Siege of Sirmium 580
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 580 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Serbia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Avar–Byzantine Wars | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Avar Khaganate, Byzantine Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 44.9797, 19.6097 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Sirmium in 580–582 was a decisive event in the history of the Balkans. The fall of the city to the Avars deprived the Byzantine Empire of its major stronghold on the northwestern Danube, opening the path for devastating incursions by the Avars and their Slavic allies into the Balkans.
Sirmium, which for much of the 6th century had been controlled by the Goths and then the Gepids, had come under Byzantine control in 567 after the Lombard–Gepid War (567). The Avars appeared along the Danube at about the same time. They launched a first attack on Sirmium in 568, but were seen off by the local governor, Bonus. The Byzantines secured peace with the Avars through the payment of an annual tribute, which by 578 had risen to some 80,000 solidi.
In 580, however, the Avar khagan, Bayan I, marched with his men to the right bank of the Sava river across from Sirmium, and began construction of a bridge to cross it. The city at the time was largely undefended and unprepared to withstand a siege, as most of the Byzantine forces were engaged in the east against Sassanid Persia.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Sirmium (revision 1370745296), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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