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Porphyrogenitus' work is highly controversial. First of all in his 'De Administrando Imperio' in many places makes no distinction between Serbs and Croats on one side and the Avars on the other. Could it be that his Serbs and Croats are in fact Avars?! Another thing is that about the origin of the Croats he presents two opposite stories. It appears that he tried, due to lack of evidence and maybe because of political reasons, to portray Serbs and Croats as late arrivals but he himself couldn't prove this and so his notes remained unsorted. That's right. "De Administrando Imperio" is just notes. His final work never reached us, but we know of it thanks to Mauro Orbini who mentioned it in 1601, ten years before DAI was discovered. But Mauro spoke of a different work of Porphyrogenitus, his final work. He cites in his work chapter 29. of the Emperor's book, but he doesn't call it "De Administrando Imperio" (name added later by historians), but: "De Foedera, iura ac societates imperii Romani" i.e. "About the alliances, laws and the society of the Roman Empire". This title actually gives answer to many problems one encounters in the DAI, for example why is there no mention of the Bulgarians, the Arabs and the Germans? Because they were not allies of the Empire. But how did Orbini know about this book at all if it was published by Meursius only in 1611 and Orbini "Il regno de gli Slavi" in 1601? Thanks to Arpontahos (I suppose that is how his name is spelled in Latin) about who you won't find a single word in any lexicon of medieval authors, but nonetheless his name is mentioned couple of times. His work was of typical anti-Machiavellian style and it favoured the Church, quoting such anceint sources as Plato, Aristotel and St. Augustus, i.e. very typical for it's time period (renaissance). But this Arpontahos also quotes Porphyrogenitus. And the other interesting note he mentioned is that De Foedera was written in 959 AD not in 949-952 as DAI. Even if De Foedera wasn't the Emperor's last version of the book it certainly was the last since he died in October the very same year.
DAI is an unfinished work. This is true even comparable to Porphyrogenitus' other work De Thematibus which he wrote afterwards. But the most important thing is where did the Emperor get his facts? He certainly didn't get in Constantinople but most likely the same way information was gathered for centuries: the Emperor send a questionnaire to the provinces and the officials there gathered information from the locals. Census were gathered in a similar manner. So, what the Emperor wrote about the origin of the Serbs and Croats was their own story about their origin, in the Croat case the story of the five brothers and two sisters. However, this was most likely a legend coming down from the ancient period or a story the Croats made up to explain their origin, like the Greek mythology. The Emperor could have placed this story to the beginning of the 7th century, to the time of Emperor Heraclius who allegedly allowed them to settle on Roman soil. He perhaps tied this somehow to the Slavic raids across the Danube and the Avar-Roman wars. But where is this mentioned during the actual time of Hercalius? That is what I would like to know.
DAI is an unfinished work. This is true even comparable to Porphyrogenitus' other work De Thematibus which he wrote afterwards. But the most important thing is where did the Emperor get his facts? He certainly didn't get in Constantinople but most likely the same way information was gathered for centuries: the Emperor send a questionnaire to the provinces and the officials there gathered information from the locals. Census were gathered in a similar manner. So, what the Emperor wrote about the origin of the Serbs and Croats was their own story about their origin, in the Croat case the story of the five brothers and two sisters. However, this was most likely a legend coming down from the ancient period or a story the Croats made up to explain their origin, like the Greek mythology. The Emperor could have placed this story to the beginning of the 7th century, to the time of Emperor Heraclius who allegedly allowed them to settle on Roman soil. He perhaps tied this somehow to the Slavic raids across the Danube and the Avar-Roman wars. But where is this mentioned during the actual time of Hercalius? That is what I would like to know.
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