For the country of Illyria, the long reign of Justinian marked a period of internal trouble and incessant external attacks, the prelude to her ruin. The flood of barbarian invasions began against Illyria in 529 AD, with the arrival of Antes, then about 540 AD the Huns, the Lombards, the Herules, the Gepides and the Slavs. During the course of the second half of the sixth century AD, the political situation in the Balkan became even worst, following the appearance of the Avars, who had crossed the Danube in 568, and inflicted a serious defeat on the Byzantine army.

Northern Illyria suffered a severe blow. The flood of barbaric and Slav invasions left terrifying devastation in their wake in the Illyrian countryside. The inhabitants had to endure dreadful suffering and extreme deprivation. "I believe�, Procope of Caesarea wrote recalling the prefecture of Illyrricum in his Historia arcana, "that we must estimate at more than 200,000 the number of Romans-Illyrians who were massacred or taken into captivity, in each of these invasions, leaving these provinces looking like the deserts of Scythia".

If at first the barbarians did not settle in the Illyrian provinces, during the war of 579-582, which brought the Byzantines against the Avars, a new trend appeared, with consequences which were to prove even more serious for the peninsula in general and for the Illyrians in particular. As John of Ephesus was to write four years later, they "ravaged, burned, pillaged and conquered the country, and fearlessly settled there themselves, as if in their own country".

This was only the beginning of the Slav migrations into IIlyrian territory and whole of the Balkan. Without any possibility of offering any effectual resistance, the Illyrians and Romans moved to a large number of coastal citadels, the Dalmatian island (the parts of Illyrian tribes in Dalmatia), and in today Albania, and in the high mountains.

The weakening of the Eastern Empire under the trouble reign of the basileus Phocas (AD 602-610) opened even wider the gates of Illyria to barbarian and Slav invasions, for by this time the Slavs had reached the Dalmatian coast. The Emperor Heraclius (AD 610-640), who was engaged for twenty years in a difficult war against the Perses, was not in a position to be interested in the Balkan.

According to the Miracula sancti Demetrii, written during these decades, entire provinces of Illyria were horribly ravaged.

A number of inhabitants in the towns had abandoned their homes to seek refuge in other areas, in interior or even outside Illyria. From the first half of the sixth century, the refugees from Epidaurus founded Ragusa, the emigrants from Salona found shelter in Spoleto, the inhabitants of Dioclea went down to Antivar, those of Apollonia moved to Vlore, and those of Albanopolis went up to Kruja. In the same way, as the Miracula testifies, thousands of other refugees, who came from the town of Naissus, in Mediterranean Dacia and the neighbouring provinces of Moesia, Dardania and Pannonia, took refuge in Thessalonica.

In the northern and eastern provinces of Illyria, Mediterranean Morique, inner Pannonia, first Moesia, Mediterranean Dacia, Savia, Macedonia and the inland area of Dalmatia -the Illyrians and the Romans who lived there must, in the seventh century, have formed little islands in the Slav Ocean. In the ninth century there were Illyrian people in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia and Dalmatia. On the other hand, in the southern provinces -New Epirus, Ancient Epirus, Albania, Prevalitania, and Dardania- the Illyrian population must have been preponderant and compact at least in most of the regions.

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