Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium.

Episode 96 Shoulder

When I asked you for questions at the end of the century, several listeners wanted to

know more about the Bulgars.

Listener G's query sums it up well.

How did the Bulgars get so good at beating up the Romans?

Was it just a combination of luck, home field advantage and Roman arrogance?

Or was the Bulgar kingdom a better organized state than I'm picturing?

The Bulgars, as you know, were from the steps.

They were pastoral nomads.

They had no fixed home.

They moved from place to place depending on where the best grasslands could be found.

They lived off their herds, moving slowly around with their livestock, was their existence.

When they crossed the Danube to escape the clutches of the other great tribes, they

found a unique situation which might allow them an independent existence.

The area they first settled in, Roman Skithia, today known as the Dobruja, is a relatively

small patch of the same grazing land they were used to on the steps.

But it was nicely isolated from the rest of the tribes, by the Danube to the north and

the Black Sea to the east.

Only a hundred miles or so south lay the Hemas mountains, a natural, defensible frontier

that could protect their southern flank.

The leaders of the tribe soon realized that with the Roman Empire preoccupied by the caliphate,

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