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Why Were the Sclavenes Never Roman Allies?

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Why Were the Sclavenes Never Roman Allies? WHY WERE THE SCLAVENES NEVER ROMAN ALLIES? A Study of Late Antique Roman Frontier Policy and a Barbarian Society By Amy Wood BA/LLB (Hons.) Macquarie University A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF ANCIENT HISTORY, FACULTY OF ARTS, MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY OCTOBER 2015 Except where acknowledged in the customary manner, the material presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge, original and has not been submitted in whole or part for a higher degree at any university or institution. Amy Wood For my parents and grandparents Contents Acknowledgements iii List of Figures & Maps v Abbreviations vii Summary ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Current State of Research . 3 1.2 The Conceptual and Methodological Framework . 10 1.3 The Written Sources . 13 1.3.1 Contemporary Eastern Sources . .16 1.3.1.1 Procopius of Caesarea . .16 1.3.1.2 Jordanes . 18 1.3.1.3 Agathias Scholasticus . 20 1.3.1.4 John Malalas . .21 1.3.1.5 Menander the Guardsman . .22 1.3.1.6 The Strategikon of Maurice . .23 1.3.1.7 Theophylact Simocatta . .23 1.3.1.8 The Miracles of Saint Demetrius . 24 1.3.2 Contemporary Western Sources . .25 1.3.2.1 Fredegar . 26 1.3.3 Later Sources . 27 1.3.3.1 Paul the Deacon . 27 1.3.3.2 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus . .27 1.4 The Archaeological Evidence . 28 2 Rome and the Historical Context 35 2.1 Rome in Late Antiquity . 35 2.2 Framing Rome and the Barbarians in Late Antiquity: Frontiers, Empire, and Policy . 38 2.2.1 Frontiers and Empire . 38 ~ i ~ 2.2.2 Roman Frontier Policy in Late Antiquity . .40 2.2.3 The Effects of Roman Frontier Policy on Late Antique Barbarian Societies . 48 2.3 Framing Rome and the Sclavenes in Late Antiquity: The Narrative . .55 3 The Sclavenes 61 3.1 Sclavene Society in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries . .61 3.2 The Sclavenes and Rome . .77 3.3 The Sclavenes and the First Avar Khaganate . .88 4 Why were the Sclavenes Never Roman Allies? 93 4.1 Historical Circumstances . .93 4.2 An Alternative Society . 97 4.3 Alternative Orbits . 101 5 Conclusion 105 Appendix A – Chronology of Sclavene Activity in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries and other important events 109 Appendix B – The Written Sources: Extracts 115 B.1 The Eastern Sources. .115 B.1.1 Procopius of Caesarea, Wars and Secret History. .115 B.1.2 Jordanes, Getica. .119 B.1.3 Agathias, Histories. 122 B.1.4 Menander the Guardsman, fragments. 123 B.1.5 The Strategikon. .126 B.1.6 Theophylact Simocatta, History. 132 B.1.7 The Miracles of Saint Demetrius. 135 B.2 The Western Sources . 143 B.2.1 Fredegar, Chronicle. 143 B.2.2. Gregory the Great, Letters. 146 B.2.3 Paul the Deacon, History of the Langobards. .147 References 149 ~ ii ~ Acknowledgements The past two years have been a learning experience for me in more ways than one, both as a historian and as a person. An abandoned Honours thesis lies eight years in my past and a lot of confidence in my own abilities was abandoned with it. Trying again and learning to trust myself was certainly daunting. There were some missteps along the way, but I am very pleased to now present this thesis. I’d like to thank my wonderful supervisor, Dr. Danijel Dzino. I know I wasn’t always the easiest student to supervise and my time management could have been better, but you always had time for me and chased me up when I wasn’t where I should have been. I can’t say how appreciative of that I am. Your wealth of knowledge is astounding and was so very helpful in nudging me in the right direction and in refining my arguments. I need to thank you for leading me into an area of Late Antique history which had piqued my interest years earlier as an undergraduate but which I never had an opportunity to explore further until now. The Macquarie Ancient History Department is very lucky to have you on staff to expand the horizons of Ancient History students to Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Thank you also for the fabulous opportunity to participate in the excavation at Bribirska Glavica in Croatia earlier this year. Also in the Ancient History Department, I’d like to thank the Masters of Research Convenors Assoc. Prof. Andrew Gillett and Dr. Malcolm Choat. Andrew, your brutal honestly about what it took to pursue this path was much appreciated, as was your preliminary advice on selecting an appropriate topic. Thank you for putting up with my usual shenanigans. Malcolm, you prepared our cohort so well over the last two years and it was always so enjoyable. My thanks to you (and Rachel!) for that. To my friends who were so understanding when I couldn’t follow through on plans and promises because I was studying, thank you all. Your cheerful middle of the night emails when I was sleep-deprived and stressed got me through some long hours. Lastly, a huge thank you to my family who bore the brunt of my stress and occasional tantrums. I don’t know what I’d do without my brothers and sisters, whose love and emotional support is invaluable to me. My debt of ~ iii ~ gratitude to my parents cannot not adequately be expressed. They were always, always willing to do whatever it took to help me get to the end successfully, no matter the inconvenience to them. They are truly the best people I know. I left the legal profession in mid-2012 in order to chase a dream and this thesis is a big step towards achieving that dream. At times it was challenging, at others times overwhelming, and a lot of the time it was a huge amount of fun – Ancient History never ceases to engender in me a sense of wonder and the desire to learn more. The completion of this thesis is something I am very proud of regardless of what happens next, and I again thank everyone who helped me get there in the end. ~ iv ~ List of Figures & Maps Page 1 Map of material cultures of the first half of the sixth century 32 2 Map of material cultures of the second half of the sixth century 33 3 Long Walls of Constantinople and the Istranca Daglar range 41 4 Map of the Balkans showing key locations in relation to Justinian’s fortification of the region 42 5 Late Roman chip-carving 54 6 Gold bracteate, northern Germanic 54 7 Excavated sunken house with stone oven 64 8 Reconstructed sunken house line-drawing 64 9 Prague-Korčhak and Peňkovka pottery 65 10 Suceava-Şipot pottery 65 11 Fingered Slavic Bow Fibula 72 12 Slavic Bow Fibula 72 13 Examples of clay pans found on sixth and seventh century sites 73 ~ v ~ ~ vi ~ Abbreviations Caes. Sextus Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, New York. DAI De Administrando Imperio, Washington. Hist.Lang. Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum or History of the Langobards, Philadelphia. ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, Berlin. PL Patrologia Latina, Paris. SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae, London & Cambridge. A note on the sources: for the sake of consistency, the ancient sources will be named or abbreviated based on the edition or translation used as per the bibliography (English or ancient language), or as they are otherwise commonly known e.g. Jordanes’ Getica, Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res Gestae. The book numbering for all of Procopius’ works will follow the Loeb editions as per the bibliography. ~ vii ~ ~ viii ~ Summary This thesis addresses evidence which suggests that those barbarians identified as Sclavenes in the sources never became fully integrated into the Roman system of alliances or its cultural orbit in the sixth and seventh centuries. The written and archaeological evidence available is examined to compare it with previous Roman-barbarian relationships to draw reasonable conclusions about the Sclavene relationship with the Eastern Roman Empire and to some extent, the nature of Sclavene society before it transformed into the recognisable Slavic polities of the Early Middle Ages. The question is conceptualised within the overall framework of the Late Antique Roman frontiers along the Danube and its hinterland on either side (the Balkans and Pontic-Danubian region). This is the point at which the Sclavenes become visible in the written sources and where the cause and effect of Roman barbarian policy can be seen over time and across various (mainly Germanic) barbarian groups in both the written and archaeological material. It will be argued that the Sclavenes were never Roman allies due to a confluence of historical circumstances, the nature of Sclavene society itself, and the availability and operation of alternative imperial orbits in Central Eastern Europe, namely the First Avar Khaganate. ~ ix ~ ~ x ~ Chapter 1 Introduction In the early sixth century A.D., a completely unknown group of barbarians arrived on Rome’s Lower Danubian frontier.1 Throughout the course of the following two centuries, they caused considerable damage to the Eastern Roman Empire and eventually succeeded in settling much of the Balkans and Central Eastern Europe. There were at least two different groups mentioned in the sources, the Sclavenes and Antes, who were often assumed by those sources to be related to each other in terms of origin, language and culture. Regardless of whether or not this was the case, their respective trajectories vis-à-vis the Eastern Roman Empire are illustrative of the central concern of this thesis – that on the basis of the available evidence, those barbarians identified as Sclavenes never became fully integrated into the Roman system of alliances or its cultural orbit in the sixth and seventh centuries.
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