Avar Embassies to Byzantium according to Menander Protector (annotated translation of the source’s fragments)

Abstract

Research objective: to provide the comments and translation of some fragments of Byzantine’s historian Menander Protector, which described the embassies from the Avars’ to Byzantine Empire. To analyze the Romans representation of the Avars as well as to define some factors that shaped these concepts. Research materials: Menander was one of the first early-medieval historian who described the appearance of the Avars in the European territories, their relations with the other peoples of the Dnieper, Black Sea and the Danube regions as well as diplomatic relations with Byzantine Empire. From Menander’s evidence we can get information about the Avars who posed a serious threat to the Empire. Research results and novelty: This publication allows to looking at the nomads from the Romans’ point of view, discovering subjective sides of this representation, which were caused by incomprehension of foreign culture and specific diplomacy. The fragments of Menander’s work are important to further research of the Byzantine Empire’s history, of the Avars and inter-civilization relation in the early Middle Ages.

Keywords

• Menander
• Avars
• barbarians
• embassy
• Byzantine Empire.