ABSTRACT
In a scholarly gathering which has as its purpose the centennial celebration of the American School of Classical Studies the topic of the author's communication is appropriate by virtue of the fact that the excavators who have carried on the investigations of the Athenian Agora, ancient Corinth, and Kenchreai have also turned their attention to the fates of these sites in the 6th and 7th centuries after Christ, the period of the Slavic migrations and settlements in the Balkan peninsula. It is said that the chief of the Avars at that time desired something and that he sent ambassadors to Maurice, of blessed memory, who held the scepter of the Romans at that time. As he failed to obtain his petition and was consumed by unbounded rage and unable to do anything to him who had ignored him, he devised a manner by which especially he reckoned to afflict him greatly.
