History of the Balkans in Maps

In the early 6th, the Emperor Justinian (ruled from 527-65 AD) implemented a series of economic and military reforms in Constantinople which produced a remarkable revival. Roman armies recaptured most of the Western Mediterranean areas, and even the southern half of the Italian peninusla. The Bishop of Rome, however, more or less independently governed the city and most of the surrounding area, looking to the Emperor only for assistance in keeping out the new Germanic Kingdom of Lombardy which had been created in the north. Even further to the north, the Franks had united the remaining Germanic tribes into a loose kingdom.

At first the Balkans prospered under Justinian's rule, and some of the greatest architecture of the period is to be found in this area, potential dangers loomed on the northern frontier. But his successors proved unequal to renewed challenges. A new asiatic force, the White Huns, known in the West as the Avars, had emerged from the Russian Steppes. Like the Huns before them, these warriors devastated the countryside. A Roman writer described the result: "We must estimate at more than 200,000 the number of Romans who were massacred or taken into captivity, in each of these invasions, leaving the provinces (of Illyria) looking like the deserts of Scythia" To meet this threat, the Emperors hired the Avars as mercinaries to eliminate the threat from the Slavs and Germans. By 563 the Avars dominated central Europe and began settling in the newly conquered lands. In particular, they heavily fortified a former Gepid town, Belgrad, making it into a powerful fortress.

In Italy, Justinian's reconquest was undone by the invading German tribe known as the Lombards. By 600, they control most of the northern half of the peninsula including the rich Po valley.