East Romans, Slavs, and Bulgars

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Dennis P. Hupchick

Published:

2002

Publisher:

Palgrave Macmillan US

During the late third and fourth centuries the Eastern Roman Empire managed to weather the storm of successive incursions by peoples from the north. Survival came at a cost. When the Germanic Visigoths successfully sought refuge from the Huns within the Eastern Empire's borders in 376, the situation was unprecedented. Emperor Valens (364–78) bungled the job of peacefully integrating them and a war resulted, in which the mounted Goths crushed the Roman infantry and killed Valens in the Battle ofAdrianople (378). Learning their lesson, subsequent eastern emperors used such assimilation policies as administrative and monetary bribery and inter-ethnic marriages to pacify the leaders of the various invading peoples. After initially ravaging wide areas of the empire's Balkan provinces, the Visigoth Alaric (395–410), the Hun leader Attila (445–53), and the Ostrogoth ruler Theodoric (471–526) all were successfully bribed by money or titles to move their activities into the Western Roman Empire. When the Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars appeared on the borders of the Balkan provinces in the sixth and seventh centuries, the Eastern Empire's leaders and Balkan subjects had little inkling that dealing with them would prove any different or that the newcomers would transform the demographic and political landscape of the Balkans.KeywordsFourth CenturySeventh CenturyChristian ChurchRoman EmperorMajor RoadwayThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experiment…

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