chapter 5 Migrations—Real and Imagined: , , and (600–800)

Modern approaches to the history of the early medieval have been shaped by the accounts of the migration of Croats and Serbs given in Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ On the Administration of the Empire. The ac- counts appear in a series of chapters (29 to 36) written in 948 or 949, with the exception of a later interpolation of chapter 30, which was most likely com- posed by another author after Emperor Constantine’s death in 959. The book, which survives in only one manuscript, seems to have never received its final editing, for there are striking differences, as well as some repetitions, between chapters 29, 31 and 32, on one hand, and chapter 30, on the other. The subject of interminable discussions concerning those chapters is that they actually con- tain two different stories of how the Croats migrated to . According to chapter 30, the Croats used to live “beyond Bavaria, where the Belocroats are now.” Led by five brothers (Kloukas, Lobelos, Kosentzis, Mouchlo, and Chrobatos) and two sisters (Touga and Bouga), they came “with their folk to Dalmatia,” defeated and expelled the Avars (or ) who had earlier taken possession of that land.1 Generations of historians have taken the story at face value, and treated it as a “native” version of ethnic history, as- suming that Emperor Constantine’s source of the material in chapter 30 was a Byzantine informant from one of the major cities in Dalmatia, which was under Byzantine control throughout the 9th and 10th centuries.2 Recently, however, it has been noted that if chapter 30 was indeed based on a pre- existing, Croatian origo gentis, then its testimony cannot in any way be treated

1 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 31, p. 143. According to Emperor Constantine, the Belocroats (“that is, white Croats”) of his own time continued to live “against ”, had their own prince, but were subject to “Otto, the great king of Francia, or Saxony,” and established matrimonial alliances with the Magyars (“”). 2 See Hauptmann, “Dolazak Hrvata”; Antoljak, “Hrvati u Karantaniji”; and Kardaras, “The set- tlement of the Croats and Serbs.” For good historiographic surveys, see Švab, “Današnje stanje historiografije”; Ferjančić, “Dolazak khrvata i srba”; Dzino, Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat, pp. 99–117. According to Jarak, “Zapažanja o grobljima”, since no drastic changes in earring typology took place in between the 8th and the 9th centuries, one has to admit that the Croats came to Dalmatia in the , as indicated in On the Administration of the Empire. For a critique of such an archaeological “reading” of Emperor Constantine’s work, see Bilogrivić, “Čiji kontinuitet?”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004395190_006 66 chapter 5 as a realistic description of the historical process, but only as in ideological byproduct.3 Some, however, have rejected the notion that the story is a “native” account, and instead believed that Emperor Constantine got it all from a now lost source of papal origin, which dealt with the conversion of Croats and Serbs to Christianity.4 Others noted that Emperor Constantine’s account is an adaptation of a story found in Herodotus (IV 33.3): “the Croatian migration did not take place, but … Constantine Porphyrogenitus created it relying on the literary models traditionally applied to described the Landnahme of Scythian Barbarians.”5 Such an interpretation is substantiated by the observation that the migration of the Croats, as rendered in chapter 30, is strikingly similar to an almost identical myth concerning the migration of the Bulgars, as reported by Theophanes Confessor and Nicephorus.6 A different story of Croat migration appears in chapter 31. To be sure, they are still described as descendants of the “unbaptized Croats, also called ‘white’,” and as coming from the lands “beyond Turkey [] and next to Francia.” However, the Croats are now said to have arrived in Dalmatia “to claim the pro- tection of the emperor of the Romans .”7 It is by Heraclius’ command that the Croats attacked, defeated and expelled the Avars from Dalmatia, and by his mandate that they settled there in their stead. Furthermore, Emperor Heraclius is said to have brought priests from and baptized the Croats under their prince, Porgas.8 That the story in chapter 31 is meant to lay claims of Roman (i.e., Byzantine) sovereignty over Croatia results from another re- mark, according to which “the prince of Croatia has from the beginning, ever since the reign of Heraclius the emperor, been in servitude and submission to the emperor of the Romans.”9 There is no reason to believe that the role

3 Dzino, “Local knowledge,” p. 99. For a slightly different take, see Gračanin and Škrgulja, “Refashioning historical reality,” p. 33. 4 Živković, “An unknown source”; Živković, “Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ source”; Živković, “Sources de Constantin VII Porphyrogénète,” pp. 31–32 notes that the model of the Latin source was the Conversion of the Bavarians and the Carantanians, with the latter being used as a model for Croats. See also Živković, De conversione, pp. 43–90. 5 Borri, “White Croatia”, p. 231. For Emperor Constantine’s political motivations of making Emperor Heraclius invite the Croats to Dalmatia, see Dzino, “Pričam ti priču”, pp. 159–60. 6 Nicephorus, Short History 22, p. 71; Theophanes Confessor, Chronolographia AM 6171, p. 498. The first to notice the similarity between the stories about the Croat and the Bulgar brothers was Pohl, “Das Awarenreich,” p. 295. 7 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 31, p. 147. 8 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 31, p. 149. In chapter 30 (p. 145), the name of the prince under whose rule the Croats received baptism is Porinos. Pace Milošević, “Tko je Porin,” he is specifically mentioned as prince (archon), not as god (Perun). The point is driven home well by Alimov, “Khorvaty, kul’t Peruna.” 9 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 31, p. 151.