Busir Glavan

The khagan of the Khazars received the exiled Byzantine emperor Justinian II. He gave Justinian his own sister Theodora as wife.^[1] Later he promised the emperor Apsimaros to deliver Justinian, and Justinian escaped.^[1] Modern scholarship calls this khagan Busir Glavan.^[2]

Name

Ibouzēros GliabanosGreek
Bouzēros GliabarosGreek
BusirEnglish
ΧαγάνοςGreekTheophanes the Confessor

Nikephoros calls the khagan only the Chagan.^[1] Theophanes does the same.^[3]

The name Busir Glavan comes from an anonymous Byzantine chronicle of the eighth century, not from Nikephoros or Theophanes.^[4] Golden dates this chronicle between 742 and 746.^[5] Dunlop dates it to about 750.^[6] The chronicle gives the name in garbled forms, among them Ibouzēros Gliabanos and Bouzēros Gliabaros.^[4] Golden calls these forms obviously defective. He says that any interpretation of them is only a suggestion.^[7]

Dunlop reads the first part of the name as Busir.^[8] Zajączkowski reads the whole name as Bäzir Yilbars.^[7] The form Glavan is taken from the second part of the garbled names, Gliabanos.^[4]

Golden takes the name to be that of the Khazar khagan who took an active part in Justinian’s return to power in 705 and in the revolt that led to his second fall.^[5]

Justinian at the khagan’s court

Justinian lived at Cherson. He said in public more than once that he would regain the empire.^[1] The people of Cherson felt in danger. They planned to kill him or to deliver him as a prisoner to Apsimaros.^[1] Justinian learned of it and escaped. According to Nikephoros, he fled to the fortress of Doros in the country of the Goths.^[1] Theophanes calls the place Daras.^[3] A note to the translation of Theophanes takes Daras to be an error for Doros.^[9]

From there Justinian asked the Chagan for leave to visit him. The Chagan agreed and received him with honour.^[1] Theophanes says that Justinian asked for an audience and that the Chagan received him with great honour.^[3] After the two had become friends, the Chagan gave Justinian his own sister Theodora in marriage.^[1] Theophanes also calls Theodora the Chagan’s sister.^[3]

With the Chagan’s consent, Justinian went to Phanagoria and lived there with Theodora.^[1] Theophanes tells the flight, the marriage and the plot against Justinian under the year 703/4.^[10] Some scholars place the marriage about 704.^[8]

The plot against Justinian

Apsimaros learned where Justinian was. He pressed the Chagan with repeated requests and promised him large sums of money and gifts. In return he asked for Justinian alive or for his head.^[1] The Chagan gave way and promised to do it.^[1] He sent men to guard Justinian, on the pretext that Justinian might fall victim to a plot by his own countrymen.^[3] According to Nikephoros, the real purpose of the guard was to stop Justinian from escaping.^[1]

The Chagan also gave orders to two men that they should kill Justinian when told to. Theophanes names them. The first is Papatzys, the Chagan’s representative in those parts. The second is Balgitzis, commander of the Bosporos.^[3] Nikephoros does not name them. He speaks of the chief of the Chagan’s tribesmen, a friend of Justinian, and of the commander of the Scythian Bosporos.^[1] A modern commentary on Nikephoros equates the unnamed chief with the Papatzys of Theophanes.^[11] Dunlop places Papatzes at Phanagoria and Balgitzes as governor of the Bosporos across the strait.^[12]

A servant of the Chagan told Theodora of the plot, and so it became known to Justinian.^[10] Justinian invited Papatzys to a private meeting and strangled him with a cord. He did the same to Balgitzis.^[10] Then he sent Theodora back to the land of the Chazars. He fled from Phanagoria in secret.^[13] He later turned to the Bulgarian ruler Terbelis for help.^[1]

Nikephoros calls the Chagan Theodora’s father in this passage. A modern commentary on the text points out that she was the Chagan’s sister.^[11]

After Justinian’s return

With Bulgarian help, Justinian took Constantinople and regained the empire.^[1] Theophanes places this under the year 705/6.^[14] Justinian then sent a fleet to bring his wife from the land of the Chazars. Many ships sank with their crews.^[14]

When the Chagan heard of this, he sent Justinian a message. He called Justinian a fool and asked why he had not fetched his wife on two or three ships. He asked whether Justinian thought he was taking her by war.^[14] The Chagan also told him that a son had been born to him. He told Justinian to send emissaries and take the two away.^[14] Justinian sent the cubicularius Theophylaktos. Theophylaktos brought Theodora and her son Tiberios, and Justinian crowned them.^[14] Nikephoros also says that Justinian fetched his wife and son from Chazaria and crowned them.^[1]

One modern study understands the Chagan’s message as a sign that he was willing to let the past be forgotten.^[15]

The revolt at Cherson

Justinian remembered the plot of the people of Cherson, the Bosporus and the other Klimata against him. Theophanes reports that Justinian sent a fleet against them under the year 710/11.^[16] Among the men sent to Justinian as prisoners was Toudounos, governor of Cherson and representative of the Chagan.^[16] Golden identifies this office as a Khazar tudun.^[17]

The people of those forts wrote to the Chagan in Chazaria and asked him for an army to defend them.^[16] Nikephoros says that they sent ambassadors to the Chazars with this request.^[18] Justinian then sent officers with Toudounos and Zoilos, the first citizen of Cherson. They were to restore the two men to their positions and to offer an apology to the Chagan through an ambassador.^[19]

The people of Cherson killed two of the leaders and handed the rest, with Toudounos and Zoilos, to the Chazars. The Chazars sent them to the Chagan.^[19] Toudounos died on the way. In his honour, the Chazars killed the turmarch and the 300 soldiers.^[19] Nikephoros says that the Chazars killed the men on the way.^[18]

Justinian sent a second fleet under the patrician Mauros. According to Theophanes, a truce was made when the Chazars arrived. Then Bardanes fled to the Chagan.^[19] Nikephoros says that the city was saved by the sudden sortie of a Chazar army, and that Bardanes escaped to the lord of the Chazars.^[18]

The fleet then proclaimed Bardanes emperor and asked the Chagan to hand him over. The Chagan insisted on an assurance that they would not betray Bardanes. He also demanded one gold piece for each man. The men agreed, and so they received Bardanes, called Philippikos, as their emperor.^[19] Nikephoros says that the Chagan bound the Roman army by oaths for the safety of Bardanes and took one nomisma from each man.^[18]

Golden describes the arrival of Khazar troops as the reason Cherson did not fall.^[17] Dunlop says that the Khazar khagan played an important, even decisive, part in the events that led to Justinian’s final fall.^[6]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Nikephoros; Mango 1990, ch. 42
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 171, 182–183; Golden 1980, p. 171, 182–183
^ a b c d e f Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 520
^ a b c Golden 1980, p. 61, 182–183
^ a b Golden 1980, p. 182
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 173
^ a b Golden 1980, p. 183
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 171
^ Scott 1997, p. 521
^ a b c Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 520–521
^ a b Mango 1990, commentary on ch. 42
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 172
^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 521
^ a b c d e Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 523
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 172–173
^ a b c Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 527
^ a b Golden 1980, p. 61
^ a b c d Nikephoros; Mango 1990, ch. 45
^ a b c d e Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 528

Sources

Nikephoros
Theophanes the Confessor (after Theophylact Simocatta)

Literature

Cyril Mango (ed., trans.), Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople: Short History (1990)
Cyril Mango, Roger Scott (trans.), The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (1997)
Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Vols. I–II (1980)