Saint Pancras or Pancratius of Taormina (γιος Παγκράτιος, Hagios Pankratios; Latin: Sanctus Pancratius) was an early Christian martyr. According to legend, he was born in Antioch (Cilicia) he may have met Jesus and later supposedly met Peter by whom and was deployed to Sicily to become the first bishop of Taormina (ancient Tauromenion/Tauromenium). He was killed there by the locals who opposed his mission (apparently by stoning).
The “Life of Saint Pancratius of Taormina” is an early 8th century work that recounts the martyr. It is curious that it is written as if Pancratius were an 8th century figure. Specifically, the author places Pancratius within the author’s geopolitical reality – the Arab threat to Sicily. The author was a late 7th early 8th century write, perhaps named Evagrius.
The only critical edition of this work was published by Cynthia Jean Stallman solely in Greek back in 1986 as her doctoral thesis. Very few people knew that the work contains a mention of Suavs.
Florin Curta was aware of Stallman’s work and did bring it up in his “The Making of the Slavs” book and in some of his other works (Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, The Slavic Lingua Franca). Specifically, Curta discussed a passage wherein a Sicilian warlord (called Bonifatius) captures some prisoners on an expedition to “the regions of Dyrachium and Athens. Upon returning to Sicily, he was confronted by Saint Pancratius, who claimed that his prisoners looked like Christians. Bonifatius assured him they were Avars who were to be distributed among his soldiers in order to be baptized, and were to be taught Greek and Latin, the languages in use at that time in Taormina. Through the intermediary of a translator, the prisoners eventually declared that they worshipped fire, water, and their own swords…” Curta then goes on to say: “[T]he translator employed to interrogate the Avar prisoners may well have been a member of a Slav community from Syracuse mentioned in another passage…” (Curta, Southeastern Europe).
Since in 2018, Stallman, now as Stallman-Pacitti, actually published (under the title “The Life of Saint Pankratios of Taormina”) her thesis as an edition of the work with an English translation (as part of the excellent series Byzantina Australiensia), here is her translation of the relevant portion of the text:
“…are settled near the provinces of Durazzo and Athens.’ When Boniphatios had said these words, as the Saint had not yet answered, they were silent. When the day was over, the city officials locked up. At dawn all the officers gathered before Boniphatios and said to him, ‘We request your Worthiness, illustrious Consul and Founder, and we ask Saint Pankratios, that the army be dismissed to their own quarters.’ Then Boniphatios said, ‘As you are loyal, your request is fulfilled.’ Immediately the trumpet gave the signal, and the army went across for the levy, and he divided the spoils for them, both gold and silver, and all the prisoners, telling them each to take care of as many souls as he received as his share, that they might receive holy baptism. Then he brought an interpreter and said to them, ‘We are Christians and confess Christ. If you too learn Greek and Latin, we will make you Christians.’
(This was because speech was in the two languages in the Taorminans’ city. They had captured many people in battle from many different nations, but for practical purposes their speech was in the two languages, as those under Tauros’ command had driven out the warriors of the Persians and the fierce Macedonians, and all the nations and kingdoms, which obviously turned out to have never had the strength to plunder the governorship of the Taorminans’ city, but they all watched for their chance, especially while Tauros, noble and courageous, was alive.)
Men from among the prisoners said through interpreters, ‘Never, sirs, have we seen things such as we saw in battle, and see now.’ The Saint said to them through an interpreter, ‘Men, tell us the great things which you have seen, and let us tell you the Word of the mighty God.’ The men said to the Saint through an interpreter, ‘We are of the Avar nation, and we venerate gods in the likeness of every sort of quadruped, fire and water and our swords. But in battle we saw everything in your midst flashing like light, and we were astonished and sent to the temples of our gods and collected the gods we considered most reliable, assuredly, to fight with us, and when we had put them before us, and they too had seen the state of the battle, and the shining lights which preceded and shone in front of the battle, straightway they dissolved and became like wax which has smelt fire and like mud in water.’
The prisoners said all this. The Saint said to them through an interpreter, ‘Does your mind’s eye intend that you be baptized and become Christians?’ The men as if with one voice said, ‘Please make us Christians!’ The Saint said to Boniphatios, ‘My child, let us baptize them, so that death may not by some mischance steal their souls, despite their declaring their intention, on the day when the Lord will demand a register of each of the shepherds, and producing a register corresponding to our list, will pass sentence on us.'”
Although Curta did not focus on it – his intent was to show that the Avars may have spoken and, perhaps, in fact contributed to the rapid spread of Suavic – the mention of a Suavic settlement on Sicily near Syracuse is interesting. So what does that other passage say? The author (Evagrius?) speaks of a Suavic village or huts.
Here is that piece along with Stallman’s footnote from her thesis. The below translation is, again, from the Stallman-Pacitti 2018 edition:
“…καὶ καταπηδήσαντα τὰ πλήθη συνἐτριφαν τὰ εἴδωλα καὶ ὲπίστενσαν τῷ Χριστῷ. ὲλθόντες οὖν, τἐκνον μου, ὲν τῇ θεκτίστῳ κολυμβήθρᾳ, ἐβάπτισα ἅπαντας εὶς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ άγίου πνεὐματος. οὕτως λοιπόν, τέκνον μου Εύάγρίε, ή πόλιςἅπασα ἐπίστενσε τῷ Χριστῷ, καὶ ἐγένετο μία ποίμνη, εἷς ποιμήν. ἔτι δὲ ὀλίγον ἦν ἐμπνέων ὁ διάβολος κατὰ τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ποίμνης καὶ λαβὼν ὀλιγοστοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ Μοντανῶν, ἀπελθόντ€ς ἔθαψαν ὄπου καὶ τὰτῶν Σκλάβων ἔκειντο σκηνώματα, ἃ καὶ εγράψαντο οί ίστοριογράφοι, καὶ ἀπελθόντες ἐποίησαν θυσία πονηρὰν ἐν τοις τάφοίς, οἶς καὶ ἤθελον πόλιν καὶ ναὸν οὶκοδομῆσαι. σκεψάμενοι οὗν τοῦ ἐγχειρῆσαι, ἦλθέν μοι ἐκ θείας ἀποκαλύψεως τοῦ πελθεῖν ἐκεῖσε, καὶ ἐπιβὰς τῇ ἰδίᾳ ἡλικίᾳ ἀπῆλθον, καὶ τοὺς λεγεῶνας τῶν ἀκαθάρτων δαιμόνων τῇ χάριτι Χριστοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἀληθινοῦ κυρίον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ ὄντος ἐν ἀρχῆ ἐν πατρὶ ἅμα τῷ ἁγίῳ πνεύματι, ἀπήλασα ἐκ τοῦ τοπον, καὶ ὁλαὸς ἦν σχολάζων ἀεννάως…”
“… And the multitudes jumped down and shattered the idols and believed in Christ. Then they came, my child, to the font built by God and I baptized them all in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So, then, Evagrios my child, the whole city believed in Christ, and there was one flock and one shepherd. For a little while longer, the Devil was inspiring trouble for Christ’s flock, and took a small number of the Jews and Montanists*, and they went off and conducted a burial where the huts of the Slavs, which historians have described, were situated, and they went off and performed an evil sacrifice in the tombs to those for whom they also wanted to build a city and temple. As they were considering the undertaking, the idea of going there came to me from divine revelation, and I went off on foot, and drove legions of unclean demons from the place by the grace of Christ God, our true Lord Jesus Christ, Who was in the beginning in the Father together with the Holy Spirit, and the whole populace devoted itself constantly to the teachings pour Lord Jesus Christ and the holy apostles through us the least of His servants.”
[* note: The Montanists were followers of Montanus – a Phrygian Christian whose claim to fame was being – literally – the mouthpiece of God. His followers experienced similar delusions.]
Thus, as of the early 8th century there were records – already mentioned by “historians” – of Suavs living near Syracuse, Sicily. How old have these settlements been? Who were those Suavs? Were they Adriatic raiders? Did they come with the Arabs? The Byzantines? Even earlier, with the Vandals? Or earlier yet?
Remember too that when Suavs invaded Greece, the people of Monemvasia were said to have fled to Sicily (see here). The place they settled was supposed to be Demna (or Demenna), generally identified with the ancient city of Aluntium or Haluntium (Alunzio). That place is the NE of Sicily. Syracuse is on the SE side. Taormina lies somewhat in between. See below for a picture.
If you wanted to try to find Suavic names in the area, you would not find many but you would find some suggestive towns such as these near Syracuse:
- Plemmirio
- Ognina
Or the near Taormina and southwards:
- Spisone – similar to Spisz?
- Letojanni
- Pali
- Ognina
- Monte Gorna plus Lavinaio
- Ragalna
South of Syracuse:
- Ragusa – like the former name for Dubrovnik
- Ispica
- Modica – in Latin this was Motyca – the town was known as Muòrica in Sicilian and may have been settled (by the Sicels?) already a millennium BC
- Michelica
- Zappulla
Most of these, have, no doubt, nothing to do with Suavs. And yet they are rather curious. All of them appear on the East side of Sicily.
Note that Stallman herself began to question the possibility of the existence of a Suavic settlement near Syracuse. The 2018 published edition states the following:
But clearly she was not thinking of the above toponyms.
For a detailed discussion of the Avar/Suav issues you can look to Stallman’s thesis (pages 268 -288).
What of Curta’s arguments regarding the Avars’ Suavic lingua franca?
He goes on to say in his article:
“That Saint Pancratius needs a translator to understand why the prisoners say indicates that the language they speak is neither Greek nor Latin. What language is it then? It is hard to believe that, given the unfamiliarity of Pancratius with things Avar, speakers of the Avar language were readily available in Taormina circa 700 to serve as interpreters. But there certainly were Slavs (presumably speaking Slavic) in the neighborhood, as Evagrius mentions the little huts in the vicinity of Syracuse. The translator employed to interrogate the Avar prisoners may well have been a member of the Slavic community near Syracuse, and if he spoke Slavic, the Avars must have spoken that language as well. The Life of Saint Pancratius thus indicates that whatever that language might have been, the Avars spoke the language of the Slavs. It is important to note at this point that the Avars in question are not from the qaganate properly speaking, but from territories beyond its southern periphery, in the Balkans. Is it possible therefore that the Avars may have contributed to the linguistic spread of Slavic, assuming that that was the language in use songs Slavs?”
It is easy to see that this is quite a bit of a house of cards. The translator may have been Slavic or may not have been Suavic. For example, he could have been another Avar. He may have come from a local community or from somewhere else. Perhaps from a prior or another raid. The language that was used may have been not Suavic but Avar. Or for that matter some other language still (just not Latin or Greek, presumably). Further, there is nothing linking the two passages.
Also, importantly, the author states:
“where the huts of the Slavs, which historians have described, were situated”
This suggests that, at least as of the time of the author’s time, the huts had not been there already for quite some time. Of course, he refers to earlier events but those events would still have been within his lifetime. One hardly would have needed historians to keep a memory of a Suavic settlement alive if we are talking about a temporal distance of only a few decades or even a century. Assuming the Life was written in the early 800s it would have been separated from the first assault by Arabs on Sicily (in 652) by a little over century and a half. Any Avar wars would push this date back to the second half of the 6th century. Thus, while it is possible that this Sicilian Avar-Suavic connection existed, that conclusion is hardly preordained based on the above passage.
(Further, if we accept Curta’s the possibility of a Suavic village existing on Sicily prior to the arrival of these Avars, this raises another question. How far back in time prior to the Avars could we place such a settlement. The mention of the warlord Bonifatius may suggest a memory of the Count Boniface who fought nearby in Africa against the Vandals but the Vandals did not take Sicily until 468, many years after the African war against Boniface. Of course, we could also take the author literally and push his Avars and Suavs back to the days of the real Pancratius. On some strange names, see above).
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