In 600, the emperor-commander Mauritius sent a large army that was freed up in the East on a campaign against the Avar state. The expeditionary army was to strike at the lands where the Avars lived. In the basin of the Tisza River, the left tributary of the Danube, originating in Transcarpathia, between the Tisza and Danube rivers, the right bank of the Danube before the confluence of the Drava. The territories where, according to archeology, the main monuments of the Avar culture are located (Ch. Balint).
After three battles, the kagan fled to the Tisza, the master Priscus sent 4 thousand horsemen after the Avars. Behind the Tisza, they destroyed the settlement of the Gepids and "other barbarians", killing 30 thousand, I must say that this figure is questioned by many researchers. Theophylact Simokatta, when he writes about "other barbarians", separates them from the Avars and Slavs.
After another lost battle, the kagan tried to take revenge: the Slavs fought together with the Avars in a separate army. The victory was on the side of the Romans, three thousand Avars, eight thousand Slavs and six thousand other barbarians were captured. Theophanes the Byzantine has slightly different numbers: he has an important clarification, indicating that the Gepids (3200) and other barbarians, most likely the Huns, were also captured. All of them were in the same ranks with the Avars, and the army of the Slavs fought separately.
The prisoners were sent to the city of Tomis (present-day Constanta, Romania) on the Black Sea coast, 900 km away, but the emperor ordered them to be returned to the kagan without ransom.
As we can see, and what Fredegest wrote about, even the Avar army consisted in many respects of the Slavs. They actively participate in the war on the side of the Avars, as their subjects and tributaries.
In the same period, local hostilities took place between the Romans and Slavs in Dalmatia.
Where did the antes go?
At the same time, the Ants, who were constantly fighting the Avars with varying success, periodically falling into their tributaries, remained independent. Perhaps, the Antic tribes closest to the Avars became tributaries. Moreover, the success of Priscus's campaign could be due to the fact that the Antes, who from time to time were allies of the Romans, were again attracted to the side of the empire and kept neutrality.
In 602, the Avars, led by Apsikh (Αψιχ), again launched a campaign against Byzantium. But Apsikh, frightened by the army of the Romans at the Iron Gate (the place where the Carpathians and Stara Planina meet on the border of Serbia and Romania, below the city of Orshov in Romania), changed the direction of the campaign and moved 500 km from here to the Antes as allies of Byzantium. This distance should not be surprising, the Avars constantly roamed, every year they made campaigns: from Byzantium to the territory of the Franks.
In addition to political issues, the Avars considered the lands of the Antes richer than the Byzantine ones, since they were less subject to invasions. (Ivanova O. V., Litavrin G. G.). A crushing blow was dealt to the tribal union of the Antes:
“Meanwhile, the kagan, having received news of the raids of the Romans, sent here Apsikh (Αψιχ) with an army and ordered to exterminate the tribe of Antes, who were allies of the Romans. Under such circumstances, the Avars in large numbers fell away and hastily, like deserters, went over to the side of the empire."
Theophanes the Byzantine, using the previous testimony, wrote:
"After this happened, some of the barbarians passed to the Romans."
Here it is difficult to agree with the conclusions that the Avars could not defeat the Ants.
Firstly, it does not follow from the text, why part of the Avars passed to the Romans, and who they were: Avars or Bulgarians, and whether they crossed over due to the difficulties of fighting the Antes or for another reason, it is not clear.
Secondly, this contradicts the "doctrine" of warfare in the steppes, which the nomadic Avar alliance strictly adhered to. What we see repeatedly in the wars of the nomads: the Turks pursue the Avars for a long time, the Tatars pass half the world in pursuit of the Kipchak tributaries. And the author of the Stratigikon shrewdly emphasized this:
"… but they push until they achieve the complete destruction of the enemy, using all means for this."
Whatever tactic is, so is the strategy.
Perhaps the campaign against the Ants could not have been a one-time act.
Thirdly, after this period, antes practically disappeared from the pages of historical sources. The use of the term "Antsky" in the title of Emperor Heraclius I (610-641) indicates not a reflection of political realities, but about the traditional late Roman and Byzantine tradition of wishful thinking.
Fourth, obviously, the union of the Antes disintegrated: the main tribes that were part of it moved to new habitats.
One part of the Antes remained in place, most likely, outside the zone of interests of the Avars, in the interfluve of the Dniester and the Dnieper; later, tribal unions of Tivertsy and Uliches will be formed here, with which the first Rurikovichs will fight. Other tribal unions are leaving the northern Danube, while in diametrically different directions, as happened with the Serbs and Croats. Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote in the 10th century about the legendary history of the Serbs:
"But when two brothers received power over Serbia from their father, one of them, taking half of the people, asked for refuge from Heraclius, the basileus of the Romans."
The events related to the Serb and Croat tribes are very similar to the situation with the Dulebs.
It was a Slovenian tribal union formed in Volyn in the 6th century. The future tribes of the Drevlyans and Polyans belonged to the Duleb Union.
Some researchers associate it with the Valinana tribe of the Arab geographer Masudi:
"In ancient times, all other Slavic tribes were subordinate to this tribe, for (the supreme) power was with him (Prince Madzhak - VE) and other kings obeyed him."
Perhaps it was not quite a political union that took shape in the first half of the 6th century, and Majak (personal name or position) was the high priest of the cult union (Alekseev S. V.).
In the second half of the VI century. the Avars defeated this alliance. “These cliffs fought against the Slavs, - we read in the PVL, - and oppressed the Dulebs - also the Slavs”.
Some of the Dulebs went to the Balkans, some to Central Europe (Czech Republic), and the rest fell under the Avar yoke. Perhaps they were moved by the Avars to other lands, but the sources are silent about this. Probably, it is to these Dulebs that the story about “torturing” the Duleb wives belongs, since part of this tribe found themselves in close proximity to the center of the Avar state (Presnyakov A. E.).
The same situation forced the Croats and Serbs, who were part of the Ant tribal union, to begin resettlement. It is known that Croats and Serbs appear on the borders of Byzantium at the beginning of the 7th century, where Slovenian tribes were already present. And the smaller tribes from the Antes, for example, from the north, move towards Thrace and Greece, the Sorbs (Serbs) - in the western direction, the other part of the Croats - to the north and west. This new movement of the Slavs coincided with serious changes in Byzantium, and with a period of weakening of the power of the Kaganate. More on this in the next article.
Why did the Slavs not have a state?
We do not have data on what socio-political events took place within the Antian union of tribes, most likely, it was an amorphous "confederation" of related tribes, with a periodic predominance of a tribe or a union of related tribes. The difference between the Slavs and the Antes was only in one thing: the latter had already formed this alliance at the beginning of the 6th century, the former did not, so the Slovenian tribes were conquered by the Avar nomads much faster.
What control system did the ants have? If in the IV century. they, along with the leader, were ruled by elders, then for sure the institution of elders or "elders of the city", zhupans, similar to the tribal senators of Ancient Rome, was preserved in this period. The supreme power, if it was permanent, was represented by a leader, not of a military type, but of a theological one, as in the case of Majak.
The lower bar of the transition to statehood is the moment of the emergence of the "chiefdom". We can say that in the VI century. Slavic society, especially the Ant, which is not directly dependent on the Avars, was on the verge of transition to the "chiefdom."
We know a number of military leaders (Praslav. * Kъnzhzь, * voldyka), such as the ants by Mezamer or Mezhimir, Idarizia, Kelagast, Dobretu, or Slovenia Davrit, Ardagast and Musokiy and Perogast.
But how these princes acted, we are told by a legend preserved in the undated part of the PVL about Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv, the "founding leaders" or simply the heads of the clans, the Polyan tribe, the Slavic, not the Ant group.
Management was according to the principle: each reigned in his own kind, as Procopius of Caesarea wrote, not governed by one person. Kiy, perhaps involved in military activities, went to Constantinople with his family, rather with the male part of it, which constitutes the militia of the family, and on the way thought to establish, for a kind of town on the Danube. These events took place in the 6th century. (B. A. Rybakov).
Thus, the ants and glories did not have a unified leadership at the intertribal level, but management was carried out at the level of the clan and tribe. The chiefs were military leaders (temporary or permanent) for raiding, but not governing society, who could form alliances with such leaders to increase their strength.
The main organ was the assembly of all free - veche.
Such a structure was opposed by a nomadic organization welded together by the most severe discipline, which in those conditions was practically impossible to cope with without outside help for the tribal Slavic society.
And this concerns the victory of the Avars over the Antsky union.
But this situation gave an impetus to "resettlement", it is often impossible to "overcome" the tradition within the framework of an established tribal structure, and resettlement opened up new opportunities, which contributed to the formation of the institution of "chiefdom", without which the transition to the early state was impossible (Shinakov E. A.., Erokhin A. S., Fedosov A. V.).
Danube border and the Slavs, early 7th century
In the same 602, the emperor Mauritius instructed his brother Peter with all the western army in winter to ferry to the lands of the Slavs beyond the Danube, in order to live there at the expense of plunder. In the "Stratigicon" of Mauritius, which other researchers identify with the emperor, it is the tactics of fighting in winter, when the Slavic soldiers and the population have nowhere to hide, when traces of the persecuted are visible in the snow, and is considered the most successful:
“It is necessary to carry out more attacks against them in winter, when they cannot easily hide because of the bare trees, and the snow gives out traces of those fleeing, and their households are in poverty, being almost naked, and, finally, the rivers become easily passable because of frost.
But the army, long dissatisfied with the greed of the basileus, decided that being among the barbarians in winter was an extremely dangerous and difficult enterprise, as a result of which it revolted.
After the accession of a new soldier emperor, hecatontarch-centurion Phocas, Sassanian Iran used the coup and execution of the emperor and the named father of the Shahinshah of Mauritius as a pretext for war. The army that committed the uprising was sent to the Persian front, the Balkans were left without operational army cover. The Avars signed the peace, but continued to send the Slavs under their control to raids.
At the same time, the Lombards, allied to the Avars, sent the last Italian shipbuilders:
"Also at this time, Agilulf sent to Kagan, King of the Avars, workers to build ships, with the help of which Kagan subsequently conquered a certain island in Thrace."
Perhaps it was the Slavs who adopted the skills of shipbuilding. In the 20s of the 7th century. they ravage the islands of the Aegean Sea and reach the coastal cities in Asia Minor. In 623, according to the Syrian "Mixed Chronicon", the Slavs attacked the island of Crete. Although they could do it on their boats - monoskils. We have no other data on the use of ships by the Avars.
In 601 the Avars, in alliance with the Lombards, attacked Dalmatia, taking the captive population to Pannonia. After the signing of an eternal peace between the Avars and the Lombards, an auxiliary army of the Slavs was sent to help King Agilulf in Italy, which participated in the siege and capture of Cremona in 605, and possibly several more fortresses, including the city of Mantua.
It is difficult to say whether the Slavs who settled in the Eastern Alps were still dependent on the Avars, but in 611 or 612 they attacked the Bavarians (Tyrol, the town of San Candido or Innichen (Italy)) and plundered their land, and in the same year, as Paul Deacon writes, "Istria was terribly devastated and the soldiers defending it were killed." In 612 the Avars and Slavs captured the center of the province, the city of Solon. Archaeologists have noted traces of fires in towns around present-day Poric and Pula in Croatia.
At the same time, under the pressure of the Avar government, the Slavs begin a massive resettlement across the Danube. In addition to all kinds of duties, the tribute to the Avars was half the harvest and all income. The absence of an army of Romans contributed to this. At first, there were armed tribal detachments, clearing the territory of the Romans' detachments, then the whole tribe resettled. The process was swift. Many territories were simply neglected, as they were constantly raided, in other places the Slavs established their power and settled next to the Romanized or Greek population.
In general, due to the fact that Emperor Heraclius identified the eastern front as the main one and that, undoubtedly, it was so, less attention was paid to other territories. This led to the fact that Heraclius himself was almost captured by the Avars, while trying to negotiate peace with them.
First siege of Constantinople
And in the spring of 626, the Sassanid troops approached Constantinople, they may have had an agreement with the Avar khan, or maybe they just acted synchronously and had to support each other. Nevertheless, since Constantinople was on the European part of the strait, only the kagan could storm it.
Theophanes the Confessor writes that the Persians entered into an alliance with the Avars, separately with the Bulgars, separately with the Gepids, separately with the Slavs, the poet George Pisida also wrote about them as allies, and not subordinates to the Avars in this war:
“And besides, the Thracian clouds brought us storms of war: on the one hand, Charybdis feeding the Scythians, pretending to be silent, stood on the road like a robber, on the other side they suddenly ran out wolves-slavs transferred the sea battle to the land."
Most likely, with the army of the kagan came the tributary Slavs, who participated in the assault from the water together with other subordinate Avars, Bulgarians. In the south, at the Golden Gate, there may have been an army of allied Slavs.
On July 29, 626, the khan withdrew his troops to demonstrate his strength: the army consisted of Avars, Bulgarians, Gepids, but the majority were Slavs. The kagan began to prepare the troops for the assault, at the same time demanding that the Constantinople supply themselves with food, he was sent various dishes. The Avars, led by the khan, settled down opposite the city walls, between the Charisian gate (the gate of Polyandros) and the gate of St. Romanus, the Slavs - to the south, to the coast of the Propontis (Sea of Marmara): "and countless hordes were loaded onto dugout boats from Istra", and, to the north, in the area of the Golden Horn. The Avars set up siege weapons, covered with damp leather, and twelve assault towers, equal in height to the city wall. Shelling began from the city, and then a sortie was made from the Golden Gate, here the Slavs were defeated.
At the same time, the Slavs launched the Varviss River (modern. Kajitanessa), flowing into the Golden Horn, one-tree. A squadron of Romans entered the Golden Horn, which was located at Blachernae, then not yet protected by a wall.
Before the assault, the khan summoned representatives of Byzantium, he himself sat on the throne, next to him sat three Persian ambassadors in silks, and a representative of the Romans stood in front of them, who listened to the arrogant speech of the kagan, who demanded the immediate surrender of the capital:
"You cannot turn into fish to escape to the sea, or birds to fly into the sky."
He did not discuss the proposed ransom and, having released the ambassadors with nothing, at night the Romans intercepted the Sassanid ambassadors: they threw the head of one into the Persian camp on the Malaysian coast, and the second, with the severed hands and the head of the third ambassador tied up, sent to the Avars.
On Sunday, August 3, Slavic boats slipped, under cover of darkness, to the Persians, in order from there to transport their troops to Constantinople.
From Monday to Wednesday, a continuous assault began, both from the land and from the Golden Horn Bay, where there were Slavs and Bulgarians on boats, as Grigory Pisida wrote about. The besiegers died in great numbers.
On August 7, a general assault was scheduled, during which it was supposed to strike at the city from the Golden Horn.
Equipped soldiers were housed on the boats, or oplite according to the Roman terminology (δπλίτα), as the presbyter of St. Sophia Theodore Sinckell said in a sermon delivered a year after these events:
"Raising the number of the barbarian oplits (heavily armed) who were there to a huge number, he ordered [the fleet] to put on the oars."
The heavily armed were not without exception in shells, since first of all oplit did not psil, he can be either in protective equipment or without it, but always with a large shield, spear and sword. Among the soldiers on the boats were primarily Slavs, Bulgarians and other barbarians, among them were Slavs.
The assertion that only the Avars were heavily armed, and the Slavs were only rowers, since the kagan was ordered to kill everyone who survived defeat on the water, which is hardly possible in relation to his fellow tribesmen.
At a signal from the Pteron tower at the Blachernae temple, the Slavs were to sail along the Varviss River and enter the Golden Horn, attacking the city from the less defended northern side, where the Venetians succeeded in 1204, thereby providing the main forces with the main assault on the city walls … But the patrician Vaughn (or Vonos), having learned about this, sent triremes and diers to this place and lit a deceiving signal fire on the portico of the Church of St. Nicholas. The Slavs, seeing the signal, entered the Golden Horn, where a storm probably began, caused by the intercession, as the Byzantines believed, of the Mother of God herself. One-tree trees turned over, despite the fact that some of them were tied together, the ships of the Romans fell on them: the beating on the water began. The Slavs in distress rushed to the gathering place at Blakherna and here they fell under the swords of the Armenians of Vonos. Those who reached the eastern bank of the Golden Horn were killed by the eyes of the enraged kagan by his warriors; only those who were able to swim to reach the northern coast of the Golden Horn, opposite to the city, were saved.
In the "Easter Chronicle" two versions of the withdrawal of the besiegers are announced. According to one, the kagan burned all the guns and moved back, on the other, the Slavs left at first and the kagan was forced to leave after them. Who these Slavs were is not completely clear: tributaries or allies? Perhaps intertribal solidarity played a role here, but most likely when it comes to the Slavs allies who did not want to put themselves at risk after the failure in the Golden Horn.
In honor of this event, an akathist began to be performed - a hymn in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos of Blakherna on Friday of the sixth week of Great Lent, this custom was also transferred to Russia.
This campaign was the last burst of activity of the Avar Kaganate, from that time the decline of the "nomadic empire" began.
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