chiefdom · Greece and the Aegean

Belegezites

600 CE – 900 CE (approx.)

Slavic tribe settled in Thessaly in the 7th century, remembered for trading grain with besieged Thessalonica.

Origins

The Belegezites were one of the Slavic groups that settled in the Balkans during the great migrations of the late 6th and 7th centuries. They occupied lands in Thessaly around Phthiotic Thebes and Demetrias on the Gulf of Volos. Almost everything known about them comes from the Miracles of Saint Demetrius, a Byzantine collection of stories about Thessalonica.

Rule and society

They lived as farming communities under their own chiefs, partly independent of Byzantium. During the Slavic siege of Thessalonica in the 670s they did not join the attackers but sold grain to the starving city, a sign of their prosperity and pragmatic relations with the Byzantines. Their name probably survives in Velegezitia, a district named in later Byzantine sources.

Decline and legacy

Over the 8th and 9th centuries Byzantium reasserted control over Greece through the theme system, and the Belegezites were gradually brought under imperial administration, converted to Christianity and absorbed into the Greek-speaking population. They leave few traces apart from place names.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.

Connections (1)

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Belegezites. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/belegezites
MLA
“Belegezites.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/belegezites. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Belegezites.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/belegezites.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Belegezites’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/belegezites (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻