Gacovic Od romanskog stanovnistva do Rumuna Timocana (VII-XVI vek) knjiga III (1)

298 Slavoljub Gacović
Viminacium, Singidunum, Ratiaria and elsewhere, and also by a large
number of monuments, on which the successors are stated (hedes).
„The Latin urban population during the prosecution, with a
considerable number of martyrs demonstrates their commitment to
Christianity“ and in Dacian diocese, or in Moesia Prima, Dacia
Mediterranea and Dacia Ripensis, where major cities had their own diocese,
and the rural population after the Edict of Milan (313) during the fourth
century began to massively accept Christianity. As evidence that the
population of the prefecture of Illyricum was Roman, we can use the fact
that in this area Latin clergy used to preach after the formation of
Thessaloniki Vicariate at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth
century, which was under the auspices of the Roman Curia until the mideighth
century. Christianity was transmitted directly in the Latin language,
when a baptized husband would teil the news of salvation in Christ to his
still unbaptized wife, a slave to his master or master to his servants, traders
to customers, doctors to patients, etc. The directions of the spreading of
Christianity were at the same time the lines of trade, usually with Italic and
Gallic regions, where troops used to pass, and administrative and state works
of Romans were performed, who officially used Latin. The northern part of
Tllyria, especially the mountainous area which is far from Trans-Balkan
roads, accepted Christianity slower and much later, only in the fourth and the
fifth centuries, and in the first half of the sixth century Justinian in his novels
(XI and CXXXII) from 535 and 545 formed for the area of Illyricum a
special ecclesiastical district under the auspices of the Roman Curia, which
he kept in the administrative framework of the Eastern Roman Empire.
With the invasion of the Huns in the first half of the fifth céntury, and
the Bulgarian incursions, and those by Slavic and other tribes in the first half
of the sixth century, Roman rule in Dacian diocese was not severely shaken,
becausg, if it had been, who would in mid-sixth century have built the new
and renovated the old castles, and for which population were they built if not
for Roman? Smaller cities would fall into the hands of the enemy rarely and
only temporarily. It can be said that the Dacian diocese had a central place in
Justinian’s concept of defense of the Balkans, and construction activity and
the praises uttered to Justinian by Procopius in De aedificiis are more turned
to the renewal of the neglected instead of creating new objects. Of course,
Roman administration in Dacian diocese depended more on the scope and
severity of barbarian invasions themselves then on their own defensive
capabilities, so no wonder that soldiers originating from Illyricum deserted
in 554/55 from the battlefield in Italy, concerned with the news that their
country was being freely ravaged by „the Huns®, i.e. Bulgarians.
That barbarians had a much larger force than the defense in Iilyria and
Thrace, we learn from Velizar’s letter addressed to Justinian, which says that
Romanizacija i romansko stanovnistvo Timocke zone (I-XVI vek) 299
the little army that exists in the provinces in the Balkans has no experience.
In such circumstances, the defense of cities and general economic goods in
Thrace and Illyricum was left, as shown by numerous testimonies, mostly in
full, to the local Latin population, which was repeatedly being detained and
taken to the left bank of the Danube, and then purchased and returned to the
native Dacian Diocese, where from they had been taken away. By all
accounts, the border set on the Danube, particularly in Dacia and Moesia
Prima, lost its meaning because it no longer seemed to defend the interior of
the Balkans is 585/6. However, it is unlikely that the towns of Dacia near the
Danube fell before 602, and that Simocata fails to inform us. The life of
Roman citizens and heterogeneous ethnic populations was even renewed in
them, because this is confirmed by archaeological artifacts (pottery, etc.) and
the circulation of money from Maurice’s time (582-602).
This Roman population with the arrival of the Avars, and the arrival of
Slavic tribes in the early seventh century and of the Bulgarians at the end of
that century, survived in the following centuries in former Dacian Diocese.
First, the Huns in the fifth century, the Slavs in the sixth and finally the
Avars in the second decade of the seventh century, took the „whole“ Roman
population of the Illyrian Provinces, both Pannonias, both Dacias, Dardania,
Moesia, Prevalis, Rodopi, Thrace and all others to the area today’s Srem,
from where they rcturned by the name Sermisians, led by Cuver in the ninth
decade of the seventh centuryzfo Keramesian or Bitola field. After all, the
struggles that were fought against Sclavinius during the seventh and the
eighth centuries were far from the space the Timok area and middle Danube,
where the Roman inhabitants managed to subsist during the following
centuries.
In the section where we discuss the Roman population in contact with
immigrant Slavic, Serbian and Bulgarian tribes, we pointed to the
relationship, which had been forming for centuries emphasizing the
difference between Barbaricum and respublica Romana. Over a millennium,
Roman population, imbued with the traditions of Roman politics, was
defined in opposition to the barbarians who had a more and more frequent
contact with them. We followed a mutual influence, the process of
Romanization of barbarians and Roman barbarization and we have defined
the development of a new nation called the Sermisians, which was, more or
less in the same area, after the tradition of Anonymous from the twelfth
century, called Blachii ac pastores Romanorum. Therefore, a conglomerate
of different nations, the Greeks, Catholics, Slavs and Bulgarians, who are
called the Sermisians (Zeppnotevor), is an additional indication that the
anonymous author Miracula II during the seventh century does not
recognize them as Romans, no matter that they are descendants of deportees
from the Roman Illyrian provinces, but also they are certainly not recognized