The Bureau of Barbarians ( la, links=no, scrinium barbarorum, el, links=no, , ''skrinion tōn barbarōn''), was a department of government in the

Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

. It is first recorded in the of the fifth century, where it came under the control of the ("Master of Offices"). The records that four secretaries (), either from the existing corps of the or seconded from other bureaux, were appointed for each of the four major administrative divisions of the Eastern Empire: Asiana, Pontica, Oriens, and

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to th ...

and Illyricum jointly. These handled matters of protocol and record keeping for any matters dealing with "Barbarians". They may also have played a role in translation services for visiting missions from Barbarian states.

J.B. Bury John Bagnell Bury (; 16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label "Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his ''Lat ...

believed that the office exercised supervision over all foreigners visiting Constantinople, and that they were under the supervision of the Logothete of the Course. It has been asserted by some, such as author Michael Antonucci, that the Bureau of Barbarians acted as a sort of espionage office for the Empire. There is however no evidence that it was an espionage office, or even that it survived the reform of the "master of offices" position under Leo III, 717–741—though there is a lead seal bearing the name of a man, Peter, who was ("''

protospatharios ''Prōtospatharios'' ( el, πρωτοσπαθάριος) was one of the highest court dignities of the middle Byzantine period (8th to 12th centuries), awarded to senior generals and provincial governors, as well as to foreign princes. History Th ...

'' and in charge of the barbarians"), which is dated to the 9th century.Bury, p. 93 The ''agentes in rebus'' within the postal system are noted elsewhere for maintaining a domestic intelligence gathering function in the Roman Empire into the 8th century, and hold a stronger claim to having been an imperial intelligence service than the Bureau of Barbarians. As its function seems to have dealt with the various barbarian nations with which the Empire had dealings, including translation, communication and correspondence, the Bureau of Barbarians would have had an

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be d ...

function in the broadest modern sense, as distinct from

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...

. The Greek term '' barbarian'', ancient in its origin, came to be used as a pejorative to refer to non-Greek-speaking peoples, i.e. ''foreigners''. Its official use during the Roman era reflected the viewpoint that Roman civilization was the most advanced in mankind.

References

* * *

Citations

Foreign relations of the Byzantine Empire Defunct intelligence agencies Barbarians {{Byzantine-stub