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"Slavic settlements in the Balkans"
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    Posted: 06-Oct-2007 at 02:29
Originally posted by Flipper

Originally posted by Ypnos

Most historians acknowledge that Byzantines considered themselves "Greek citizens of the Roman Empire" (Romioi - Ρωμαίοι).


Ypnos the Romaioi (Ρωμαίοι) were the westerners, the Romans. The Greeks of the eastern empire called themselves Romioi as you pointed out. After the equation Hellen = Pagan, the Helladic area was called Ρωμανία for a period of time.
Don't you mean Roumelia (Ρουμελιά/Ρούμελη/Ρουμ)?
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Posts: 0 		  Quote Ypnos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Oct-2007 at 02:33
Originally posted by Anton

Originally posted by Ypnos

Wrong, sorry. The poet, Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso - 43BC-17AD) clearly shows that the Greeks living in Magna Grecia (today, Southern Italy) since the 8th cent. BC still spoke Greek during Ovid's time ("...since the land of

It's a bit early in respect to the time of arrival of Slavs but it is good that youremind us about Ovid. He also mentioned that when he exiled in Tomis, people around him spoke neither Latin nor Greek but Thracian so he even learned the language and wrote a poem in Thracian. This clearly showswhat was the languages in the north of Balkan. Other languages (whether Greek or Latin) were used as Lingua Franka.
 
I was demonstrating the continuation of the Greek language from the ERE's birth right through to the time of the Slavic descent into the region.
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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Oct-2007 at 08:34
It's a bit early in respect to the time of arrival of Slavs but it is good that youremind us about Ovid. He also mentioned that when he exiled in Tomis, people around him spoke neither Latin nor Greek but Thracian so he even learned the language and wrote a poem in Thracian. This clearly showswhat was the languages in the north of Balkan. Other languages (whether Greek or Latin) were used as Lingua Franka.


Actualy, Ovid says about Getic, not about Thracian language:


Book TV.II:45-79
As commanded, Ive reached the featureless shores of the Euxine Sea this land beneath the frozen pole yet Im not so much tormented by this weather, never free of cold, this soil always hardened by white frost, these barbarian tongues ignorant of the Latin language, this Greek speech submerged in the sounds of Getic, as by the fact that Im encircled, and shut in on all sides by nearby conflict: a thin wall scarcely keeps the enemy out.

Book TV.VII:1-68
A few still retain vestiges of the Greek language, though even this the Getic pronunciation barbarises.


Book TV.X:1-53
Here Im the barbarian no one comprehends, the Getae laugh foolishly at my Latin words.



Book TV.XII:1-68
I myself have already un-learned Latin, I think, now Ive learnt to speak Getic and Sarmatian.

Tristia    Book V



Book EIV.II:1-5
If anyone had set Homer down in this place, believe me, even hed have turned into a Getan.

Book EIV.XIII:1-50
And you shouldnt marvel if my arts defective, since Ive almost turned into a Getic poet. Ah! Shameful: Ive even written a work in Getic, where savage words are set to Italian metres.

Ex Ponto Book IV


And he makes the difference between Getae and Thracians:


The fierce enemy had taken it from its Thracian king and, victorious, held its treasure captive, till Vitellius, carried downriver, disembarked his troops, and advanced his standards against the Getae.
{from the last link above)

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Posts: 2888 		  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Oct-2007 at 10:30
Come on, Menumorut, Getaewere branch of Thracian tribes.
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Posts: 2888 		  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Oct-2007 at 10:31
Originally posted by Ypnos

 
I was demonstrating the continuation of the Greek language from the ERE's birth right through to the time of the Slavic descent into the region.
 
Greek language was used only around seas close to Greek cities, deep in the land Greek was not spoken. You can extend this continuation of Greek language up to 20th century. This will not mean that Greek was major language in those lands.


Edited by Anton - 06-Oct-2007 at 10:34
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2007 at 20:09
Not only that Greek was spoke in northern Balkans mostly around Greek colonies (and probably as a language of trade deep inside the land), but sometime after the Roman conquest of the areas, Latin became the lingua franca of this part of the Balkans, roughly separated by the Jireček line (i.e. the imaginary line which divides geographically the Balkans between two areas, with preponderence of Latin inscriptions and with preponderence of Greek inscriptions).
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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2007 at 20:15
Not only that Greek was spoke in northern Balkans mostly around Greek colonies (and probably as a language of trade deep inside the land), but sometime after the Roman conquest of the areas, Latin became the lingua franca of this part of the Balkans, roughly separated by the Jireček line (i.e. the imaginary line which divides geographically the Balkans between two areas, with preponderence of Latin inscriptions and with preponderence of Greek inscriptions).


Ovid says about the Greeks in Tomis and on the Getic seasore that they were Getized, speaking Getic or a Greek much barbarized.


Jirecek line is a wrong theory. The fact that inscriptions are somewhere in Greek and somewhere in Latin doesn't mean that where they are in Greek this language was more spoken than Latin. A good example is Dobrudja, were most inscriptions were in Greek but the population was Latin since the first decades of Roman occupation (before it was Getic speaking).

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Posts: 2888 		  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2007 at 20:50
Originally posted by Menumorut


 A good example is Dobrudja, were most inscriptions were in Greek but the population was Latin since the first decades of Roman occupation (before it was Getic speaking).
 
Dobruja is close to the sea side and hence was in the area of influence of Greek culture. However, I think that Jiricek overestimate the level of Hellenization/Romanization of the population in Balkans.
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2007 at 20:57
Ovid says about the Greeks in Tomis and on the Getic seasore that they were Getized, speaking Getic or a Greek much barbarized.
With no doubt, bilinguism works both ways.
 
Jirecek line is a wrong theory. The fact that inscriptions are somewhere in Greek and somewhere in Latin doesn't mean that where they are in Greek this language was more spoken than Latin. A good example is Dobrudja, were most inscriptions were in Greek but the population was Latin since the first decades of Roman occupation (before it was Getic speaking).
Considering many scholarly theories (including the one on the Romanian language formation) rely on this, I wouldn't call it wrong. As for Scythia Minor, the Greek inscriptions co-existed with the Latin ones for the time. Check this map (from H. Mihaescu, La Langue Latine dans le Sud-Est de l'Europe, Bucarest, 1978) for the Latin inscriptions in northern Balkans and please note their distribution: http://www.soltdm.com/imags/maps/mihaescu.jpg
Of course, Greek was present in inscriptions as you remarked in Scythia Minor, but that would imply a significant number of speakers as well (please note I wrote "roughly separated" and I detailed the concept precisely for this reason). What is more interesting that this line roughly corresponds with the Thraco-Dacian (or Thraco-Daco-Moesian) isogloss line.
And also be careful, I've wrote "lingua franca", that is the language of the culture, of the administration, not necessarily the predominant language on the streets.


Edited by Chilbudios - 07-Oct-2007 at 21:00
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 13:20
If we look at the slavic settlements in the Balkans, we first have to look at the situation in the 5th and 6th century. After the defeat of the huns in 453 germanic tribes took place in the Hungarian and Romanian Area north of the danube. The Roman territories south of the Danube were destroyed by a lot of wars against the huns and the germanic tribes. At this times no Slavic nations were mentioned. It is possible that they came with the huns to western parts of Romania and to Hungary but this cannot be proofed. The problem is, that the Slavs are not known in these times. Perhaps you can identify them with the Kiev culture at the Dnjepr. The first probably slavian culture is the Prague-culture. But this didn't exist in the late 4th or the 5th century. If the Slavs moved westwards with the huns they lived under the authority of the huns till 453 and under that of the Gepids till 568. But there is no safe evidence. The Slavic invasion of the Roman Empire started in the early 6th century. But it was just less in the first half of it. In the second half of the 6th century and especially in the 7th century the Slavs moved to the Balkans very frequently. The pre-slavian population was not expelled. There still lived a lot of it. But they had lost their identification with the East Roman Empire. So they changed their ethnic status and became Slaves by themselves. Only in Romania (Walachia), at the coast of the Adria and in parts of Greece the original population did not become Slavs. The fact of self-changing ethnic identity is important for the amount of invading Slavs. We now need no big groups of hundreds of thousands of Slavs or even more. Just little groups are necessary to change a non-slavian population into a slavian one.
 
In these thread it was mentioned that the R1a-gene is related to the Slavs. This is comletely wrong. The origins of R1a lay in far times even before the neolithic revolution.
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 14:51
I agree with much of your sayings, however it seems there're grounds to believe the Slavic ethnicity formed also north of Danube in the actual territories of Romania and Hungary / northern Serbia (I've already discussed it on some threads on early Slavic ethnicity). Many Byzantine testimonies we have on Slavs (Sclavenes) point out they lived just north of Danube (not in Pripet, not in Balkans). Also, some linguistic studies showed that Romanianization of the actual territory of Romania originated in the south-west (west), very probably on both banks of Danube (the closest to Latin are the regional varieties of language from these areas, plus this is the area of the former Roman territories).
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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 15:28
For the Romanian archaeologists, the presence of Slavs is not an unknown problem.

There appears Slavic settlements in Moldavia in 5th century. n 6th century the Slavs appears in Transylvania.

I give a translation from an scientifical article:

Among the peoples which entered in Transylvania after the fall of the Gepid domination, there are mentioned the Slavs. About the period when the Slavs have entered and settled on the territory of our country, especialy in the parts which were in closer connection with the empire, are telling the writen sources. For the farther parts the historical data are very few or totaly missing. The diggings made in the last years in the Olt and Trnava Mare valleys have bring to light several settlements of 6-7th centuries, allowing us to establish the entering of the Slavs in the second half of 6th century in Transylvania and to distinguish what is Slavic and what is of local origin in the discovered material culture.

The oldest vestiges of Slavic material culture have been discovered in Olt valley, in the settlements from Cernat and Poian (the 1st level), Covasna county and in the valley of Trnava Mare, - at Bezid, the 1st level (Mures county). The hand-made pottery material discovered in these settlements is representing pots types very low developed, characteristic for the Slavic settlements of 6th century on the superior basin of Dniepr, of Jitomyr-Korceak aspect or of Penkova aspect and in the area of Ipotesti-Cndesti culture. The pots at fast wheel are known from Ipotesti-Cndesti culture and from Bratei settlement. On the basis of this pottery material and of two discovered fibula, one digitated and one Byzantine, we can frame them in the 6th century. In this cultural horizont are well diferentiated the two composing elements, the Daco-Roman, autochtonous element and the Slavic element.

A later period is represented by the settlements from Trnava valley, at Bezid -the 2nd level, Salasuri (Mures county), Eliseni, Filiasi, Cristur, Simonesti, Medisorul Mare (Harghita county), in the Olt valley at Coseni, Sfntu Gheorghe, Anghelus, Cernat, Poian, Turia. In the inventary of the huts from this period appears pots of "Praha type", of a shape more evoluted than the classical type and are still present fast wheel made pots. There are missing the archaical type pots and appears some elements of shape and decor, which are known in other later dated settlements.

On the basis of the archaeological researches made in these localities we can constate that the Slavs are atested together with the Romanic elements; haven't been discovered not any settlement where the material culture elements to have a unitary Slavic character. The proportion between the two elements is not always the sam, it's varying, in the sense that sometimes the Romanic elements are preponderent, and other times the Slavic ones. It have been found Geto-Dacian type pots, of slim shape, without shoulders, decorated with cuts and sockets, which are known from the Bratei-Ipotesti culture. At Salasuri and Poian have ben discovered three Geto-Dacian tradition pots on which there are deep incised before the burn crosses, of which one is a chrismon. These shows that it was a Christian population or a population knowing the Christian religion. This population could not in the 6th century be otherone than the autochtonous one.

With the regard of the ethnic belonging of the bearers of the culture represented by the mentioned settlements, beside the pottery material, very important is the shape of the dwellings. The demi-hut of rectangular shape, with stony hearth is known from 4th century at Bezid, is not characteristic nor for the Germanic population, nor for the Slavic one. The demi-hut with stony stove was used by other population, having this tradition before the coming of the Germanic peoples; from our actual knowledge, the origin of this type of hearth should be searched in the Romanic world. The Slavs could have settled only after 568, when the Avars have extended their rule over this region.

In 6-7th centuries there cann't be a massif Slavic movement into Transylvania, from this early period there are attested only two settlements in the Eastern parts of Transylvania, placed at Cernat - in the front of Oituz mountainous pass -and Poian (the 1st level). It's anEastern Slavic element, the Ants, which coming from East (Moldavia) have settled among the local population. Massively they settled in the valley of Olt and of the Trnave rivers in 7-8th centuries another Slavic element, from the West, the Sclavines, proving a later coming shortly before the fall of the Avar empire. In these settlements it can be very clearly followed the living together of the local population and the Slavic element and its steeped vanishing, leading to a new culture having a Daco-Roman-Byzantine background.


The title of the article is "The South East of Transylvania in 4-14th centuries", by Szekely Zoltan and was published in 1996 in "Angustia", the anuary of the Museum of the Eastern Carpathians in Sfntu Gheorghe.


More information about the presence of the Slavs in Moldavia and especialy Muntenia you can find at:


http://www.mnir.ro/publicat/TTW/Vol_1/Summ/Summ3_sec2.htm


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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 17:10

Yes, it is said, that they once lived where now the Hungarians live. I don't know yet where exactly, I've to look. But there is no archaeological evidence. The slavs had only two ways west. One went through Transsylvania and the other way leds through southern Poland and Slowakia. South Poland was entered by slavs not before 450, probably not before 500 and the Slovakian area was also ruled by Germanic tribes until the late 5th Century, even until 510. The only possibility is that the slavs came with the huns an marched through the Danube area and then northwards. But we have a problem with the archaelogical places.

If we look at the early Slavs, we don't have an unic ethnicity. As menumorut said, there were Antes, Sclavenoi and also Veneti. And I am sure there were just more tribes we don't know. The slavs rose from all these elder tribes and their ethnogenesis was still going on when they entered the Danube area an the Balkans.

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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 17:58
The article from where I quoted is about South East Transylvania (the Harghita, Covasna and Mures counties).

The Slavs migrated through Moldavia and Muntenia. Before invading Balkans they settled on the line of Danube, as Procopius is saying. Haven't yet been discovered Slavic settlements on the Danube North border and actualy the Slavic discoveries from 5-7th centuries in Muntenia (Southern Romania) are few, pe3rhaps because different from Moldavia and Transylvania, the Slavs were not sedentarizing here because they were oriented to enter in the empire.

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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 18:42

beorna, actually the paper Menumorut linked (Teodor's PhD thesis) show that Slavs lived for a while just north of Danube (and actually Slavic material culture is not automatically nomadic one, nomadism, semi-nomadism and sedentarization are phenomena which spread over an area, not over an ethnicity):


 
This could be the historical moment in which we may presume a massive Slavic presence in the Lower Danube area, and a long-term settlement of the Sclaveni warriors in the proximity of the Roman limes. From the same time (548-552) we may presume a Slavic colonization in Tisza and Middle Danube Plain, under the authority of the Gepids or Longobards (p. 236, 238).

[...]
If there is no nomadic problem for the archaeological research of the Romanian Plain of the sixth century, there is a Slavic problem, because the Slavs are responsible for a lot of archaeological remains (for some authors all of them). The archaeological expectation, established reading the sources, refers to the fifth decade as the moment of an important Slavic settlement in the area. The Slavic migration has nothing to do with the genesis and development of the Ipoteşti-Cndeşti culture, but with its collapse. Archaeologically can be attested only the group (tribe? confederation?) from Buzău county. The historical sources indicate at least four distinctive groups, but only for the last decades of the sixth century The numeric development of Slavs occurred, probably, after 562 (pushed by Avars; lately MADGEARU 1997, but the theory is older), but the stages of this increase cannot yet be followed archaeologically. There were probably other migration waves. The greatest part of this population crossed the Danube later than 613-614, therefore the maximum density of Slavs in the Romanian Plain occurred for about a quarter century (c. 590 c. 613). The archaeological evidence of this fact is rather disappointing (p. 238-239).

[...]
The habitation patterns are far from a simple issue. I have already pointed out that I am not denying the presence of Slavic people on the Romanian Plain, especially eastward and from the fifth decade of the sixth century, but I deny the presumption that this population lived, at the time of migration, in an identical way of life as in the fatherland villages (against: STANCIU 1999). This conclusion is the result of the failure to identify a single settlement (or settlement horizon) in Muntenia that could be ascribed to the Slavs through the ceramic inventory. The debate about house fitting and the cultural determination is not ready to bring persuasive arguments (p. 247-248).

 
 
A great book on this topic is one I have already mentioned, Florin Curta's  "The Making of the Slavs". It has received good scholarly reviews (here's one: http://www.seep.ceu.hu/archives/issue51/books51.pdf check pp. 101-103). This books shows that the location of the Slavs for decades, during 6th and early 7th century, was just north of Danube "in the shadow of Justinian's forts". It also disproves claims of migration or even initial intentions to invade the empire as 19th historiographical myths.
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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 18:56
Chilbudios, your quotes from Teodor are quite confusing.


Lets say in simpler words:

-There have been not discovered Slavic settlements in Romanian Plain (Muntenia, Southern Romania) and Teodor says that the Slavs, if lived here, have changed the way of live after the Daco-Romans (the proto-Romanians). This is possible but not in a large measure, as long in Bulgaria the Slavic discoveries are Slavic, the Praga culture.


At Sarata Monteoru (Buzau county) is identified a Slavic necropolis, the bigest in Romania, but without Slavic pottery. Also, the archaeologists discovered that the Slavs from here were served by a far larger population of Daco-Romans, as Teodor is saying.


My opinion is that, like other populations not oriented for sedentarizing (like Huns, Pechenegs , Cumans) the Slavs from Muntenia were living in tents, not in dwellings and the rests of their settlements have vanished in time.

In Moldavia and Transylvania, were the Slavs have sedentarized in a measure, their traces have been found.

Edited by Menumorut - 03-Dec-2007 at 18:57

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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 19:54
Menumorut, here we go again. As long as I'm quoting and not interpreting (your saying in other words = straw man), I don't see any confusion except for that of not knowing/understanding what that man is talking about.
 
Please leave aside your opinions and try to see what other people are thinking and saying. Any attempt to discuss history with me must be grounded in a decency to at least quote and understand our sources correctly. This continuous distortion serves no purpose in a public discussion (if it serves for you then please keep it for you).


Edited by Chilbudios - 03-Dec-2007 at 19:55
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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 20:09
I don't see any confusion except for that of not knowing/understanding what that man is talking about.


At this I was refering.

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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 20:27

I am not sure I understand your point.

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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2007 at 20:28
the way Teodor is speaking (at least in English) is not very clear.

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