…advance together down the river to Viminacium.…
599 CE
…advance together down the river to Viminacium.
The Avar khagan Bayan I meanwhile, learning that the Romans have determined to violate the peace, crosses the Danube at Viminacium and invades Upper Moesia, while he entrusts a large force to four of his sons, who are directed to guard the river and prevent the Romans from crossing over to the left bank.
In spite of the presence of the Avar army, however, the East Roman army crosses on rafts and pitches a camp on the left side, while the two commanders sojourn in the town of Viminacium, which stands on an island in the river.
Here Comentiolus is said to have fallen ill or to have mutilated himself so as to be incapable of further action, but Priscus assumes command over both armies.
Unwilling at first to leave the city without Comentiolus, Priscus is soon forced to appear in the camp, as the Avars are harassing it in the absence of the generals.
A battle is fought which costs the Romans only three hundred men, while the Avars lose four thousand dead.
This engagement is followed by two other great battles in the next ten days, in which the strategy of Priscus and the tactics of the Roman army are brilliantly successful.
In the first, nine thousand of the Avars and their Slav allies fall, while the second is fatal to fifteen thousand, of whom the greater part, and among them the four sons of the khagan, perish in the waters of a lake, into which they are driven by the Roman swords and spears.
Priscus subsequently pursues the fleeing khagan and invades the Avar homeland in Pannonia, where he wins another series of battles on the banks of the river Tisza, deciding the war for the Romans and ending, for a time, the Avar and Slavic incursions across the Danube.
The onset of winter prevents the imperial army from capitalizing on its victory.
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