Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

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Journal of Medieval History

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jmedhist

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between

Magyars, Pechenegs and Byzantium
Boris Todorov
Yonsei University, 262 Seongsanno, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul 120–749, South Korea

a b s t r a c t
Keywords:
Ninth century The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration
Tenth century of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in
Bulgaria the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between
Byzantine Empire
Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through refer-
Pechenegs
ence to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic
Magyars
Nomads and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians
Sedentary societies studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article inter-
Ritual prets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as
Imperial ideology a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the
Symeon I of Bulgaria nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of
Romanos Lekapenos Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own
Patriarch Nicholas I kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world.
The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so
much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sover-
eignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity
of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the
dynamically changing conjuncture.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In November 924, an unusual meeting took place outside Constantinople. On the shore of the Golden Horn,
in the area called Kosmidios, the Byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (920–44) welcomed whom he
called the chief (ἄrcun) of the Bulgarians d Symeon (893–927). The empire and her northern neighbour
had been engaged in war for more than a decade. Especially after the disastrous Byzantine invasion of 917,
the empire’s European dominions had been open to frequent incursions. For the sake of peace, Romanos
was making a rare gesture. Throughout history, emperors invited foreign rulers to the Great City where
they dazzled them with the riches of palaces and churches or, whenever the guests were asking for pardon

E-mail address: btodorov@yonsei.ac.kr

0304-4181/$ – see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2010.09.004

Please cite this article in press as: B. Todorov, The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,
Pechenegs and Byzantium, Journal of Medieval History (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2010.09.004
2 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

or aid, belittled and humiliated them, even made them prostrate themselves face down on the floor
(proskynesisdproskύnhsi2).1 On this occasion Romanos agreed to come out of the city and meet his
counterpart on an equal basis: he was ‘overjoyed’ (s4όdra ἠgalliάsaso), the chronicler says, that Symeon
had asked to meet him in person so as to witness his ‘prudence’ (4rόnhsi2), ‘manliness’ (ἀndreίa), and
‘intelligence’ (sύnesi2).2 Symeon, however, preferred to have himself greeted as emperor, even Roman
emperor (basileύ2 sῶn Ῥumaίun): this is how units from his own army, dressed in gold or silver, hailed him
in front of Romanos and the spectators watching from the city walls. Sources contemporary to the event
lament Symeon’s arrogant behaviour. Writing to him some time over the next few months, Patriarch
Nicholas I Mystikos complained of the ‘reproaches’ (ἔlegcoi), ‘accusations’ (ὀneidίsmoi) and ‘jokes’
(eἰroneίai) Symeon had made at his expense.3 The Homily of the peace with the Bulgarians, composed in 927,
derided the bad Greek of the bragging Bulgarian.4 Added to his displays of arrogance, Symeon employed
terror tactics: just a few days before he had ordered the burning of the church of Theotokos in the area of
Pege (‘water-spring’). Thus, before leaving the city, Romanos was careful to don the girdle (ὠmo4όrion) of
Theotokos: the same relic that had allegedly saved Constantinople from the Avars in 626. Symeon was
concerned with his security as well; his guard searched underneath the scaffold where the meeting would
take place looking for lurking assassins, a reminder of another meeting, dating back to 813, when Symeon’s
ancestor Krum had barely escaped the perfidy of Leo V.5 While the two emperors were still parleying, an
omen marred their efforts: with loud shrieks two eagles joined for a moment high over their heads and
then went their opposite ways, one, in the direction of Thrace, the other, toward the city.6 The omen
presaged the fruitlessness of the meeting: Symeon did return to his kingdom but no peace was agreed
upon and it was only after his death in 927 that Romanos could work out a solution with the next tsar, Peter
(927–69).
The meeting of 924 was a crucial point in the long process of confrontation and pacification that
Byzantium and Bulgaria went through during the 910s and 920s. The reign of Symeon has been a natural
object of study because it was the pinnacle of the military might and cultural productivity of early medieval
Bulgaria.7 Building upon his military victories, the impressive construction works in his capital Preslav, and
the thriving literary and artistic activity there, Symeon adopted the style of a Byzantine autocrat and

1
Perhaps the most famous case is the visit of Princess Olga of Kiev (dated 945 or 957), recorded in both the Russian Primary
Chronicle and in Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos’s De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae. On diplomatic visits to Constantinople
and Byzantine universalism, see J. Shepard, ‘Byzantine diplomacy, AD 800–1204’, in: Byzantine diplomacy, ed. J. Shepard and
S. Franklin (London, 1992), 41–72 (61). Formal prostration d proskynesis d was obligatory for diplomatic missions visiting
Constantinople, yet rulers too were subjected to it after military defeats. Manuel I Komnenos (1143–80) forced two great
zupans of Raska to do proskynesis: Uros II, in 1150, and Stefan Nemanja, in 1172. For Uros, see Ioannis Cinnami Epitome rerum
ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. A. Meineke (Bonn, 1836), 112. This had to do with the lower status of the Serbian
zupans who were considered servants of the emperor and were addressed, in diplomatic correspondence, through
keleύsmasa d ‘commands’. See F. Dölger,’Die ‘Familie der Könige’ im Mittelalter’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 60 (1940), 397–420;
G. Ostrogorsky, ‘Die byzantinische Staatenhierarchie’, Seminarium Kondakovianum, 8 (1936), 41–61 and ‘The Byzantine
emperor and the hierarchical world order’, Slavonic and East European Review, 35 (1956–7), 1–14; E. Malamut, ‘Les Adresses
aux princes des pays slaves du sud dans le Livre des cérémonies, II, 48: interprétation’, Travaux et mémoires, 13 (2000), 595–615.
2
The description of the event follows the Chronicle of Symeon the Logothete, 136:29-37, in Symeonis magistri et logothetae
chronicon, ed. S. Wahlgren, 1 vol to present (Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae, 44 Berlin, 2006–) [hereafter Sym. Logoth.],
320–4. The work was composed most probably in the 950s.
3
Nicholas I, Patriarch of Constantinople, Letters, ed. and trans. R.J.H. Jenkins and L.G. Westerink (Washington, 1973) [hereafter
Nicholas I, Letters], 208, 210, no. 31 (from early 925).
4
I. Duj
cev, ‘On the treaty of 927 with the Bulgarians’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 32 (1978), 217–95 (276, 278). Although
anonymous, the homily has been usually ascribed to the protasekretis (chair of the secret council) Theodore Daphnopates who
edited Romanos I’s diplomatic correspondence from the period.
5
Theophanis Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1883–85), vol. 2, 503.
6
Sym. Logoth. 136:37, 324.
7
See J.V.A. Fine, Jr., The early medieval Balkans (Ann Arbor, 1983), 132–58; J. Shepard, ‘Bulgaria, the other Balkan“empire”’, in
The new Cambridge medieval history. Vol. III c.900–1024, ed. T. Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), 567–85; F. Curta, Southeastern Europe in
the middle ages 500–1250 (Cambridge, 2006), 213–27.

Please cite this article in press as: B. Todorov, The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,
Pechenegs and Byzantium, Journal of Medieval History (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2010.09.004
 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 3

proclaimed himself emperor (tsesar’, in Slavic, hence tsar).8 Symeon’s sponsorship of literary projects laid
down the foundations of Church Slavic literature, which became a major factor in the later cultural history
of the entire eastern Europe.9 On a more abstract level, Symeon’s political actions, particularly his imperial
claims, helped the formation of an important aspect of eastern Orthodox political culture: the ambiguous
understanding of imperial power as both universal, and proceeding from competing centres. A monarch
who belonged to the cultural and economic orbit of Byzantium and could be part of the networks of power
governing the eastern Mediterranean preferred to create an unprecedented crisis through subverting the
ideological premises of Byzantine diplomacy. This essay seeks to explain the apparently aberrant policy of
Symeon by analysing the meeting of 924 against the background of the large-scale shifts in power in
south–east Europe during the period. 10 It uses an approach alternative to those focusing on Symeon’s rule
as a stage in a longer process of ethnic and institutional consolidation,11 or as one centred upon the
development of a coherent and stable political ideology;12 instead, it treats Symeon’s deeds as ad hoc
responses to the dynamically changing situation in the area and examines how he used the tools of
imperial discourse and ritual to consolidate his position against outside threats.
The meeting with Romanos held a central place in Symeon’s strategy. The significance of the event for
the political imagination of eastern Europe shows in its inclusion, through the intermediary of the
expanded Chronicle of George Hamartolos, in the Russian Primary Chronicle and the late medieval Russian
compiled universal chronicles known as khronography.13 The Primary Chronicle, digesting the material out
of the expanded Hamartolos, overlooked the word ‘promised’ (pomanou) and imagined Symeon’s success
in that he ‘made peace’ (stvori mir), just as early Rus’ princes did around the same period. ‘Making peace’
was an important claim in one’s relations with the empire, as seen in Symeon’s own seals where he is
named ‘peace-making’ (eἰrinopoiό2 or ἐrinopyό2, instead of the correct eἰrhnopoiό2)14 d the starting-point
in J. Shepard’s reading of the Bulgarian tsar’s policy as one of containment of constant Byzantine pressure.15
Yet, as Patriarch Nicholas repeated over and over in his letters post-dating the meeting, Symeon ignored
his own ‘promises of peace’ (ἐpaggelίai ἐirέnh2).16 For him, most important was not the result of the
negotiations, but the very fact that Romanos abandoned customary usage and met him outside the city on
an equal footing. Symeon used the opportunity to humiliate the emperor through arrogance and display of
power, and he would profit most from such display of power if continuing the war. In fact, war and imperial
claims, substantiated by his easily recognisable arrogance, cemented his position against the nomadic
polities on his northern frontier in complementary ways: the Bulgarian tsar kept open his options to build
beneficial military alliances with the nomads against Byzantium, and at the same time laid claims over the

8
Symeon’s imperial claims appear on his seals (I. Iordanov, Korpus na pechatite na srednovekovna Bulgariia (Sofia, 2001),
46–53, nos 49–68), in the dedication formulae of books sponsored by him (the Zlatostrui, in: A.I. Sobolevskii, Materialy i
issledovaniia v oblasti slavianskoi filologii i arkheologii (St Petersburg, 1910), 29, and Sviatoslav’s Miscellany, in: Simeonov sbornik
(po Svetoslavoviia prepis ot 1073 g.), ed. P. Dinekov, 2 vols (Sofia, 1991–93], vol. 1, 720–1) d and most importantly, in his
correspondence with the emperor, patriarch and senate of Constantinople.
9
See F.J. Thomson, ‘The Bulgarian contribution to the reception of Byzantine culture in Kievan Rus’: the myths and the
enigma’, Harvard Ukrainian studies, 12–13 (1988–9), 214–61. On this cultural activity as competition, see J. Shepard, ‘The ruler as
instructor, pastor and wise: Leo VI of Byzantium and Symeon of Bulgaria’, in: Alfred the Great. Papers from the eleventh-centenary
conferences, ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot, 2003), 339–58.
10
D. Obolensky, The Byzantine commonwealth. Eastern Europe 500–1453 (London, 1971), 104, explains Symeon’s wars against
Byzantium with his ‘mentality’ and ‘ambitions’.
11
V.N. Zlatarski, Istoriia na bulgarskata durzhava prez srednite vekove, 3 vols in 4 (Sofia, 1918–40 vol. 1:I, 356-401.
12
I. Bozilov, ‘L’Idéologie politique du Tsar Symeon: Pax Symeonica’, Byzantinobulgarica, 8 (1986), 73–8, A. Nikolov,
‘Tsariat d bogopodrazhatel. Edin prenebregnat aspekt ot politicheskata kontseptsiia na Simeon I’, Annuaire de l’Université
de Sofia, 91¼ Centre Dujcev, 10 (2002), 109–12.
13
Lavrent’evskaia letopis’, ed. E. Karskii, in: Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, 43 vols to present (St Petersburg,1926 [1841]-), vol.1 (repr.
Moscow, 2001), 45, and Letopisets ellinskii i rimskii, ed. O.V. Tvorogov, 2 vols (St Petersburg, 1999-2000), vol. 1, 494–6. The eleventh-
century Church Slavic translation of the ninth-century chronicle of Hamartolos is based on an expanded version dating from the second
half of the tenth century, and including material from the Chronicle of Symeon the Logothete: Kniga vremennyia i obraznyia Georgiia
mnikha: Khronika Georgiia Amartola v drevnem slavianorusskom perevode, ed. V. I. Istrin, 3 vols. (St Petersburg, 1920-30), vol. 1, 558–9.
14
Iordanov, Korpus na pechatite, nos 49–56, 46-8.
15
J. Shepard, ‘Symeon of Bulgaria d peacemaker’, Annuaire de l’Université de Sofia, 83 ¼ Centre Dujcev, 3 (Sofia, 1989), 9–48.
16
Nicholas I, Letters, 204, no. 30.

Please cite this article in press as: B. Todorov, The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,
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4 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

ideological assets of the empire and became a possible structuring factor in the dynamically shifting
balance of power among the nomads.
The ritualised behaviour of the two rulers, and the Byzantine account of it (although available in
several tenth-century chronicles, the account is practically one and the same), allow various scholarly
approaches to medieval rituals to be tested. Over the last 15 years, there have been different attitudes to
the place of ritual in medieval politics and decision-making processes. One is Geoffrey Koziol’s, which
upholds the constituent, event-creating, power of medieval ritual in solving crises and prompting peace
and reconciliation.17 Gerd Althoff is more inclined to see the ritual as just one of the ‘rules of the game’
(Spielregeln) that create events, essentially through negotiation d its role limited to communicating the
agreed decisions in terms acceptable to all sides.18 In his critique of medieval ritual as an analytical tool,
Philippe Buc speaks of a late antique and early medieval ‘anthropology’ of rituals, laying emphasis on the
inherent ambiguity of the ritual, primarily because of the manipulative nature of the textual evidence; in
Buc’s view, we are not presented with objective accounts of ritualised acts, but with interpretations that
subject those acts to a particular ‘anthropological’ perspective.19 Despite the apparent incompatibility of
the three approaches, the talks between Symeon and Romanos I Lekapenos, just like the earlier meeting,
in 913, between Symeon and Patriarch Nicholas, in fact fit them all.
Koziol’s perspective is implicit in all previous scholarship discussing the event of 913. The precise focus of
attention is the moment when, according to Symeon the Logothete, ‘Patriarch Nicholas left [the city] to meet
Symeon who bowed his head before him. Saying a prayer, Nicholas placed upon his head, as they say (ὥ2
4asi), his own headgear (ἐpirripsάrion) instead of a crown (ἀnsὶ ssέmmaso2).’20 While Dölger and Ostrogorsky
saw in this the constitutive act of an imperial coronation that justified Symeon’s later claims, R. J. H. Jenkins
proposed that Nicholas had fooled Symeon into a ‘sham’ ceremony, making him believe he had been
crowned emperor, while depriving him of any legitimate claims; finally, Patricia Karlin-Hayter, from a similar
perspective, came to the opposite conclusion, that whatever took place was not a proper coronation and had
no binding character.21 The quoted sentence strongly justifies the reading of rituals as constitutive acts: there
were people in Constantinople (even if the chronicler does not share their view) who believed that back in
913 Nicholas had done something substantiating Symeon’s position. Furthermore, proper court ceremonial
had been the very casus belli that had brought Symeon to the walls of Constantinople in 913: in a formal letter
stating the decision of the regency of the child-emperor Constantine VII (913–59), Patriarch Nicholas rejected
the Bulgarian’s demands that Byzantine envoys carry the imperial gifts not just to the border, as was the
custom, but to his capital where they were to honour him by proskynesis.22 Yet, the same ambiguous sen-
tence connects with Buc’s argument as well: several decades later, when Symeon the Logothete was editing
his chronicle, there still were conflicting interpretations (‘as they say’) whether Nicholas had put something
on Symeon’s head and if so, whether it was a proper imperial crown or not. Jenkins’ ‘sham’ ceremony, while
trying to fit the positivist approach of earlier scholars, in fact suggests that rituals had no precise and
unquestionable meaning: rumour, public opinion, or the chronicler’s ingenuity could turn a real-time ritual
into a non-event, or conversely, invent a ritual and turn it into a constitutive act.
The description of the meeting of 924 shows how this time the actors were more conscious of the
implications of conflicting interpretations and tried to enforce their own reading of ritualised behaviour
while still performing it. We may compare the talks between Symeon and Romanos to the practically
contemporary meeting of the kings of the Eastern and the Western Franks, Henry I (919–36) and Charles III

17
G. Koziol, Begging pardon and favour. Ritual and political order in early medieval France (Ithaca, 1992).
18
G. Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt, 1997) and Family, friends and
followers. Political and social bonds in early medieval Europe, trans. C. Carroll (Cambridge, 2004), 136–59.
19
P. Buc, The dangers of ritual (Princeton, 2001), 8–9.
20
Sym. Logoth. 135:11, 301: Nikolάo2 dὲ ὁ pasriάrch2 ἐxῆlqe prὸ2 Symeώn, ᾧsini sὴn ke4alὴn ὑpέkline Symeώn. eὐcὴn oὖn ὁ
pasriάrch2 poiέsa2 ἀnsὶ ssέmmaso2, ὥ2 4asi, sὸ ἴdion ἐpirripsάrion sῇ aὐsoῦ ἐpέqhke ke4alῇ.
21
F. Dölger, ‘Bulgarisches Zartum und byzantinisches Kaisertum’, Izvestiia na Bulgarskiia arheologicheski institut, 9 (1935), 57–68;
G. Ostrogorsky, ‘Die Krönung Symeons von Bulgarien durch den Patriarch Nicolaos Mystikos’, Izvestiia na Bulgarskiia arheo-logi-
cheski institut, 9 (1935), 275–86; R.J.H. Jenkins, ‘The peace with Bulgaria (927) celebrated by Theodore Daphnopates’, in: Poly-
chronion. Festschrift Franz Dölger zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. P. Wirth (Heidelberg, 1966), 286–303; P. Karlin-Hayter, ‘The homily on the
peace with Bulgaria of 927 and the ‘coronation’ of 913’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft, 17 (1968), 29–39.
22
Nicholas I, Letters, 40, no. 6.

Please cite this article in press as: B. Todorov, The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,
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 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 5

(893–929), in 921. Henry and Charles met on a boat in the middle of the Rhine, close to Bonn, in order to
demonstrate friendship and formalise their alliance (societatis amicitia); the fact that both kings’ followers
joined the mutual oaths allows treating the meeting as a diplomatic success of some constitutive char-
acter.23 The apparent perfect harmony between acts and words in the case comes out of the nature of the
evidence: instead of a historical narrative presenting the point of view of one of the two sides, it is the text
of the oath itself, agreed to by both kings, that reveals the formal steps preceding the meeting; it was
precise because the precision confirmed the spirit of friendship and the honest demands for alliance
substantiated by the principle of equality. Both kings were keen not to imply in any way that one of them
was visiting the other; for the sake of this, they spent several days on the opposite banks of the Rhine
observing each other from a distance (mutuis se visibus intuentes super ripas eiusdem fluminis huc et ultra).24
In the end, they met on a boat in the middle of the river, equally distant from their dominions. The Rhine in
this case was conceived as a symbolic boundary. The need for symbolic boundaries supporting diplomacy
and court ritual existed in south-east Europe as well: the correspondence of Nicholas Mystikos suggests
that the city of Develtos, in Thrace, played exactly this role between Byzantium and Bulgaria.
From what we read in Symeon the Logothete’s narrative of the 924 meeting, Romanos I and Symeon
followed similar steps in preparing for their interview. There were significant differences, mostly that
Symeon had in fact invaded Byzantine territory and had built a camp in the vicinity of Constantinople. Yet,
the Byzantines simply ignored that fact; after a sequence of defeats during the previous years, they had
adopted the strategy of a war of attrition and several months after the meeting Romanos reminded
Symeon once again that the latter just held impoverished cities and received no revenue (4όroi) or taxes
(ἀpodidόmena) from them.25 The chosen location on the shore of the Golden Horn could easily play the
function of neutral ground where two rulers of equal standing might meet on equal footing, mounted on
the specially constructed platform, in order to be equally visible to their respective subjects. The omen of
the two shrieking eagles parting ways before the eyes of the spectators illustrated the overturning of the
principles of equality as the spectators witnessed it. First, there was the question who was inviting whom
to the meeting. The chronicler explicitly states that it was Symeon who asked to discuss the conditions of
the peace, first with the patriarch, then with Romanos himself whose virtues he desired to witness with his
own eyes. In fact, he had consistently insulted Romanos over the years, accusing him of usurpation, while
throughout the negotiations it was Byzantine notables who went to his camp and listened to his condi-
tions. The way Romanos could turn the balance back was to have the scaffold constructed in vague
imitation of his own palace, and be there first so as to receive Symeon. Second, there were the deliberate
displays of suspicion: Romanos had an entire liturgy celebrated in the church of Theotokos at the Bla-
chernoi where he donned the omophore, visualising the parallel between the Christian Bulgarians and the
pagan barbarians d Avars and Slavs d of the earlier centuries, while Symeon deliberately made him look
like a perfidious assassin by having the location searched. Third, there was the competition of words: the
chronicler quotes at length the divinely inspired rhetoric of the Byzantine emperor reducing the Bulgarian
to the position of a passive listener; in reality, as Nicholas’ letters suggest, Symeon used the occasion to brag
with his Greek witticisms and insult his counterparts. Finally, perhaps most importantly, there was the
display of power: since the chronicler desired to present Romanos as a true champion of the faith, in the
fashion of David, Symeon was portrayed as a Goliath having all the military advantages of his large guard.
The account seems trustworthy because Symeon wanted precisely that d to emphasise his military
superiority; even while negotiating, he had ordered the burning of the church at Pege, and now, at the
meeting, he had his guard acclaim him as Roman emperor.
Just as in 913, the different approaches to ritualised acts all throw some light on the event. Since
a cause for conflict was the disagreement over court protocol, the compromise that Romanos was
making in meeting Symeon, in 924, was reasonably expected to produce peace between the neigh-
bours; Symeon had to content himself with his elevated status, further reflected in the formula

23
Althoff, Family, friends and followers, 80.
24
Monumenta Germaniae Historica [hereafter MGH]. Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum: Legum sectio IV, vol. I,
ed. L. Weiland (Bonn, 1893), 1.
25
Theodore Daphnopates: correspondence, ed. trans. J. Darrouzes and L.G. Westerink (Paris, 1978) [hereafter Theodore Daph-
nopates], 59, no. 5.

Please cite this article in press as: B. Todorov, The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,
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6 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

‘spiritual brother’ (pneymasikὸ2 ἀdel4ό2) in the emperor’s correspondence.26 From a Byzantine

perspective, the discussions had to become a constitutive event, as did indeed happen three years later
when Symeon’s son was formally accepted as ‘spiritual grandson’ of Romanos by marrying his
granddaughter Maria-Eirene.27 The long negotiations that Symeon led with the patriarch and
Byzantine notables made it appear that the ceremonial meeting just displayed what had already been
agreed to. In fact, there was no agreement and no peace. Symeon did not need them: what he needed
was a continuing military conflict, and he wanted a reading of the events substantiating his claims to be
the true Roman emperor by the right of the sword. By making Romanos and the senators on the walls of
the city witness him being hailed Roman emperor, he substantiated his claims over the title, regardless
of Constantinople’s impregnability. Those claims were a challenge to Byzantium but, much more
importantly, they carried a message to the growing nomadic polities of the Magyars and the Pechenegs
north of the Danube that were becoming the real threat for the integrity of Bulgaria.
There was a close connection between the movements among Magyars and Pechenegs, and the
Byzantine-Bulgarian conflict. After roughly two centuries of relative peace in the steppe corridor north of
the Black Sea, during the last decade of the ninth century the area suddenly became the apple of discord
between Magyars and Pechenegs.28 After the dismemberment of the Khazar Empire in the 880s, the
Magyars held as their proper domain the area of Atelkouzou d located most probably on the right bank of
the Dnieper, as far as the Siret, in present-day Moldova and Romania; in fact it is possible that they had
settled west of the Dnieper even before the mid-ninth century.29 There they had become close neighbours
of Bulgaria, even if it remains problematic to what degree Bulgarian rulers held authority over the left
bank of the Lower Danube. The decline of state power in the steppe, in this case that of the Khazars, led to
quick restructuring of the social and territorial framework of nomad pastoralists. In a recurrent pattern,
observable to Byzantine diplomacy, the more stable social structures d clans or tribes d regrouped and
evolved into new tribal confederations pending military success.30 The Magyars were one such group and
their later success lay in their ability to counter, or avoid, the Pecheneg threat.31 Constantine VII claimed
that the Magyars (Toύrkoi) moved to Atelkouzou after their defeat by the Pechenegs, dated independently
by the early tenth-century Latin chronicler Regino of Prüm to 889.32 In order to withstand the Pecheneg
onslaught, the Magyars had to attract allies; for that purpose they needed momentum in order to
consolidate powerful polities around charismatic clans. Defeating the neighbouring sedentary powers,
bringing plunder and enforcing tribute were essential power-structuring factors for such polities.33 In
order to avoid Pecheneg domination, Magyar tribes engaged in various directions. In the years 892 and
894, they attacked Greater Moravia, either in alliance with the East Frankish King Arnulf or by them-
selves.34 At about the same time, as the Russian Primary Chronicle reported, the Magyars (ougri) invaded

26
Theodore Daphnopates, 57, 69, 77, 79, 85, nos 5–7.
27
Sym. Log. 137:48, 327; the Homily of the peace with the Bulgarians (see notes 4 and 21) was composed for the event. On
the forms of address to Peter: Constantini Porphyrogeniti imperatori de cerimoniis aulae byzantinae libri duo, ed. J.J. Reiske and
I. Bekker, 3 vols (Bonn, 1829-40 [Leipzig, 1751–54]), vol. 1, 681, 690; F. Dölger, ‘Familie der Könige’, 401–2.
28
P. Diaconu, Les Petchénègues au Bas-Danube (Bucharest, 1970), 11–21; A. Pálóczi Horváth, Pechenegs, Cumans, Iasians. Steppe
peoples in medieval Hungary (Budapest, 1989), 7–15.
29
V. Spinei, The Romanians and the Turkic nomads north of the Danube delta from the tenth to the mid-thirteenth century (Leiden,
2009), 63–5. Sym. Logoth. 131:8–12, narrates their alliance with the Bulgars, in the 830s.
30
P.B. Golden, ‘The Qip
caqs of medieval Eurasia: an example of stateless adaptation in the steppes’, in: Rulers from the steppe.
State formation on the Eurasian periphery, ed. G. Seaman and D. Marks (Los Angeles, 2001), 132–57 (138).
31
Constantini Porphyrogeniti de administrando imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik and trans. R.J.H. Jenkins (Washington, 1967) [hereafter
De admin. imp.], 172, ch. 38, treats the transmission of power from the Khazar Qagan to the early Magyar chieftains.
32
On the date, see Reginonis abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon cum continuatione Treverense, ed. F. Kurze (MGH Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum 50, Hannover, 1890) [hereafter Reginonis chronicon], 131. On Atelkouzou, De admin. imp., 172, ch. 38.
33
Golden, ‘Qipcaqs of medieval Eurasia’, 137–8.
34
Annales Fuldenses s.a. 892 and s.a. 894, Annales Fuldenses sive Annales regni francorum orientalis, ed. G. Pertz and F. Kurze
(MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum 7, Hannover, 1891), 121, 125, Liudprandi antapodosis 1:13, in Die Werke Liudprands von
Cremona, ed. J. Becker 3rd edn (Hanover, 1915) [hereafter Werke Liudprands], 15.

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́ ̀
 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 7

the lands of Kiev ‘in manner similar to that of the Cumans’, then moved on against the Slav and Vlach lands
to the west.35 War against Bulgaria was yet another option.
The Magyars attacked Bulgaria for the first time in 892 and over the next three years became involved
in a conflict involving at least four sides dByzantium, Bulgaria, the Pechenegs and themselves d that
prompted their mass migration to central Europe. Symeon came to power in Bulgaria in 893. He was in
fact a usurper, renouncing his monastic vows and ousting his elder brother Vladimir.36 Traditionally,
historians have trusted the Chronicle of Regino of Prüm (finished in 906) which accused Vladimir of
turning the country back to paganism. According to Regino, Vladimir’s father Boris-Michael (852–89),
who had retired to a monastery in 889, returned to public life and had Vladimir blinded and imprisoned.
The old king then invested his younger son Symeon with royal authority.37 Boris-Michael had never
relinquished power completely, as seen in his seals: ‘Michael who became a monk, from God ruler of
Bulgaria’ (Micaὴl monacῷ gegόnoso2 ἐk Q[eo]ῦ ἄrcon [sic] [Boy]lgar[ίa2]).38 The forced abdication of
Vladimir is confirmed by the shorter redaction of the Miracle with George the Bulgarian, initially part of
a tenth-century collection of miracles of St George titled the Legend of the Iron Cross, and confirmed later
by a separate entry in the Church Slavic synaxaria: ‘And while he [Boris-Michael] lived in the frock and
Vladimir, his first son, occupied his place, Symeon was blessed by both God and Michael [possibly
Archangel Michael] and took the throne ousting his brother.’39 Regino’s explanation of Vladimir’s fate by
his paganism is questionable: Iurdan Trifonov suggested that the chronicler, otherwise uninterested in
Bulgarian affairs, used the story as an example of how fathers punished rebellious sons, in allusion to the
blinding of Carloman by his father Charles the Bald, in 870; to make the message emphatic, Regino
rearranged the story.40 The crisis bringing Symeon to power may very well have been caused by Vla-
dimir’s inability to contain the Magyar pressure from the north-east; for the first time in history
Danubian Bulgaria, itself founded by conquerors from the steppe, was threatened from that direction.
During the years 892-7,41, the Magyars invaded the core territory of Bulgaria at least once, in late 894 or
895, and inflicted two, or more, defeats on the Bulgarians south of the Danube.42 They were helped by

35
Lavrent’evskaia letopis’, ed. Karskii, col. 25. The event is dated incorrectly to AM 6406 ¼ AD 897/8. Medieval Hungarian
historiography preserved the memory of this invasion of Rus’. Die ‘Gesta Hungarorum’ des anonymen Notars, ed. and trans. by
G. Silagi, with L. Veszprémy (Sigmaringen, 1991) [hereafter Gesta Hungarorum], 42–8, ch. 7–9. The Gesta were composed
around 1200.
36
We know that Symeon had been a monk from Liudprand of Cremona’s Antapodosis 3:29, in Werke Liudprands, 87. Liudprand
called Symeon a ‘Julian’ on account of such apostasy.
37
Reginonis chronicon, s.a.868, 95-6. See V. N. Zlatarski, Istoriia, vol. 2:ii, 243–54.
38
Iordanov, Korpus na pechatite, 34-6. nos 26–7.
39
K. Loparev, Chudo sviatogo Georgiia o bolgarine. Pamiatnik vizantiiskoi perevodnoi literatury (St Petersburg, 1894), 19.
Loparev based his edition on a seventeenth-century Russian miscellany, MS O.135, of the collection of the Department of Old
Russian Literature at the Russian Academy of Science, in St Petersburg: see ‘Skazanie za zhelezniia krust’ i epohata na tsar
Simeon, ed. A. Kaloianov, M. Spasova and T. Mollov (Veliko Turnovo, 2007), 220. An alternative edition of the work, based on
a late fifteenth–early sixteenth-century Russian miscellany (MS 1783 from the collection of Uvarov, State Historical Museum,
Moscow), B.S. Angelov, Iz starata bulgarska, ruska i srubska literatura, 3 (Sofia, 1978), 85, omits the passage.
40
I. Trifonov, ‘Dostoveren li e razkazut za oslepiavane na Borisoviia sin Vladimir’ [Is the account of the blinding of Boris’s son
Vladimir reliable?], Uchilishten pregled, 50 (1927), 864–90 (889). Regino was poorly informed about Bulgarian matters: he
considered Boris-Michael long dead, while in 906, when the chronicle was finished, the latter was still living.
41
The following summary is largely dependent on H. Dimitrov, Bulgaro-ungarski otnosheniia prez Srednovekovieto (Sofia, 1998),
29–37.
42
Leonis imperatoris taktika, 18:42, in Patrologia graeca et orientalis, J.-P. Migne, 166 vols (Paris, 1857–83), vol. 107, 956 CD:
Leo VI wrote that the Magyars ‘defeated completely’ the Bulgarians in three battles. The Annales fuldenses, s. a. 896, 129–30,
claim that the Magyars won two battles and were repulsed at the third. Sym. Logoth. 133:18, 276, and the Continuation of
Theophanes, 6:1:8, in Theophanes continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister, Georgius Monachus, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn,
1838) [hereafter Theoph. Cont.], 368–9, claim Symeon hardly saved his life behind the walls of Drustur. De admin. imp. 176, ch.
40, presents a similar picture. The Miracle of George, in Angelov, Iz starata literatura, 85–6, speaks of two battles: one the
Bulgarians lost, the other they possibly won.

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8 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

a Byzantine fleet carrying them up the river,43 in retaliation to a Bulgarian invasion of Thrace early in 894.44
Symeon eventually repelled the Magyars45 and invaded Thrace a second time, in 896.46 It is plausible that
the Magyars had attacked Bulgarian dominions north of the Danube in 892 or 893, before Symeon’s
campaign in Thrace,47 and that Symeon managed to repel them because they suffered a heavy blow from
the Pechenegs.48 The sequence of events suggests that Symeon opted for a risky strategy. Instead of defence,
he chose offence, and instead of pursuing, or blocking, the Magyars north of the Danube, he attacked
Byzantium. This was an early expression of the same policy of containment of nomadic powers that
culminated decades later in his imperial claims. An attack on Byzantium could provide goods, including
prisoners-of-war to be turned into slaves, which Bulgaria could use in order to bargain with the Magyars
and convince their chiefs of the opportunities open to them if they would join Symeon in similar campaigns.
By the late tenth century numerous fortified settlements appeared in north-east Bulgaria, yet Rasho
Rashev explains them as a local initiative that had little to do with a central policy of building a military
frontier, such as the one Procopius wanted to see in Justinian’s construction works in the Balkans.49
Fortification was not a priority for Symeon. What he needed, in 894 and over the next decades, was
to mobilise sufficient military force to pursue and fight Magyars or Pechenegs. Successful aggressive
wars facilitated recruitment and made possible alliances with outsiders. Aggressive acts impressed as
well. This is how Byzantine chroniclers understood it. Symeon the Logothete noted:
Upon learning about Symeon’s death [in 927], the surrounding nations d the Croats and the
rest d wanted to engage the Bulgarians [. . . The Bulgarians] were afraid of the attack of the
other nations, even more were they afraid of a Roman [Byzantine] invasion. Taking counsel,
they went to war against the Romans and penetrated Macedonia, spreading fear, as could be
expected, among the Romans.50
By attacking Byzantium in 894, Symeon hoped to open a channel through which Magyar pressure would
be released towards his southern neighbour. On later occasions, his successor Peter did just the same

43
Confirmed by Leo VI, Symeon the Logothete and Annales fuldenses. De admin. imp. 250, 252, ch. 51, tells the exploit of one
Michael Barkalas who cut the ropes thrown across the river; thus, the Byzantine fleet appears to have penetrated upstream.
44
This is stated by Leo VI, in his Taktika (see note 42), with no explanation. Sym. Logoth. 133:15, 275, explains the conflict as
connected to the decision of Leo VI to move the Bulgarian market from Constantinople toThessaloniki. The Annales fuldenses, s.a. 896,
129, however, present the Bulgars’ aggression as response to the ‘peace’ that Greeks and Magyars had concluded. This is a crucial
point which most historians have disregarded.
45
Sym. Logoth. 133:19, 277, Theoph. cont. 6:1:9, 359. For the Annales fuldenses, see note 44. To these, we must add the
prophetical words reaching the protagonist in another story from the Legend of the Iron Cross: ‘Heed, O Clement! Prince Symeon
will prevail through the force of Christ.’ Clement heard these words while fleeing from the Magyars in a battle the Bulgarians
lost. See Angelov, Iz starata literatura, 94. De admin. imp., 176, ch. 40, omits a Magyar defeat.
46
Sym. Logoth. 133:21, 277, Theoph. cont. 6:1:10, 360.
47
Annales fuldenses, s.a. 895, 126. This earlier attack might have actually taken place under Vladimir. The Legend of the Iron
Cross dates the events to the reign of Vladimir, son of Boris-Michael, and mentions nothing of Symeon. See Angelov, Iz starata
literatura, 85. It is only in one of the two redactions of the Miracle with George the Bulgarian, which enjoyed its own tradition as
a separate entry in Church Slavic synaxaria, that the passage cited earlier (see n. 40) appears. Byzantine chroniclers mentioned
no earlier Magyar invasion and supported the view that Symeon attacked Byzantium in 894 because Leo VI transferred the
Bulgarian market from Constantinople to Thessaloniki (Sym. Logoth. 133:15, 275). It seems awkward, however, that the person
held responsible for the decision d Stylianos Zaoutzes d retained his influential position even after the resulting Byzantine
defeat. It is more likely that Zaoutzes was only blamed posthumously. The Annales fuldenses are more credible: Symeon
attacked Byzantium because of the empire’s alliance with the Magyars.
48
De admin. imp., 176, ch. 40.
49
R. Rashev, ‘Remarks on the archaeological evidence of forts and fortified settlements in tenth-century Bulgaria’, in: Borders,
barriers, and ethnogenesis: frontiers in late antiquity and the middle ages, ed. F. Curta (Turnhout, 2005), 51–8 (57).
50
Sym. Logoth. 136:46, 326: sὰ kύklῳ oὖn ἔqnh sὴn soῦ Symeὼn maqόnsa seleysέn, oἵ se Xrubάsoi kaὶ oἱ loipoὶ ἐkssraseύein
kasὰ Boylgάrun ἐboyleύonso [. . . oἱ Boύlgaroi] ἐdedίesan mὲn kaὶ sὴn sῶn ἄllun ἐqnῶn ἔ4odon, ἐdedίesan dὲ plέon sὴn sῶn
Ῥumaίun ἐpέleysin. boylὴn oὖn poihsάmenoi kasὰ Ῥumaίun ἐkssraseύoysin kaὶ ἐn Makedonίᾳ kasalambάnoysin, 4όbon, ὡ2
eἰkό2, soῖ2 Ῥumaίoi2 ἐmpoiέsonse2.

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 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 9

repeatedly allowing free passage to Magyar raids attacking the European provinces of Byzantium; 51 he
possibly even concluded a treaty with them, in 965.52
Previously in 894, Symeon’s strategy had failed. Leo VI quickly grasped the occasion and out-bargained
him, not only by offering the Magyars gifts, but, more importantly, by helping them cross the Danube.
Symeon’s positions d unclear as they are d in central Europe suffered tremendously: after the Pecheneg
strike of 895, the Magyars began a process of migration to Pannonia where they gradually eradicated all
Bulgarian presence along the Tisza and the Middle Danube.53 Yet, during the second half of his reign,
Symeon proved to be much better prepared and his strategy to prevent aggression by aggression helped
protect his domain from incursions from the north. During this period, the leading role in the steppe had
already fallen to the Pechenegs.
While the political, social, economic and cultural history of particular nomadic states has received
scholarly attention, historians have shown little interest in their interaction with sedentary powers.
This is due primarily to the nature of the textual evidence, which originates primarily in the sedentary
world and does not allow for a symmetrical study of the relations between steppe and agricultural
societies. Some historians have focused on the transmission of state traditions and institutions from
nomadic into agriculturalist polities, others have approached the structures of nomadic polities outside
the framework of state-related concepts.54 Anthropologists have shown less reticence in addressing the
basic principles of relations between nomads and sedentary societies. T. J. Barfield dedicated a volu-
minous book to the interaction between sedentary (in his case, China) and nomadic polities.55 Barfield’s
central concept of ‘cycles of power’, which he observes in the coincidence of strong dynastic empires in
China and in the steppe, cannot apply to south-east Europe, yet, what does apply is his con-
ceptualisation of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ frontier strategies d paradigms highly useful for interpreting the
recurrent patterns of accommodation between militarily dominant nomadic polities and their agri-
culturalist neighbours and competitors. As far as the tenth century is concerned, A. M. Khazanov’s
broader, and less historicised, work on the economic dependence of nomads on the sedentary world
provides further helpful tools for analysis.56
The Magyars and Pechenegs were not just participants in the wars between Bulgaria and Byzantium
during the first three and last 15 years of Symeon’s reign (893–6 and 913–27); they were actually the
driving force that triggered the wars between the two sedentary powers and reconditioned the process
of Bulgaria’s integration into the Byzantine order of things (the ‘settled part’ or oikoumene, oἰkoymέnh).
In Barfield’s terms, they both preferred the outer frontier strategy, keeping to a geographical area with
primarily steppe or steppe-forest landscape. The containment, even integration within an imaginary
Bulgarian space, of the Pechenegs was possible because of the very way interaction between sedentary
and nomadic societies worked. In Khazanov’s terms, the non-autarkic character of the nomads’
economy made it imperative for them to adapt to the outside world.57 This adaptation might be limited

51
In 934 (Sym. Logoth. 136:69, 334, Theoph. Cont. 6:4:37, 422-3, Skylitzes 11:29, in Ioannis Skylitzae Synopsis historiarum, ed.
H. Thurn (Berlin, 1973), 228), in 943 (Sym. Logoth. 136:77, 337, Theoph. cont. 6:4:45, 430-1, Skylitzes 11:34, 231), in 958 (Theoph.
cont. 6:5:47, 462), and in 962 (Theoph. cont. 6:6:15, 480).
52
Skylitzes 15:20, 277. Twelfth-century historian John Zonaras has Peter declare to Nikephoros II: ‘When they [the Magyars]
waged war upon us, you were called upon to help us, but refused to. And now, when we, overpowered, concluded a treaty with
them, you request that we break the treaty, clash arms with them and engage in a fatal struggle.’ Zonaras XVI, in: Ioannis
Zonarae epitomae historiarum libri xviii, ed. T. Büttner-Wobst, 3 vols (Bonn, 1841–97), vol. 3, 513: ὅse kaq’ ἡmῶn oὗsoi ἐssrάseyon,
parakaloύmeno2 symmacῆsai ἡmῖn oὐk ἠqέlhsa2. kaὶ nῦn ὅse biasqέnse2 spondὰ2 ἐqέmeqa prὸ2 aὐsoύ2, ἀxioῖ2 ἡmᾶ2
paraspondῆsai ὅpla se kas’ ἐkeίnun ἄrasqai kaὶ kinῆsai pόlemon ἀpro4άsisson.
53
The Gesta Hungarorum discuss at length the struggle between the Magyar ruler Arpad and one Salanus, blood-relative of the
Bulgarian kings, for the lands between the Tisza and the Danube. See Gesta Hungarorum, 54, 80-2, 92-6, ch. 12, 30, 38–40. The
earliest evidence confirming that the lands north of Belgrade and Sirmium were Hungarian is from the mid-tenth century: De
admin. imp., 176, ch. 40.
54
M. Cherniavsky, ‘Khan or Basileus: an aspect of Russian medieval political theory’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 20 (1959),
459–76; T.S. Noonan, ‘The Khazar Qaghanate and its impact on the early Rus’ state: The translatio imperii from Itil to Kiev’, in
Nomads in the sedentary world, ed. A. Khazanov and A. Wink (2001), 76–102. Golden, ‘The Qip caqs of medieval Eurasia’.
55
T.J. Barfield, The perilous frontier. Nomadic empires and China, 221 BC to AD 1757 (Cambridge, MA, 1989).
56
A.M. Khazanov, Nomads and the outside world, trans. J. Crookenden, introduction. E. Gellner (Cambridge, 1984).
57
Khazanov, Nomads, 83.

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10 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

to trade with sedentary peoples, yet pastoralism was not a continuous source of surpluses for sale.58 An
alternative strategy could be the sedentarisation of the nomads, yet it implied their ability to leave the
steppe and their willingness to give up their traditions and sense of identity. Between these poles of
trade and resettlement lay intermediate ways of balancing power between nomads and their sedentary
opponents. In practice, war turned easily to their benefit. Whenever they won, theirs was the right to
pillage, collect tribute, or impose taxation;59 whenever they lost and had to accept the dominance of
a sedentary power, they still could offer the benefits of their military potential and preserve their social
structures.60
The vitality of nomadic polities, be they more or less centralised and sophisticated, depended on
the capacity of a ruling class to exert pressure on the sedentary powers and eliminate competitors.
The scant resources of the steppe economy made internal colonisation d the most important factor
behind the steady growth of agriculturalist economies d impossible. This is clear in the case of the
Pechenegs where the growing number of clans (eight, in mid-tenth century, 13, in mid-eleventh)61
eventually led to confrontation within the Pecheneg space and to the disintegration of Pecheneg
power north of the Danube.62 Disputes over space could not be solved through the development of
hierarchical structures, similar to those in agriculturalist societies. Hierarchy in sedentary society was
based largely on the ownership and use of land. It was impossible for pastoralist societies to organise
similar hierarchical structures based upon the ownership of cattle; ruling families sought alternative
sources of authority upon which to develop functional networks of power. Such sources could be
valuable gifts or symbols of rank coming from the power-centre of a larger, imagined world order. For
several centuries, due to its relative proximity to the steppe corridor north of the Black Sea, Con-
stantinople played the role of such centre. Gifts from the Byzantine emperor could be redistributed
along various channels to lower social layers among the nomads and might help structure these
layers; they could build the material framework for shaping the fluid social bodies of pastoralist
polities and, at the same time, check the balance between nomadic and sedentary societies, which
was threatened in economic and military terms. In economic terms, nomadic pastoralists needed to
obtain more from agriculturalists than they could offer in return. From a military point of view, wars
with sedentary societies were profitable for pastoralists because they had precise targets d cities and
villages; while sedentary societies usually avoided exhausting campaigns into the steppe where there
was little hope of loot. From a Byzantine, or Bulgarian, point of view, it was preferable to contain
nomadic polities like the Pechenegs through gifts and titles. Such a policy would be effective as long
as the nomadic power-players shared an interest in it.
The rhetoric of medieval authors constructed the image of the nomads as a destructive power
which it was impossible to integrate within the oikoumene. Nonetheless, Byzantine autocrats were
able to formulate a strategy for coping with them along distinct lines of action. Constantine VII
determined these in negative terms, by advising his son Romanos what never to grant the ‘northern
and Scythian peoples’ (sὰ ἔqnh sῶn boreίun kaὶ sῶn Skyqίkun): insignia of imperial power (the closed,
hemi-spherical imperial crown d cited by Constantine in the plural: kamelaύkia d and the purple
robes of state), liquid fire and marriage into the imperial family.63 Acceptable actions, at least for
Christianised neighbours, were to grant them some of these demands to a lesser degree. Byzantine
emperors conferred offices, titles and stipends upon rulers of more or less distant neighbours during
different periods of history. Constantine VII dedicated a whole chapter of De administratione imperii to
the complicated issue of the offices and material support the members of the house of Taron d one

58
Khazanov, Nomads, 203–4.
59
Khazanov, Nomads, 224–5.
60
Khazanov, Nomads, 216. For a study of the Cumans’ integration in thirteenth-century Hungary, see N. Berend, At the gate of
Christendom. Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary, c.1000–c.1300 (Cambridge, 2001), 69–72, 87–100, 134–40.
61
De admin. imp., 166, ch. 37, speaks of eight provinces (qέmasa) ruled by princes (ἄrconse2), subdivided into 40 regions (merῆ)
under smaller princes (ἐlἄssone2 ἄrconse2). Skylitzes 22:16, 455, speaks of 13 families or clans (genῆ), perhaps meaning the same
groups.
62
Diaconu, Petchénègues, 56-78.
63
De admin. imp., 66–70, ch. 13. Constantine explicitly mentioned the Khazars, the Turks (the Magyars) and the Rus’.

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 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 11

of the several Armenian principalities in the tenth century d had received from Constantinople.64
Such titles confirmed Byzantine imperial claims since in fact foreign rulers were brought within
the system of Byzantine ranks (magistros, patrikios, and so on). In exceptional cases, the emperor
would go so far as to bestow royal insignia upon loyal allies: this had happened in earlier centuries,
as in 580, when Tiberius II offered a crown to the Arab chief Moundhir,65 and recurred in the middle
Byzantine period, for example, when Michael VII Doukas (1071–8) sent another d the ‘Crown of
St Stephen’, as it is known d to the Hungarian King Geza I (1074–7). Foreign rulers were welcome to
wed Byzantine ladies, some of them even from the imperial family, provided the groom was Christian
and the bride was not among the children or siblings of the ruling emperor. The Byzantine wife of
Otto II (976–83), Theophano, was the niece of John Tzimiskes, unrelated to the Macedonian dynasty;
before his accession to the throne of Kiev, Vsevolod Iaroslavich (1078–93) had married a female
relative of Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55) about whom nothing precise is known.66
In the centuries before Symeon, high honours had been bestowed on nomadic chiefs as well, like the
Hun Grodas who was baptised in Constantinople, under the sponsorship of Justinian (527–65), or the
Ounogoundour Kouvratos who was made patrikios by Heraklios (610–32).67 The peoples of the steppe,
however, with the exception of the Alans,68 remained largely pagan and this obstructed marriage
alliances. Nor did they develop monarchical institutions which the Byzantines could conceive worthy
of royal dignity. After a hiatus of several centuries, during which their relations with the steppe went
primarily through the mediation of the Khazar Qagan, tenth-century Byzantines had to re-establish
models that would create diplomatic pressure over the newcomers, particularly the Pechenegs.
Chapter 7 of De administrando imperio sees the outcome of such pressure in the unstoppable trickle of
gifts, of various kinds and different value:
Since those Pechenegs are insatiable, and eager to obtain things not easily available to them, they
request with no second thought becoming gifts; particularly so the hostages [in Byzantine
custody during negotiations] first request this or that for themselves, then a second time, for
their wives; the guards [of the Byzantine hostages] demand compensation for their efforts, then
they ask the same for the efforts of their horses. When the imperial legate enters their country,
they [the chieftains] ask first for the gifts of the emperor, and once again, after the men have
been satisfied with the gifts, they repeat the same for their women and children.69
The gifts Pecheneg guards and hostages requested were ‘becoming’ precisely because they originated
in Byzantium and carried the aura of supreme power. Constantine VII suggested ways to deny the
demands of the northern peoples by appealing to the authority of Constantine the Great. Dissimulation
was one way forward: Constantine VII advised his son to state that Constantine I had received the
crown and the robe from an angel sent by God; the imperial insignia were never to leave the sanctuary

64
De admin. imp., 188–98, ch. 43.
65
E.K. Chrysos, ‘The title BASYLEYS in early Byzantine international relations’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 32 (1978), 31–75 (50).
66
A. Davids, ‘Marriage negotiations between Byzantium and the West and the name of Theophano in Byzantium (eighth to
tenth centuries)’, in: The Empress Theophano. Byzantium and the west at the turn of the first millennium, ed. A. Davids
(Cambridge, 1995), 99–120, V.L. Ianin and G.G. Litavrin, ‘Novye materialy o proizkhozhdenii Vladimira Monomakha’; Istoriko-
arkheologicheskii sbornik (Moscow, 1962), 204–21. De admin. imp., 74, ch. 13, contains a complicated argument why the
marriage of Peter of Bulgaria and Maria-Eirene was not a true exception to the rule.
67
I. Engelhardt, Mission und Politik in Byzanz. Beitrag zur Strukturanalyse byzantinischer Mission zur Zeit Justins und Justinians
(Munich, 1974), 80–90, Nicephori breviarium 22, in: Nikephoros Patriarch of Constantinople. Short history, ed. and trans. C. Mango
(Washington, D.C., 1990), 70.
68
In the tenth century, the kingdom of Alania, north of Caucasus, was in the process of Christianisation. The Alans maintained
their predominantly nomadic way of life, yet because of their conversion, their king was considered ‘spiritual son’ of the
emperor. See C. Hannick, ‘Die byzantinischen Missionen’, in Die Kirche des früheren Mittelalters, ed. K. Schäferdiek (Munich,
1978), 278–359 (321).
69
De admin. imp., 54, ch. 7: oἱ dὲ soioῦsoi Paszinakῖsai ἄplhssoi ὄnse2 kaὶ sῶn par’ aὐsoῖ2 spanίun ὀxeῖ2 ἐpiqymhsaὶ ἀnέdhn
ἐpizhsoῦsin xenάlia ἱkanά, oἱ mὲn ὄjide2 ἄlla mὲn lόgῳ aὐsῶn kaὶ ἄlla lόgῳ sῶn aὐsῶn gynaikῶn, oἱ dὲ ἀposῶssai sὰ mὲn ὑpὲr
soῦ kόpoy aὐsῶn, sὰ dὲ ὑpὲr soῦ kόpoy sῶn ἀlόgun aὐsῶn. Eἶsa, eἰsercomέnoy soῦ basilikoῦ eἰ2 sὴn cώran aὐsῶn, zhsoῦsi
prόseron sὰ soῦ basilέu2 dῶra, kaὶ pάlin, ὅse korέsoysi soὺ2 ἀnqrώpoy2 aὐsῶn, zhsoῦsi sὰ sῶn gynaikῶn kaὶ sῶn gonέun
aὐsῶn.

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12 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

of Hagia Sophia except for major feasts.70 It may be that Constantine targeted specifically the
Bulgarians whose ruler Symeon had possibly appropriated the kamelaukion.71 But his advice applied to
all northern peoples. They were pagan, yet they were already integrated in what Clifford Geertz names
‘webs of meaning’ d such as the secular political ideology which the Christianised empire had spun
over the Mediterranean and beyond.
Just as in the fourteenth-century Javanese theatre of state in which royal processions inscribed
themselves upon a cosmic geometry, tenth-century Constantinople was a force of attraction explicable
not so much by the expansionist power of her soldiers, merchants or missionaries, as by the impact the
city herself, with her ritualised representations of divine power, exerted upon the imagination of
Christian and non-Christian outsiders alike. Geertz wrote regarding Balinese state myth-making: ‘Mass
ritual was not a device to shore up the state; the state was a device for the enactment of mass ritual’;
the statement is largely applicable to Byzantine political culture which was founded upon, and revived
through, the discourse embedded in divine liturgy.72 The intrinsic value Constantine VII allegedly
found in the insignia of imperial power is paralleled by the intrinsic power of Constantinople as centre
of the oikoumene.
Constantine VII discussed the greed of the northerners in the relative safety that Bulgaria provided
to Byzantium as a buffer-state of sorts. In the first half of the tenth century, Byzantium shared no border
with the nomads of the steppe apart from its possessions in the Crimea. It is Bulgaria that had to
contain their pressure by offering benefits similar to those Constantinople could provide. Symeon’s
looming presence in Byzantine politics of the period has obscured his insecure position in regard to the
Pechenegs and the Magyars. The traditional Bulgarian strategies of defence d primarily the preser-
vation of large expanses of unsettled lands d were no longer efficient when the growing numbers of
Pechenegs and Magyars allowed them to move closer. Since Bulgaria had little of the material resources
Byzantium possessed, Symeon had to compensate through engaging both sides d the empire to the
south and the nomadic polities to the north d both in a dynamic military struggle and in an ambiguous
ideological discourse. He behaved as a nomad when justifying his aggression against fellow Christians
with demands similar to those described by Constantine VII, yet recurred to the Christian imperial
rhetoric when interpreting his victories as proof of divine favour. His primary goal was to enhance his
image in the eyes of possible Pecheneg enemies, to keep them away from his domains south of the
Danube and attract them to his own forces that pillaged Thrace and Macedonia.
There is one explicit document d letter nine in the collection of Nicholas Mystikos’ correspon-
dence d that suggests the direct connection between the Bulgarian-Byzantine conflict and the
hidden bargaining with the Pechenegs both Christian powers conducted. In August 917, Zoe, the
mother-regent of Constantine VII, ordered a large-scale invasion of Bulgaria. This was the biggest
military undertaking against the northern neighbour for at least a century.73 The Holy Cross was
carried out of the city and generals and soldiers took an oath to give their lives for each other. In
addition, the strategos of Chersones, in Crimea d John Bogas d successfully negotiated the support of
the Pechenegs and led them to the delta of the Danube where they were supposed to be carried
across by a Byzantine fleet. For reasons that are now unclear Bogas quarrelled with the commander
of the fleet d the future emperor Romanos Lekapenos d and the Pechenegs returned to their
country. In the end, several Byzantine generals fell in battle, while Lekapenos was accused of high
treason for not taking on board the soldiers stranded upon the beaches of the Black Sea.74 Soon after,
Nicholas Mystikos wrote to Symeon to justify the war. He explicitly referred to official decisions made
by ‘those in power’ (soῑ2 ἄrcoysin). Thus, this particular letter is an exceptional document revealing

70
De admin. imp., 66, ch. 13.
71
See G. Atanassov, ‘La couronne d kamelaukion: un des régalias des souverains bulgares au moyen âge’, Annuaire de
l’Université de Sofia, 90 ¼ Centre Dujcev 9 (Sofia, 1999), 259–71.
72
C. Geertz, ‘Centers, kings, and charisma: reflections on the symbolics of power’; Local knowledge. Further essays in inter-
pretive anthropology (New York, 1983), 121–46 and ‘Politics past, politics present: some notes on the uses of anthropology in
understanding the new states’, ch. 12, in: C. Geertz, The interpretation of cultures (New York, 1973), 327–41, (335).
73
Sym. Logoth. 135:18, 304, claims that all armies used against the Arabs in Syria were transferred to the European side of
Constantinople. He lists several generals, including the strategos of Armeniakon d in central Asia Minor.
74
Sym. Logoth. 135:19–22, 305–6.

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 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 13

the rationale behind Byzantine decision-making. The patriarch presented the military operation as
a pre-emptive strike. The strategoi of the border themata d Thrace and Macedonia d had reported
that ‘such was the objective of the Bulgarians, as to plunder and pillage our entire country.’75 The
strategos of Chersones, Bogas, had forwarded news from the Pechenegs who had reached him on
sixteen different occasions claiming that: ‘Messengers from the Bulgarians get sent to them [the
Pechenegs] not once or twice, but many times, asking them to swear an oath; the question so much
preoccupies the Bulgarians that they are eager to build and cement an alliance with the Pechenegs at
the price of giving [them] their own children in marriage.’76 Since Bogas bought Pecheneg help in
that same year, it appears the Pecheneg messengers had met with him as part of on-going negoti-
ations between Bulgaria and Byzantium over their services. The major reason for the invasion was
the fear, in Constantinople, that the Pechenegs might join the Bulgarians in action in Thrace.
Symeon was successful in gathering such support after 917. Until his death in 927, he continuously
harassed the empire, appearing three times in front of Constantinople, or sending marauding parties as
far as Corinth in continental Greece. A Greek miracle of St George tells the story of a young man who fell
captive in battle against Bulgars, Hungarians (Oὔggroi), Scythians (Skύqai), Moedians (Mέdoi) and
Turks (Toύrkoi) d in this case, more probably Pechenegs.77 The young man was taken into slavery by
a chieftain (ἐqnάrch2) who took him ‘to the foreign and unenlightened country of an ungodly and
unfriendly nation’.78 Such accusations were formulated by Romanos Lekapenos himself, who alluded,
in a letter from 925, to Symeon giving away Christian captives to infidels as slaves.79 Al-Masudi’s Muru j
adh-dhahab (Meadows of Gold), finished around 940, informs us about joint actions of Bulgarians,
Magyars and Pechenegs against Byzantium.80
Symeon wanted, even more ambitiously, to displace the Byzantine emperor as the image of
supreme and divinely ordained authority. This explains his obstinate and partly contradictory imperial
claims which possibly pre-dated the war of 917, but visibly grew after it. Symeon adopted the title of
basileus in his seals and had it inserted in the prooimia and colophons of the literary projects he
sponsored.81 He consistently subverted the hierarchy of secular power as construed in Constantinople.
In 913, unimpeded, Symeon invaded Thrace, building his camp in the area of the Hebdomon, the same
point where imperial triumphal processions began;82 next, he required Byzantine messengers to do
him obeisance.83 After 917, Symeon formulated the simple idea that his victory over the Romans made
him their lord. This appeared on his seals where the words ‘Roman emperor’ stood on the reverse,
while the obverse described him as ‘bringer (or literally, ‘maker’) of victory’, and in a letter by the
patriarch, from 917: ‘You are acting wrong and inconsiderate [. . .] when you argue that the ill which
befell the Roman people comes by force of your authority over the Romans.’84 Years later, Lekapenos
elaborated on the same theme asking: ‘You are calling yourself emperor of which Romans exactly? Of
those whom you oppress or of those whom you delivered to impious peoples and doomed to

75
Nicholas I, Letters, 58, no. 9: ὁ sῶn Boylgάrun soioῦso2 eἴh skopό2, ὥsse sὴn ἡmesέran cώran skyleῦsai panselῶ2 kaὶ
la4yragugῆsai.
76
Nicholas I, Letters, 58, no. 9: ἐxapessάlhsan prὸ2 aὐsoὺ2 ἐk Boylgarίa2 ἀpokrisiάrioi, oὐc ἅpax oὐdὲ dί2, ἀllὰ kaὶ
pleissάki2, proskaloύmenoi soύsoy2 eἰ2 sὴn prὸ2 ἑaysoὺ2 ἕnosin$ kaὶ sosoῦson sὸ prᾶgma spoydάzesai Boylgάroi2, ὥsse kaὶ
gάmoy koinunίᾳ sῶn oἰkeίun paίdun spoydάzein ἑnῶsai kaὶ syndῆsai sὴn prὸ2 ἑaysoὺ2 symmacίan Paszhnakisῶn.
77
Miracula sancti Georgii, ed. J.B. Aufhauser (Leipzig, 1913), 20. The miracle in question is no. 687z in Bibliotheca hagiographica
graeca, ed. F. Halkin, 4 vols (Brussels, 1957–69), vol. 1, 219.
78
Miracula sancti Georgii, 28: ἐpὶ cώran ἀllodapὴn kaὶ ἄlogon soῦ ἀsebessάsoy kaὶ ἀphnoῦ2 ἔqnoy2.
79
Theodore Daphnopates, no. 7, 82: oἱ dὲ kaὶ prὸ2 doyleίan par’ ὑmῶn ἀpίssoi2 ἔqnesin ἐxedόqhsan.
80
C.A. Macartney, ‘The attack on “Valandar”’, Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher, 7 (1929/30), 159–70.
81
See note 8.
82
Sym. Logoth. 135:10-11, 301; E.R. Chrysos, ‘Die ‘Krönung’ Symeons in Hebdomon’, Cyrillomethodianum, 3 (1975), 169–73;
M. McCormick, Eternal victory. triumphal rulership in late antiquity, Byzantium and the early medieval west (Cambridge, 1986),
155. See note 20.
83
See note 22.
84
Iordanov, Korpus na pechatite, nos 57–67, 48–51: nikopyoy Symeoni pyo2 (this way) polὰ sὰ ἔsh [To Symeon (?), the maker
of victory, many years]; Nicholas I, Letters, no. 10, 70: Kakῶ2 poieῖ2 [. . .] ὑpologizόmeno2 ὡ2 ἕneken soῦ sὲ sῶn Ῥumaίun
kasasceῖn ἐxoysίan sὸ gegonὸ2 ἁmάrshma sῷ Ῥumaïkῷ synέbh laῷ.

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14 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15

servitude?’85 Symeon inscribed his imperial claims in his actions as well. He brutally interfered in the
dynastic struggles of the Serbian princes and elevated to, or deprived of, power his puppets in
demonstration of his lordship over the country.86 A later source claims the Bulgarian tsar despatched
a delegation to the Fatimid emir of Egypt, perhaps as another challenge to the Byzantine claims over the
eastern Mediterranean.87
As long as Constantinople stood safe, Symeon could hardly convince the nomads of the steppe that
the Roman imperium lay with him. He surrounded his own capital with white stone walls and adorned
it with golden domed churches, yet Preslav could never overshadow the New Rome on the Bosphorus.
Symeon had to patch up his own version of the theatre of imperial authority and downplay what
Pechenegs witnessed in Constantinople or even the dress and gifts imperial messengers displayed on
the steppe. What he could hope to achieve was the subversion of the symbols of imperial hierarchy, the
humiliation of the Byzantine emperor, the display of might against the background of Byzantine
helplessness. The significance of the show that Romanos and Symeon staged on the shores of the
Golden Horn becomes apparent in the close attention that Symeon the Logothete paid to it d there is
no other single event in the whole chronicle described at such length. The effort the chronicler put in
constructing the ‘proper’ Byzantine interpretation of it bespeaks the concerns, decades later, that the
message Symeon sent in 924 to the other regional powers had been persuasive.
During the earlier half of the tenth century the Pechenegs established their domination over the
steppe corridor north of the Black Sea. They became a threat to, and a potential ally of, the growing Rus’
cities along the Dnieper, and in just the same way Constantinople considered them both a danger and
valuable friends. No other people received so much attention as they did in Constantine VII’s De
administrando imperio. Yet, archaeological evidence suggests that their push to the west, in the
direction of the Dniester and the Danube, was slow and acquired destructive proportions only toward
the end of the tenth century, after the first Bulgarian empire had been overrun by Sviatoslav of Kiev and
John Tzimiskes in the years 968–71.88 Until then, Symeon’s strategy of containing the nomads through
gifts, honours, marital alliances and prospects for pillage at the expense of Byzantium, had largely
worked. Within the context of positivist and legalist history which treated imperial rhetoric, diplomatic
custom and international treaties as constitutive events with unequivocal meaning, Symeon’s imperial
claims seemed an aberration. According to these approaches, the ambitious purpose of the Bulgarian
tsar was the legitimisation of his autocratic rule against the background of Byzantine imperial tradition
and along abstract principles similar to those of the present day diplomatic recognition of sovereignty.
This essay suggests that the practical value of empire lay in a different place: in the ability of strong
rulers like Symeon to stage the theatre of state and through the calculated use of violence and symbols
of authority d correspondence, ritualised behaviour, sponsorship of arts and letters d to engage
neighbours, in this case nomads, in a clear and dynamic discourse of power, which comprised both the
visions of authority of the nomads and the models of interaction with barbarians in general that were
employed by the Byzantines. This was not an empire on paper, but an empire of deed. It would crumble
decades later, when Symeon’s successors were no longer in a position to threaten Constantinople and
build mutually beneficial alliances with Magyar or Pecheneg chiefs.

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the European History Colloquium, at UCLA, in
January 2006, and at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy, in Vancouver, in April 2008. Thanks
go to the useful comments received at those events, and even more, to the anonymous reviewers for
their valuable suggestions.

85
Theodore Daphnopates, no. 5, 59-61: Poίun dὲ Ῥumaίun ἑaysὸn ἀpokaleῖ2 basilέa; Tῶn parὰ soῦ krashqέnsun, ἢ sῶn
ἀpίssoi2 ἔqnesi ἐkdoqέnsun kaὶ prὸ2 doyleίan kasakriqέnsun;
86
De admin. imp., ch. 31, 154–60.
87
Skylitzes 15:6, 264–5.
88
Diaconu, Petchénègues au Bas-Danube, 20–38.

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 B. Todorov / Journal of Medieval History xxx (2010) 1–15 15

Boris Todorov is a lecturer in western medieval and Byzantine history at Yonsei University, Seoul. He obtained his Ph.D. in
medieval history at UCLA, in 2007 and is presently working on a revision of his dissertation under the title Between the two
Romes. Time, space and identity in medieval Bulgaria. His publications include: ‘Coercion and reconciliation: the Roman mission of
866/7 and the internal conflicts in Bulgaria’, in Medieval Christianitas. Different regions, ‘faces’, approaches, ed. T. Stepanov and
G. Kazakov (Sofia, 2010), 183–204, and ‘Byzantine myths of origins and their functions’, in Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropo-
litana, 4 (2008), 64–72.

Please cite this article in press as: B. Todorov, The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,
Pechenegs and Byzantium, Journal of Medieval History (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2010.09.004