Baian's purpose was probably that of settling the most warlike branches, viz. those dominated by Germans, in the strategically most important places. Thus we see why, for example, the Sorb-Serbs who were controlled by vikings were split up.
The limits of the Avar power are marked by the abode of the Obodritzi in Mecklenburg, the Volynyans at the mouth of the Oder, the Dregovichi in Polesie and in Macedonia, the Milengi in Morea, the Severyans east of the Dnieper and in Moesia, the Serbs and Croats on the Adriatic and on the Saale. Thus the Avar power at one time or another extended from the Baltic to the southern extremity of Greece, from East Tyrol to the river Donetz in Russia, doubtless with very unequal intensity and unequal duration. Only one will, that of the Khagan, could carry through so vast a change — the transplanting of one and the same people partly to the Baltic, partly to the Adriatic, Ionic, and Aegean Seas.
The Khagan could not leave his Slavs without supervision, and therefore he had to maintain among them a standing Avar garrison with wives and children. But the Avars were a nomad people who only camped among the Slavonic peasantry in winter — more than half the year — and during the summer grazed the higher positions and heaths, of course leaving behind a guard over the Slavs, while their army went to battle and plunder.[1]
The Slavised Avar nomads long survived the Avar Empire in many Slav lands, and even in the twelfth century we are told by Herbord of the Baltic Slavs of the Island of Rügen (Slav. Ruiana): "The men's occupation is either hunting or fishing or cattle rearing. For therein consists their entire wealth as husbandry is only scanty there." Here the nomads had to do without mountain summer-pastures.
Concerning the relation of the Avars to the Slavs, "Fredegar" states that from the earliest times the Wends [here in particular are meant the Slavs of the upper Main and its tributary the Regnitz north and east of Nuremberg] were used by the Huns [Avars] as befulci, that is, when the Huns took the field against any people the Wends had to fight in
- ↑ Theophylactus, VI. 2 states (A.D. 591): Three captives were brought before the Emperor Maurice having neither swords nor any other weapon, but only citharas with them. Being questioned they answered that they were Slavs from the coast of the northern ocean [Baltic Sea], whither the Khagan sent envoys with presents to ask for auxiliaries. They brought back as answer to the Khagan that he could expect no help from such a distance — they themselves had been fifteen months on the journey — and their people were absolutely peaceable. They played on the zither because they were unacquainted with weapons, their land produced no iron and therefore they lived there still and peacefully, and as the war trumpet was not understood there they played on the zither. These were obviously spies, but the fiction of their entire harmlessness could only deceive the Emperor when the story of the Khagan's embassy to the Baltic Slavs appeared natural. The whole mystification produced the widespread story of the dove-like nature of the Slavs.
