When did the Slavs first come to the Balkans?

[effie]

The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula_, A.D. 500-650


The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security
and prosperity during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into
barbarism as a result of these endless invasions; the walled towns, such
as Salonika and Constantinople, were the only safe places, and the country
became waste and desolate.

The process continued unabated throughout the
three following centuries, and one is driven to one of two conclusions,
either that these lands must have possessed very extraordinary powers of
recuperation to make it worth while for invaders to pillage them so
frequently, or, what is more probable, there can have been after some time
little left to plunder, and consequently the Byzantine historians'
accounts of enormous drives of prisoners and booty are much exaggerated.


It is impossible to count the number of times the tide of invasion and
devastation swept southwards over the unfortunate peninsula. The emperors
and their generals did what they could by means of defensive works on the
frontiers, of punitive expeditions, and of trying to set the various
hordes of barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they had at
the same time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain,
it is not surprising that they were not more successful. The growing
riches of Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for
the wild men from the east and north, and unfortunately the Greek citizens
were more inclined to spend their energy in theological disputes and their
leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other to the
defence of their country. It was only by dint of paying them huge sums of
money that the invaders were kept away from the coast.

The departure of
the Huns and the Goths had made the way for fresh series of unwelcome
visitors. In the sixth century the Slavs appear for the first time. From
their original homes which were immediately north of the Carpathians, in
Galicia and Poland, but may also have included parts of the modern
Hungary, they moved southwards and south-eastwards. They were presumably in Dacia, north of the Danube, in the previous century, but they are first mentioned as having crossed that river during the reign of the Emperor Justin I (518-27). They were a loosely-knit congeries of tribes without
any single leader or central authority; some say they merely possessed the
instinct of anarchy, others that they were permeated with the ideals of
democracy. What is certain is that amongst them neither leadership nor
initiative was developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and
organisation. The Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians, were only
welded into anything approaching unity by the comparatively much smaller
number of Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came and took charge of
their affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of
themselves able to form a united community, conscious of its aim and
capable of persevering in its attainment.

The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company of
the Avars, a terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns, were
of Asiatic (Turkish or Mongol) origin. These invasions became more
frequent during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-65), and
culminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all the invaders on
Constantinople under a certain Zabergan, which was brilliantly defeated by
the veteran Byzantine general Belisarius.

The Avars were a nomad tribe,
and the horse was their natural means of locomotion. The Slavs, on the
other hand, moved about on foot, and seem to have been used as infantry by
the more masterful Asiatics in their warlike expeditions. Generally
speaking, the Avars, who must have been infinitely less numerous than the
Slavs, were settled in Hungary, where Attila and the Huns had been settled
a little more than a century previously; that is to say, they were north
of the Danube, though they were always overrunning into Upper Moesia, the
modern Serbia. The Slavs, whose numbers were without doubt very large,
gradually settled all over the country south of the Danube, the rural
parts of which, as a result of incessant invasion and retreat, had become
waste and empty.

During the second half of the sixth century all the
military energies of Constantinople were diverted to Persia, so that the
invaders of the Balkan peninsula had the field very much to themselves. It
was during this time that the power of the Avars reached its height. They
were masters of all the country up to the walls of Adrianople and
Salonika, though they did not settle there. The peninsula seems to have
been colonized by Slavs, who penetrated right down into Greece; but the
Avars were throughout this time, both in politics and in war, the
directing and dominating force. During another Persian war, which broke
out in 622 and entailed the prolonged absence of the emperor from
Constantinople, the Avars, not satisfied with the tribute extorted from
the Greeks, made an alliance against them with the Persians, and in 626
collected a large army of Slavs and Asiatics and attacked Constantinople
both by land and sea from the European side, while the Persians threatened
it from Asia. But the walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks proved
invincible, and, quarrels breaking out between the Slavs and the Avars,
both had to save themselves in ignominious and precipitate retreat."



The above is from :

Title: The Balkans
A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey

Author: Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth


Compare Greece's history with that of the Slavs. A barbarian people who came to the region nearly what? a thousand years after Alexander was born.
He was born 356 B.C and the Slavs came into the region 560-650A.D. Do the math! These are the people who now lay claim to Ancient Macedon.

Read the above description of what these uneducated barbarians were like and then sit down and read the works of our philosophers. There just is no comparison. We were light years ahead of them over 2.000 years ago, and now, in 2007, they have the audacity to claim our history.


I have been thinking of posting the above to the forum Preston posted the link for, but in order to do that I would have to register, something I don't want to do.

I'm sure though that by reading something concerning their origins they might be persuaded to shut their mouths and stop claiming things that are totally false.

[Istor]

SlavoSkopians deny Slavic movements to the Balkans and they claim that Slavs have always been here. So, they say, unoficially so far, that Thracians, Peonians, .... are proto-Slavs.

They have to kill history, if they want their lies to prevail!!

[Jordan Piperkata]

Originally Posted by Istor

SlavoSkopians deny Slavic movements to the Balkans and they claim that Slavs have always been here. So, they say, unoficially so far, that Thracians, Peonians, .... are proto-Slavs.

They have to kill history, if they want their lies to prevail!!

Istor you will see that there are more nations that will deny the Slavic migration theory.

[Istor]

All idiots like you.

[Jordan Piperkata]

Originally Posted by Istor

All idiots like you.

When you run out of things to say you revert to namecalling. Keep up the good work.

[Tsontos]

jordan can you give us one historians name and a direct quote saying he beleives there were slavs in the balkans before 5-6th century AD?

if you can manage that then you shuold immediately notify your foreign office. it will be the greatest victory for FYROM in its history.

[Tsontos]

Istor you will see that there are more nations that will deny the Slavic migration theory.

How can a "nation" deny a process which took place in the 5th century AD? Can you articulate this? Do you mean the parliament of certain european states have stated as such? or the foreign offices?

Which nations?

Remember that not even FYRoM has taken the path of slavic migrations denial. In fact several FYRoM representatives have reaffirmed they do not subscribe to such ultra-nationalist fantasies as denying slavic migrations ever took place.

[terastios]

Originally Posted by Jordan Piperkata

Istor you will see that there are more nations that will deny the Slavic migration theory.

Name one!

[Ehetlaios]

Albania.

They believe they're direct descnedants of the Illyrians.

[terastios]

Originally Posted by Ehetlaios

Albania.

They believe they're direct descnedants of the Illyrians.

Albanians are not Slavs!