Slavic Pirates from Croatia and Hercegovina:
Light Slavic ships control the northern coast of the Aegean Sea in the
second half of the 7th century, attacking the Byzantine vessels
transporting food from Saloniki to Constantinople; they even besieged
Saloniki from the sea, the largest Byzantine port in the Aegean, and
they laid waste to the Cyclades. In 623 Slavic pirates attack Crete (at
about this time in the western part of which Slavs are known to have
settled) and Asia Minor, and in 642 Apulia (the latter probably by Slavs
from Dalmatia, where Slavic naval art developed very early). The
alliance of the Slavic pirates with the Arabs mentioned by Abu'l-Fida'y
was by no means the first one of its kind; Constantine Porphirogenetus
reports that during the reign of Emperor Nicopherus in 805 or 807 Slavs
attacked the city of Patras in the Peleponessus, together with "Saracens
and Africans".
The Slavs living on the shores of the Adriatic also displayed maritime
inclanations; during a period of at least about 50 years during the
900's the Venetian Republic was reduced to a status of a virtual
tributary of the Slavic pirates from the Adriatic littoral. The Croats
and Neretvans fought most frequently against the Venetians; one Venetian
Doge is known to have been killed in a battle against the
latter. The Slavic raids on Italy also took place by land; these were
pillaging raids launched on the north-estern part of the Lombard
Kingdom, or military interventions made at the request of some Lombard
factions involved in civil wars. In 701 Slavic raiders attack Friulian shepherds; a subsquent
Lombard pursuit fails to catch them. Just a few days later, when new
Slovene detachments enter Friulia, Duke Fergulf, along with the flower
of the Friulian nobility, attacks them, but he is killed, together with
most of his troops, while storming the Slavs' camp located on a hill. Just as it was the case in Sicily, Crete, and
elsewhere, the Slavs sometimes combined raiding with permanent
settlement; a few Slavic enclaves appear at about this time in
north-eastern Italy. As we can see, during this age the Slavs were
active raiders on both land and sea.
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