he Khagan as to his intentions saying his movements were a violation of the peace treaty. The Khagan swore oaths that he was not hostile to the Empire saying, "If I violate my oath may I myself, and the last of my nation, perish by the sword." The Khagan claimed he was simply moving to attack Slav invaders who had refused to pay the Avars their annual tribute.
The Bishop of Singidunum held services with the rather disrespectful Avars who gave even more oaths of friendship.
The Avar Khagan marched with his men from Singidunum following the right bank of the Sava River to Sirmium.
Once the city was besieged Bayan said, "Inform the Emperor that Sirmium is invested on every side. Advise his prudence to withdraw the citizens and their effects, and to resign a city which it is now impossible to relieve or defend."
|Byzantine Infantry 6th C. AD|
The city at the time lacked a large enough garrison and unprepared to withstand a siege, as most of the Byzantine forces were engaged in the east against Sassanid Persia. The Byzantine Emperor Tiberius II tried to forestall the Avar attack by diplomatic means, but when the Khagan′s ambassador demanded the surrender of the city Tiberius said in reply, "I would sooner give your master one of my two daughters to wife than I would of my own free will surrender Sirmium."
An interesting side note. The Avar ambassador was returning from Constantinople with his Roman escort when the entire party was killed by Slav pillagers. This casually mentioned event in Byzantine accounts tells us a great deal about the lawless conditions in the open countryside of the Roman Balkan provinces.
Tiberius's armies were committed in Persia and Italy, but managed to send in a few officers from Dalmatia and Illyria to oversee the city's defenses. The Roman commander Theognis met with the Khagan on the islands of Casia and Carbonaria, but the negotiations proved to be fruitless.
Despite the relative weakness of the garrison, the city resisted for almost three years. With no end in sight for the Persian War in late 581 or early 582, shortly before his death, that Tiberius agreed to surrender the city in exchange for the lives of its citizens. The Avars spared the population, but took their possessions and 240,000 solidi from the Emperor, as arrears of the tribute owed over three years.
The Slavs took advantage of the siege of Sirmium to raid deeply into Roman territory. The Slavs began to raid further south into Macedonia and Greece, evidenced by many coin hoards in the region, particularly in Attica near Athens and in the Peloponnese.
With Sirmium taken Bayan established a new base of operations within Roman territory from which he could raid the anywhere in the Balkans unhindered.
The new Emperor Maurice's forces were tied down for years in a war against the Persians. He could muster only a small army against the Avars and Slavs in the Balkans.
In a long campaign lasting until 602 Maurice pacified the Balkan borders, a feat not performed since the reign of Anastasius I. Avars and Slavs had been kept sternly at bay. The provinces were at a stage of potential recovery; reconstruction and resettlement were the keys to firmly secure Roman rule again. Maurice had plans to settle Armenian militia peasants within the depopulated areas and to Romanize the Slavs settlers in the area.
|Golden Roman helmet found near Sirmium; it has been |
exhibited in the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad.
|Ruins of Imperial Palace at Sirmium|
|Northern Balkans in the 6th century.|
Click on map to enlarge.
|Sirmium, Capital of the Praetorian Prefecture of Illyricum|
In 293, with the establishment of tetrarchy, the Roman Empire was split into four parts; Sirmium emerged as one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire, the other three being Trier, Mediolanum, and Nicomedia and was the capital of Emperor Galerius. With the establishment of Praetorian prefectures in 318, the capital of the prefecture of Illyricum was Sirmium, remaining so until 379, when the westernmost Diocese of the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, Pannonia (including 