Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/642

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574 APPENDIX from fomenting enmities among the Huns. An inscription has been recently found near Taman, on a stone which may have come from Phanagoria, and it possesses inter- est as being possibly connected with this negotiation. It was published by V. Latyshev (in the Vizantiiski Vremennik, 1894, p. 657 sqq.), who sought to explain it by Justin- ian's political relations with Bosporus in a.d. 527-8 (see below), and dated it a.d. 533. But the serious objections to this explanation have been set forth by Kula- kovski (Viz. Vrem., 1895, 189 sqq.). We have clearly to do with a building — probably a church — built under the auspices, and at the expense (?) of Justinian, in the 11th indiction. The place where the stone was found indicates prima facie that it was a building at Phanagoria ; for why should a Btone relating to a building at Bosporus lie in the Taman peninsula ? We may admit that Kulakovski may be right in identifying "the eleventh indiction " of the inscription with the year a.d. 547-8, in which Justinian gave the Tetraxite Goths a bishop. At the same time he may have subscribed money to the erection of a new church or the restoration of an old one. But to whichever of the three eleventh indiotions of Justinian's reign the inscription belongs, it is an interesting monument of his influence in Taman. 2 Bosporus, too, was independent, but in the reign of Justin we find it ac- knowledging the supremacy of New Rome (Procopius, B. P. i. 12). Near it was settled a small tribe of Huns. At the time of Justinian's succession their king's name was Grod (rpc£8, Malalas, Cod. Barocc. ; TopSas, Theophanes, who took the notice from Malalas) ; * and he, desiring to become a Christian, went to Constanti- nople and was baptized. His journey had also a political object. Justinian gave him money and he undertook to defend Bosporus. The< great importance of Bos- porus at this time lay in its being the chief emporium between the Empire and Hunland. It seems pretty clear that Bosporus was at this time threatened by xhe Kutrigurs, and the journey of Grod may have been rather due to an invitation from Constantinople than spontaneous. That danger threatened at this moment is shown by the fact that Justinian also placed a garrison in Bosporus under a tribune. But Grod's conversion was not a success. The heathen priests murdered him, and this tragedy was followed by the slaughter of the garrison of Bosporus. We hear no more of Bosporus until it was taken by the Turks (Khazars) in a.d. 576. Kulakovski has well shown that Justinian had little interest in maintaining in it a garrison or a governor (Viz. Vrem., ii., 1896, 8 sqq.), for it was never a centre for political relations with the lands east of the Euxine. Embassies between Constantinople and the Alans, or the Abasgians, or the Turks of the Golden Mount, went overland by the south coast of the Black Sea and Trebizond, and not via Bosporus. After a.d. 576 Bos- porus was subject to the Khazars. The inscription which was found in the region of Taman in 1803 and is printed in Boeckh's Corpus Inser. Gr. 8740, is still mysterious. It has been recently dis- cussed by the two Russian soholars to whom I have already referred, Latyshev (loc. cit.) and Kulakovski (Viz. Vrem., 1896, 1 sqq.). 4 Only the three last letters of the name of " our most pious and god-protected lord " can be deciphered (KIC), and the favourite restoration is MavpUis. But this lord is certainly not the Emperor Maurice, as Kulakovski has shown, for (1) the shores of the Bosporus after a.d. 576 were under the dominion of the Turks, and (2) an Emperor would not be described by such a title. The inscription shows that an officer named Eupaterios, who styles himself " the most glorious stratelateB and duke of Cherson," restored a kaisarion or palace for a barbarian prince of unknown name, on the east side of the Bos- porus, in some eighth indiction in the fifth or sixth century a.d. (for to such a date the writing points). The barbarian was clearly a Christian, and it is hard to see who 2 Since these words were written, A. Semenov has discussed the inscription (in Byz. Ztschrift., 6, p. 387 sqq. , with similar reserve. 3 This name is not included in the list of Hun and Avar names in VamWry's A magyarok eredete.

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