Deacon. However, when Theoderic the Great with Ostrogoths parted for Italy in 489, the Illyricum and Thrace were open for Bulgar raids. In 493, according to Marcellinus Comes, they defeated and killed magister militum Julian. In 499, crossed Danube and reached Thrace where on the banks of the river Tzurta (considered a tributary of Maritsa) defeated 15,000 men strong Roman army led by magister militum Aristus. In 502, Bulgars again devastated Thrace as reportedly there were no Roman soldiers to oppose them. In 528–529 again invaded the region and defeated Roman generals Justin and Baduarius. However, Gothic general, Mundus, offered allegiance to the Emperor Justinian I (527–565) in 530, and managed to kill 5,000 Bulgars plundering Thrace. John Malalas recorded that in the battle was captured Bulgar warlord. In 535, magister militum Sittas defeated the Bulgar army at the river Yantra. Ennodius, Jordanes and Procopius identified the Bulgars with the Huns in a 6th-century literary topos, in which Ennodius referred to a captured Bulgar horse as "equum Huniscum". In 505, the alleged 10,000 Hun horsemen in the Sabinian army, which was defeated by the Ostrogoths, are believed to be the Bulgars. In 515, Bulgar mercenaries were listed along with others from the Goths, Scythians and Hunnic tribes as part of the Vitalian army. In 539, two Hunnic "kinglets" defeated two Roman generals during the raid into Scythia Minor and Moesia. A Roman army led by magister militum Ascum and Constantiolus intercepted and defeated them in Thrace, however, another raiding party ambushed and captured two Roman generals. In 539 and 540, Procopius reported a powerful Hunnic army crossed the Danube, devastated Illyricum and reached up to the Anastasian Wall. Such large distances covered in short time indicate they were horsemen. Jordanes described, in his work Getica (551), the Pontic steppe beyond the Acatziri, above the Pontic Sea, as the habitat of the Bulgari, "whom the evils of our sins have made famous". In this region, the Hunni divided into two tribes: the Altziagiri (who trade and live next to Cherson) and Saviri, while the Hunuguri (believed to be the Onoğurs) were notable for the marten skin trade. In the Middle Ages, marten skin was used as a substitute for minted money. The Syriac translation of Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor's Ecclesiastical History (c. 555) in Western Eurasia records: The land Bazgun... extends up to the Caspian Gates and to the sea, which are in