Slavs in the Chronicle of Theophanes (from 602)

The Byzantine Chronicle of Theophanes was written by… yes, Theophanes the “Confessor” (mostly) who lived, approximately, in the years 758/760 to 817/818.  The chronicle covers the years 284 to 813.  The excerpts we present come from the Harry Turtledove translation and the footnote (*) passages with quotation marks are his as well.  That translation only covers the less derivative portion of the Chronicle starting from 602.  We retain Turtledove’s various spellings of Sklavinians (he did not create a uniform name, following the manuscripts).

Note: All of these entries regarding Slavs refer to periods between September 1 and August 31.  Thus, the reference to year 625/626 is a reference to September 1, 625 to August 31, 626.

625/626

“In this year the Persian king Khosroes created a new army, recruiting foreigners, citizens and house slaves, and making a levy from every people.  He gave this levy to the general Sain, along with 50,000 men he took from Sarbaros’ phalanx.  Khosroes named them the “golden spears” and sent them out against the Emperor.”

“He dispatched Sarbaros and the remainder of his army against Constantinople so that, with the Huns of the west (whom they call Avars), Bulgars, Sklavinians, and Gepids (with all of whom he conspired), he could march on and besiege the city…”

657/658

“In this year the Emperor [Constans II the Bearded – assassinated in Sicily]* campaigned against Sklavinia; he took many prisoners and brought many people under his control…”

* Apparently in a bath – see the Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa.

664/665

“…Also, Abd ar-Rahman the son of Khalid attacked Romania*; he wintered there after devastating many towns.  The Sklavinoi went over to him, and 5,000 went down to Syria with him.  They were settled in the village of Seleukobolos near Apamea.”

* By Romania, Theophanes means the Roman (i.e., Byzantine) Empire.

679/680

“…When the Bulgars became the masters of the seven tribes of Sklavinoi in the vicinity, they resettled the Sebereis* from the mountain passes before Bergaba to the lands to the east, and the remainder of the seven tribes to the south and west up to the land of the Avars.  Since the Bulgars were pagan at that time, they bore themselves arrogantly and began to assail and take cities and villages under the control of the Roman Empire.  The Emperor had to make peace with them because of this, and agreed to pay them annual tribute.  This was the fault of the Romans’ disgrace over their great defeat.  Folk far and near were amazed to hear that the Emperor, who had subjected everyone to himself, had been beaten by this newly arrived loathsome tribe.  But he believed this had happened to the Christians because of God’s will, and gladly planned to make peace…”

* Note that these are likely a non-Slavic tribe from Asia Minor but could also be Severyans.

686/687

“…Anastasios became patriarch for twenty-four years.  After him Constantine was patriarch for twelve years, Niketas for fourteen…”

[For Niketas the Slavic patriarch of Constantinople see below.  “This chronological discussion was inserted into the chronicle some time after Theophanes’ death in 818 [and] can be dated to 840.”]

687/688

“… [The Emperor] [Justinian II] broke the peace with the Bulgars, utterly confounding his own father’s appropriate edicts.  He ordered the thematic cavalry to cross to Thrace, as he wanted to take prisoners among the Bulgars and the Sklavinoi.”

688/689

“In this year Justinian [II] campaigned against Sklavinia and Bulgaria.  Advancing to Thessalonike, he thrust back as far as possible the Bulgars he encountered.  He conquered large hosts of Slavs (some in battle, but others went over to him) and settled them in the Opsikion,* sending them across by way of Abydos.  While he was withdrawing, the Bulgars stopped him on the roared at the narrow part of a mountain pass; he was barely able to get through, and his army took many casualties…”

* “This them occupied the northwestern quadrant of Anatolia, being west of the theme of the Armeniacs and north of that of the Anatolics.”  Themes were Byzantine administrative divisions.

692/693

“…But since the Emperor  [Justinian II] would not tolerate hearing any such thing , being instead eager for battle, they dissolved the written peace treaty and rushed against the Romans.  They hung a copy of the treaty from a spear to go before them in place of a banner.  Muhammad was the general as they joined battle.  At first the Arabs were defeated, but Muhammad suborned the general of the Slavs allied to the Romans.  He sent him a purse loaded with nomismata and, deceiving him with many promises, persuaded him to desert to the Arabs with 20,000 Slavs.  Then justinian massacred the remaining Slavs (and their wives and children) at Leukate, a precipitous place by the sea on the gulf of Nikomedeia.”

694/695

“…Muhammad attacked Romania; he had with him the Slavs who had fled, as they had experience of Romania.  He took many prisoners…”

704/705

“…[Justinian II (who had been kicked out and came back with Bulgar help)] escaped the heavy sea without harm and entered the Danube River.  He sent Stephen to Tervel the lord of Bulgaria to gain his support for Justinian’s reconquest of the Empire of his forefathers.  He promised to give Tervel many gifts, even his own daughter as wife.  Tervel promised on oath to obey and cooperate with him in every way, and received him with honor.  He raised his entire army, Bulgars and Slavs.*  In the following year, after they had been equipped, they approached the imperial city.”

* “This passage shows that the Turkic Bulgars had not yet been assimilated by the more numerous Slavs over whom they ruled.”

754/755

“In this year Muhammad – also known as Abu-l-Abbas – died after ruling for five years.  His brother Abd Allah was in Mecca, the Arab’s place of blasphemy.  He wrote to Abu Mislim in Persia to guard the capital for him, as it had been allotted to him.  Abu Muslim learned that Abd Allah (son of Ali and brother of Salim), the chief general of Syria, had seized the capital for himself and was on his way to conquer Persia.  There Persians opposed And Allah, but the inhabitants of Syria were devoted to him and fought on his side.  Abu Muslim raised his army and engaged Abd Allah near Nisibis, where he defeated him and killed many of his men.  Most of them were Slavs and Antiochenes.*  Only Abd Allah got away, and after a few days he asked for a safe conduct from the other And Allah (Muhammand’s brother), who had come from Persia in great haste from Mecca.  This Abd Allah imprisoned the other in a tumbledown shack.  He ordered foundations dug out from under it, and thus secretly killed him…”

* Presumably these were the Slavs “who had deserted to the Arabs [in 692/693] and were settled in Syria.”

758/759

“In this year Constantine captured the Macedonian Sklavinians and subjected the rest of them…”*

* These are the “small, tribal statelets of the Slavs who settled the Balkans after the collapse of the Avars.”

762/763

“…The Bulgars rose up and murdered their rulers, whom they hanged on a rope.  They elevated an evil-minded man named Teletzes, who was thirty years old.  Many Slavs fled and went over to the Emperor [Constantine V], who settled them at Artana.  On June 15 the Emperor went to Thrace.  He also sent a fleet by way of the Black Sea; it had about eight hundred warships, each of which carried about twelve horses.  When Teletzes heard of the movement against him, he made allies of 20,000 men from neighboring tribes, and secured himself by putting them in his strongpoints.”

“The Emperor [Constantine V] advanced to camp at the fortress of Ankhialos.  Teletzes and his host from the tribes appeared on Friday, June 30 of the first indiction.  The two sides joined battle and cut each other u badly, the battle raging from the fifth hour until evening.  Large numbers of Bulgars were killed, others were overcome, and still others went over to the Emperor.  He was exalted by the victory, and held a triumphal procession at the city because of it.  He and his army entered Constantinople under arms; the people acclaimed him as he dragged along the overpowered Bulgars with wooden instruments of torture.  He ordered the people to put them to death outside the Golden Gate.”

“The Bulgars revolted against Teletzes and killed him asd his officers, then elevated Sabinos, the brother-in-law of their old ruler.  He immediately sent a message to the Emperor [Constantine V], seeking to make peace.  But the Bulgars convened a council which firmly opposed him, saying, ‘Thanks to you, the Romans will enslave Bulgaria.’  They rebelled, and Sabinos fled to the fortress of Mesembria sand went over to the Emperor [Constantine V].  The Bulgars raised another ruler for themselves whose name was Paganos.”

764/765

“…In the same year Paganos, the lord of Bulgaria, sent a message to the Emperor, asking for an interview with him.  Once he had received a safe conduct, Paganos and his boyars came down to the Emperor.  The Emperor [Constantine V] sat with Sabinos beside him, and reproached the Bulgars’ disorder and their hatred of Sabinos.  They made peace on terms which seems good.”

“But the Emperor [Constantine V] secretly sent men into Bulgaria who seized Sklabounos the ruler of the Sebereis, a man who had worked many evils in Thrace.  Christianos, an apostate from Christianity who headed the Skamaroi, was also captured.  His hands and feet were cut off at the mole of Saint Thomas.  They brought in doctors who cut him open from his groun to his chest in order to ascertain the constituent parts of a man, and then he was burned…”

766/767

[The Emperor Constantine first exiled the patriarch Constantine (same name) and then…]

“…By the decision of the Emperor, Niketas, a Slavic eunuch, was illegally chosen patriarch of Constantinople on November 16 of the fifth indiction…”

767/768

[then the prior patriarch was brought back to Constantinople and…]

“…The tyrant Constantine [Constantine V, the Emperor] beat him so badly he could not walk.  He ordered him put on a litter and brought in to sit in front of the sanctuary at the great church.  With him was an asekretes who lift dup a document on a sheet of paper, on which were written Constantine’s crimes.  By imperial order all the people of the city assembled there to watch while the sheet was read in their hearing.  After each chapter the asekretes hit Constantine in the face, while the patriarch Niketas sat watching on his throne.  Once this was done, they brought Constantine up onto the pulpit and stood him upright.  Niketas took the sheet of paper and sent down bishops who took away Constantine’s surplice and anathematized him.  They renamed him Skotiopsis [“of darkened vision”] and expelled him from the church backwards [retroactively?]…”

[then, the next day, they made him ride an ass, disfigured him and then beheaded him]

“…In the same year the misnamed patriarch Niketas scraped off the mosaic-work icons of the small consolatory in the patriarchal residence, and took down those in the building’s great consistory, which were painted on wood.  He painted over the faces of the rest of the icons, and did the same thing in the Abramaion.”

[This is in the context of the iconoclastic struggles of the Empire – Constantine V was an iconoclast.  When the iconophiles “finally” won in the 9th century Constantine was disinterred, and his remains were apparently dumped into the sea.]

775/776

“…On the following day, the great Sunday of Easter, April 24 of the fourteenth indiction, at daybreak the Emperor and the patriarch went to the hippodrome.  The holy sacrament was brought in while all the people watched; the patriarch [Niketas] performed the prayer while the Emperor crowned his son.”

“Thus the two Emperors went on to the great church with the two Caesars and three nobilissimi.  After the Emperors had gone ahead, the Empress Irene also went; the scholar attended her with the scepters.  She went up through the Bronze Gate’s stairway to the upper gate, although she did not go into the middle of the portico…”

[This is the Slavic patriarch Niketas crowning Constantine VI, as co-Emperor.  The Caesars refers to persons further down the line of succession – a Byzantine innovation]

779/780

“…On February 7 (the Sunday of cheese-eating) of the third indiction died the Slavic eunuch Niketas, the patriarch of Constantinople…”

782/783

“In this year Irene, because she had made peace with the Arabs, found an opportunity to send a large force under the patrician and logothete of the imperial drone Staurakios against the Sklavinian tribes.  He went to Thessalonike and Greece, subjected them all, and made them tributary to the Empire.  He also entered the Peloponnese, took many prisoners and much booty, and brought it to the Roman Empire.”

798/799

“…In March of the seventh indiction Akameros (the ruler of the Sklavinoi of Belzetia), spurred on by the trips of the theme of Hellas, wanted to bring forth the sons of Constantine and choose one of them Emperor.  When the Empress Irene learned this, she sent to the patrician Constantine Serantopekhos his son the spatharios Theophylaktos, who was also her nephew.  She blinded all her opponents and broke up the plot against her.”

809/810

“In this year, after his disgusting withdrawal, Nikephoros aimed at humbling the army in every way.  He removed Christians of every theme from their homes, compelling them to sell their property and come to the Sklavinias.  This deed was nothing less than a taking of prisoners, and many blasphemers and evildoers senselessly asked for directions to the Sklavinias.  others mourned around their ancestral graves and blessed the dead.  There were even those who hanged themselves to deliver themlseves tom their dire straits, for seeing destroyed the property which had been acquired by their ancestors’ labor, they could not bear the additional harsh move.  All sorts of hardships befell everyone: the poor in these ways and those mentioned next, while those who had an abundance suffered with them but could not help, as they were attaining worse misfortunes.  These measures were initiated in September and completed around holy Easter…”

810/811

“…Krum [Bulgarian khan] cut off Nikephoros’ head and hung it on a pole for a number of days, as a display for the tribes coming to him and for our disgrace.  Then he took it, bared the bone, coated it with silver on the outside and, while boasting over himself, made the Sklavinians‘ leaders drink from it…”

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