Raids subsequent to that of Thrace in 499 are mentioned in 502 and 504, when the Bulgars came to help the Gepids defend Sirmium against the Ostrogoths. The Bulgars figure prominently among the troops under the command of the Roman rebel Vitalian; and Mundo, a Gepid renegade in Roman service, is said to have defeated and killed many Bulgars in 530. Procopius of Caesarea did not employ the name, but his contemporary Jordanes mentioned repeated raids of the Bulgars into Illyricum [Romana 47] and their "daily attacks" on the Roman Empire [Romana 52]. In his Getica, Jordanes locates the Bulgars in the steppe north of the Black Sea, where other sources mention Cutrigurs, Utigurs, Saragurs, and Onogurs. The archaeological record of the sixth-century steppes north of the Black Sea is remarkably uniform. Inhumation burials with or without weapons, in which the deceased was accompanied by a horse or parts of a horse skeleton, produced perforated belt mounts and strap-ends of Byzantine origin or outlook, as well as occasional Byzantine coins. However, a recent attempt to ascribe this group of burials to the Bulgar population of the steppe fails to take into consideration that the fashion of perforated mounts and strap-ends spread in the 500s throughout the entire world of the steppe from the Danube to the Syrdarya. According to Michael the Syrian, a barbarian leader named Bulgarios arrived with 10,000 men at the Danube during the reign of Emperor Maurice, asking for permission to settle near the river and promising military assistance to the emperor. As no other source confirms this event, the account appears to be a later rationalization and anachronistic summary of the late seventh-century Bulgars.
During the second half of the sixth century, the Bulgars are mentioned several times in connection with and as subjects of the Avars. In the 590s, the Byzantine armies campaigning against the Sclavenes in the Lower Danube region encountered Bulgar horsemen sent to reconnoiter by the kaghan of the Avars. Bulgar troops participated in the Avar siege of Constantinople in 626. In the civil war that broke within the Avar kaghanate shortly after that, the Bulgars appear to have promoted their own candidate challenging the authority of the ruling kaghan. Many took refuge in Bavaria, where they were promptly slaughtered at the order of Frankish king Dagobert; others moved to Lombard Italy. By 680, a Bulgar leader named Kuber led another successful rebellion against the kaghan. According to the unknown author of the second book of the Miracles of St. Demetrius, the rebels were descendants of a group of Roman captives brought to the Avar heartland from the Balkan raids of the early seventh century. After defeating the Avars in battle, they crossed the Danube with the apparent purpose of returning to their parents' former homes. In the process Kuber managed to divert the return migration to Thessalonica and stage an unsuccessful coup to conquer the city.
Florin CurtaSource:
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