Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

from the huns to the avars 715
who achieved the distinction of being called ‘the most evil of all mankind’.
Part of this tribe, perhaps as many as 4,500 fighting men, had been settled
in Illyricum by Anastasius, and then in the vicinity of Singidunum by
Justinian, who secured the conversion and baptism of the leading men; their
brutality made them useful recruits for imperial armies. 45 Further east on
the lower Danube, the main hostile groups were now Bulgars and Slavs. The
Bulgars were Hunnic and comprised a number of groups, those nearer the
Danube being remnants of Attila’s followers, while others known as
Kotrigurs and Utigurs dwelt farther east, north of the Black Sea; these were
being disturbed by tribal reshuffling caused ultimately by the Avars, who had
begun to re-enact the westward movement of the Huns. Under Zeno and
Anastasius, Bulgars served in Roman armies, but in the 540s and 550s the
Kotrigurs ravaged widely, reaching the land walls of Constantinople and the
Isthmus of Corinth. Justinian’s main response was to manipulate the rivalry
between Utigurs and Kotrigurs, and in due course to accept the Avars as a
new diplomatic pawn in the trans-Danubian game; the Kotrigurs are later
found as a sub-group within the Avar federation. 46
In the long term, the Slavs, were the most significant of the new groups
on the Danube, which they had reached by the start of the sixth century,
though the exact course of their migrations cannot be specified since it is
notoriously difficult to identify Slavs archaeologically. 47 They lived in
simple agricultural communities in forest clearings – small villages of huts
which might have subterranean entrances, often located close to rivers;
under threat, they might take refuge in woods or lakes and marshes. Their
social structure was rudimentary, and the normal unit of organization was
probably the family group or a few such groups combined into a clan, who
might share a common hill-fort. 48 They were adept fighters on their chosen
ground, and some Slavs – for example, Chilbuldius – achieved prominence
in Roman service. For military purposes they might combine into larger
bodies, but as with many of Rome’s tribal neighbours, leaders of such units
possessed relatively little personal authority and were dependent upon the
co-operation of their leading men, the heads of family groups. Roman
writers could identify two distinct groups, Slavs and Antes, the latter living
further from the Danube frontier and perhaps being more socially
advanced than other Slavs, in that they had a money- and slave-owning
society and a recognized leadership with whom the Romans could negotiate,
a type of diplomacy that was rendered impractical by the anarchy of
other Slav groups. 49 It is likely that, as with other tribal groups, proximity
to the Roman empire and regular warfare, against Bulgars and Avars as well
45 Procop. Wars vi.14.36; vii.34.43;Croke (1982) 132.
46 Procop. Wars viii.18–19, 25; Agathias, Hist. v.11–25; Menander fr. 12.5.90–3.
47 Baratte (1984); Gimbutas (1971) ch. 1–4 for their previous history. 48 Gimbutas (1971) ch. 7.
49 Maurice, Strat. xi.4; Procop. Wars vii.14;Jord.Get. 23.119.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008