): 196207.
46 Agathias, Histories V 16.120.4, 1839.
47 Agathias, Histories V 11.5, 177, English version from J. D. Frendo (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter,
1975), 146. See Costel Chiriac, Unele observaii asupra informaiilor literar-istorice bizantine
privitoare la regiunea Dunrii de Jos n secolele VX, Arheologia Moldovei 20 (1997): 10726, at 115.
48 Such burials have been attributed to the Bulgars (including Kutrigurs and Utigurs) by Rasho Rashev,
Prablgarite prez VVII vek (Veliko Trnovo: Faber, 2000), 413.
78 Florin Curta

ceptions, most burial assemblages in that region must be dated to the second half of the 6th
and the early 7th century.49 In other words, those graves coincide in time with the Avar
conquest of the steppe lands north of the Black Sea and post-date the Hunnic, Bulgar, and
Kutrigur raids and invasions into the Balkans. Only in a few cases were the human remains
buried together with horses or parts of a horse body. In Dymovka, there was only one horse
skull next to two human skeletons.50 In Sivashske, buried above the human skeleton were
the skull and legs of a horse.51 In Portove and in one of the two graves excavated in
Vynohradnoe, the whole skeleton of a horse was buried in a special niche next to the human
skeleton.52 In Kovalivka and Sivashivka, the horse skeleton was placed on top of the human
burial.53 That those were graves of warriors results from the deposition of weapons arrow
heads, bone reinforcement plates for composite bows, and swords. Conspicuously absent
are the lance heads and stirrups so typical for contemporary burial assemblages in the
Middle Danube region under Avar control. With one possible exception (Portove), all
stirrups found in Eastern Europe are of a 7th-, not late 6th-century date.54 There is, therefore,
no evidence of a heavy cavalry similar to that of the Avars. Given that at the battle of
Chiton in 559, Belisarius goal was to crowd the Kutrigurs on in themselves so that they
would not be able either to maneuver their horses or to use their bows, it is likely that the
Huns, the Bulgars, and the Kutrigurs were primarily bowmen.55 Once inside the territory of
the empire, their goal was simply to plunder and to get large numbers of captives to be
ransomed at the end of the raid. This may explain both the lack of any coordination
between different raiding parties in 539 and the ephemeral nature of the power exercised by
their military commanders. Warlords such as Chinialon, Sinnion and Zabergan were

49 Florin Curta, The north-western region of the Black Sea during the 6th and early 7th century AD, An-
cient West & East 7 (2008): 14985, at 15163.
50 Aleksandr I. Aibabin, Pogrebenie khazarskogo voina, Sovetskaia arkheologiia (1985), no. 3: 191
205, at 1978.
51 Oleksyi V. Komar, Anatolii I. Kubyshev, and Ruslan S. Orlov, Pogrebeniia kochevnikov VIVII vv. iz
severo-zapadnogo Priazovia, in Stepi Evropy v epokhu srednovekovia, ed. A. V. Evgelevskii, vol. 5
(Donetsk: Izdatelstvo Doneckogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2006), 245374, at 30910; 310 fig.
29. The limbs and skull of a horse have also been found in Bilozirka (Aibabin, Pogrebenie, 197).
52 Rashev, Prablgarite, 24 and 137 fig. 31.123; R. S. Orlov and Iuri Ia. Rassamakin, Novye pamiatniki
VIVII vv. iz Priazovia, in Materialy I tys. n. e. po arkheologii i istorii Ukrainy i Vengrii, eds. Istvn
Erdlyi et al. (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1996), 10216, at 10313; 104 fig. 1; 105 fig. 2.
53 G. T. Kovpanenko, E. P. Buniatin, and N. A. Gavriliuk, Raskopki kurganov u s. Kovalevka, in Kur-
gany na iuzhnom Buge, eds. V. F. Gening, G. T. Kovpanenko, and A. I. Terenozhkin (Kiev: Nau-kova
Dumka, 1978), 7, 489, 53, and 55; 5 fig. 1; Komar, Kuibyshev, and Orlov, Pogrebeniia kochev-
nikov, 24551; 248 fig. 3.
54 Florin Curta, Horsemen in forts or peasants in villages? Remarks on the archaeology of warfare in the
6th to 7th century Balkans, in War and Warfare in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives, eds. Luke
Lavan and Alexander Sarantis (Late Antique Archaeology 8) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), 80952, at
815 and 8178.
55 Peter Bystrick, Slovansk a bulharsk vpdy na Balkn do roku 559, Historick asopis 51 no. 3,
(2003): 385402, at 3978; Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 443.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 79

distinguished by name from unnamed kinglets only because of their special status
former ally and refugee in the case of Sinnion, or enemy in the case of Chinialon and
Zabergan.
The case of the Slavs (Sclavenes and Antes) may not be very different. According to
Procopius, the first attack of the Antes, who dwell close to the Sclaveni, took place in
518. The raid was intercepted by Germanus, magister militum per Thraciam, and the Antes
were defeated.56 At some point between 533 and 545, the Antes crossed the Danube again
and raided Thrace.57 The first Sclavene raid took place in 545, when the marauders were
intercepted by the Herulian mercenaries under the command of Narses.58 Three years later,
another raid reached as far as Dyrrachium, in Epirus Nova. Those were most likely Scla-
vene horsemen, for Procopius calls them an army (strateuma).59 This is further confirmed
by the speed at which they moved over more than 400 km separating the Lower Danube
from the coast of the Ionian Sea. It seems to have been a large army, as the military com-
manders of Illyricum followed it at a distance with a force of 15,000 (horse) men, without
getting too close or engaging in any battle.60 In 549, another group of 3,000 Sclavene war-
riors crossed the Danube and immediately after that the Stara Planina range in the direction
of the Maritsa River, which they also crossed with no difficulty.61 They then split into two
groups, one headed to Thrace, the other to Illyricum. The former group defeated the cavalry
troops stationed at Tzurullum (present-day orlu) and captured their commander, Asbadus,
whom they executed on the spot. The easiness with which the Sclavene horsemen appear to
have won against the elite cavalry cohorts in Tzurullum strongly suggests that, like the
Huns and the Bulgars, they relied on speed and stratagems (such as the feigned retreat),
but it remains unclear with what kind of weapons they engaged their adversaries, either ja-
velins or bow and arrow.
It was a stratagem that allowed them to take the city of Topeiros (near present-day
Xanthi, in northern Greece).62 According to Procopius, the inhabitants of the city, who were
desperately defending the ramparts after the massacre of the garrison, were overwhelmed

56 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VII 40.56, English translation by Dewing, 459.

57 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VII 14.11; English translation by Dewing, 407.
58 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VII 13.24; English translation by Dewing, 407. For the force of Herules,
which Narses recruited from Singidunum, see Alexander Sarantis, The Justinianic Herules: from allied
barbarians to Roman provincials, in Neglected Barbarians, ed. Florin Curta (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011),
361402, at 385.
59 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VII 29.1; English translation by Dewing, 436. Strateuma is used many ti-
mes in the Wars for cavalry troops, e.g., I 12.6, I 21.15, II 4.4, and III 18.13. See also Sergei A. Ivanov,
L. A. Gindin, and V. L. Cymburskii, Prokopii Kesariiskii, in Svod drevneishikh pis'mennykh izvestii o
slavianakh, eds. L. A. Gindin, Sergei A. Ivanov and Gennadii G. Litavrin (Moscow: Nauka, 1991),
170249, at 234.
60 Tibor ivkovi, O plemenskom ustrojstvu i vojnoj snazi podunavskih Slovena u VI i VII veku, Zbor-
nik radova Vizantolokog Instituta 35 (1996): 95117, at 108.
61 Procopius, Wars VII 38.1; English translation by Dewing, 455. The Sclavenes of 549 were also a stra-
teuma, i.e., horsemen.
62 Dimitri Kasapidi, Topeiros-Xantheia, Vyzantinos Domos 56 (1991): 8596.
80 Florin Curta

by the multitude of their [the Sclavenes] missiles.63 It remains unclear whether the mis-
siles in question were arrows or javelins. In the summer of 550, as Roman troops were
gathering in Serdica under the command of Germanus in order to be sent to Italy against
Totila, a great throng of Sclavenes, such as never before was known crossed the Danube
and easily came close to Naissus (present-day Ni).64 Procopius calls them a throng (ho-
milos), but also an army (stratos), and claims that the raiders goal was nothing less than
taking Thessalonica.65 Their intentions blocked by Germanus troops, they crossed the
mountains into Dalmatia, a sign that the marauders were on horseback. They then spent the
winter of 550 in Dalmatia, as if in their own land. In the spring of 551, they crossed the
mountains back to the east, and joined another group of Sclavenes, which had just crossed
the Danube. As in 549, they all divided themselves into three groups operating separately.
One of them was headed to Constantinople, and mauled a Roman army under the imperial
eunuch Scholastikos near Adrianople, five days journey distant from Byzantium.66 The
Sclavenes are said to have been encumbered with booty which surpassed all reckoning,
consisting of men and animals and valuables of every description.67 This strongly suggests
that some of the valuables in questions were transported on wagons or carts, which consi-
derably slowed down the ability of the marauders to move fast and to strike unexpectedly at
various locations. In the ensuing battle, the Romans were decisively vanquished,68 but it
remains unclear whether the Sclavenes fought on horseback or perhaps dismounted and
engaged the enemy on foot. At any rate, following the battle, they do not seem to have been
encumbered by their booty any more, as they raided the hinterland of Adrianople, up to the
Long Walls, with impunity. They were intercepted by other troops (perhaps from the field
army stationed in Constantinople), defeated and slain, but the survivors were able to return
to the Danube together with the remaining booty.69 The year 551 was not yet over, when a
great throng of Sclavenes descended upon Illyricum. An army sent against them under the
command of Germanus sons cautiously followed the marauders, without however engag-
ing into any confrontation. The Sclavenes were thus able to return to the Danube with all

63 Procopius, Wars VII 38.17; English translation by Dewing, 456. See Petr V. Shuvalov, Oruzhie ran-
nikh slavian, in Kulturnye transformacii i vzaimovliianiia v Dneprovskom regione na iskhode rimsko-
go vremeni i v rannem Srednevekove. Doklady nauchnoi konferencii, posviashchennoi 60-letiiu so dnia
rozhdeniia E.A. Goriunova (Sankt-Peterburg, 1417 noiabria 2000 g.), eds. Valentina M. Goriunova and
Olga A. Shcheglova (St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 2004), 25464, at 256. ivkovi,
O plemenskom ustrojstvu, 108 n. 62 and Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 503 believe those were
arrows.
64 Procopius, Wars VII 40.1; English translation by Dewing, 459.
65 Sergei A. Ivanov, Prokopii Kesariiskii o voennoi organizacii slavian, in Slaviane i ikh sosedi. Gre-
cheskii i slavianskii mir v srednie veka i rannee novoe vremia. Sbornik statei k 70-letiiu akademika Gen-
nadiia Grigorievicha Litavrina, eds. Boris N. Floria, E. M. Lomize and N. S. Zakharina (Mos-cow:
Indrik, 1996), 922.
66 Procopius, Wars VII 40.36; English translation by Dewing, 462.
67 Procopius, Wars VII 40.37; English translation by Dewing, 462.
68 Procopius, Wars VII 40.40; English translation by Dewing, 462.
69 Procopius, Wars VII 40.45; English translation by Dewing, 462.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 81

their plunder. The Romans could not stop them, for the Gepids apparently took the Scla-
venes under their protection and ferried them across at the price of one solidus per head.70
Although not specifically mentioned as such, the Sclavenes of 551 may have also been
mounted warriors.
The same is probably true about the 100,000 Sclavene warriors who, according to Me-
nander the Guardsman, devastated Thrace and many other areas in 578.71 In 581, the
accursed people of the Slavs set out and plundered all of Greece, the region around Thes-
salonica, and Thrace, taking many towns and castles, laying waste, burning, pillaging, and
seizing the whole country.72 That those Slavs must have also been horsemen results not
only from the great distance at which they operated, away from the Lower Danube frontier
of the Empire, but also from the fact that, according to John of Ephesus, over the course of
the following years, they came to possess herds of horses and a lot of weapons, and learn-
ed to make war better than the Romans.73 Some of them, 5,000 in number according to the
author of the first collection of homilies in the Miracles of St. Demetrius, attacked Thessa-
lonica by surprise; they were the flower of the Sclavene nation, which strongly suggests
professional warriors who must have learned how to make war better than the Romans
long before the raid of 581.74 Just what is meant by professional in this case results from
the examination of the account of the siege of Thessalonica in September 586 by an army
of 100,000 Sclavenes and other barbarians obeying the orders of the qagan of the Avars.75
Unlike the Sclavenes who took Topeiros in 549, those who besieged Thessalonica in 586
had all the necessary gear: they prepared siege machines, iron battering rams, catapults for
throwing stones of enormous size, and so-called tortoises onto which, along with the cata-
pults, they placed dry skins, again having contrived that they might not be harmed by fire or
boiling pitch. They nailed the bloodied hides of newly slain oxen and camels onto these
machines and thus brought them up near to the wall. From the third day and thereafter, they
hurled stones or rather mountains as they were in size and the archers shot further, imitating
the winter snowflakes, with the result that no one on the wall was able to emerge without
danger and thus to see something outside. The tortoises were joined to the wall outside and
without restrain were digging up the foundations with levers and axheads. I think that these

70 Procopius, Wars VIII 25.15; English translation by Dewing, 520.

71 Menander the Guardsman, fr. 20.2, ed. R. C. Blockley (Liverpool: F. Cairns, 1985), 191.
72 John of Ephesus, Historia ecclesiastica VI 6.25; English translation by E. I. Brooks (Louvain: Ex Offici-
na Orientalia et Scientifica, 1936), 248. See Valentin Alexei Constantinov, Ioan din Efes i realitile
istorice din Peninsula Balcanic n secolul al VI-lea, Mousaios 6 (2001): 7587, at 79.
73 John of Ephesus, Historia ecclesiastica VI 6.25; English translation by Brooks, 249.
74 Miracles of St. Demetrius I 12.108, 126. Sonia Zogovi, Razvitie voennoi organizacii u slavian v VI
VIII vv., in Obshchestvo, ekonomika, kultura i isskusstvo slavian, ed. Valentin V. Sedov (Moscow:
Institut Arkheologii RAN, 1998), 512, at 9 reads the flower of the Slavonic nation as an early
attestation of the Slavic druzhina (retinue of warriors), which is simply stretching the evidence of the
text to fit preconceived notions about the early Slavic military organization.
75 Miracles of St. Demetrius I 13, 1338. See Theodoros Korres, Some remarks on the first major at-
tempts of the Avaroslavs to capture Thessaloniki (597 and 614), Byzantina 19 (1998): 17185, at 174
6 (with the wrong date for the attack).
82 Florin Curta

numbered more than 1,000.76 The first warrior who scaled the walls of the city, only to be
struck down by St. Demetrius himself was one of the entire wild Slavic breed [who]
bowed down to the qagan.77
Michael the Syrian, in a passage undoubtedly lifted from the now lost portion of John of
Ephesuss History of the Church, records another attack of the Sclavenes on Corinth, but
calls their leader a qagan and has him carrying off on a cart the great ciborium from the city
cathedral, in order to live under it as under a tent.78 The passage has been discussed in terms
of its relevance for Slavic raids into Greece, but no commentator seems to have so far noted
that the ciborium was carried off on a cart, an indication that the Slavic marauders had
either come equipped with the means of transportation necessary for the large amounts of
booty that they were planning to acquire, or they have found those means locally. A few
years later, a different group of Sclavenes led by a certain warlord named Ardagastus was
raiding the hinterland of Adrianople, only to be defeated by the imperial bodyguards under
the command of Comentiolus. What made Ardagastus an easy prey for the Romans was
apparently the fact that, like the Sclavene qagan from Corinth, he had in train a most
distinguished haul of prisoners and splendid booty.79 Defeated by Comentiolus troops, he
managed to escape to the lands across the Danube, where Priscus would hunt him down a
few years later. Judging from the evidence of Theophylact Simocatta, Ardagastus was a
particularly successful warlord, with a territory of his own, to which he would gather
warriors from afar for raids across the Danube into the Balkan provinces of the Empire. He
was perceived as a real threat to Roman interests, which is why in 593, his was the first
territory to be attacked by Priscus troops. He had apparently begun to build a name for
himself, when Priscus expedition put an end to his career. Though he survived the Roman
aggression, Ardagastus most likely fell back into social oblivion, for he does not appear
again in Theophylacts narrative.80
Even though in 585, the Sclavene raiders led by Ardagastus had been beaten near Adria-
nopolis, three years later another group of Sclavenes raided Thrace.81 As late as 593, while
the Roman armies were operating deep into the Sclavene territory on the other side of the

76 Miracles of St. Demetrius I 14.139, 1489; English translation from Korres, Some remarks, 174. The
thirteenth homily of Book I of the Miracles of St. Demetrius contains the first detailed description of a
tetragonal stone thrower (trebuchet). See Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 498.
77 Miracles of St. Demetrius I 13.117 and 120, 1345; English translation from Tibor ivkovi, Forging
Unity. The South Slavs Between East and West: 5501150 (Belgrade: Institute of History, 2008), 21.
78 Michael the Syrian, Chronicon, ed. Jean B. Chabot (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1899), 3613. See Lubor
Niederle, Michal Syrsk a djiny balknskch Slovan v VI. stolet, in Sbornk prac historickch k
. narozeninm Jaroslava Golla, eds. Gustav Friedrich and Kamil Krofta (Prague: Nklad Hist. klubu,
1906), 4854; Ioannis Karagiannopoulos, To kiborio tes Ekklesias tes Korinthou, Lakonikai spoudai
10 (1990): 7985.
79 Theophylact Simocatta, History I 7.4, 52; English translation from Whitby, 29.
80 Florin Curta, The Making of the Slavs. History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c. 500
700 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 52) (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2001), 329.
81 Theophylact Simocatta, History III 4.7, 116; English translation from Whitby, 77.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 83

river Danube, there were still marauding parties in the Balkans. One of them ambushed a
Roman convoy going to Constantinople with a great number of Sclavenes captured north of
the Danube. Only the intervention of Roman infantry troops stationed in the environs saved
the convoy and its commander from being completely annihilated. Judging from the em-
phasis Theophylact places on the role of the infantry and the fact that the Sclavenes attack-
ed the convoy while its members were encamped carelessly and at ease, and horses were
grazing the grass, the marauders seem to have been on horseback.82 One year later, the
advanced guard of the Roman army marching to the Danube under the command of general
Peter encountered at Marcianopolis another raiding group of 600 Sclavenes. Like Ardagas-
tus in 585, the returning marauders were highly vulnerable because they carried with them
a great haul of Romans and a large number of wagons in which they had loaded the
booty.83 This considerably slowed down their movements. When intercepted by the Ro-
mans, they circled the wagons as a barricade to meet the threat. The Roman cavalrymen
approached the barricade, without daring to come to grips, since they were afraid of the
javelins which the barbarians were sending from the barricade against their horses.84 They
were ordered to dismount and storm the wagon barricade. Though the Sclavenes fought
fiercely, the Roman cavalrymen now fighting on foot finally broke through the barricade
and slaughtered all raiders. Since there is no mention of Sclavene horses, and the marauders
are specifically said to have targeted Zaldapa, Aquis, and Scopi all in the vicinity of the
Marcianopolis, and not too far from the Danube frontier of the Empire it is quite possible
that the Sclavenes of 594, unlike those of previous expeditions which reached far south into
Thrace and Greece, were on foot, not on horseback. This hypothesis is further substantiated
by the mention of the javelins they threw at the Roman horses. According to the author of
the Strategikon, who may have well been a participant in Maurices campaigns against the
Slavs north of the river Danube, the javelin (akontion) was the favorite weapon of the
Sclavene foot warrior, along with the bow and the poisoned arrows. He even recommends
that the Roman light infantry be equipped with short javelins like those used by the Scla-
venes.85 The Sclavenes of the Strategikon lived primarily in the woods and in marshy areas,
and horses are mentioned in relation to them only as preferred booty, and not as securing
their success in war. In other words, the Sclavenes appeared to the author of the Strategikon
primarily as an enemy fighting on foot.86 At a quick glimpse, this particular view is further
confirmed by the archaeological evidence. There are no stirrups and no bridle bits on any
6th- to 7th-century site in Walachia, Moldavia, and Moldova. Out of two lance-heads so far

82 Theophylact Simocatta, History VI 8.47, 2345; English translation from Whitby, 1701.
83 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 2.2, 247; English translation from Whitby, 180.
84 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 2.5, 247; English translation from Whitby, 1801.
85 Strategikon XI 4, 374; XII B 5, 422. See Giorgios Kardaras, He polemike techne ton proimon Slabon
(ST-Z ai.), Symmeikta 18 (2008): 185205, at 192. By contrast, there are no Hunnic or Bulgar wea-
pons mentioned in the Strategikon as worth adopting or imitating. For Bulgar belts mentioned in papyri,
see Johannes Diethart and Ewald Kislinger, Bulgaren und Hunnen in gypten, in Die Awaren am
Rand der byzantinischen Welt. Studien zu Diplomatie, Handel und Technologietransfer im Frhmittel-
alter, ed. Falko Daim (Innsbruck: Wagner, 2000), 914.
86 Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 392.
84 Florin Curta

known from those regions, one is most likely of an earlier (4th-century) date.87 There are no
swords, battle axes, or reinforcement plates for composite bows. The only weapons found
on 6th-century sites north of the Lower Danube are arrow heads.88 However, there were
horses in or around those sites, as demonstrated by the presence of equines in faunal
assemblages, albeit in small percentages.89
Why did the author of the Strategikon choose to ignore the possibility of Sclavenes
fighting on horseback? It has been suggested that he had been a participant in Emperor
Maurices war against the Sclavenes north of the river Danube in the 590s.90 On the other
hand, historians have long recognized that for his account of that war, Theophylact Simo-
catta employed an official report or bulletin, perhaps written by a participant in those same
campaigns in which the author of the Strategikon gained his rich field experience.91 This
would explain the remarkable similarity between the actions and decisions taken by Priscus
and Peter, on one hand, and, on the other hand, the recommendations the author of the

87 Vlad Zirra and Gheorghe Cazimir, Unele rezultate ale spturilor arheologice de pe Cmpul lui Boja
din cartierul Militari, Cercetri arheologice n Bucureti 1 (1963): 5671, at 63; Margareta Constan-
tiniu, Spturile de la Struleti-Micneti. Aezarea feudal II, Cercetri arheologice n Bucureti 2
(1965): 17489, at 182.
88 Dinu V. Rosetti, Siedlungen der Kaiserzeit und der Vlkerwanderungszeit bei Bukarest, Germania 18
(1934): 20613, at 210 and 212 fig. 7.4; V. Leahu, Raport asupra spturilor arheologice efectuate n
1960 la Celu Nou, Cercetri arheologice n Bucureti 1 (1963): 3443, at 378 and 39 fig. 25; Dan
Gh. Teodor, antierul arheologic Suceava, Materiale i cercetri arheologice 9 (1979): 37399, at
375 and 377; Suzana Dolinescu-Ferche, Ciurel, habitat des VIVIIe sicles d. n. ., Dacia 23 (1979):
179230, at 198200 and 2135; 205 fig. 22.15; Suzana Dolinescu-Ferche and Margareta Constantiniu,
Un tablissement du VIe sicle Bucarest, Dacia 25 (1981): 289329, at 322 fig. 18.9; Dan Gh.
Teodor, Continuitatea populaiei autohtone la est de Carpai. Aezrile din secolele VIXI e. n. de la
Dodeti-Vaslui (Iai: Junimea, 1984), 234; 29 fig. 6.7; Dan Gh. Teodor, Civilizaia romanic la est de
Carpai n secolele VVII (aezarea de la Botoana-Suceava) (Bucharest: Editura Academiei RSR,
1984), 312 and 389; 97 fig. 18.3, 4; 98 fig. 19.2; Suzana Dolinescu-Ferche, Contributions archolo-
giques sur la continuit daco-romaine. Dulceanca, deuxime habitat du VIe sicle d. n. ., Dacia 30
(1986): 12154, at 121 and 123; fig. 22.21, 22; Mioara Turcu and Radu Ciuceanu, Spturi arheologice
pe dealul Vcreti, Cercetri arheologice n Bucureti 4 (1992): 196204, at 199200; Ioan Mitrea,
Comuniti steti la est de Carpai n epoca migraiilor. Aezarea de la Davideni din secolele VVIII
(Piatra Neam: Muzeul de Istorie, 2001), 502, 7980, and 91; 323 fig. 63.1, 7, 8.
89 I. A. Rafalovich, Raskopki ranneslavianskogo poseleniia VIVII vv. n. e. u sela Selishte, in Arkheo-
logicheskie issledovaniia v Moldavii v 19681969 gg., eds. I. A. Rafalovich et al. (Kishinew: Shtiinca,
1972), 12242, at 1228; Suzana Dolinescu-Ferche, Aezrile din secolele III i VI n sud-vestul
Munteniei. Cercetrile de la Dulceanca (Bucharest: Editura Academiei RSR, 1974), 67, 857, and 90;
Dolinescu-Ferche, Ciurel, 216; Dolinescu-Ferche, Contributions archologiques, 151; Sergiu
Haimovici, Studiul materialului osteologic descoperit n dou aezri subcarpatice datnd din secolele
VVII e. n.: Davideni i tefan cel Mare (jud. Bacu), Carpica 1819 (19861987): 25160, at 252;
Mitrea, Comuniti steti, 229.
90 Curta, Making of the Slavs, 50.
91 Curta, Making of the Slavs, 56 and 59.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 85

Strategikon has for any general battling the Sclavenes. There is, however, a conspicuous
contrast between Theophylact Simocatta and the Strategikon. While the latter completely
ignores the Sclavene cavalry, the former knew about its existence and use. For example,
when in 594, general Peter sent twenty men across the river Danube to reconnoiter, they
were all captured by Sclavene horsemen. The soldiers who were sent after them defeated
the Sclavene warriors led by a warlord named Peiragastus, managed to kill him, but were
unable to pursue the enemy, because of their lack of horse. This implies that Peiragastus
warriors were on horseback.92 When hunted down by Priscus men in 593, Ardagastus, the
Sclavene warlord defeated in 585 near Adrianople, escaped on an unsaddled mare which
he dismounted when engaging in hand-to-hand combat with his pursuers, before taking to
flight and swimming across a river into the rough country.93 A possible explanation for
the contradiction between Theophylact Simocatta and the Strategikon may result from an
examination of Procopius of Caesareas work. Despite labeling various raiding Sclavene
groups with a word he more often than not employed for cavalry troops, Procopius shared
with the author of the Strategikon the idea that the Sclavenes only fought on foot: When
they enter battle, the majority of them go against their enemy on foot carrying little shields
and javelins in their hands, but they never wear corselets. Indeed, some of them do not wear
even a shirt or a cloak, but gathering their trews up as far as to their private parts they enter
into battle with their opponents.94 That almost the same is said about the barbarian soldiers
fighting in Belisarius army suggests that responsible for Procopius inconsistencies was his
desire to portray the Sclavenes as quintessential barbarians.95 They had no knowledge of
horse riding, no armor, and no sophisticated weapons. Until their conquest of Topeiros,
they had no use of their prisoners, whom they killed in the most atrocious way, behaving
more like beasts than like humans.96 Their many raids and victories against Roman armies
may thus have appeared as extraordinary to Procopius audience, the members of which
shared his stereotypical views about barbarians.97 Procopius most certainly had the oppor-
tunity to see Sclavenes on horseback in Italy, for in 539 or 540 he was sent to Auximum,
where Sclavene mercenaries were employed by Belisarius to capture some Ostrogoths from
the besieged city.98 As Michel Kazanski has noted, Procopius mention of mounted troops
of Huns, Sclavenes, and Antes in relation with the Gothic war in Italy suggests that in the

92 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 4.11 and 5.5, 252 and 253; English translation from Whitby, 184
and 185.
93 Theophylact Simocatta, History VI 7.24, 409; English translation from Whitby, 1689.
94 Procopius, Wars VII 14.2526; English translation by Dewing, 271. Franziska E. Schlosser, The Slavs
in sixth-century Byzantine sources, Byzantinoslavica 61 (2003): 7582, at 78, naively takes all this at
face value.
95 Procopius, Wars II 21.6; English translation by Dewing, 117: Not one of them had a cloak or any other
outer garment to cover the shoulders, but they were sauntering about clad in linen tunics and trousers.
96 George P. Majeska, The Byzantines on the Slavs: on the problem of ethnic stereotyping, Acta Byzan-
tina Fennica 9 (1997): 7086, at 79.
97 Majeska, Byzantines on the Slavs, 80; ivkovi, Forging Unity, 512 and 55.
98 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VI 26.1622; Ivanov, Gindin, and Cymburskii, Prokopii Kesariiskii,
171.
86 Florin Curta

eyes of Belisarius (as well of his secretary) they were preferred to others because of their
skills in waging a guerilla-type of warfare and in conducting commando-type operations.99
Belisarius may not have been the only one to understand that well the way in which the
Huns, the Antes, and the Sclavenes waged war. It has been suggested that the raids which
Chilbudius, the magister militum per Thraciam, conducted in the lands north of the river
Danube in the early 530s were most likely a guerilla-type of operations, the goal of which,
according to Procopius, was to strike terror among barbarians and to prevent them from
crossing the Danube into the Balkan provinces of the Empire.100 Similarly, Emperor Mau-
rices campaigns against the Sclavenes north of the Danube took the form of special opera-
tions. Before even crossing the river in 593, Priscus had learned that Ardagastus was
gathering warriors for a new raid into the Balkans. His troops, therefore, entered first Arda-
gastus territory. Given that the attack took place in the middle of the night and that Ar-
dagastus appears to have been a high-value target, this was a manhunt performed by special
operation forces.101 Those were mounted, highly mobile troops which were capable of pur-
suing Ardagastus through the dark in unfamiliar territory, and of engaging in hand-to-hand
combat with him or any of his followers. They failed to kill Ardagastus, but the shock
effect of the operation and the devastation of Ardagastus territory effectively put an end to
his political and military career.
Another group of special forces under brigadier Alexander crossed the river Helibacia
and came upon a group of Sclavene scouts from Musocius territory. That Alexanders
men were specially trained results from the fact that they attempted, albeit unsuccessfully,
to pursue the Sclavenes into the nearby marshes and the savage woodland.102 Judging
from what followed, Alexanders men were on foot, not on horseback. The same is true for
the 200 soldiers which Alexander commanded in the special operation meant to capture the
150 canoes the Sclavene king Musocius had sent to rescue the refugees from Ardagastus
territory.103 The 3,000 men Priscus sent with the canoes to attack Musocius village were
also on foot.104 Again, the attack took place in the middle of the night.105 The infantry

99 Michel Kazanski, O ranneslavianskoi konnice, Stratum+ (20052009), no. 5: 45771, at 45762

(Kazanski writes of a partisan war, no doubt with his Russian-speaking audience in mind). For
Sclavene horsemen in Italy, see Procopius of Caesarea, Wars V 27.1; John L. Teall, The barbarians
in Justinians armies, Speculum 40 (1965): 294322, at 302; Zogovi, Razvitie voennoi
organizacii, 8.
100 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VII 14.24; English translation by Dewing, 407; Syvnne, Age of Hip-
potoxotai, 289 and 394. Chilbudius is specifically said to have gone, as was his custom, with a small
force against the Sclavenes in the lands north of the river Danube.
101 Theophylact Simocatta, History VI 7.14, 232; English translation from Whitby, 1689.
102 Theophylact Simocatta, History VI 8.910, 2356; English translation from Whitby, 171.
103 Concern with increased mobility may explain Priscus decision to execute all prisoners of war (see
Strategikon XI 4, 386).
104 The author of the Strategikon recommends the use of one or two squadrons (banda), i.e., 400 to 800
men, for the attack on a Sclavene village. He even insists that it was not wise to detach more squad-
rons, even if the settlement happened to be a large one, thus implying that 400 to 800 men were a
sufficiently large force to overcome any possible resistance (Strategikon XI 4, 384). The force that
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 87

forces under the command of Gentzon saved the day, when upon returning from their
assault on Musocius, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Sclavenes. The 20 scouts,
whom Peter sent in 594 on the other side of an unknown river north of the Danube to
reconnoiter in Sclavene territory were also on foot. They were apparently trained to travel
by night and to sleep during the day, which is how they were detected by Sclavene horse-
men.106 By contrast, the troops with which Godwin in 602, destroyed hordes of [Sclavene]
enemies in the jaws of the sword, secured a large body of captives, and acquired great
glory may have been of cavalrymen, judging by the fact that they needed special ferry-
boats for the crossing of the Danube.107 Like the special operation forces of 593, Godwins
men must have relied on their mobility to spread terror throughout the lands of the Scla-
venes.
Campaigning against the Sclavenes north of the river Danube has provided sufficient
training for Roman soldiers to apply their newly acquired skills on other fronts. In 599,
after repelling several Avar assaults on the bridgehead established by Priscus opposite Vi-
minacium, on the left bank of the river Danube, the Romans drove their enemies into a
nearby swamp, where many Avars drowned, including the sons of the qagans.108 This was a
battle most likely won by infantrymen, who are otherwise specifically said to have aban-
doned the bow and the arrow in favor of javelins, thus effectively approaching the military
model of the Sclavene warriors presented by the author of the Strategikon. His recommen-
dations for cavalry troops fighting against the Avars include a number of clear examples of
such emulation:
The horses, especially those of the officers and the other special troops, in particular
those in the front ranks of the battle line, should have protective pieces of iron armor about
their heads and breast plates of iron or felt, or else breast and neck coverings such as the
Avars use. The saddles should have large and thick cloths; the bridle should be of good
quality; attached to the saddles should be two iron stirrups, a lasso with thong, hobble, a
saddle bag large enough to hold three or four days rations for the soldier when needed.
There should be four tassels on the back strap, one on top of the head, and one under the
chin. The mens clothing, especially their tunics, whether made of linen, goats hair, or
rough wool, should be broad and full, cut according to the Avar pattern, so they can be
fastened to cover the knees while riding and give a neat appearance.109

Priscus sent against Musocius village was between three and seven times larger. Ignorant of this par-
ticular passage in Theophylact Simocatta, Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 391 with n. 4 draws the
wrong conclusion that the Romans did not need to possess superior numbers when they faced mili-
tarily poor organized settlements that they had surprised.
105 Theophylact Simocatta, History VI 9.12, 238; English translation from Whitby, 173.
106 Theophylact Simocatta, History VII 4.8 and 1011, 252; English translation from Whitby, 184.
107 Theophylact Simocatta, History VIII 5.12, 293; English translation from Whitby, 217.
108 Theophylact Simocatta, History VIII 3.67, 287; English translation from Whitby, 212.
109 Strategikon I 2, 80; English translation by Dennis, 13.
88 Florin Curta

This is in fact the chapter of the Strategikon, in which its author insists that Roman ca-
valrymen employ a number of devices, all of which are said to be of Avar origin: cavalry
lances, with leather thongs in the middle of the shaft and with pennons; round neck
pieces with linen fringes outside and wool inside; horse armor; long and broad tunics;
and tents, which combine practicality with good appearance.110 Apparently in an attempt
to emulate Avar tactics, during training and drilling every Roman cavalryman was expected
to fire one or two arrows rapidly and put the strung bow in its case, [] and then grab the
spear which he has been carrying on his back. With the strung bow in its case, he should
hold the spear in his hand, then quickly replace it on his back, and grab the bow.111 Such
training seems to have been most appropriate for the type of warfare that the Avars favored:
They prefer battles fought at long range, ambushes, encircling their adversaries, simulated
retreats and sudden returns, and wedge-shaped formations, that is in scattered groups.112
In addition to imitating the tactics of their adversaries, the Romans were also able to put
them to work for their own interests. In 578, Emperor Tiberius II ordered the quaestor exer-
citus John, who was at the same time the commander of the Danube fleet, to transport
60,000 Avar horsemen on ships along the Danube, from Pannonia to Scythia Minor.113 The
expedition targeted the Sclavenes in the lands north of the river Danube. The Avar horse-
men landed in eastern Walachia or southern Moldavia, and immediately proceeded to set
fire to the Sclavene villages and to destroy the fields. The combined effect of overwhelming
force and surprise explains why no Sclavenes dared to face the Avars, and instead took
refuge into the nearby woods. The idea behind this operation was not only to increase
mobility by means of water transportation, but also to make the moves invisible to the Scla-
venes.114 In 578, the Avars performed for the Romans the same military mission as the
special operation forces would undertake during Emperor Maurices campaigns against the
Sclavenes in the 590s. Similarly, the Huns, the Sclavenes, and the Antes were recruited for
the war in Italy as mounted warriors for special operations against the Goths. For these
barbarians, Procopius explains, excel all others in their ability to fight on rough
ground.115
From a Balkan perspective, the transformation of the Roman army in the 6th century,
uneven and gradual as it may have been, required a number of adaptations that were meant
to increase the mobility of tactical units and to enhance their capability to face multiple
challenges from enemies who were just as preoccupied with swiftly moving across large
distances. How those adaptations were developed in combination with the strong reliance,

110 Strategikon I 2, 78; English translation by Dennis, 123.

111 Strategikon I 1, 77; English translation by Dennis, 11.
112 Strategikon XI 2, 365; English translation by Dennis, 117; Syvnne, Age of Hippotoxotai, 359.
113 Menander the Guardsman, fr. 21, 192 and 194. For the probable location of the landing of the Avar
horsemen, see Costel Chiriac, Expediia avar din 578579 i evidena numismatic, Arheologia
Moldovei 16 (1993): 191203, at 1989.
114 Contra: Eugen S. Teodor, Epoca roman trzie i cronologia atacurilor transdanubiene. Analiza
componentelor etnice i geografice (partea a doua, de la 565 la 626), Muzeul Naional 15 (2003): 3
36, at 6.
115 Procopius, Wars VII 22.3; English translation by Dewing, 342 and 344.
 Avar Blietzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders 89

ever since the days of Emperor Justinian, on a dense network of hilltop sites, how effective
they were in circumstances conspicuously marked by an acute lack of adequate troops, and
how they may modify current models of warfare in the early Middle Ages await further
investigation. But it seems clear that the exigencies of maintaining imperial control over the
Balkan Peninsula have forged a version of mobile warrior that would bequeath to the
Byzantine period a number of key warfare concepts. Through 6th-century confrontations
with Huns, Bulgars, Sclavenes, Antes, and Avars, the shift from infantry to cavalry and the
use of unconventional warfare were twinned, each central to shaping a new concept of Ro-
man battlefield tactics.