Question 1. Prove the advantages of the geographical position of Constantinople. What other cities of the empire flourished?

Answer. Constantinople was at the crossroads of trade routes. It could not be passed by those that sailed to the Black Sea or back. And not only the states closest to it conducted trade through the Black Sea. Over time, Ancient Russia also traded through it. The overland route from Europe to Asia and back also passed through Constantinople. Goods that came from China and India by long way were transported through this city. Other trading centers flourished in the empire: Alexandria, Antioch. A major religious center, Jerusalem, also flourished.

Question 2. What power did the Byzantine emperor have?

Answer. The emperor had absolute power, which was based on a powerful system of officials and the army.

Question 3. How did Justinian strengthen the unity of the country? What of the things created during his reign has been preserved for many centuries?

Answer. Reforms.

1) The basic principle of Justinian was "one state, one law, one religion". Therefore, he struggled with numerous church teachings that differed from Orthodoxy and were called heresies. The fight against them continued after Justinian. This even became one of the reasons for the success of the Arab conquest - the enemy troops met with joy and helped them, because the Muslims treated people of all Christian denominations well, their power turned out to be better than the power of Orthodox officials.

2) In order to give a single law to his empire, Justinian assembled a team of lawyers who summarized the many centuries of development of Roman law. The result of their work is known as the Code of Civil Law. The document was widely used not only in Byzantium, but over time in Europe for many more centuries. Thanks to him, the famous Roman law was preserved, moreover, systematized.

3) To strengthen Orthodoxy, Justinian built huge beautiful churches. The best and most famous of them is the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It still stands, although most of its interior decoration from the time of Justinian was destroyed by subsequent generations of the Byzantines themselves.

4) Justinian fought numerous rebellions (for example, the Nika uprising) and took measures to prevent military commanders from speaking out (very often in the history of Byzantium, generals, using armies loyal to them, overthrew emperors). The results of these actions and should not have remained for centuries. But each time they gave Justinian to rule further, which means to continue all other reforms.

Question 4. Did Justinian's attempt to restore the Roman Empire succeed? Why?

Answer. The attempt failed. Byzantine troops captured many territories of the Western Roman Empire, others did not have time. And this is not about Britain or Gaul, which the Romans did not really appreciate, but about Spain (only one of its coasts was returned), which was a rich Roman territory. And most importantly, it was not possible to organize a good protection of these lands. Create a system against new intrusions.

Question 5. What people invaded the territory of Byzantium after the death of Justinian?

Answer. Peoples:

1) Slavs (to the Balkan Peninsula);

2) Bulgarians (to the Balkan Peninsula);

3) Lombards (to the Apennine Peninsula);

4) Iranians (to the eastern part of the empire);

5) Arabs (captured most of the Byzantine lands).

For more than a thousand years, Byzantium has been a link between East and West. Originating at the end of antiquity, it existed until the end of the European Middle Ages. Until it fell to the Ottomans in 1453.

Did the Byzantines know that they were Byzantines?

Officially, the year of the “birth” of Byzantium is considered to be 395, when the Roman Empire was divided into two parts. The western part fell in 476. Eastern - with the capital in Constantinople, lasted until 1453.

It is important that it was called "Byzantium" later. The inhabitants of the empire themselves and the surrounding peoples called it "Roman". And they had every right to do so - after all, the capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople in 330, back in the days of the unified Roman Empire.

After the loss of the western territories, the empire continued to exist in a truncated form with the former capital. Considering that the Roman Empire was born in 753 BC, and died under the roar of Turkish cannons in 1453 AD, it lasted 2206 years.

Shield of Europe

Byzantium was in a permanent state of war: in any century of Byzantine history, for 100 years there will hardly be 20 years without war, and sometimes there will not be 10 years of peace.

Often, Byzantium fought on two fronts, and sometimes enemies pushed it from all four corners of the world. And if the rest of the European countries fought, basically, with an enemy more or less known and understandable, that is, with each other, then Byzantium often had to be the first in Europe to meet unknown conquerors, wild nomads who destroyed everything in their path.

The Slavs who came to the Balkans in the 6th century so exterminated the local population that only a small part of it remained - modern Albanians.

Byzantine Anatolia (the territory of modern Turkey) for many centuries supplied empires with warriors and food in abundance. In the 11th century, the invading Turks devastated this flourishing region, and when the Byzantines managed to recapture part of the territory, they could not gather either soldiers or food there - Anatolia turned into a desert.

On Byzantium, this eastern bastion of Europe, many invasions from the east crashed, the most powerful of which was the Arab one in the 7th century. If the “Byzantine shield” could not withstand the blow, and prayer, as the British historian of the 18th century Gibbon noted, would now be heard over the sleeping spiers of Oxford.

Byzantine Crusade

Religious warfare is by no means an invention of the Arabs with their Jihad or the Catholics with their Crusades. At the beginning of the 7th century, Byzantium was on the verge of death - enemies were pressing from all sides, and Iran was the most formidable of them.

At the most critical moment - when the enemies approached the capital from two sides - the Byzantine emperor Heraclius makes an extraordinary move: he proclaims a holy war for the Christian faith, for the return of the Life-Giving Cross and other relics captured by Iranian troops in Jerusalem (in the pre-Islamic era, the state religion in Iran was Zoroastrianism).

The church donated its treasures for the holy war, thousands of volunteers were equipped and trained with the money of the church. For the first time, the Byzantine army marched on the Persians, carrying icons in front. In a hard struggle, Iran was defeated, Christian relics returned to Jerusalem, and Heraclius turned into a legendary hero, who even in the 12th century was remembered as his great predecessor by the Crusaders.

double-headed eagle

Contrary to popular belief, the double-headed eagle, which became the emblem of Russia, was by no means the emblem of Byzantium - it was the emblem of the last Byzantine dynasty of the Palaiologos. The niece of the last Byzantine emperor Sophia, having married the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III, transferred only the family, and not the state coat of arms.

It is also important to know that many European states (Balkan, Italian, Austria, Spain, Holy Roman Empire) considered themselves the heirs of Byzantium for one reason or another, and had a double-headed eagle on their coats of arms and flags.[

For the first time, the symbol of the double-headed eagle appeared long before Byzantium and the Paleologs - in the 4th millennium BC, in the first civilization on Earth, Sumer. Images of the double-headed eagle are also found among the Hittites, an Indo-European people who lived in the 2nd millennium BC in Asia Minor.

Russia - the successor of Byzantium?

After the fall of Byzantium, the vast majority of Byzantines - from aristocrats and scientists to artisans and warriors - fled from the Turks not to fellow believers, to Orthodox Russia, but to Catholic Italy.

The centuries-old ties between the Mediterranean peoples turned out to be stronger than religious differences. And if Byzantine scientists filled the universities of Italy, and partly even France and England, then in Russia the Greek scientists had nothing to fill in - there were no universities there.

In addition, the heir to the Byzantine crown was not the Byzantine princess Sophia, the wife of the Moscow prince, but the nephew of the last emperor Andrei. He sold his title to the Spanish monarch Ferdinand - the very one for whom Columbus discovered America.
Russia can be considered the successor of Byzantium only in a religious aspect - after all, after the fall of the latter, our country became the main stronghold of Orthodoxy.

Influence of Byzantium on the European Renaissance

Hundreds of Byzantine scholars who fled from the Turks who conquered their homeland, taking with them their libraries and works of art, breathed new energy into the European Renaissance.

Unlike Western Europe, in Byzantium the study of the ancient tradition was never interrupted. And all this legacy of their Greek civilization, much larger and better preserved, the Byzantines brought to Western Europe.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the Byzantine emigrants, the Renaissance would not have been so powerful and bright. Byzantine scholarship even influenced the Reformation: the original Greek text of the New Testament, promoted by the humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus of Rotterdam, had a great influence on the ideas of Protestantism.

Abundant Byzantium

The wealth of Byzantium is a fairly well-known fact. But how rich the empire was - few know. Just one example: the size of the tribute to the formidable Attila, who kept most of Eurasia at bay, was equal to the annual income of just a couple of Byzantine villas.

Sometimes a bribe in Byzantium was equal to a quarter of payments to Attila. Sometimes it was more profitable for the Byzantines to pay off the invasion of barbarians not spoiled by luxury than to equip an expensive professional army and rely on an unknown outcome of a military campaign.

Yes, there were difficult times in the empire, but the Byzantine "gold" was always valued. Even on the remote island of Taprobana (modern Sri Lanka), Byzantine gold coins were appreciated by local rulers and merchants. A hoard of Byzantine coins was found even on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Historians associate the birth of Byzantine civilization with the founding of its capital city of Constantinople. The city of Constantinople was founded by Emperor Constantine in 324. And it was founded on the site of the Roman settlement of Byzantium. In the beginning, Emperor Constantine called this city a Roman city, and in everyday life the population called it simply a city. Then it received the name of the royal city. And then, due to the fact that this city was founded by Emperor Constantine, it acquired the name after his name.

In fact, the history of Byzantium as an independent state begins in 395. The subjects themselves called their civilization Roman, and themselves Romans. Only in the Renaissance did they come up with the name Byzantine civilization. Constantinople, which was the center of the founding of the Byzantine civilization, was well located. On one side the Sea of ​​Marmara approached, on the other the Golden Horn. Constantinople occupied an important military-strategic position, which provided Byzantium with dominance over the straits. Here the main trade routes that went to Europe from the east intersected. Constantinople stood at the crossroads of trade routes. Traditionally, Byzantine civilization is assessed as the result of a synthesis of ancient institutions and views with the Eastern Christian picture of the world. Byzantium included the territory of the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Northern Mesopotamia, part of Armenia, Palestine, Egypt, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, Chersonese in the Crimea, Vladika in the Caucasus and some regions of Arabia. Through Byzantium passed the Silk Road from China to Europe and the way of incense through Arabia to the ports of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

The economic development of the regions that were part of Byzantium is not the same. The regions of Greece experienced a decline at this time, the granary of the empire was Thrace and Egypt. Asia Minor was an area where viticulture, horticulture, and cattle breeding were developed. The coastal areas, river valleys and plains of Byzantium specialized in the cultivation of grain crops, olive and other fruit trees.

In terms of the level of development of the craft, Byzantium was ahead of the countries of Western Europe. Mining was especially developed. The Caucasus specialized in the extraction of iron ore. Copper and silver - Armenia. Luxury goods were produced by Constantinople. In the first place was the production of various fabrics. The internal life of Byzantium was relatively stable. Unlike Western Europe, the largest cities of Byzantium were Alexandria, Antiophia, Syria, Edessa, Kirt, Hesolonik.

The population of Byzantium was multinational. Most of the population is Greek. But the Byzantine Empire included Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Jews, jackets, Romans.

Until the 7th century, the Byzantines spoke Latin, after the 7th century, Greek. Greek became the official language. In total, at an early stage until the 10th century, there were approximately 20-25 million people in Byzantium. If we take into account the fact that the world population at that time was, according to conventional estimates, 360 million people, then this is not very much.

Byzantine civilization also, in its development, goes through several stages. The first period - early - is 4-7 centuries. The second period - the middle one - is the 7th-12th centuries. The third period - late - is 13-15 centuries. In the early period, the Byzantine state is formed, Christianity becomes the dominant religion. In the middle period, a symphony of church and state took shape. There was a division of the western and eastern churches. The codification of law has been completed. Greek became the official language. This is the heyday of Byzantine civilization. In the late period, features of stagnation are revealed and the decline of civilization sets in.

How did the history of Byzantium develop?

Byzantium was formed in the conditions of barbarian invasions. There were two waves of invasions that Byzantium experienced. The first is the invasion of Goths and Guts. The second wave is the invasion of the Slavs. The invasion of the Slavs ended with the formation of the first Bulgarian kingdom. This happened in the 7th century. And the Bulgarian kingdom became the first enemy of Byzantium for a long time. Emperor Justinian, who ruled in the 6th century, attempted to recreate the Roman Empire. To do this, he conquered the kingdom of the Vandals in Africa. Then the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy. Emperor Justinian built the famous Hagia Sophia. The new Persian kingdom remained a dangerous enemy of the empire in the east. This kingdom was the only worthy opponent of Byzantium, equal to it in its strength in terms of economic and military development. The territory of present-day Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan was part of the New Persian kingdom. The New Persian kingdom made an attempt to seize the territories of Byzantium (5-6 centuries). As a result of which Byzantium lost part of its lands.

In the 7th century, the Arabs were serious rivals of Byzantium. Which by this time created a powerful state. The Arabs conquered Syria and Palestine.

In the 9th century, a long struggle with the Dolbars begins. 9-10 centuries for Byzantium are designated as campaigns against Constantinople, repeatedly undertaken by the princes of Kievan Rus Oleg, Igor, Svyatoslav and Yaroslav the Wise.

At the end of the 12th century, the Seljuk Turks, who came from the Oral region, completely ousted Byzantium from Asia Minor.

In the 13th century, as a result of the 4th Crusade, Byzantium fell into 4 parts. Latin Empire, Nician, Trebizond and Etherian kingdom. Soon the empire was restored, but it was already a feudally fragmented state with a weak central government. And in economic terms, Byzantium fell under the rule of the Italian cities of the republics of Venice and Genoa.


In the 15th century, the ring of possessions of the Ottoman Turks was firmly closed around Byzantium. In 1453 the Turks laid siege to Constantinople. The siege lasted 53 days. The entrance to the ships in the bay was blocked by chains, but the Turks smeared the boards with fat and dragged the ships overland. After the fall of Constantinople, it became the center of the Ottoman Empire and was named Istanbul.

Byzantine model of feudalism

The originality of the Byzantine civilization lies in the combination of the synthesis of ancient institutions and views with the Eastern Christian picture of the world. Byzantium managed to preserve all the main elements of the inheritance inherited from the Roman Empire. Namely:
* large cities (where craft and trade prevailed)
* slavery combined with communal farming
* advanced culture

Byzantium received a strong state with developed Roman law. It included the territory of once powerful civilizations. Byzantium's transition to feudal civilization was less painful than in the West. But the transition was much slower; it ended only in the 11th century. Basically, it was a long process of eliminating slavery within Byzantine society itself. And the same complex process of the emergence of new relationships.

In the West, the barbarians, who were at the level of early statehood and the decomposition of primitive communal relations, accelerated the decomposition of the old slave-owning orders and contributed to the development of new feudal relations. This way of development of feudalism is called synthesis.

In Byzantium, the transition to feudalism was not synthesis until the 6th century. There was a slow formation of feudal relations. Synthetic development of feudalism began in the 7th-9th centuries.

In the 5th-12th centuries, large feudal property began to take shape in Byzantium. The Byzantine feudal lord was not the full owner of his estates. The state controlled the amount of land, the number of dependent peasants; had the right to confiscate the land. The state kept the property of the feudal lord under its supervision. The state itself was the owner of vast lands. And the feudal lords were dependent on state power.

The peculiarity of Byzantine feudalism was that a strong central government held back the growth of large landownership; limited the autonomy of feudal service. Feudalism in Byzantium was not completely state-owned, since Roman law was preserved in Byzantium, which legitimized private property.

Byzantium empire - rommei

The emperor was the head of the Byzantine Empire. Basileus was the emperor of Byzantium.

Vasilevs had almost unlimited power. He could issue, he could change laws, but he was not allowed to put himself above the law. The emperor led the army, determined the foreign policy of the empire. He was not the owner of those lands that were part of his possessions. The empire was administered from Constantinople. In submission to Vasilevs was a huge state apparatus, which consisted of numerous judicial military tax departments. Along with the emperor, an important place in the life of Byzantium was occupied by the senate, which was called simklid. Of course, he did not play such a role in Byzantium as the Roman Senate in the Roman Empire. The members of the senate were called semklidiki. The Senate was an advisory body to the Emperor. Officials and simklidiki were represented not only by representatives of the nobility, but also by commoners who were distinguished by their talent, they sometimes even ended up on the imperial throne.

This did not bother the Byzantines, because they, like the Romans, believed that all citizens of the empire were equal. And generosity is a private matter for everyone.

The idea of ​​empire was reinforced by Christianity. It was this that gave it its sacred character. In the 4th century, an associate of Emperor Constantine, Eukernius of Caesarea, created political history. According to this theory, the secular and spiritual power of Byzantium merged into one, forming a symphony. The emperor was not only a secular ruler, but also the head of the church. Not only imperial power was deified, but also the orders of specific emperors. But the very personality of the emperor was not deified.

Only the position of emperor was deified. The emperor was like a heavenly father. He had to imitate God. According to Eusterius of Caesarea, Byzantium became the stronghold of Christianity. She was under divine protection and led other peoples to salvation. Royal power in Byzantium was not inherited. And despite the fact that the personality of the emperor was considered sacred, he could be removed. In Byzantium, the rule of 109 emperors. And only 34 of them died a natural death. The rest were deposed or killed. But the imperial power itself remained untouched.

In Byzantium, the emperor ruled, or he was also called an autocrator (autocrat). The imperial idea helped preserve Byzantium's integrity, the world idea. However, the imperial idea focused on the preservation of traditions and customs, and fettered development. Feudal lords in Byzantium never became an estate. The position of the aristocrats was not stable, and intrigues and conspiracies were constantly taking place at the court.

The Role of Religion in Byzantine Civilization

One of the characteristic features of medieval civilizations is the dominance of world religions. For the first time, ideology in its religious form becomes the dominant factor in the development of society.

Christianity was the dominant ideology in Byzantium. which originated in the 1st century. Christianity gave a new idea of ​​the world. The world consists of two parts:

* earthly world (sinful)
* heavenly world (ideal, pure)

In the 4th century, Byzantium adopts Christianity as the official religion. And we can say that the pagan consciousness gave way to the Christian. Christian consciousness is turned to the inner world of man. During the establishment of Christianity in Byzantium, srites appeared (other interpretations of the main dogmas), and what exactly the Church did not allow dissent. She sought to strengthen her position. And medieval consciousness was focused on authorities. The Church prescribed to comprehend divine truths, and not to change them. The subject of controversy for a long time was the dogma of the holy trinity. Which included God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There were disputes especially in the early stages of Byzantine civilization about the nature of Christ.

What heresi arose at this time. The main heresy is Arianism. Many barbarian, Germanic peoples were subject to it. Ariaie believed that Christ is a man. And his divinity was given to him by God the Father. Along with the Arians, there was such a heresy in Byzantium as Mekkorianism. The Meccarians maintained that there was a difference between Christ the superior man and the son of God, and their connection was only temporary. And finally, there was such a thing as Monophysitism. Monophysites claimed that the nature of Christ is divine. The Byzantine Church claimed that Christ combines 2 essences, both human and divine. This was the basis of the hope of salvation. And the Byzantines got the opportunity to discover the divine principle in themselves.

Not only disputes about the essence of Christ caused fierce debate and caused such heretical movements as Arianism, Meccorianism, Monophysitism. But there were also other very important disputes. The next one is about the ratio of spiritual and physical man. These disputes still do not subside in modern society. But for Byzantium this dispute was very important. Such ideas appeared as Paulicianism in Armenia and Bogomilism in Bulgaria. Both the Pavelekians and the Bogomils argued that heaven is the domain of God, and the earth is the domain of Satan, and that man was created together by both God and Satan (God is the soul, and Satan is the body). They called on believers to be faithful to the yaksikel. The Byzantine Church argued that the body cannot prevent the development of the divine principle in itself. It was created by God, for even the Apostle Paul claimed that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

It was Christianity that discovered the disharmony of man (bodily beauty, spiritual beauty).

In the 11th century, two branches in Christianity were finally formed. Catholic in the West and Orthodox in the East. There was a split of churches which is called schism (1054 - a split of churches). The reason was an attempt by the Catholic Church to supplement the creed. In the West, the church decided its affairs on the salvation of the human soul. She absolved sins, appreciated the virtue and shortcomings of a person. A whole relatively speaking code of historical rules, forms of human behavior was developed.

Thus, a kind of regulation of human life took place. The positive moment in this is that a person has developed in himself internal discipline and internal organization.


Byzantium. Church of the Apostles in Thessaloniki
In Byzantium, the church claimed that the path to salvation, the path to God, could occur without the participation of the church, a person could and would directly turn to God through prayer, uniting with him. Thus, in Christianity, the emotional individual principle prevails. Hence the system of values, and behavior, and a slightly different ideal of personality. It began to form in Byzantium, and then she transferred this system to Russia, and thus the formation of the Russian type of person, a very emotional person with mystical views, was formed over many centuries. The religion of Byzantium also performed a stabilizing function. It was a single shell of the formation of Byzantine spirituality and culture. The cultural values ​​of pagan antiquity were not denied by the Byzantine Church. The study of antiquity, philosophy, literature was encouraged. The Byzantine school was different from the Western European school. Unlike the West, education in Byzantium was influenced by the church, but it was not so tightly tied to the church. Byzantine science developed under the strong influence of antiquity and success, the achievements of the Byzantines were associated with the needs of economic development and government of the country.

Thus Byzantine civilization is a Christian civilization. Its main achievements can be considered the following: religion becomes the dominant factor in society. Orthodoxy is the ideological basis of the Byzantine religion "The exceptional combination of the life of Byzantium with the Christian religion, Hellenistic culture and Roman statehood made Byzantine civilization unlike any other." Byzantine civilization influenced the development of Russians, the formation of the Russian idea. Ideas of unity, ideas of statehood.

The lesson on the topic “Byzantine Empire of the 6th-8th centuries” tells about the inheritance that belongs to the eastern and western parts of the empire. The influence of neighbors and the religious crisis within the empire had serious consequences. It tells about the reign of Justinian as the most successful for the empire, about the reign of Heraclius, which will be replaced by Leo III.

Theme: Eastern Empire and Arabs

Lesson:Byzantine Empire inVI- VIIIcenturies

Unlike the Western Roman Empire, Byzantium not only withstood the onslaught of the barbarians, but also existed for more than a thousand years. It included rich and cultural areas: the Balkan Peninsula with adjacent islands, part of the Transcaucasus, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt. Since ancient times, agriculture and cattle breeding have developed here. In Byzantium, including on the territory of Egypt, the Middle East, lively, crowded cities have survived: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. Crafts such as the production of glassware, silk fabrics, fine jewelry, and papyrus were developed here.

Constantinople, located on the banks of the Bosphorus, stood at the intersection of two important trade routes: land - from Europe to Asia and sea - from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Byzantine merchants grew rich in trade with the Northern Black Sea region, where they had their colony cities, Iran, India, and China. They were well known in Western Europe, where they brought expensive oriental goods.

Rice. 1. Constantinople ()

Unlike the countries of Western Europe, Byzantium retained a single state with despotic imperial power. The power of the emperor was inherited. He was the supreme judge, appointed military leaders and senior officials, received foreign ambassadors. The emperor ruled the country with the help of many officials. They tried their best to gain influence at court. The cases of petitioners were solved with the help of bribes or personal connections.

Byzantium could defend its borders from barbarians and even wage wars of conquest. Disposing of a rich treasury, the emperor maintained a large mercenary army and a strong navy. But there were periods when a major military leader overthrew the emperor himself and became sovereign himself. The Empire especially expanded its borders during the reign of Justinian (527-565).

Rice. 2. Emperor Justinian ()

Clever, energetic, well-educated Justinian skillfully selected and directed his assistants. Under his outward accessibility and courtesy, a merciless and insidious tyrant was hiding. Justinian was afraid of attempts on his life, and therefore he easily believed denunciations and was quick to reprisal. The main rule of Justinian was: "one state, one law, one religion." The emperor, wishing to enlist the support of the church, granted her lands and valuable gifts, built many temples and monasteries. His reign began with unprecedented persecution of pagans, Jews and apostates from the teachings of the church. They were limited in their rights, dismissed from service, condemned to death. The famous school in Athens, a major center of pagan culture, was closed. In order to introduce uniform laws for the entire empire, the emperor created a commission of the best lawyers. In a short time, she collected the laws of the Roman emperors, excerpts from the works of prominent Roman lawyers with an explanation of these laws, new laws introduced by Justinian himself, and compiled a brief guide to using the laws. These works were published under the general title "Code of Civil Law". This set of laws preserved Roman law for future generations. It was studied by lawyers in the Middle Ages and Modern times, drafting laws for their states.

Justinian made an attempt to restore the Roman Empire to its former borders. Taking advantage of the strife in the kingdom of the Vandals, the emperor sent an army on 500 ships to conquer North Africa. The Byzantines quickly defeated the Vandals and occupied the capital of the kingdom of Carthage. Justinian then proceeded to conquer the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. His army occupied Sicily, southern Italy and later captured Rome. Another army, advancing from the Balkan Peninsula, entered the capital of the Ostrogoths, Ravenna. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths fell. But the harassment of officials and the robbery of soldiers caused uprisings of local residents in North Africa and Italy. Justinian was forced to send new armies to put down rebellions in the conquered countries. It took 15 years of intense struggle to completely subjugate North Africa, and in Italy it took about 20 years. Using the internecine struggle for the throne in the kingdom of the Visigoths, Justinian's army conquered the southwestern part of Spain.

Rice. 3. Byzantine Empire under Justinian ()

To protect the borders of the empire, Justinian built fortresses on the outskirts, placed garrisons in them, and laid roads to the borders. Destroyed cities were restored everywhere, water pipelines, hippodromes, theaters were built. But the population of Byzantium itself was ruined by unbearable taxes. Rebellions broke out everywhere, which Justinian brutally suppressed.

In the east, Byzantium had to wage long wars with Iran, even to cede part of the territory to Iran and pay tribute to it. Byzantium did not have a strong knightly army, as in Western Europe, and began to suffer defeats in wars with its neighbors. Soon after the death of Justinian, Byzantium lost almost all the territories conquered in the West. The Lombards occupied most of Italy, and the Visigoths took away their former possessions in Spain.

From the beginning of the VI century. Byzantium was attacked by the Slavs. Their detachments even approached Constantinople. In the wars with Byzantium, the Slavs gained combat experience, learned to fight in formation and take fortresses by storm. From invasions, they moved on to settling the territory of the empire: they first occupied the north of the Balkan Peninsula, then penetrated into Macedonia and Greece. The Slavs turned into subjects of the empire: they began to pay taxes to the treasury and serve in the imperial army.

From the south to Byzantium in the 7th century. Arabs attacked. They captured Palestine, Syria and Egypt, and by the end of the century, all of North Africa. Since the time of Justinian, the territory of the empire has been reduced by almost three times. Byzantium retained only Asia Minor, the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula and some areas in Italy. In the 8th century there was a turning point in the wars of Byzantium with the Arabs. The Byzantines themselves began to invade the possessions of the Arabs in Syria and Armenia, and later conquered from the Arabs part of Asia Minor, areas in Syria and Transcaucasia, the islands of Cyprus and Crete.

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2. Atlas of the Middle Ages: History. Traditions. - M., 2000.

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Homework

1. What states of antiquity known to you were part of the Byzantine Empire?

2. How did the power of the Byzantine emperors differ from the power of Western European monarchs?

3. What were the three main principles that Justinian followed in his policy?

4. Did Justinian succeed in restoring the Roman Empire to its former borders?

5. What peoples invaded the territory of Byzantium after the death of Justinian?

From the beginning of the 6th century, on the northern border of the Byzantine Empire, along the lower and middle Danube, invasions of Slavic tribes begin.

The Danubian frontier has always been a particularly turbulent frontier of the empire. Numerous barbarian tribes occupying the lands north of the Danube and the Black Sea steppes were a constant threat to Byzantium. However, the destructive waves of barbarian invasions that swept through the empire in the 4th-5th centuries did not linger for a long time within its borders or spread so much that they soon disappeared without a trace. Neither the Black Sea Goths - newcomers from the distant Baltic, nor the nomads of the Asian steppes - the Huns could not stay long on the territory of Byzantium and, moreover, have a noticeable impact on the course of its internal socio-economic development.

The invasions of the Transdanubian barbarians acquire a different character when the Slavic tribes become the main and decisive force in them. The turbulent events that unfolded on the Danube border in the first half of the 6th century marked the beginning of a long era of the penetration of the Slavs into the Byzantine Empire.

Mass invasions and settlement of a number of Byzantine districts and regions were a natural stage in the entire previous history of the Slavs.

By the VI century. Slavs as a result of their gradual resettlement from the lands that they occupied in the I-II centuries. n. e. east of the Vistula (between the Baltic Sea and the northern spurs of the Carpathian Mountains), became the direct neighbors of Byzantium, firmly settling on the left bank of the Danube. Contemporaries quite clearly indicate the places of settlements of the Sklavins and Antes - related Slavic tribes who spoke the same language and had the same customs. According to Procopius, they occupied most of the land on the left bank of the Danube. The territory inhabited by the Slavs extended in the north to the Vistula, in the east to the Dniester and in the west to the middle reaches of the Sava. The Antes lived in close proximity to the Slavs, constituting the eastern branch of the Slavic tribes that settled on the northern borders of the Byzantine Empire. Especially densely, apparently, the lands in the Northern Black Sea region were populated by Ants - to the east of the Dniester and in the Dnieper region.

The resettlement of the Slavs from their original habitats and their invasion of Byzantium were due to both external factors - the movement of various ethnic masses in the era of the "great migration of peoples", and, mainly, the development of the socio-economic life of the Slavic tribes.

The transition of the Slavs, thanks to the appearance of new agricultural tools, to arable farming made it possible for individual families to cultivate the land. And although arable land remained by the middle of the 1st millennium, apparently in the ownership of the community, the emergence of an individual peasant economy, which provided the opportunity to use the product of labor for personal enrichment, as well as the constant growth of the population, necessitated the expansion of lands suitable for cultivation. The socio-political system of the Slavs, in turn, changed. According to Procopius, the Slavs and Antes are not controlled by one person, but since ancient times they have been living in the government of the people, and therefore fellow tribesmen share both happiness and misfortune together. However, the testimony of the same Procopius and other Byzantine writers of the VI century. allow us to see that the Slavs had a tribal nobility and there was a primitive slavery.

Economic and social evolution leads to the formation among the Slavs of military democracy - that form of political organization in which it is war that opens up the greatest opportunities for the tribal nobility to enrich and strengthen their power. Slavs (both individuals and entire detachments) begin to willingly join mercenary troops. However, service in a foreign army could only partially satisfy their growing needs; the desire to master new, already cultivated fertile lands, the thirst for prey pushed the Slavic tribes into the Byzantine Empire.

In alliance with other peoples of the Danube-Black Sea basin - Carps, Costoboks, Roxolans, Sarmatians, Gepids, Goths, Huns - the Slavs, in all likelihood, participated in raids on the Balkan Peninsula even earlier, back in the 2nd-5th centuries. Byzantine chroniclers were often confused in determining the ethnicity of the numerous barbarians who attacked the empire. Perhaps it was the Slavs who were those "Getic horsemen" who, according to the testimony of Marcellinus, devastated Macedonia and Thessaly in 517, reaching Thermopylae.

Under their own name, the Slavs as enemies of the empire are first mentioned by Procopius of Caesarea. He reports that shortly after the accession to the throne of Emperor Justin, "the Antes ..., having crossed Istres, invaded the Roman land with a large army." Against them, a Byzantine army was sent, led by a prominent commander Herman, who inflicted a severe defeat on the Antes. This suspended, apparently, for some time their raids on the territory of the empire. In any case, for the entire subsequent period of the reign of Justin, the sources do not record a single invasion of the Antes and Slavs.

The picture changes dramatically under Justinian. Describing the state of imperial affairs (for the period from the accession of Justinian to the throne until the middle of the 6th century), Procopius bitterly writes that “the Huns (Hunno-Bulgars. - Ed.), Sklavins and Antes almost annually raid Illyricum and all of Thrace , i.e., to all areas from the Ionian Gulf (Adriatic Sea. - Ed.) up to the outskirts of Constantinople, including Hellas and the region of Chersonesus [Thracian] ... ". Another contemporary of the events that took place under Justinian - Jordanes - also speaks of "the daily stubborn onslaught from the Bulgars, Antes and Sklavins."

At this first stage of the offensive of the Slavs, their invasions, which followed one after another and were accompanied by terrible devastation of the Byzantine lands, were, for all that, only short-term raids, after which the Slavs, having captured the booty, returned to their lands on the left bank of the Danube. The border along the Danube still remains a frontier separating Byzantine and Slavic possessions; the empire takes urgent measures to protect and strengthen it.

In 530, Justinian appointed the brave and energetic Hilvudius, judging by his name, a Slav, as the strategos of Thrace. Having entrusted him with the defense of the northern border of the empire, Justinian apparently expected that Khilvudius, who had advanced far in the Byzantine military service and was well acquainted with the military tactics of the Slavs, would more successfully fight against them. Hilvudius really justified the hopes of Justinian for a while. He repeatedly organized raids on the left bank of the Danube, "beating and taking into slavery the barbarians who lived there."

But already three years after Hilvudius was killed in one of the battles with the Slavs, the Danube "became available for the barbarians to cross at their request, and the Roman possessions were completely open to their invasion."

Justinian was clearly aware of the danger that threatened the empire. He bluntly stated that "in order to stop the movement of the barbarians, resistance is needed, and, moreover, serious." In the very first years of his reign, grandiose in scope work was begun to strengthen the Danube border. Along the entire bank of the river - from Singidun to the Black Sea - new fortresses were being built and old fortresses were being restored; the defensive system consisted of several lines of fortifications that reached the Long Walls. Procopius names several hundred fortified points erected in Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia.

However, all these structures, stretching for many tens of kilometers, could not prevent the Slavic invasions. The empire, waging heavy and bloody wars in North Africa, Italy, Spain, forced to keep its troops in a vast area from the Euphrates to Gibraltar, was unable to equip the fortresses with the necessary garrisons. Talking about the Slavic raid in Illyricum (548), Procopius complains that "even many fortifications that were here and seemed strong in the past, the Slavs managed to take, since no one defended them ...".

The broad offensive of the Slavs on the Byzantine lands was largely weakened due to the lack of unity between the Slavs and the Antes. In 540, as a result of the conflict between these two largest Slavic tribes, a war broke out between them, and joint attacks on the empire ceased. The Sklavins enter into an alliance with the Hunno-Bulgars and in 540-542, when the plague raged in Byzantium, they invaded its borders three times. They reach Constantinople and break through the outer wall, causing a terrible panic in the capital. “Nothing like this has been seen or heard since the founding of the city,” writes John of Ephesus, an eyewitness to this event. However, having plundered the suburbs of Constantinople, the barbarians left with captured booty and prisoners. During one of these attacks, they penetrated as far as Thracian Chersonese and even crossed the Hellespont to Avydos. Around the same time (somewhere between 540 and 545) the Antes invaded Thrace.

The strife between the Antes and the Slavs, which led to the disunity of their actions, was not slow to take advantage of Justinian. In 545, ambassadors were sent to the Antes. They announced Justinian’s agreement to let the Antes Turris fortress, located on the left bank of the lower Danube, and the lands surrounding it (most likely, to authorize their settlement in this “originally belonging to the Romans” area), and also to pay them large sums of money, demanding in return to continue to observe peace with the empire and counteract the raids of the Hunno-Bulgars.

The negotiations ended, in all likelihood, successfully. Since that time, the sources never mention the performances of the Antes against Byzantium. Moreover, in documents containing the full title of Justinian, the latter has been called "Αντιχος" since 533; more than half a century later, in 602, the Antes were also in allied relations with Byzantium.

From now on, having lost their closest and natural ally, the attack on the lands of the Byzantine Empire is carried out by the Sclavins, both alone and together with the Hunno-Bulgars.

The onslaught of the Slavs on the empire increased markedly in the late 40s and especially in the 50s of the 6th century. In 548, their numerous detachments, having crossed the Danube, marched all over Illyricum up to Epidamnus. An idea of ​​the scale of this invasion can be formed on the basis of the news of Proconius (albeit somewhat exaggerating the number of imperial forces), that a 15,000-strong Byzantine army followed the Slavs, but “it was not decided anywhere to approach the enemy close.”

From the middle of the VI century. the attack of the Slavs on Byzantium enters a new stage, qualitatively different from the previous invasions. In 550-551 years. a real Slavic-Byzantine war is being played out. Slavic detachments, acting according to a predetermined plan, conduct open battles with the Byzantine army and even achieve victory; they take Byzantine fortresses by siege; part of the Slavs who invaded the territory of the empire remains for the winter in its lands, receiving fresh reinforcements from across the Danube and preparing for new campaigns.

War of 550-551 began with the invasion of the Slavs in Illyricum and Thrace (spring 550). Three thousand Slavs crossed the Danube and, without meeting resistance, also crossed the Maritsa. Then they were divided into two parts (in 1800 and 1200 people). Although these detachments were much inferior in strength to the Byzantine army sent against them, thanks to a surprise attack, they managed to defeat him. Having won, one of the Slavic detachments then entered into battle with the Byzantine commander Asvad. Despite the fact that under his command there were "numerous excellent horsemen ..., and the Slavs put them to flight without much difficulty." Having besieged a number of Byzantine fortresses, they also captured the seaside town of Topir, guarded by a Byzantine military garrison. “Before,” notes Procopius, “the Slavs never dared to approach the walls or go down to the plain (for an open battle) ...”.

In the summer of 550, the Slavs again cross the Danube in a huge avalanche and invade Byzantium. This time they appear near the city of Naissa (Nish). As Slavic captives later showed, the main goal of the campaign was to capture one of the largest cities of the empire, moreover, beautifully fortified - Thessaloniki. Justinian was forced to give an order to his commander Herman, who was preparing an army in Sardica (Serdica) for a campaign in Italy against Totila, to immediately leave all affairs and speak out against the Slavs. However, the latter, having learned that Germanus was heading against them, who in the reign of Justin had inflicted a severe defeat on the Antes, and assuming that his army represented a significant force, decided to avoid a collision. Having passed Illyricum, they entered Dalmatia. More and more fellow tribesmen joined them, freely crossing the Danube.

Having wintered on the territory of Byzantium, “as if in their own land, without fear of the enemy,” the Slavs in the spring of 551 again poured into Thrace and Illyricum. They defeated the Byzantine army in a fierce battle and went all the way to the Long Walls. However, thanks to an unexpected attack, the Byzantines managed to capture some of the Slavs as prisoners, and force the rest to retreat.

In the autumn of 551 a new invasion of Illyricum followed. The leaders of the troops sent by Justinian, as in 548, did not dare to engage in battle with the Slavs. Having stayed within the empire for a long time, ”those with rich booty crossed back across the Danube.

The last action of the Slavs against the empire under Justinian was the attack on Constantinople in 559, carried out in alliance with the Kutrigur Huns.

By the end of the reign of Justinian, Byzantium was helpless before the Slavic invasions; the alarmed emperor did not know "how he could repel them in the future." The construction of fortresses in the Balkans, again undertaken by Justinian, had as its goal not only a rebuff to the Slavic invasions from across the Danube, but also opposition to the Slavs, who managed to gain a foothold in the Byzantine lands, using them as a springboard for further advancement into the depths of the empire: the strengthening of Philippopolis and Plotinopol in Thrace were built, according to Procopius, against the barbarians who lived in the areas of these cities; for the same purpose, the fortress of Adina in Moesia was restored, around which the “barbarian Slavs” took refuge, raiding neighboring lands, as well as the fortress of Ulmiton, which was completely destroyed by the Slavs who settled in its vicinity.

The empire, exhausted by wars, did not have the means to organize active resistance to the increasingly intensifying Slavic onslaught. In the last years of the reign of Justinian, the Byzantine army, according to his successor Justin II, was "so disorganized that the state was left to continuous invasions and raids of the barbarians."

The local population of the empire, especially ethnically diverse in the northern Balkan provinces, was also a poor defender of their land. The economic life of the Danubian regions, which had been repeatedly subjected to barbarian invasions over the course of several centuries, noticeably died out in a number of regions, and these regions themselves became depopulated. In the reign of Justinian, the situation became even more complicated due to the increased tax burden. “... Despite the fact that ... all of Europe was plundered by the Huns, Sclavins and Antes, that some of the cities were destroyed to the ground, others were completely robbed as a result of monetary indemnities, despite the fact that the barbarians took all people with all their wealth, that as a result of their almost daily raids, all areas became deserted and uncultivated - despite all this, Justinian, nevertheless, did not remove taxes from anyone ... ”, Procopius states indignantly in "Secret History". The burden of taxes forced the inhabitants either to leave the empire altogether, or to go over to the barbarians, who did not yet know the developed forms of class oppression and whose social system, because of this, brought relief to the exploited masses of the Byzantine state. Later, by settling in the territory of the empire, the barbarians softened the burden of payments that lay on the local population. So, according to John of Ephesus, in 584, the Avars and Pannonian Slavs, addressing the inhabitants of Moesia, said: “Come out, sow and reap, we will take from us only half (taxes or, most likely, the harvest. - Ed.) ” .

The struggle of the masses against the exorbitant oppression of the Byzantine state also contributed to the success of the Slavic invasions. The first raids of the Slavs on Byzantium were preceded and, obviously, facilitated by the uprising that broke out in 512 in Constantinople, which in 513-515. spread to the northern Balkan provinces and in which, along with the local population, the barbarian federates took part. During the reign of Justinian and under his successors, favorable conditions for Slavic invasions were in Pannonia and especially in Thrace, where the Scamari movement was widely developed.

The offensive of the Slavs against Byzantium, which was growing from year to year, was, however, from the beginning of the 60s of the 6th century. temporarily suspended by the appearance of the Turkic horde of Avars on the Danube. Byzantine diplomacy, which widely practiced a policy of bribery and inciting some tribes against others, did not fail to use new aliens to counter the Slavs. As a result of negotiations between the embassy of the Avar Khakan Bayan and Justinian, which took place in 558, an agreement was reached under which the Avars were obliged, on condition of receiving an annual tribute from Byzantium, to protect its Danube border from barbarian invasions. The Avars defeated the Huns-Utigurs and Huns-Kutrigurs, who were at war with each other due to the intrigues of Justinian, and then began to attack the Slavs. First of all, the lands of the Ants were subjected to the raids of the Avars, moving from the Transcaspian steppes along the Black Sea coast to the lower Danube. “The owners of the Antes were brought into distress. The Avars plundered and devastated their land, ”reports Menander Protector. In order to redeem the tribesmen captured by the Avars, the Antes sent an embassy to them in 560, headed by Mezamir. Mezamir behaved in the headquarters of the Avars very independently and with great audacity. On the advice of one Kutrigur, who urged the Avars to get rid of this influential person among the Antes, Mezamir was killed. “Since then,” Menander concludes his story, “the Avars began to devastate the land of the Ants even more, did not stop plundering it and enslaving the inhabitants.”

Feeling their strength, the Avars begin to make more and more demands on Byzantium: they ask to provide them with places for settlement and increase the annual reward for maintaining the union and peace. Disagreements arise between the empire and the Avars, which soon lead to open hostilities. The Avars enter into allied relations with the Franks, and then, having intervened in the feuds of the Lombards and Gepids, in alliance with the first, they defeat the Gepids, who were under the protection of the empire, in 567, and settle on their lands in Pannonia along the Tisza and the middle Danube. The Slavic tribes living on the Pannonian Plain had to recognize the supreme power of the Avars. Since that time, they have been attacking Byzantium together with the Avars, taking an active part in their struggle against the empire.

The first news of such united invasions is contained in the contemporary Western chronicler John, abbot of the Biklyariysky monastery. He reports that in 576 and 577. the Avars and Slavs attacked Thrace, and in 579 they occupied part of Greece and Pannonia. In 584, according to another contemporary of the events described - Evagrius, the Avars (no doubt, together with their Slavic allies) capture Singidun, Anchial and devastate " all of Hellas. The Slavs who were in the Avar army, who were generally known for their ability to cross rivers, participated in the construction of a bridge across the Sava in 579 to carry out the capture of Sirmium, planned by the Avars; in 593, the Pannonian Slavs made ships for the Avar Khakan, and then built a bridge across the Sava from them.

In the Avar army (as well as in the Avar Khakanate in general), the Slavs were, in all likelihood, the most significant ethnic group: it is significant that in 601, when the Byzantine army defeated the Avars, a Slavic detachment of 8 thousand people was captured, much outnumbering the Avars themselves and other barbarians who were in the Khakan's army.

However, since the Avars politically dominated the Pannonian Slavs, Byzantine authors, talking about the Avar attacks on the empire, often do not mention the participation of the Slavs in them at all, although the presence of the latter in the Avar army is beyond doubt.

The Avars repeatedly tried to subdue the Slavs who lived on the lower Danube, but all their efforts invariably ended in failure. Menander tells that Bayan sent an embassy to the leader of the Slavins Davryta and "to those who stood at the head of the Slavin people", demanding that they submit to the Avars and undertake to pay tribute to them. The independent answer, full of confidence in their strength, that the Avars received to this is well known: “Was that person born in the world and warmed by the rays of the sun who would subdue our strength? Not others of ours, but we are accustomed to possessing someone else's. And we are sure of this as long as there is war and swords in the world.

The Sklavins from the lower Danube continued to retain their independence. They fought both against Byzantium and against the Avars.

With new force, the invasion of the Slavs into the empire resumed in the late 70s - early 80s of the 6th century. In 578, 100,000 Sklavians, having crossed the Danube, devastated Thrace and other Balkan provinces, including Greece proper - Hellas. Emperor Tiberius, who, due to the war with Persia, did not have the opportunity to counteract the Slavic invasions on his own, invited the Avar Khakan, who at that time was in peaceful relations with the empire, to attack the possessions of the Slavs. Bayan, "feeling a secret hostility to the Slavs ... because they did not submit to him," willingly agreed to Tiberius' proposal. According to Menander, the Khakan hoped to find a rich country, "since the Slavs plundered the Roman land, while their land was not ravaged by any other people." A huge Avar army (according to Menander - 60 thousand horsemen) was transferred on Byzantine ships across the Sava, led through the territory of the empire to the east to some place on the Danube and here it was transferred to its left bank, where it began "without delay to burn the villages Slavs, ruin them and devastate the fields.
The cruel devastation carried out by the Avars on the lands of the Slavs, however, did not lead to their submission to the power of the khakan. When in 579 Bayan tried, referring to the upcoming campaign against the Sclavins, to build a bridge across the Sava and capture the strategically important Byzantine city of Sirmium, he put forward the fact that the Sclavins "do not want to pay him the established annual tribute."

The attack of the Avars on the Sclavinians, provoked by the empire, did not save Byzantium from their new invasions. On the contrary, they are becoming even more formidable and are now entering their last, final stage - the mass settlement of the Slavs on its territory. In 581, the Slavs make a successful campaign in the Byzantine lands, after which they no longer return beyond the Danube, but settle within the empire. An exceptionally valuable description of this invasion of the Slavs is given by John of Ephesus, a direct witness to the events he depicts. “In the third year after the death of Tsar Justin and the accession of the conqueror Tiberius,” he says, “the accursed people of the Sklavins attacked. They swiftly passed through all of Hellas, the regions of Thessaloniki [Thessaly?] and all of Thrace, and conquered many cities and fortresses. They devastated and burned them, took captives and became masters of the earth. They settled on it as masters, as on their own, without fear. For four years and until now, due to the fact that the king is busy with the Persian war and sent all his troops to the East, because of this they spread over the earth, settled on it and expanded on it now, as long as God allows them. They cause devastation and fires and capture captives, so that at the very outer wall they captured all the royal herds, many thousands (heads) and various other (prey). And so to this day, that is, until 895, they remain, live and calmly stay in the countries of the Romans - people who did not dare (before) to appear from dense forests and (places) protected by trees and did not know what weapons, except for two or three longidia, i.e., darts.

In 584, the Slavs attack Thessalonica. And although this attack, like the subsequent attempts of the Slavs to capture the city, ended in failure, the fact that the Slavic detachment of 5 thousand people, consisting of "experienced in military affairs" people and including "the entire chosen color of the Slavic tribes", decided for such an enterprise, in itself is very indicative. The Slavs "would not have attacked such a city if they had not felt their superiority in strength and courage over all those who had ever fought with them," the Miracles of St. Demetrius" - a remarkable hagiographic work of this era, dedicated to the description of the "miracles" that, during the siege of the city by the Slavs, his patron, Demetrius, allegedly performed, and containing important historical data about the Slavs.

The vicissitudes of the Slavic-Avar-Visayatzhian struggle of this time were very complex. As a rule, the Avars acted in alliance with the Pannonian Slavs. Sometimes the latter acted independently, but with the sanction of the khakan. Having failed to achieve the subordination of the Lower Danubian Slavs, the Avar Khakan nevertheless, on occasion, claimed that Byzantium would recognize their lands for him. So it was, for example, in 594, after the emperor's campaign against the Slavs: the khakan demanded his share of the booty, claiming that the Byzantine army had invaded "his land." However, not only Byzantium considered these Slavic lands as independent, but even Bayan's close associates considered his claims to them "unfair". Bayan himself, if it was beneficial for him, in his relations with Byzantium also proceeded from the fact that the sklavins on the lower Danube were independent of him: when in 585 the sklavins, at the instigation of the khakan, invaded Thrace, breaking even through the Long Walls, the peace between the Avars and Byzantium was not officially violated, and the khakan received a stipulated tribute from the empire, although his intrigues were known to the court of Constantinople.

A new invasion of the Avars and Slavs into the borders of Byzantium followed at the end of 585-586, after the emperor Mauritius rejected the demand of the khakan to increase the tribute paid to him by the empire. During this largest Avaro-Slavic attack (in the autumn of 586), another attempt was made to take Thessalonica. A huge Slavic army, having captured the surrounding fortifications, began to lay siege to the city. A detailed description of this siege in the Miracles of St. Demetrius ”shows how far the military equipment of the Slavs had gone by this time: they used siege engines, battering rams, stone-throwing weapons - everything that the then art of siege of cities knew.

In 587-588, as evidenced by sources, in particular the anonymous Monemvasian Chronicle, probably compiled in the 9th century, the Slavs took possession of Thessaly, Epirus, Attica, Euboea and settled in the Peloponnese, where over the next two hundred years live completely independently, not subject to the Byzantine emperor.

The successful attack of the Slavs on Byzantium in the late 70s - 80s of the VI century. was to a certain extent relieved by the fact that until 591 she waged a difficult twenty-year war with Persia. But even after the conclusion of peace, when the Byzantine army was transferred from the East to Europe, the stubborn attempts of Mauritius to resist further Slavic invasions (the emperor even takes command personally at first - a precedent that has not taken place since the time of Theodosius I) did not give any significant results.

Mauritius decided to transfer the fight against the Slavs directly to the Slavic lands on the left bank of the Danube. In the spring of 594, he ordered his commander Priscus to head for the border in order to prevent the Slavs from crossing it. In Lower Moesia, Priscus attacked the Slavic leader Ardagast, and then devastated the lands under his rule. Moving on, the Byzantine army invaded the possessions of the Slavic leader Musokia; thanks to the betrayal of the Gepid who had defected from the Slavs, Priscus managed to capture Musokia and plunder his country. Wishing to consolidate the successes achieved, Mauritius ordered that Priscus spend the winter on the left bank of the Danube. But the Byzantine soldiers, who had recently won victories over the Slavs, rebelled, declaring that "the countless crowds of barbarians are invincible."

The next year, Mauritius appointed his brother Peter as commander-in-chief in place of Priscus. However, the new campaign brought even less results. While Mauritius was making every effort to endure the war for the Danube, the Slavs continued their attacks on the imperial lands: in the region of Markianopolis, the advance detachment of Peter's army encountered 600 Slavs, "carrying a large booty captured from the Romans." By order of Mauritius, Peter had to stop his campaign in the Slavic lands and remain in Thrace: it became known that "large crowds of Slavs were preparing an attack on Byzantium." Peter stepped out without having had time to receive this order, and, faced with the Slavic leader Piragast, defeated him. When Peter returned to the camp, the Slavs attacked him and put the Byzantine army to flight.

In 602, during the renewed hostilities between Byzantium and the Avars, Mauritius, seeking to secure the empire from the invasion of the Slavs, again orders Peter to move into the Slavic lands. In turn, the khakan orders his military leader Apsihu "to exterminate the tribe of Antes, who were allies of the Romans." Having received this order, part of the khakan's army (in all likelihood, the Slavs who did not want to fight against their fellow tribesmen) went over to the side of the emperor. But the campaign against the Antes, nevertheless, obviously, took place and led to the defeat of this Slavic tribe. From now on, the Antes disappear forever from the pages of Byzantine sources.

With the onset of autumn, Mauritius demanded from Peter that he spend the winter in the lands of the Slavs on the left bank of the Danube. And again, as in 594, the Byzantine soldiers, realizing the futility of fighting "the countless multitude of barbarians who, like waves, flooded the whole country on the other side of Istra," revolted. Moving towards Constantinople and taking possession of it, they overthrew the throne of Mauritius and proclaimed emperor the centurion Phocas, half a barbarian in origin.

Such was the inglorious result of Byzantium's attempt to carry out an active struggle against the Slavs. The Byzantine army, which had just victoriously ended the war with Persia, the strongest power of that time, was powerless to close the Danube border of the empire for Slavic invasions. Even winning victories, the soldiers did not feel like winners. These were not battles with a properly organized army, which were usually fought by Byzantine soldiers. To replace the broken Slavic detachments, new ones immediately appeared. In the Slavic land beyond the Danube, every inhabitant was a warrior, an enemy of the empire. On its territory, the Byzantine army, by virtue of the very system of its organization, also could not always count on the support of the local population. Since military operations against the Slavs were usually carried out in the warm season, the army disbanded for the winter, and the soldiers themselves had to take care of their food. “With the onset of late autumn, the strategist disbanded his camp and returned to Byzantium,” says Theophylact Simokatta about the campaign of 594. “The Romans, not engaged in military service, scattered around Thrace, getting food for themselves in the villages.”

Byzantium was well aware of the difficulties of the struggle against the Slavs, the need to use special tactics in the war with them. A special section of the "Strategikon" consists of advice on how best to carry out short-term raids on their villages, with what caution one should enter their lands; Pseudo-Mauritius recommends plundering Slavic villages and taking food supplies out of them, spreading false rumors, bribing princes and turning them against each other. “Since they (Slavs. - Ed.) have many princes (ρηγων)," he writes, "and they disagree with each other, it is advantageous to win some of them over to their side, either through promises or rich gifts, especially those who are in our neighborhood." However, as the consciousness of their ethnic integrity and unity of goals grows among the Slavs, as they further unite, this policy brings less and less success. Justinian, as already noted, managed to split the Antes from the joint struggle of the Slavs against the empire. Having lost the support of their fellow tribesmen, the Antes, whose tribes, according to Procopius, were "countless", were first subjected to devastating raids, and then to defeat by the Avars. But already at that time, to which the work of Pseudo-Mauritius directly refers, it can be seen that the leaders of individual Slavic tribes, despite the danger, go to the rescue of each other. When in 594 the Byzantine army defeated Ardagast, Musoky without delay allocated a whole flotilla of one-tree boats and rowers for the crossing of his people. And, although the sources do not directly mention this, it was the Slavic warriors who, apparently, refused to participate in the campaign of the Avar Khakan against the Ants in 602.

The civil war that broke out in the Byzantine Empire after the overthrow of the emperor Mauritius, and the newly begun war with Persia, allowed the Slavs to lead the story in the first quarter of the 7th century. onset of the greatest magnitude. The scope of their invasions is greatly expanded. They acquire a fleet of one-tree boats and organize sea expeditions. George Pisida reports on the Slavic robberies in the Aegean in the early years of the 7th century, and the anonymous author of The Miracles of St. Demetrius" tells that the Slavs "subjected to devastation from the sea all of Thessaly, the islands adjacent to it, Hellas. Cyclades, all of Achaia and Epirus, most of Illyricum and part of Asia. Feeling their strength at sea, the Slavs again made an attempt in 616 to take Thessalonica, surrounding it from land and from the sea. The siege of Thessalonica is carried out this time by the tribes that have already firmly settled the territory of Macedonia and the Byzantine regions adjacent to it: the author of the “Miracles of St. Demetrius" notes that the Slavs approached the city with their families and "wanted to settle them there after the capture of the city."
During the siege, as in other maritime enterprises of this period, a large alliance of Slavic tribes opposes the empire, including Draguvites, Sagudats, Veleyezites, Vayunits, Verzits and others; at the head of the Slavs besieging Thessalonica is their common leader - Hatzon.

After the death of Hatzon, the Slavs were forced to lift the siege of Thessalonica. But two years later, having enlisted the support of the Avar Khakan, the Macedonian Slavs, together with the army brought by the Khakan (a significant part of which were Slavs who were under his supreme authority), again subjected the city to a siege, which lasted for a whole month.

The overall picture that had been created in the empire by that time as a result of the Slavic invasions and the development of Byzantine lands by them, emerges quite clearly from the motivation with which the Slavs turned to the Avar Khakan, asking him to help them c. mastering Thessalonica: “It should not be,” said the Slavic ambassadors, “that when all cities and regions are devastated, this city alone remains intact and accepts fugitives from the Danube, Pannonia, Dacia, Dardania and other regions and cities.”

The plight of Byzantium was also well known in the West: Pope Gregory I wrote in 600 that he was greatly disturbed by the Slavs threatening the Greeks; he was especially disturbed by the fact that they had already begun to approach Italy through Istria. Bishop Isidore of Seville in his chronicle notes that "in the fifth year of the reign of Emperor Heraclius, the Slavs took Greece from the Romans." According to the Jacobite writer of the 7th century. Thomas the Presbyter, in 623 the Slavs attacked Crete and other islands; Paul the Deacon speaks of the attacks of the Slavs in 642 on South Italy.

Finally, in 626, the Avars and Slavs allied with the Persians and undertook the siege of Constantinople. The city was besieged by land and sea. To storm the walls of the Byzantine capital, many siege weapons were drawn up. Countless Slavic one-tree boats that arrived from the Danube entered the Golden Horn Bay. However, the outcome of this siege determined the superiority of Byzantium at sea. After the death of the Slavic fleet, the Avaro-Slavic army was defeated on land and was forced to retreat from Constantinople.

The sieges of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, attacks on the coastal Byzantine cities and islands were carried out primarily by the Slavs, who were firmly settled in the territory of the empire. Most densely they settled in Macedonia and Thrace. To the west of Thessaloniki (to the city of Verroi), as well as along the Vardaru River and in the Rhodopes, the Draguvites settled. To the west of Thessaloniki, as well as in Chalkidike and in Thrace, the Sagudates settled. The Vaunites settled along the upper reaches of the Bystrica. To the northeast of Thessaloniki, along the river Mesta, lived the Smolensk people. On the river Strymon (Struma), along its lower and middle reaches, they extended, reaching in the west to the lake. Langazy, settlements of Strymonians (Strumians); on the lands adjacent to Thessalonica from the east, in Halkidiki, the Rhynchins settled. In the Ohrid region, sources indicate the place of residence of the Verzites. In Thessaly, on the coast around Thebes and Dimitrias, the Veleyezites (Velsites) settled. In the Peloponnese, the slopes of Taygetos were occupied by the Milingi and the Ezerites. Seven Slavic tribes, unknown by name, settled on the territory of Moesia. Slavic tribes unknown by name also settled, as narrative and toponymic data show, in other areas of Greece and the Peloponnese. Numerous Slavic settlers appeared in the 7th century. in Asia Minor, especially in Bithynia.

The very fact of the massive settlement by the Slavs at the end of the 6th and in the 7th centuries of Macedonia and Thrace, as well as other, more distant regions of the Byzantine Empire - Thessaly, Epirus, Peloponnese, does not currently raise any serious objections. Numerous and indisputable evidence of written sources, as well as toponymic and archaeological data, leave no doubt here. Linguistic studies show that even in the very south of the Balkan Peninsula - in the Peloponnese - there were several hundred names of localities of Slavic origin. The author of a large work on the Byzantine Peloponnese A. Bon notes that toponymic data indicate the predominance of the Slavic population in certain parts of the Peloponnese. P. Lemerle, who wrote the fundamental work on Eastern Macedonia, states that “Macedonia in the 7th-8th centuries. was more Slavic than Greek. Rejecting the attempt by D. Georgakas to study the word σχλαβος again and interpret εσδλαβωular in the famous phrase of Constantine Bagryanorodny: εσδλαβular δε πασα ηωρχαι γονε βαρβαρβαρος (“The whole country was weakened and became barbarly”) as a barbarian, P. Lemerle wittily asks who, if not the Slavs, were, in this case, the masters of these slaves? The term σχλαβος, as F. Delger finally established, could at that time only be an ethnikon.

The settlement of free community Slavs on the territory of Byzantium strengthened local rural communities, increased the weight of small free property, and accelerated the eradication of slave-owning forms of exploitation. Already during their invasions, by plundering and destroying Byzantine cities - the centers of the slave economy and the main stronghold of the slave system of the Byzantine state - smashing the palaces and estates of the nobility, exterminating and taking away many of its representatives with their families, the Slavs contributed to the transition of the forced population of the empire - slaves and columns - to the position of free peasants and artisans. With the end of the invasions and the accompanying destruction of cities, villages, fields, new settlers in many ways contribute to increasing the viability of Byzantium, significantly increasing the productive agricultural stratum of the population of the Byzantine Empire. The Slavs - the original farmers - continue to cultivate the land in the imperial regions inhabited by them: in the "Miracles of St. Demetrius" tells that Thessalonica during the blockade of her in 675 and 676. the Macedonian Slavs bought food from the Veleyezites, and the Draguvites supplied the products of the litany to the former captives of the Avar Khakan who moved from Pannonia to Macedonia (between 680-685)70.

The Slavic agricultural population fills the ranks of the bulk of the Byzantine taxpayers, provides combat-ready personnel for the Byzantine army. In Byzantine sources there are very definite indications that the main concern of the empire in relation to the Slavs was to ensure the proper flow of taxes and the fulfillment of military service. It is also known that from the Slavs whom Justinian II resettled from Macedonia to Asia Minor, he formed a whole army of 30 thousand people.

However, Byzantium did not manage to turn the new settlers into obedient subjects far from immediately and not everywhere. Beginning in the middle of the 7th century, the Byzantine government waged a long struggle against them, trying to achieve recognition of its supreme power - the payment of taxes and the supply of military units. Especially a lot of efforts of the empire had to be used to conquer the Slavic population of Macedonia and the Peloponnese, where entire regions were formed, completely populated by the Slavs and directly called in the sources "Sclavinia". In the Peloponnese, such a "Sclavinia" arose in the region of Monemvasia, in Macedonia - in the region of Thessalonica. In 658, Emperor Constant II was forced to make a campaign in Macedonian "Sclavinia", as a result of which some of the Slavs who lived there were subjugated.

However, just two decades after the campaign of Constant II, the Macedonian Slavs again oppose the empire. Author of The Miracles of St. Demetrius" says that the Slavs who settled near Thessaloniki kept peace only for appearances, and the leader of the Rinchins, Pervud, had evil intentions against the city. Having received a message about this, the emperor ordered the capture of Perwood. The leader of the Rinchins, who was at that time in Thessalonica, was arrested and taken to Constantinople. Upon learning of Perwood's fate, the Rinchins and Strimonians demanded his release. The emperor, busy with the war with the Arabs, and, apparently, fearing the intervention of the Slavs, at the same time did not dare to immediately release Perwood. He made a promise to return the Rinkhin leader at the end of the war. However, Perwood, not trusting the Greeks, attempted to escape. The attempt was unsuccessful, Purwood was caught and executed. Then the Rinchins, Strimonians and Sagudats opposed the empire with united forces. For two years (675-676) they subjected Thessalonica to a blockade: the Strimonians acted in the areas adjacent to the city from the east and north, and the Rinchins and Sagudats - from the west and in the seaside. In 677, the Slavs besieged Thessalonica, and for some unknown reason, the Strimonians refused to participate in this enterprise, while the Draguvites, on the contrary, joined the besiegers. Together with the Sagudati, they approached Thessalonica from the land, and the Rhynchins from the sea. Having lost many of their leaders during the siege, the Slavs were forced to retreat. However, they continued to attack the Byzantine villages, and in the autumn of the same year 677 they again besieged Thessalonica, but again failed. Three years later, the Rinchins, this time again in alliance with the Strimonians, embark on a sea robbery along the Hellespont and Propontis. They organize attacks on Byzantine ships, following with food to Constantinople, raid the islands, taking with them booty and captives. The emperor was finally forced to send an army against them, directing the main blow against the Strymonians. The latter, having occupied gorges and fortified places, called for help from other Slavic leaders. The further course of the war is not entirely clear; apparently, after the battle that took place between the Byzantine army and the Macedonian Slavs, an agreement was reached and peaceful relations were established.
But soon the Macedonian Slavs rebelled again. In 687-688. Emperor Justinian II was faced with the need to again make a trip to the Macedonian "Sclavinia" in order to bring the Slavs who lived there to the subjugation of Byzantium.

Even less successful were the efforts of the empire to retain the northern Balkan provinces inhabited by Slavs. Moesia was the first to fall away from Byzantium, where an alliance of "seven Slavic tribes" was formed - a permanent tribal association. The Proto-Bulgarians of Asparuh, who appeared in Moesia, subjugated the Slavic tribes that were part of this union, and later they formed the core of the Bulgarian state formed in 681.

The Slavic tribes, which the Byzantine government managed to keep under its rule, continued the struggle for their independence for a long time. In the following centuries, the Byzantine Empire had to make a lot of efforts in order to turn the Slavs settled within its borders into their subjects.