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Updated: May 5, 2025
We are told that in this war Alboin sought the aid of Bacan, chagan of the Avars, promising him half the spoil and all the land of the Gepidæ in case of victory. He added to this a promise of the realm of the Longobardi, in case he should succeed in winning for them a new home in Italy, which country he proposed to invade.
Her sovereign was assassinated, and peace was obtained from the condescension of the invader. But the enemies of Constantinople, Goths, Avars, Bulgarians, or even Persians, were strong only by their weakness. Being contemptible, they were neglected; being chased, they made no stand; and thus only they escaped.
If the forces of the Avars and the Lombards should unite in this glorious quarrel, the victory was secure, and the reward inestimable: the Danube, the Hebrus, Italy, and Constantinople, would be exposed, without a barrier, to their invincible arms.
In the just fervor of indignation, an order was signified to the army of the Danube, that they should spare the magazines of the province, and establish their winter quarters in the hostile country of the Avars.
The despair of a captive, whom his country refused to ransom, disclosed to the Avars the invention and practice of military engines. But in the first attempts they were rudely framed, and awkwardly managed; and the resistance of Diocletianopolis and Beræa, of Philippopolis and Adrianople, soon exhausted the skill and patience of the besiegers.
Your absent prince, even now a captive or a fugitive, has left Constantinople to its fate; nor can you escape the arms of the Avars and Persians, unless you could soar into the air like birds, unless like fishes you could dive into the waves."
But the government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their master. Part I. Reign Of The Younger Justin. Embassy Of The Avars. Their Settlement On The Danube. Conquest Of Italy By The Lombards. Adoption And Reign Of Tiberius. Of Maurice.
The Avars were repulsed; a fleet of Sclavonian canoes was destroyed in the harbor; the vassals of the chagan threatened to desert, his provisions were exhausted, and after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow and formidable retreat.
The isolated rock on which the fortress stands appears to have been an outwork of Salona in Roman times, and some assume that it was Andetrium, which others place farther off; the Byzantines called it Clausura. It is the key between Sinj and Spalato, its possession effectually closing the pass to an enemy. The Avars took it in 640 by stratagem, disguising themselves as Romans.
At the distance of twenty Teutonic, or forty Italian miles, was a second fortified line of the same kind; and thus the circles were repeated, the circumference always narrowing till you came to the innermost, or ring, in which the Avars kept all their wealth, the accumulation of centuries of rapine. Such, at least, is the account, however improbable, handed down to us by an historian of the day.
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