The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

In the islands the enemies with whom the Empire had to strive were, first the Saracens, and then the Latins or Franks, the nations of Western Europe. On the mainland the part of the Saracen was taken by the Slave. During the four hundred years between the division of the Empires and the Frank conquest of the East, the geographical history of the Eastern Empire has mainly to deal with the shiftings of its frontier towards the Slavonic powers. ♦Three Slavonic groups.♦ These fall into three main groups. ♦Servia and Croatia.♦ First, in the north-western corner of the Empire, are the Croatian and Servian settlements, whose history is closely connected with that of the kingdom of Hungary and the commonwealth of Venice. ♦Macedonia and Greece.♦ Secondly, there are the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. ♦Bulgaria.♦ Thirdly, the great Bulgarian kingdom comes between the two. These two last ranges gradually merge into one; the first remains distinct throughout. Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, will be best treated of in another section, remembering that, amidst all fluctuations, the claims of the Empire over them were never denied or forgotten, and were from time to time enforced. It was towards the Bulgarian kingdom that the greatest fluctuations of the Imperial frontier took place.

♦The Bulgarian kingdom.♦

The original Finnish Bulgarians were the vanguard of Turanian invasion in the lands with which we have to do. Earlier, it would seem, in their coming than the Avars, they were slower to settle down into actual occupation of European territory. But when they did settle, it was not on the outskirts of the Empire, but in one of its acknowledged provinces. ♦Settlement south of the Danube, 679.♦ Late in the seventh century, the first Bulgarian kingdom was established between Danube and Hæmus. It must be remembered that another migration in quite another direction founded another Bulgarian power on the Volga and the Kama. ♦White Bulgaria.♦ This settlement, Great or White Bulgaria, remained Turanian and became Mahometan; Black Bulgaria on the Danube became Christian and Slavonic. ♦Use of the Bulgarian name.♦ The modern Bulgarians bear the Bulgarian name only in the way in which the Romanized Celts of Gaul bear the name of their Frankish masters from Germany, in which the Slaves of Kief and Moscow bear the name of their Russian masters from Scandinavia. In all three cases, the power formed by the union of conquerors and conquered has taken the name of the conquerors and has kept the speech of the conquered. But though the Bulgarian power became essentially Slavonic, it took quite another character from the less fully organized Slavonic settlements to the west and south of it. ♦The Empire and the Macedonian Slaves.♦ Towards the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, it cannot be said that the Empire had any definite frontier. Settled within the Empire, they were its tributaries or its enemies, according to the strength of the Empire at any particular moment. Up to the coming of the Bulgarians, we might, from different points of view, place the Imperial border either at the Danube or at no great distance from the Ægæan. ♦The Empire and the Bulgarian kingdom.♦ But from the Bulgarian conquest onwards, there was on the Bulgarian side a real frontier, a frontier which often shifted, but which was often fixed by treaty, and which, wherever it was fixed, marked off lands which were, for the time, wholly lost to the Empire. ♦Loss of the Danubian frontier.♦ With the first Bulgarian settlement, the Imperial frontier definitely withdrew for three hundred years from the lower Danube to the line of Hæmus or Balkan. ♦Bulgarians south of Hæmus.♦ As the Bulgarian power pushed to the south and west the two fields of warfare, against the Bulgarians to the north and against the half-independent Slaves to the west, gradually melted into one. But as long as the Isaurian Emperors reigned, the two fields were kept distinct. ♦Extent of Bulgaria in the eighth century.♦ They kept the Balkan range against the Bulgarians, whose kingdom, stretching to the north-west over lands which are now Servian, had not, at the end of the eighth century, passed the mountain barrier of the Empire.

♦Recovery of the Slavonic settlements in Macedonia and Greece.♦

Meanwhile, as a wholly distinct work, the Imperial power was restored over the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. In the middle of the eighth, century the inland parts of Greece were chiefly occupied by Slavonic immigrants, while the coast and the cities remained Greek. ♦775-784.
807.♦ Before the end of the century, the Slaves of Macedonia were reduced to tribute, and early in the ninth, those of Greece wholly failed to recover their independence. ♦Recovery of Greece from the Slaves.
Slaves on Taÿgetos.♦ The land was gradually settled afresh by Greek colonists, and by the middle of the tenth, only two Slavonic tribes, Melings and Ezerites (Melinci and Jezerci), remained, distinct, though tributary, on the range of Taÿgetos or Pentedaktylos. From this time to the Frankish conquest, Greece, as a whole, was held by the Empire. But, as a recovered land, it was one of those parts of the Empire in which a tendency to separate began to show itself. In the course of these changes, the name Hellênes, as a national name, quite died out. ♦Hellênes of Maina.♦ It had long meant pagan, and it was confined to the people of Maina, who remained pagan till near the end of the ninth century. The Greeks now knew no name but that of Romans. The local, perhaps contemptuous, name of the inhabitants of Hellas was Helladikoi.

Thus, at the division of the Empires, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece had been more or less thoroughly recovered by the Eastern Empire, while the lands between Hæmus and Danube were wholly lost. ♦Romania.♦ The Imperial dominion from the Hadriatic to the Euxine formed, together with the Asiatic provinces, Romania, the land of the Romans of the East. ♦Dalmatia, Servia, and Croatia.♦ The Emperors also kept the cities on the Dalmatian coast, and the precarious allegiance of the Servian and Croatian principalities. These lands were bound to the Empire by a common dread of the encroaching Bulgarian. ♦Greatness of the first Bulgarian kingdom.♦ The ninth century and the early years of the tenth was a great time of Bulgarian advance. ♦Attempt on Pannonia, 818-829.♦ The Bulgarians seem to have failed in establishing any lasting dominion to the north-west in Pannonia;[26] at the expense of the Empire they were more successful. ♦Advance against the Empire.♦ At the end of the eighth century Anchialos and Sardica—afterwards called Triaditza and Sofia—were border cities of the Empire. The conquest of Sardica early in the ninth marks a stage of Bulgarian advance. At the end of the century, after the conversion of the nation to Christianity, comes the great era of the first Bulgarian kingdom, the kingdom of Peristhlava. ♦Conquests of Simeon, 923-934.♦ The Tzar Simeon established the Bulgarian supremacy over Servia, and carried his conquests deep into the lands of the Empire. In Macedonia and Epeiros the Empire kept only the sea-coast, Ægæan and Hadriatic; Sardica, Philippopolis, Ochrida, were all cities of the Bulgarian realm. Hadrianople, a frontier city of the Empire, passed more than once into Bulgarian hands. Nowhere in Europe, save in old Hellas, did the Imperial dominion stretch from sea to sea.

♦Revival of the Imperial power.♦

So stood matters in the middle of the tenth century. Then came that greatest of all revivals of the Imperial power which won back Crete and Cyprus, and which was no less successful on the mainland of Europe and Asia. ♦Conquest of Bulgaria.♦ Bulgaria was conquered and lost and conquered again. But the first time it was conquered, not from the Bulgarian but from the Russian. ♦The Russians and Bulgarians. 968-971.♦ The Russians, long dangerous to Constantinople, now suddenly appear as a land power. Their prince Sviatoslaf overthrew the first Bulgarian kingdom, and Philippopolis became for a moment a Russian outpost. But John Tzimiskês restored the power of the Empire over the whole Bulgarian dominions. The Danube was once more the frontier of the Eastern Rome.

♦The second Bulgarian kingdom.♦

It remained so for more than two hundred years during the lower part of its course. But in the inland regions the Imperial power fell back almost at once, to advance again further than ever. A large part of the conquered land soon revolted, and a second Bulgarian kingdom, Macedonian rather than Mœsian, arose. The kingdom of Ochrida, the kingdom of Samuel, left to the Empire the eastern part of the old Bulgaria between Danube and Hæmus, together with all Thrace and the Macedonian coast. But it took in all the inland region of Macedonia; it stretched down into Thessaly and Epeiros; and, while it nowhere touched the Euxine or the Ægæan, it had a small seaboard on the Hadriatic. Now came the great struggle between Romania and Bulgaria which fills the last years of the tenth century and the opening years of the eleventh. ♦Second conquest of Bulgaria, 1018.♦ At last all Bulgaria, and with it for a while Servia, was restored to the Empire. ♦Croatia.♦ Croatia continued its vassalage, and its princes were presently raised to royal rank by Imperial authority.