ABSTRACT
In 1018 the emperor Basil II extended Byzantine political authority across the whole Balkan peninsula, and advanced the empire's frontier once again to the Danube. Bulgarians, at once barbarians and Christians, were brought within the oikoumene, the civilized world. Even as they were, a new threat to the integrity of the oikoumene appeared on the northern bank of the lower Danube: the Pechenegs, fierce steppe nomads who would prove a consistent threat to the empire's Balkan lands for much of the eleventh century, and make a profound impact on all who suffered by their raids and invasions. Only after the battle of Levounion on 29 April 1091 was the threat diminished, and the Pechenegs who had settled independently within the empire's borders were baptized and resettled in smaller groups according to the wishes of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118). The purpose of this paper is to explore how peoples in the northern Balkans, particularly the Pechenegs and Bulgarians, were portrayed by Byzantine authors after 1018, and to consider why.
