1. Slavs in Boeotia and mainland Greece

The Slavic raids in the southern Balkans and especially in the Greek regions from the late 6th century onwards brought about the destruction and collapse of the rural and urban life in mainland Greece. Transformed into Byzantine, the culture of the Roman empire managed to survive only in the major urban centres. The empire gradually regained the countryside both military and culturally. The Early Byzantine period (7th-9th c.) is often referred to as the Dark Ages, while the beginning of revival is generally set in the mid-9th century with the advent of the Macedonian dynasty.

Recent research induced several changes to the chronological divisions and challenged the narrow views about an economic collapse, thus also questioning the term “Dark Ages”. In particular, the major reorganisation of the empire into military provinces, the themes (themata), from the end of the 7th century, with Boeotia and Attica comprising the nucleus of the new theme of Hellas, could indicate an early and successful attempt to face disintegration phenomena in the empire under the impact of Slavs or other factors. Another plausible hypothesis is that central Greece was a safer and less depopulated area, compared to northern Greece and the Peloponnese between the 7th and 9th centuries.

2. Historical Evidence

After Justinian, control was lost over the central administration of the empire. Problems arose especially in the eastern frontiers. The Slavs, following the Avars, invaded the Balkans, but, unlike Avars, they generally tended to settle rather than indulge in plundering. The Slavs set foot on mainland Greece in the age of Tiberius Constantine (578-582) and Maurice (582-602): the first settlements of Slavic tribes in Thessaly, in the theme of Hellas and in the Peloponnese date back to 578. According to the Monemvasia Chronicle, the majority inhabited the Peloponnese, probably due to a breach of effective defence in the region, since the walls of its cities had not been rebuilt during the reign of Justinian.

The war with Persia, the dispatch of forces to defend Constantinople against the Avars, as well as the internal state of the empire during the reign of Phocas (602-610) did not allow for measures to be taken against the raids in Boeotia. To poor communication with the capital is also attributed the lack of coin circulation in the same years.

Written sources of the first quarter of the 7th century indicate that large masses of Slavs (Drougoubitai, Sagoudatai, Belegezitai, Baiounetai and Berzetai) made dugout vessels, on which they ransacked islands, along with the shores and inland of Thessaly and of the theme of Hellas, while settling at the same time in numerous cities and in the countryside. It is therefore concluded that before 626 the Slavs proceeded rather unhindered, their starting point being Northern Greece and Thessaly.

After the Byzantine victories over the Avars and Persians, Constans II (641-668) set off on a campaign against the Slavs in 658, but the operations were rather limited to clearances in Thrace, in the northern Aegean coasts and in the hinterland as far as eastern Macedonia and Thessaloniki. Though the imperial forces never reached Boeotia, it seems that this campaign indirectly effected the restoration of imperial power in Boeotia and the wider region for some years, as shown by the relatively long stay of the emperor in Corinth at the same time (662). Regarding the Slavic settlers, it is assumed that the emperor’s stay in Corinth resulted mostly in expulsions of newcomers rather than in an attempt to subdue those Slavs, who had fairly established themselves in the region and were considered loyal to the imperial power.

3. Archaeological Research

The surveys that were carried out under Boeotia Project covered parts of central Boeotia, the villages of Askri and Mavrommati to the west of Thebes, and the village of Pavlos on the northwestern fringes of Boeotia. Apart from a relatively large number of Byzantine potsherds, the surveys also yielded interesting findings of the so-called Slavic pottery. Those were handmade vases, manufactured without the use of a wheel and dated from the 7th to the 9th century.

On the basis of pottery chronologies, the decline of Roman population in the rural and urban settlements of southwestern Boeotia could be set in the middle or towards the end of the 7th century, as certain pottery types continue the Roman tradition down to the first half of the 7th century. As to the following period, Early Byzantine glazed pottery of the 7th-9th century has been found in three sites.

The first site, Palaiomavrommati, located approximately two kilometres to the southeast of the present-day village of Mavrommati, was probably a settlement of the Slavic raids period, as both surface pottery samples and a remarkable popular narrative about locals’ ancestry indicate. Palaiomavrommati is an isolated site, remote from arable fields and somewhat concealed from its surrounding areas. However, the other two sites that produced early glazed ware of the 7th-9th century are urban settlements, which date back to the Late Roman period: Thespies and Askri. Pottery demonstrates here a seamless transition from late antiquity to the Dark Ages and up to the Middle Byzantine years. Lying in low plains, the two settlements were unfortified, though a Middle Roman period fortification near the medieval village of Thespies (Erimokastro) might as well have sheltered people in case of threat or danger. The same pattern of uninterrupted habitation from the Late Roman to the Byzantine times can be noticed in Hyettus as well.

To what extent did these Late Roman settlements with the common Roman pottery types survive in the 7th century, remains an open question. On the other hand Slavs were a society that definitely used pottery. Ample evidence also derives from the toponyms, as well as the seal of “Dargdekavos, archon of Greece” [«Δαργδέκαβου, άρχοντος της Ελλάδος»] (Dunn, unpublished report), dated around AD 700 according to typological features; he could have been a Greek-Slav local governor (toparch), related to some extent with the Byzantine organization of themata.

It appears though that Thespies and Askri survived as small villages, because they yielded surface pottery of the medieval phases in places where habitation goes back to the Late Roman period.

As to present-day Askri, Peter Lock noted that, after abandoning its ancient name, it appears in the Middle Byzantine and Frankish sources as the see of the Thebes bishop’s debuty under the name of Zaratova. We could therefore assume a change of name under Slavic influence during the Middle Byzantine period, whereas later it was renamed Panagia, due to identification with a religious site dedicated to the Mother of God (church ruins). If Lock’s hypothesis is correct then Askri was the centre of a Slavic settlement amidst Greek populations.

4. Demographic Changes in Boeotia: Conclusions

Until the beginning of the 7th century, there could not have been a large number of Slavs in Boeotia. There isn’t either any reference to major conflicts, provoked by their settling in the countryside, probably due to the fact that the native populations had been already driven out of their areas by the 6th century raids, as well as by two great earthquakes and the outbreak of plague in 541-544. The wandering Slavs managed to settle along the main arterial roads, leading to the south. Walled towns remained in the hands of the local Greek population.

Subsequently, during the 7th and 8th centuries, Boeotian populaces survived within or near ancient sites of towns and villages rather than retreating to the mountains. In the aftermath of the 7th century political and military collapse of the provinces, fleeing local populations, having witnessed a huge drop in their standards of living, left behind a deserted land for the Slavs to occupy and most probably allowed the new settlers to turn up in the local communities through intermarriage. The latter assumption is based on the existence of a local “Lord of the Slavs”, testified by a lead seal dating to around AD 700, and from Slavic toponyms in many “Greek” villages.

In the first decades of the 7th century, the Slavs engaged mainly in raids and looting of Greek territories and minimally in the cultivation of land, as shown by their mobility. However, from the middle of the 7th century onwards, they are recorded as farmers and herders, as is the case of Velegezites in Thessaly and Drogouvites in NW Macedonia.