the ‘outside’ other 59
ations when they tried to humiliate the other.^169 Th e rulers from “Pax
Nomadica” acted very inventively in such cases, because such activity
and behavior helped them rise in the esteem of their own subjects as
well as in their own eyes.
Th e humiliation of the Other was oft en regarded a necessary condi-
tion for a self-recognition in certain situations. Th e Bulgar Ditsevg/
Ditseng (Krum’s brother?) forced some of the Byzantines captured
in Eastern Th race in 813–814 A.D., including Manuel, the Bishop of
Hadrianopolis (present-day Edirne in Turkey), to eat meat during
the Orthodox Long Lent and when they refused to obey, he executed
them.^170
Omurtag, in his turn, ordered the old formula presenting a victor
trampling down an enemy lying on the ground (cf. “... by trampling
down with his foot the emperor.. .”, from a Bulgar stone inscription)
to be incised next to the inscription on the column found at Chatalar
and dated 822 A.D. (the enemy mentioned here was most probably the
Byzantine usurper Th omas the Slav); this formula established in the
pre-Christian period was used later on by the Arsakid and the Sassanid
dynasties in Iran, as well as the Romans and the Byzantines.^171 Th at
same Bulgar khan forced the captured Byzantine aristocrat Kinamos
to eat the meat of a sacrifi cial animal, which was against his Christian
religion.^172 Krum, Omurtag’s father, also showed disrespect towards
the Byzantine emperor in a stone inscription (the so-called Hambarlii
inscription) dated to the 813 A.D. Th ere, Krum mocks the emperor
(^169) See Simeonova 1996, 29–43. According to her, in Byzantium there was even a
special system, apparently with semiotic characteristics and it was aimed at humiliat-
ing the Other thus overestimating the prestige of the Byzantine basileus. Amongst
the nomads, in the period of the Early Middle Ages, it is hard to believe that there
existed a sophisticated system of this kind though there are some data, namely situ-
ations and signs mentioned by some authors. Th ese facts allow one to suppose that
the nomads were not strangers to this practice; of course, as regards the nomads, we
can not expect that there were amongst them fi nesse or refi ned, hidden ‘quotations’
from the remote past. 170
Th eophanes Continuatus, 216.12–217.9; for these events also see, Kodov 1969,
141, and Browning 1988, 33. 171
Beshevliev 1992, 216, N 57. For the rebellion of Th omas the Slav see, Lemerle
1965, 255–297 (the same also in, Lemerle 1980, N III). Something similar happened
with the captured in 813 A.D., in Hadrianopolis, archbishop Manuel—see details in,
Th eophanes Confessor 1960, 289. For this rite, indeed a replica of the Roman and later
Byzantine ‘calcatio’, see, McCormick 1986, 144.
(^172) Mitropolit Simeon 1931, 256.