The khan's letter to Maurice

Theophylact Simocatta tells how, when summer had come in the year he is describing, “he who is celebrated by the Turks as Chagan in the east” sent envoys to the Roman emperor Maurice with a letter of victory-praises.^[1] The salutation ran, word for word: “To the king of the Romans, the Chagan, the great lord of seven races and master of seven zones of the world”.^[1] The letter listed the khan’s conquests and his victory in a civil war.^[2] Theophylact does not name the khan. The date of the embassy is disputed. The letter is the only message of a Göktürk ruler to Constantinople whose words survive, if only in Theophylact’s Greek.

The victories

The khan first defeated the leader of the Abdeli, whom Theophylact explains as the Hephthalites. He took the rule of that nation.^[1] Elated by the victory, he made an alliance with Stembischagan. He enslaved the Avar nation.^[1] Stembischagan is Istemi.^[3]^[4] The defeated Avars fled. Some went to the people of Taugast, a famous city fifteen hundred miles from the Göktürks on the borders of India. Others went to the Mucri, the neighbours of Taugast.^[5] Taugast is China.^[4] The Mucri have been placed on the Korean peninsula. This question touches the debate on Bökli and Goguryeo.^[6]

Then the khan subdued all the Ogur, one of the strongest tribes. They lived in the east by the river Til, which, Theophylact says, the Göktürks call the Black River.^[5] After the Ogur he put to the sword the ruler of the nation of the Kolch.^[7] Three hundred thousand of that people fell. The line of corpses stretched for four days’ journey.^[7]

While the khan was winning these victories, the Göktürks fell into civil war.^[7] A kinsman named Turum rose against him. The khan called on three other great khans to help him.^[7] The usurper fell at a place called Ikar. The khan was again master of his territory.^[7] After ending the civil war, the khan made an agreement with the men of Taugast. Its purpose was to let him rule in peace on every side.^[8]

The peoples of the letter

Each name in the letter has been interpreted in more than one way. Some scholars reject Theophylact’s equation of the Abdeli with the Hephthalites. They identify them with the Tiele, whose defeat began the rise of the Göktürks.^[9] For the Ogur and the Til there are three identifications. The first makes them the Ogurs and the Volga. This locates the passage in the steppe near the Caucasus.^[10] The second makes them the Uyghurs and the Tola in Mongolia.^[11] The third identifies the Ogur with the Oguz and the Til with the Tarim.^[6] The Kolch have been identified both with the people of Colchis in the Caucasus and with a people called Khalkh.^[12]^[13]

The conquests may be listed not in the order of time but in a geographical sequence.^[14] It runs from the Hephthalites in the south to the Avars in the west, the Ogur in the north and the Kolch in the east. It therefore stands for the conquest of the four quarters of the world.^[6]

Date and author

Theophylact tells the embassy in his narrative of the summer of 595, as a digression from the Avar war.^[15] There are two datings of the letter. The first holds that its contents put the embassy at the very start of Maurice’s reign.^[15] On this dating the Chinese sources place the end of Turum’s revolt at about 582. This gives the earliest date for the embassy.^[16] The second dates the letter to 598. It regards Tardush as the author.^[3] A master of the seven zones of the world, it argues, must have been the supreme ruler of the Göktürks.^[3] In 598 Tardush was the one who could best claim that rank. He assumed it in 599 under a new title.^[3] He had received the Roman envoy Valentinos in 576. Stembischagan was his father.^[3] On this dating the early victories belong to his predecessors.^[3] One account says that Maurice had once kept up written contact with Istemi.^[17]

Theophylact’s use of the letter

Theophylact drew two conclusions from the letter. The first concerned the Avars of Europe. He held them to be false Avars, a section of the Var and Chunni who had fled in Justinian’s reign. Menander tells their flight otherwise.^[18] The second was a description of the Göktürks themselves. The Göktürks, he says, cede the Golden Mountain to the most powerful khan. The place has been identified with the Ektag of the earlier embassies.^[8]^[19] They honour fire to an extraordinary degree, revere air and water and praise the earth, but they worship as god only him who made heaven and earth.^[8] To him they sacrifice horses, cattle and sheep. They have priests who are thought to foretell the future.^[8] The god of the passage is Tengri.^[20] The honour paid to fire is the same that the pilgrim Xuanzang found at the court of the western khan in 629 or 630.

The digression joins reliable information with Theophylact’s own speculations about the Avars. The reliable part must come from an official account of a Göktürk embassy.^[15] At that time, Theophylact adds, the Tarniach and the Kotzager also fled from the Göktürks. They joined the Avar khan in Europe, ten thousand men in all.^[8] That flight is dated to 582 by some and to 598 by others.^[20]^[21] The letter belongs to the Göktürk expansion into Europe and to the long relation between the Göktürks and Rome. Whoever wrote it, it shows a Göktürk khan presenting himself to the emperor as the master of the world from the Avars to China.

References

^ a b c d Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 188
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 188–191
^ a b c d e f Chavannes 1903, p. 249
^ a b Golden 1992, p. 109
^ a b Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 189
^ a b c Whitby 1986, p. 189
^ a b c d e Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 190
^ a b c d e Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 191
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 250
^ Golden 1992, p. 102,109
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 251
^ Golden 1992, p. 102
^ Whitby 1986, p. 190
^ Whitby 1986, p. 188–189
^ a b c Whitby 1986, p. 188
^ Whitby 1986, p. 190–191
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 360
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 188–190
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 248
^ a b Whitby 1986, p. 191
^ Marquart 1903, p. 504

Sources

Theophylact Simocatta

Literature

Michael Whitby, Mary Whitby (trans.), The History of Theophylact Simocatta (1986)
Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Josef Marquart, Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge (1903)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)