Leo VI the Wise aka the Philosopher (866 – 912) was Byzantine Emperor between 886 and 912. He wrote a number of works including his Taktika in which he discusses Slavs, among other peoples. While readers will recognize the Slav passages as being rough copies of earlier works (for example, of Procopius), they are included here for completeness. The translation is by George Dennis.
75. Formerly there were the Slavs. When they dwelt across the Ister, which we call the Danube, the Romans (Byzantines) attacked them and made war against them. They were then living as nomads, that is, before they crossed the Ister and bent their necks under the yoke of Roman authority. But I will not leave you ignorant of their usual methods in combat and of the other customs. Indeed, as I said, I will gather and explain everything to you, to the best of my ability, so that, like the bee, you may bring together from all sides and collect what is useful.
93. The Slavic nations have shared the same customs and way of life with each other. They were independent, absolutely refusing to be enslaved or governed especially when they dwelled across the Danube in their own country. And when they crossed over from there to here and, as it were, were forced to accept slavery, they still did not want to obey another person meekly but in some manner only themselves. For they deemed it better to be destroyed by a ruler of their own race than to serve and to submit themselves to the laws of the Romans. Even after they received the sacrament of salvic baptism, unto our own times, they just as sternly retained their ancient and customary independence.
94. They were always a populous and hardy people, readily bearing up under heat, cold, rain, nakedness, and scarcity of provisions.
95. Our father, autokrator of the Romans, Basil, now in the divine dwelling, persuaded these peoples to abandon their ancient ways and, having made them Greek, subjected them to rulers according to the Roman model, and having graced them with baptism, he liberated them from slavery to their own rulers and trained them to take part in warfare against those nations warring against the Romans. By these means he very carefully arranged matters for those peoples. As a result, he enabled the Romans to feel relaxed after the frequent uprisings by the Slavs in the past and the many disturbances and wars they had suffered from them in ancient times.
96. The tribes of the Slavs – I am not sure ho to say this – practiced hospitality to an extreme, and even now they judge it wrong to abandon it, but gold on to it as formerly. They were kind and gentle to travelers in their land, and were favorably disposed to them, They conducted them safely from one place to another in sequence and preserved them free from harm and always well supplied, commending them to one another. Indeed, if the stranger happened to suffer some harm because of his host’s negligence, the one who had commended him would commence hostilities against that host, regarding vengeance for the stranger as a sacred pledge.
97. From former times they held on to another very sympathetic custom. They did not keep those whom they had taken into captivity for an indefinite period, as long as they wished. Rather, they set a definite period of time for their enslavement, and then gave the prisomners a choice: after this set period, if they so desired, they could return to their own homes with a certain assigned recompense or, if they wished to stay with them, they could remain there as free men and friends.
98. Their women manifested particularly strong feelings. Many of them regarded the death of their husbands as their own and would have themselves suffocated, <finding it> unbearable to keep on living as widow.
99. For food they made use of millet. They were truly happy and content with very little and grudgingly bore the labors involved in farming. They far preferred to have a much more independent way of life without any work than to acquire a wide variety of food or money with great deal of toil.
100. Formerly they were armed with short javelins, or throwing weapons, two to each mann while other had large, thick shields, similar to thyreoi. They also used wooden bows and they had arrows smeared with a drug that was very effective. If the wounded man did not drink an antidote or take some other remedy to counteract the drug or immediately cut around the wound to keep <the poison> from spreading, it would assuredly destroy the whole body.
101. They love to make their homes in overgrown and difficult land and to take refuge there.
102. Previously, in the constitution (chapter) dealing with unexpected ambushes, we explained the manner in which the Romans made their attacks and ambushes against them. Now you, O general, even if you are not setting up surprise ambushes against them but against peoples like them or against other barbarians, if indeed you should find something useful in that ordinance, they you will have something right at hand to meet any contingency, as though you had been drilled in it beforehand.
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