Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/539

 APPENDIX 517 Hungary from Galicia, through the passes of Dukla. His arguments are : (1) the Slavs of Dacia and the Lower Danube were independent until a.d. 581-4, when they were reduced to submission by the Avars ; (2) the assumption of an advance through Galicia will explain the reduction of the Dudleby, in Yolhynia. The record of this event is preserved only in the Russian Chronicle of Nestor (so called) but there seems no reason not to accept it as a genuine tradition. The passage is as follows (c. 8, ed. ISIiklosich, p. 6): — "These Obrs made war on the Slavs, and conquered the Duljebs, who are Slavs, and did violence to the Duljeb women. When an Obr wi.shed to go anj-- where, he did not harness a horse or an ox, but ordered three or four women to be harnessed to his carriage, to draw the Obr ; and so they vexed the Duljebs." The chronicler places this episode in the reign of Heraclius. But Scbafarik plausibly argues that it belongs to a much earlier period, before the invasion of Hungary. To these arguments I may add another. (3) Tlie invasions of Austrasia almost demand more northerly headquarters for the Avars, than "Wallachia. Nor does the passage of Corippus contradict the assumption that the Avar nation was settled in Galicia, or thereabouts, in a.d. 56-5. For the passage need impl}- only that an armed contingent had accompanied the embassy, through Moldavia, to the banks of the Danube, and pitched their tents there to await the return of the envoys. On the whole therefore it seems probable that the Avars in their westward advance followed an inland route from the Dnieper to the Upper Bug (through the Governm.ent of Kiev, and Podolia), not coming into hostile contact with the Bulgarians who were between the Dnieper and the Danube (in the Government of Cherson, in Bessarabia and Wallachia). In regard to the extent of the Avar P]mpire, after the conquest of Hungary, we must of course distinguish between the settlements of the Avars themselves, and the territories which acknowledged the lordship of the Chagan. The Avar settlements were entirely in the old Jazygia, between the Theiss and the Danube, where they dispossessed the Gepids, and in Pannonia, where they suc- ceeded to the inheritance of the Lombards. •' These regions, which correspond to Hungary, were Avaria in the strict sense. But the Chagan extended his power over the Slavonic tribes to the north and east. It is generally agreed that his sway reached into Central Europe and was acknowledged in Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia ; but it seems an improbable exaggeration to saj- that it was bounded on the north by the Baltic* Baian also .sxibjugated, at least temporarily, the Slavs of Wallachia and Moldavia, but I doubt much whether his dominion extended in an- sense over the Bulgarians of Southern Russia. We find Bulgarians apparently in his service ; but, as Bulgarian settlements were probably scattered from the Danube to the Dnieper, we can draw from this fact no conclusion as to the extent of the Avar empire. 3. GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY IN THE LOMBARD PERIOD, AND CHRO- NOLOGY OF THE LOMBARD CONQUEST— (P. 12) The following table will explain the divisions of Italj- between the Empire and the Lombards about a.d. 600. Itrtbi in A.D. 600. Imperial. — (1) North : — Maritime Liguria : Cremona, Placentia, Vulturina Mantua, Mons Silicis, Pataviura, Brixellum ; Yenetian Coast ; Concordia, Opitergium, Altinum (Mutina, Parma, Rhegium ?) ; 5 This is rightly emphasized by Howorth. The Avars, in Journal Asiat. Soc, 1889, p. 737 f> Howorth, ib., p. 7S6. The story of the Slavs from the " Western Sea," in Theophy- lactus, vi.. 2. does not warrant the inference.