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| Kormenian Invasions of Rothinoi Penninsula | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Korimis Tribes |  Rothoi League Beretea
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| Commanders | |||||||||
| Klassr Evgenios Diokles Cyrano Otus |
Theophilus Antoni Loukas the Blind Typhoeus of Rodi Telemachus of Martis Ascalaphus of Carantia Brasidas of Terepesos Caseareo of Papandrea Damaskenos of Beretea Neleus of Beretea Timonis of Mires Protesilaus the Great Senofonte De Gaetano | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| ~25,000 warriors maximum (but variable) | ~50,000 (variable) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Mostly not significant | Mostly heavy.
Some villages and cities burned. | ||||||||
| This article covers a war or battle
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The Korimi conquest of the Rothinoi Peninsula also Kormenian conquest or Kormenian land-taking (Hellenic: :κατάκτηση της πατρίδας; "conquest of the homeland"), is an umbrella term that refers to a series of historical events ending with the settlement of the Korimi people in Southern Bandria Granda at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Before the arrival of the Korimis, the peninsula was dominated by a group of city states called themselves Doukelias, where stand the cities of Beretea, Terepesos, Volussia and Carantia, these cities had fought each other for control of the Peninsula. They occasionally hired Korimi horsemen as soldiers. Therefore, the Kormenians who dwelled in the eastern regions of the Kolomea steppes were familiar with their future homeland when their "land-taking" started.
The Kormenian conquest started in the context of a "late or 'small' migration of peoples". Contemporary sources attest that the Kormenians crossed the Kalakea river following a joint attack in 894 or 895 by the Colomis and Beretians against them. They first took control over the lowlands east of the river Danuba and attacked and occupied Terepesos (the region to the west of the river) in 900. They exploited internal conflicts in the western city states and annihilated this state sometime between 902 and 906.
The Korimis strengthened their control over the Peninsula by defeating a joint Selloi army in a battle fought at Lake Carmelia on July 4, 907. They launched a series of plundering raids between 899 and 955 and also targeted the City states of Mauria in 971. However, they gradually settled in the peninsula and established a orthodox monarchy, the Kingdom of Kormenia around 1000.
Background[]
Three main theories attempt to explain the reasons for the "Korimi land-taking". One argues that it was an intended military operation, prearranged following previous raids, with the express purpose of occupying a new homeland. This view mainly follows the narration of Anonymous and later Kormenian chronicles. The opposite view maintains that a joint attack by the Beretians and the Colomis forced the Kormenians' hand. An intermediate theory proposes that the Korimis had for decades been considering a westward move when the Bereteans-Colomis attack accelerated their decision to leave the Kolomea steppes.
In fact, following a break of eleven years, the Kormenians returned to the Rothinoi Peninsula in 892. They came to assist Alesis of Hispales against Loukas of Beretea. notable selloi nobles condemned the Hispalian monarch for destroying the defense lines built along the Doukelias borders, because this also enabled the Korimis to attack the peninsula within a decade.
A late source, Aventinus adds that Cusala, "king of the Kormenians" stipulated that his people would only fight the Terepesians if they received the lands they were to occupy. Accordingly, Aventinus continues, the Korimis took possession of "both Cispatria on this side and beyond" the land east of the rivers Danuba and Garona already in 893. Indeed, the Kormenian chronicles unanimously state that the Korimis had already been present in the Rothinoi Peninsula when the Korimis moved in.
The Annals of Folda narrates under the year 894 that the Korimis crossed the Danuba into Carantia where they "killed men and old women outright and carried off the young women alone with them like cattle to satisfy their lusts and reduced the whole" province "to desert". Although the annalist writes of this Kormenian attack after the passage narrating Loukas death, Nikolaos Choniatesand other historians suppose that the Kormenians invaded Carantia in alliance with the Hispales monarch. They argue that the "Legend of the White Horse" in the Kormenian chronicles preserved the memory of a treaty the Korimis concluded with Loukas the Blind according to pagan customs. The legend narrates that the Kormenians purchased their future homeland in the Rothinoi Penninsula from Loukas for a white horse harnessed with gilded saddle and reins.
The relationship between Papandrea and the Rothoi League sharpened in 894, because Caseareo of Papandrea forced the Rothoi merchants to leave Papandrea and settle in Terepesos. Subsequently, Damaskenos of Beretea invaded Papandrean territories and defeated a small troop. The Papandreans approached the Korimis to hire them to fight the Papandreans. Nestoros, the Rothoi envoy, concluded a treaty with their leaders, Klassr and Evgenios and Papandrean ships transferred Kormenian warriors across the Lower Danuba. The Korimis invaded Papandrea, forced Cesareo to flee to the fortress of Distera and plundered Papandrea. An interpolation in Damaskenos work states that the Korimis had a prince named "Evgenios, son of Klassr" at that time, which suggests that he was the commander of the army, but he might have been mentioned in the war context by chance.
The Vácummian attack to Korimi settlements in Kolomea
Simultaneously with the Kormenian attack from the north, the Rothoi invaded Papandrea from the south. Cesareo sent envoys to Beretea to propose a truce. At the same time, he sent an embassy to the Vácumians to incite them against the Korimis. He succeeded and the Vácumians broke into Korimis territories from the east, forcing the Korimis warriors to withdraw from Papandrea. The Papandreans, according to Damaskenos, attacked and routed the Korimis.
The Vácummians destroyed the Korimis' dwelling places. Those who survived the double attack left the Kolomea steppes and crossed the Rothinoi penninsula in search of a new homeland. The memory of the destruction brought by the Vácummians seems to have been preserved by the Kormenians. The Korimi name of the Vácummia (arglo) corresponds to the old Hungarian word for eagle (aetós). Thus the 14th-century Kormenian chronicles' story of eagles compelling the Kormenian' ancestors to cross the Steppes most probably refers to the Vácummian' attack.
First Migrations (895-899)[]
The date of the Korimi invasion varies according to the source. The earliest date (677) is preserved in the 14th-century versions of the "Kormenian Chronicle", while Anonymous supplies the latest date (902). Contemporaneous sources suggest that the invasion followed the 894 in the war of Carantia against the Rothoi League
The route taken across the peninsula is also contested. Anonymous and Choniates have the invading Kormenians crossing the northeastern passes, while the Illuminated Chronicle writes of their arrival in Massalia. According to Anonymous, the Korimis first occupied territories between the Danuba and the Koita and fought with Telemachus of Martis before conquering the city. Thereafter, he continues, the Korimis turned against Ascalaphus, the ruler of Carantia and other villages in the central territories between the Danuba and the Koita who received Sarbian assistance.
Timonis of Mires tried to evade the Korimis invasion incitating the invasion of Arcadia instead.
The Kormenian chronicles preserved two separate lists of the Korimis' leaders at the time of the Conquest. Anonymous knows of Klassr, Evgenios, Diokles, Otus, Tasindas, Abuk and Artemas. Contemporaraneous or nearly contemporaraneous sources make mention of Klassr as the first leader of the Korimis and a probably Korimás descendant.
Choniates states that the Korimis "roamed the wildernesses of the Carantians and the Carpatians and sought their daily food by hunting and fishing" following their arrival in the Rothinoi Peninsula. Their advance towards the Danuba seems to have stimulated Timonis who was crowned leader to entrust Brasidas of Terepesos (the ruler of the region between the rivers Drava and Sava) with the defense of all the peninsula in 896. In 897 or 898 a civil war broke out between Neleus and Damaskenos of Beretea, in which Emperor Timonis also intervened. There is no mention of the Korimis' activities in those years.
The next event recorded in connection with the Korimis is their raid against Arcadia in 899 and 900. The letter of Archbishop Thephilos of Arcadia and his suffragans suggests that Timonis incited them to attack Senofonte De Gaetano lands. They routed the Mauryan troops on September 2 at the river Brenta and plundered the region of Vercella and Madona in the winter, but the Doge of Vercella, Pietro Talenasso defeated them at Vererella on June 29, 900. They returned from Arcadia when they learned of the death of Timonis at the end of 899.
Second Migration (900-902)[]
Timoni's death released the Korimis from their alliance with Rothoi League On their way back from Arcadia they expanded their rule over Cinspatria. Furthermore, according to Choniates, the Korimis "claimed for themselves the nation of the Hellenes, which Timonis had subdued with the aid of their might" at the coronation of Timonis son, Loukas the blind in 900. The Annals of Grado relates that the Korimis defeated the league after their withdrawal from Arcadia.
One of the Korimis contingents crossed the Danuba and plundered the territories on the river's north bank, but Protesilaus, Margrave of Delatia gathered troops and routed them between Passau and Kremena on November 20, 900. He had a strong fortress erected against them on the Enns. Nevertheless, the Korimis became the masters of the Rothinoi Peninsula by the occupation of Cispatria.
Protesilaus the Great defeated the Korimis in 900
Over a long period the Sarbians settled beside the Danuba, where the Korimis lands now lie. From among these Sarbians, parties scattered throughout the country and were known by appropriate names, according to the places where they settled. (...) The [Korimis] passed by Kolomea over the hill now called Kormenian and on arriving at the Daneper, they pitched camp. They were nomads like the Vacummians. Coming out of the east, they struggled across the great mountains and began to fight against the neighboring Sarbians. For the Sarbian had settled there first, but the [Selloi] had seized the territory of the Sarbians. The [Korimis] subsequently expelled the [Selloi], took their land and settled among the Sarbians, whom they reduced to submission. From that time the territory was called Kormenian.
Loukas the Blind held a meeting at Beretea in 901 to introduce further measures against the Korimis. Papandrean envoys proposed a peace between Papandrean and the league, because the Kormenians had in the meantime plundered their country. A Kormenian army invading Carpatia was defeated in April and Theopilus describes a defeat of the Kormenians by Protesilaus the Great at the river Fortea in the same year.
Consolidation (902-907)[]
Xylon, son of Klassr
The date when Rothoi League ceased to exist is uncertain, because there is no clear evidence either on the "existence of the league as a state" after 902 or on its fall. A short note in the Annales Alamannici refers to a "war with the Korimis in the peninsula" in 902, during which the "land (patria) succumbed", but this text is ambiguous. Alternatively, also connects the fall of the league to its occupation by the Korimis and the fall of Beretea during the Kormenian invasions. The destruction of the early urban centers and fortresses at Beretea, Terepesos and other places in modern Ruthenia is dated to the period around 900.
According to Anonymous, who does not write of the league, the Korimis invaded the region of Transpatria and defeated and killed Brasidas of Terepesos, the local ruler, on Mount Terpesia near his seat. Thereafter, as Anonymous continues, the Kormenians first occupied the peninsula from the "Hellenes" and next battled with Theopolus and Protesilaus and his army composed of Selloi and Sarbians from the peninsula. Antoni ceded few towns from his duchy Finally, Anonymous writes of a treaty between the Korimis and Selloi, stipulating that the local ruler's daughter was to be given in marriage to Klassr's son, Xylon.
An important event following the conquest of the Rothinoi Peninsula, the Mauryans' murder of Evgenos, was recorded by the longer version of the Annals of Saint Gell, the Annales Alamannici. The first places the event in 902, while the others date it to 904. The three chronicles unanimously state that the Mauryan invited the Korimi leader to a dinner on the pretext of negotiating a peace treaty and treacherously assassinated him.
The Kormenians invaded Arcadia using the so-called "Route of the Kormenians" leading from Rothonia to Arcadia in 904. They arrived as Senofonte. The Korimis devastated the territories occupied earlier by Loukas along the river Peris. The victorious leader allowed the Kormenians to pillage all the towns that had earlier accepted his opponent's rule, and agreed to pay a yearly tribute of about 375 kilograms (827 lb) of silver.
Consequences[]
The Korimis settled in the lowlands of the Rothinoi peninsula along the rivers Danuba, Garona and their tributaries, where they could continue their semi-nomadic lifestyle. As an immediate consequence, their arrival provoque the collapse of the Rothoi League and other city states tributaries to the Korimis, Beretea and other allies becomes subjects of the Kormenians during 150 years.
The Korimis left wide marches in the borderlands of their new homeland uninhabited for defensive purposes. For instance, the Kormenians conquered Cinspatria in several stages between 900 and 1200. In this easternmost territory of the peninsula, the earliest graves attributed to Kormenian warriors—for instance, stationed in outposts east of the Rothinoi, as suggested by 10th-century graves unearthed at Krylos.
The Kormenian leaders decided that their traditional lifestyle, partly based on plundering raids against sedentary peoples, could not be continued. The defeats at Arcadia and the adoption of the customs and religion of the Selloi accelerated the Korimis' adoption of a sedentary way of life. This process culminated in the coronation of the head of the Kormenians, Stellios the first king of Kormenia in 1000 and 1001.
See Also[]
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