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Report of his Mission to Constantinople – Byzantine Relations with Northern Peoples in the Tenth Century

Byzantine relations with Bulgaria were complicated in the early years of the tenth century: more complicated than many historians have allowed.

The Bulgarian Tsar Symeon (c. 894-927) has been portrayed by both Byzantine and modern authors as an aggressor intent on capturing Constantinople from which he might rule a united Byzantine-Bulgarian empire. However, recent scholarship (notably the work of Bozhilov and Shepard) has questioned this, and maintained that Symeon’s ambitions were more limited until the final years of his reign, the 920s, when he engineered a series of confrontations with the Byzantine Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (920-44). (We will cover these years elsewhere: see the letters of Nicholas Mystikos and Theodore Daphnopates.) Symeon’s died on 27 May 927, and his successor Peter (d. 967) immediately launched a major invasion of the Byzantine administrative district of Macedonia.
The same time razing the fortresses
As one of four sons such a show of strength would have been necessary to secure the support of his father’s boyars. However, the Bulgarian troops withdrew swiftly, at the same time razing the fortresses that they had held until then in Thrace, and this early performance was not repeated. Instead, it heralded forty years of apparent harmony and cooperation between the two major powers in the northern Balkans.

Report of his Mission to ConstantinopleThe reason for the withdrawal, and the centrepiece of the enduring Bulgarian Byzantine accord was the marriage in 927 of Peter to Maria Lecapena, granddaughter of the (senior) ruling emperor Romanus I Lecapenus.Peter has generally been held to have presided over the dramatic decline of Bulgaria. Thus Browning (1975: 194-5) concludes his stimulating comparative study with the observation ‘the grandiose dreams of … Symeon ended in the dreary reality of Peter’s long reign, when Bulgaria became a harmless Byzantine protectorate’. Such interpretations focus on Bulgaria’s military prowess, comparing Symeon’s successes with his son’s inactivity, and draw heavily on Byzantine narrative sources.

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 25

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When you were besieging Bari only three hundred Hungarians seized five hundred Greeks near Thessalonica and led them into Hungary. Which attempt, inasmuch as it succeeded, induced two hundred Hungarians in Macedonia, not far...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 24

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The aforesaid Hippolytus writes also that not the Greeks but the Franks shall put an end to the Saracens. Encouraged by which prophecy the Saracens, three years ago, engaged in battle near Scylla and...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 23

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You have beard the interpretation of the Greeks; hear how that of Liutprand, bishop of Cremona. For I say and not alone do I say, but I affirm-that if the prophecy is to be...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 22

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Hippolytus, indeed, a certain Sicilian bishop, wrote similarly concerning your empire and our people-I call “our people,” namely, all those who are under your rule;-and would that it were true what he prophesied concerning...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 21

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As I did this there met us, herded together with goats, the so-called wild asses. But why, I ask, wild asses? Our tame ones at Cremona are the same. Their color, shape and ears...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 20

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I answered him: “Those princes are nobles of the first rank and vassals of my master; and, if he see that your army attacks them, be will send to them aid which will enable...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 19

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But mark how impiously he had sworn. These things were said and done on the thirteenth day before the Calends of August (July 20) on the second day of the week (Monday); from which...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 18

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Already last year I wished to do this, but hearing that your master intended to invade the territory of our empire, letting the Assyrians go, we turned our reins against him. His envoy, the...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 17

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I wish you might believe me, and I know you will believe me, that you with four hundred of your warriors can slay that whole army, if ditches or walls do not prevent. And...

Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 16

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To this he did not permit me to reply; but, although desired to go away, he ordered me to return to his table. His father sat with him, a man, it seemed to me,...

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