The Balkans | Page 5

of the
civilizations to which they have been exposed.
Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula very early; Macedonia and Dalmatia
were the parts where it was first established, and it took some time to penetrate into the
interior. During the reign of Diocletian numerous martyrs suffered for the faith in the
Danubian provinces, but with the accession of Constantine the Great persecution came to
an end. As soon, however, as the Christians were left alone, they started persecuting each
other, and during the fourth century the Arian controversy re-echoed throughout the
peninsula.
In the fifth century the Huns moved from the shores of the Black Sea to the plains of the
Danube and the Theiss; they devastated the Balkan peninsula, in spite of the tribute
which they had levied on Constantinople in return for their promise of peace. After the
death of Attila, in 453, they again retreated to Asia, and during the second half of the
century the Goths were once more supreme in the peninsula. Theodoric occupied
Singidunum (Belgrade) in 471 and, after plundering Macedonia and Greece, settled in
Novae (the modern Svishtov), on the lower Danube, in 483, where he remained till he
transferred the sphere of his activities to Italy ten years later. Towards the end of the fifth
century Huns of various kinds returned to the lower Danube and devastated the peninsula
several times, penetrating as far as Epirus and Thessaly.

3
_The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula_, A.D. 500-650
The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security and prosperity
during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into barbarism as a result of these
endless invasions; the walled towns, such as Salonika and Constantinople, were the only
safe places, and the country became waste and desolate. The process continued unabated
throughout the three following centuries, and one is driven to one of two conclusions,
either that these lands must have possessed very extraordinary powers of recuperation to
make it worth while for invaders to pillage them so frequently, or, what is more probable,
there can have been after some time little left to plunder, and consequently the Byzantine
historians' accounts of enormous drives of prisoners and booty are much exaggerated. It
is impossible to count the number of times the tide of invasion and devastation swept
southwards over the unfortunate peninsula. The emperors and their generals did what
they could by means of defensive works on the frontiers, of punitive expeditions, and of
trying to set the various hordes of barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they
had at the same time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain, it is not
surprising that they were not more successful. The growing riches of Constantinople and
Salonika had an irresistible attraction for the wild men from the east and north, and

unfortunately the Greek citizens were more inclined to spend their energy in theological
disputes and their leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other to the
defence of their country. It was only by dint of paying them huge sums of money that the
invaders were kept away from the coast. The departure of the Huns and the Goths had
made the way for fresh series of unwelcome visitors. In the sixth century the Slavs appear
for the first time. From their original homes which were immediately north of the
Carpathians, in Galicia and Poland, but may also have included parts of the modern
Hungary, they moved southwards and south-eastwards. They were presumably in Dacia,
north of the Danube, in the previous century, but they are first mentioned as having
crossed that river during the reign of the Emperor Justin I (518-27). They were a
loosely-knit congeries of tribes without any single leader or central authority; some say
they merely possessed the instinct of anarchy, others that they were permeated with the
ideals of democracy. What is certain is that amongst them neither leadership nor initiative
was developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and organisation. The Eastern Slavs,
the ancestors of the Russians, were only welded into anything approaching unity by the
comparatively much smaller number of Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came
and took charge of their affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of
themselves able to form a united community, conscious of its aim and capable of
persevering in its attainment.
The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company of the Avars, a
terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns, were of Asiatic (Turkish or
Mongol) origin. These invasions became more frequent during the reign of the Emperor
Justinian I (527-65), and culminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all the invaders