Re: [tied] Moses of Khoren's "Geography"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

...
> > *****GK: DAI was written as a handbook for his son re
> > foreign policy. So there would not be that much
> > incentive to describe the internal situation in the
> > Empire except in so far as it might involve the prime
> > focus. I don't remember offhand if Porphyrogenitus
> > mentions ALL other components of the Empire except the
> > Vlachs. I don't think he does, but this can easily be
> > verified.Actually what is even more interesting is
> > that he does not mention the Vlachs as relevant for
> > Byzantine foreign policy. And indeed why should he?
> > There was no Vlach presence North of the Danube in his
> > time which needed to be taken into account.*****


However, it has been suggested that parts of DAI, a chapter(s) about
the Bulgars as well as the Rus', the Khazars, are missing (not
finished, taken out) and not written for certain reasons . The
Bulgarians, a significant player and ruled at the time by a great-
grandson of Roman I (into whose family Constantine VII married, later
to depose him :-), are strangely mentioned only passingly. Some two
thirds of the occurrences (Litavrin) are in the chapters dealing with
the Serbs and Croats. Like: "The Croats were never under the
authority of the archon of Bulgaria.", "The archon of Serbia was from
the start, from the time of Heraclius a slave of the basileus of the
Romans and was never subject to the archon of Bulgaria". So the
Vlachs may have been missed out alongside this missing/lacking
chapter on the Bulgarians. One shouldn't make too much out of this.

Regards,
Vassil

> Interesting coclusions are to find by you:-)
> Since the bulgars have been allways the goods friends of
> bvalahians, they should have been mentionated at South
> of Danube in the presence of bulgars if this is a matter
> of foreing policy since there has been indeed a danger,
> thus they should have been important to show.George,
> easy, easy I begin to doubt about you:-)
>
> Alex