Byzantium-The Long Revival 815-976

ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976
BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL, AD 815-976

An encyclopaedic chronology, with several long digressions on the East Roman army and navy
by Michael ORourke Canberra, Australia September 2010
List of Roman (Byzantine) Emperors 813-20: Leon or Leo V the Armenian 820-29: Mikhael or Michael II the Amorian 829-42: Theophilos 842-56: Theodora, regent for Michael III 842-67: Mikhael or Michael III 867-86: Basileios or Basil I the Macedonian 886-912: Leon or Leo VI the Wise 912-13: Alexandros or Alexander 913-14: Nikolaos or Nicholas Mysticus (patriarch), regent for Constantine VII 914-20: Zo Carbonopsina, empress-regent for Constantine VII 920-44: Romanos II Lecepenus, senior co-emperor 944-59: Konstantinos or Constantine VII the Porphyrogenitus, ruling alone 959-63: Romanos III 963: Theophano, empress-regent for Basil II 963-69: Nikephoros II Phocas, senior co-emperor 969-76: Ioannes or John I Kourkouas, called Tzimiskes, senior co-emperor 976+: Basileios or Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer, ruling alone
For an account of the size, equipment and tactics of the Byzantine Army, see after the entry for AD 919 and again after 944. The Navy is discussed at length after 841-50 and briefly in or after the entries for 882, 889, 911 (maritime expedition against Crete), 919, and AD 961 (further expedition against Crete). THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN 815 In 815 the whole African side of the Mediterranean was Muslim, while the northern side belonged to Christendom. Taking the former first, we find the Umayyad dynasty ruling most of presentday Spain and all of our Portugal, with the Mahgreb divided between the Idrisids in Morocco-Algeria and the Aghlabids ruling Greater Tunisia (Arabic Ifriqiya). The giant Abbasid Caliphate with its capital at Baghdad ruled the whole Levant from eastern Libya to Egypt, Syria, Armenia, Iraq and Persia. The larger part of the northern shore of the Mediterranean was controlled by Rmaniathe Christian Roman Empire of the Greeks known to us as
Byzantium. On the west, the Frankish Empire ruled our southern France, part of the Balearics, Corsica, and northern Italy as far as Old Rome. Eastwards from Sicily and southern Italy, as we have said, all the northern Meditterranean was Byzantine as far as Cyprus. On paper the Frankish EmpirePamplona to Salzburg and Hamburg to Rome* looked to be the second strongest power in the Mediterranean basin after the Abbasids in 815 (cf Times Atlas 1994: 61). In practice it was less organised and more loosely governed and so weaker than Byzantium. The Franks had a small fleet that allowed them to hold the Balearics and Corsica, but in the western reaches of Mediterranean as in the eastern [see e.g. under 825-28 and 880], the main naval contest was between Byzantium and the several Muslim states. Venice too had a substantial fleet of its own (see under 840 and 887). (*) Except for Rome, with perhaps 20,000 people, in 815 these places were just the village seats of bishops or hamlet-fortresses of no importance; I am simply using them to quickly illustrate physical size of the Frankishruled realms. Let us now proceed on a tour across the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, from west to east from Sardinia and Sicily to Asia Minor and Armenia: (a) Italy: Sardinia was still nominally Byzantine but in practice independent (cf the entry in this chronology for c.840; also 864). The Franks dominated Corsica and N Italy, with the Lombard principality of Benevento lodged between Frankish N Italy and Byzantine S Italy, including Sicily: see 827. (b) The Adriatic and the Balkans: Nominally Byzantine Venice and Dalmatia were separated from Byzantine inner Macedonia by Frankish-dominated SloveniaCroatia (to give the region its modern name) and the Slavic tribes of BosniaSerbia - as we may anachronistically call the region. There was as yet no Serbian state in 814. Nominally the pagan Serbs came under Byzantine suzerainty but in practice they were autonomous. Outer Macedonia and SE Illyria were likewise ruled by Slavic chiefs (and in certain districts: Romance-speaking Vlachs). The Empire ruled Crete, almost all of present-day Greece, Albania, and Thrace, while the Bulgarians (still pagans) controlled the eastern two-thirds of present-day Bulgaria and an even larger territory north of the lower Danube. Until 814-16 (see under 816), the Bulgarian-Byzantine frontier lay just beyond Adrianople (modern Edirne). GO HERE for a map showing the Bulgarian-Byzantine frontier: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bulgaria_krum_map_pl.jpg. (c) Anatolia remained the empires heartland. In the east, the frontier with the Abbasids was the Taurus Mountains, with nearly all of Cilicia under Muslim rule. Cyprus paid taxes to both the Empire and the Caliphate. 814-20: Byzantine-Venetian edict against trade with the Arabs. The emperor and the doge tried to prohibit Venetian merchants from engaging in trade (in slaves and other goods) with the Arabs, in order that the empire should maintain control over the north-south commercial routes (Rotman p.72). See 876. 814-31: r. Omurtag, Bulgarian khan. With the death of Krum, the boundary between the Bulgarian khanate and the empire once again became the Balkans Mountains, which is to say: Byzantium regained all of Thrace. A 30-year treaty (816-46) was agreed, and from 817 it mainly held, being breached only once: see 836-37 (Vine 1991: 100, 106). Cf 815. 814/15: In the Caliphate: The first substantial reference to the use of
Turkish so-called "slave" soldiers, mercenaries from east of the Aral Sea. They formed a small but effective guard for Ma'mun's brother, the future caliph Mu'tasim. Cf 833. And the Patzinak Turks [Pechenegs, Kipchaks] pushed west onto the Ukrainian steppe (as we know it) during the 800s. From 814/15: Iconoclasm again. SL [date according to Symeon the Logothete]: Leo V persecutes the iconophiles 815-820. The veneration of icons had been restored under Empress Irene, 780-802. This was formalised at a Church Council held in 787. But now in 815 Leo calls a Council/General Synod at Constantinople which reintroduces "moderate iconoclasm". Publication of the Second Edict of Iconoclasm. Leo deposed the patriarch Nicephorus, inaugurating the SECOND ICONOCLASTIC PERIOD (815-843). Cf 81820. Soon after Easter, 1 April 815, a Synod under the authority of the new Patriarch Theodotus Melissenus was held. It repudiated the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 787 and recognised the acta of the iconoclast council of 754. It stated that it did not regard the icons as idols, but nevertheless ordered their destruction. For you see that all the emperors who have acknowledged and worshipped icons met their death either in exile or in war (Leo V, quoted by Mango in Rice 1965: 110). 815: Outer Thrace: The Bulgarians first conquered Philippopolis, present-day Plovdiv, in 815 and named it Philib. (Wikipedia, 2009: - The name Plovdiv first appears in the 15th century.) See 816. 815-43: Chronicles: It has long been the consensus of Byzantinists that no reliable narrative source exists for the second period of iconoclasm (815-843). The history of this period has therefore been written by choosing among the different accounts of four chroniclers of the mid-tenth century, none of whom is considered wholly reliable: [1] Symeon the Logothete [SL], [2] Joseph Genesius, [3] Theophanes Continuatus, and [4] the Pseudo-Symeon. But Treadgold (1979) has proposed that the Chronicle of Symeon has practically the value of a contemporary source for 813-845, and should be adopted as our principal guide in writing the history of the second iconoclastic period. 815-22: Part of Dalmatia was ruled by the new Croat kingdom. See 822. 816: 1. Exchange of prisoners between the Eastern Muslims and the East Roman Empire; Masudi does not specify the numbers involved (Toynbee 1973: 390). 2. Campaign against the Bulgarians under Khan Omurtag. Leo leads his army to the destroyed town of Mesembria on the Black Sea coast: he lures the Khan's army into an ambush and wins a victory. As we noted earlier, a 30-year peace was agreed. The Bulgarians kept most of the western Thracian conquests of Irene and Nicephorus but withdrew from some of northern Thrace. The Romanic-Bulgarian Treaty marks off a border-line that came to be called the "Great Fence of Bulgaria" or Great Fence of Thrace (Greek: megale souda, Great Fence/Stronghold/Rampart; today known as the Erkesiya, a word borrowed from Turkish). A no-mans-land about 60 km wide was marked out from Develtus west to Mt Haemus {the Balkan Range near Satra
Zagora] and thence south to Macrolivada (Uzundzhova) (*), in which the Bulgarians built (815-16) a ditch and rampart (Bury 1912; Runciman, History of the First Bulgarian Empire, appendix VI; also Vlasto 1970: 157). J B Bury, 1912: 361, commented that much of it was still able to be traced in his time. The Bulgarians fortified the fence with an earthen rampart (probably with timber palisades) and a ditch, the latter on the Byzantine side; and the Byzantines (Gk: Rhomaioi) heavily refortified Adrianople and Mesembria; but Serdica [modern Sofia] and Philippopolis [Plovdiv], further out and surrounded by Slav-dominated territory, were left undefended. This invited Bulgarian expansion to the west: see 827, 831 and 836 (fall of Serdica). (*) Develtus was on the coast near Burgas. Macrolivada was near Simeonovgrad, where the western Azmak enters the Maritsa, NE of modern Haskovo, i.e. well downstream (SE) from Plovdiv-Philippopolis. (There is also a different stream called the eastern Azmak, a tributary of the Tundzha.) Thus the Fence ran to the ENE across the northern Thracian Plain. 3. Pope Stephen IV travelled to Rheims in Francia to anoint and crown Charlemagne's son Hludwig / Louis / Ludovic the Pious. Stephen took with him what was purported to be the crown of Constantine the Great. See next. By 817: The West: The Carolingian court had the resources to construct a wind organ without recourse to Byzantine aid. Angold 2001: 118 sees this as evidence of the Franks having achieved cultural parity with the East. In our opinion, this parity is better dated to around 1100. 817: The deposed patriarch of Constantinople, Nicephorus, wrote Apologeticus major, a defence of the veneration of icons. His persuasiveness may have been a factor in Michael IIs relative toleration of the iconodules. Nicephorus is well known for his Breviarium Nicephori, a history of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire from 602-769, and for his chronological tables, listing the major religious and political leaders from Adam to 829. 2. Saracens attack Romanic/Byzantine south Italy (or in 819). Cf 845 (Rome). 3. Byzantine iconophiles appeal to the Pope. Cf 818-20 (Theodotus). 818: 250 years since the Lombards arrived in Italy. Hence hereafter we shall use the form "Italians (Lombards) rather than just 'Lombards'. c. 818: d. the chronicler, abbot Theophanes the Confessor or of Megas Agros, that being his birthplace in NW Asia Minor. His chronicle is the major source for the reigns of Leo and Constantine V. Iconodule monk; exiled by Leo V to the Aegean island of Samothrace, where he wrote his Chronograph, our principal source for the Byzantine Dark Age of the 7th and 8th centuries. Following George Syncellus's death (814), his Chronicle was extended by Theophanes the Confessor to his own time (813); and subsequent contributors carried it down to the year 961. Theophanes' Chronographia covers the period 284-813, English trans., The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English Translation of anni mundi 6095-6305 (A.D. 602-813), by Harry Turtledove, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. And a translation by Mango & Scott: The chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern history, AD 284-813. Clarendon Press, Oxford and New York, 1997. 818-19:
Asia: First recorded raid on the empire by the Viking Rus of Kiev. They plundered the northern coast of Anatolia (818). Treadgold 1997: 433. The expedition of the Rus to Paphlagonia is documented in the Life of St. George of Amastris, attributed to Ignatios the Deacon (ca. 775 - ca. 848). The Life describes the Rus as "the people known to everyone for their barbarity, ferocity, and cruelty". According to the text, they attacked Propontis (i.e. the Bosphoros: probably aiming for Constantinople) before turning east and raiding Paphlagonia some time after the death of St. George (ca. 806). When they fell upon the town of Amastris, the intercession of St. George helped the inhabitants to survive the raid. The Basileus (emperor) Leo subsequently created two new military commands on the Black Sea coast, both with naval squadrons as well as land troops: the Theme [thema, province] of Paphlagonia on the north Anatolian coast: capital inland at Gangra. and the Ducate of Chaldia in north-east Anatolia: capital at Trebizond. Toynbee 1973: 325, citing Ahrweilers Byzance at la mer, notes that besides the three naval themata proper (Cibyrrhaeots, Samos and the Aegean Sea), there were naval squadrons posted to a number of non-naval themes: Sicily, Calabria, Peloponnese, Hellas, and, in the Black Sea, Paphlagonia. 819: The Samanids carved out a semi-independent state in eastern Persia to become the first native Iranian rulers after the Arabic conquest. Despite having roots in Zoroastrianism theocratic nobility, they embraced Islam and propagated the religion deep into the heart of Central Asia. They made Samarqand, Bukhara and Herat their capitals and revived the Persian language and culture. 819-20: The Ifriqiya-imperial truce is broken. When the Aghlabids renew the offensive against Byzantine Sicily with increased intensity in 819-820 (Bury CMH IV, i), the Maltese Islands presumably came under increased pressure. It comes as a surprise that they were not lost at about this time. It was presumably due to the tenacity of the Byzantine defence that Malta, at least, held out for another half century. Archaeology of Malta Interestingly, the importation of amphorae and possibly also cooking pots to Malta - from nearby Byzantine Sicily - continues right into the 8th and 9th /early 10th Century. The imports were probably paid for in various services presumably for repairs and supply to passing ships, provision of market services etc - and/or the sale of items with low archaeological visibility such as slaves or textiles. At the main town of Melita - old Mdina - occupation actually increases over the 7th and 8th Centuries. This is consistent with the extra-urban funerary archaeology which includes evidence of occupation in the form of 8th century Sicilian oil lamps found within the earlier mid-Antique catacombs. Remarkably, the town seems to expand its physical extent and continues receiving trade in amphorae right up to the 10th Century and beyond, into the Islamic period. (A number of Greek towns in Sicily held out, e.g. the Saracens did not succeed in taking Messina until 843; and although Malta fell to the Saracens in 869-70, plainly some trade with Muslim Sicily continued.) Evidently the urban centre at Melita survived and flourished. Its command of the islands commercial outlets seems to have led to a decline in the agricultural infrastructure it had inherited from the earlier Roman period. Nathaniel Cutajar, The role of liminal territories in the early Byzantine Commonwealth: the Maltese example, at docenti.lett.unisi.it/files/ 30/8/1/1/abstracts_impaginati.pdf. 820: By the year 820 relations between Emperor Leo V and Michael, domestic
[commander] of the Excubitors [elite regiment], deteriorated to the point that Michael was imprisoned and sentenced to death (Treadgold 1997: 433). Leo is assassinated in Hagia Sophia by agents of the imprisoned Michael the Amorian, general of the tagma [elite regiment] of the Excubitors. Browning 1992: 64 says the assassin was a passionate partisan of icons, although Michael himself was an Iconclast. Leo's sons were all castrated to prevent them making a future challenge for the throne (Norwich Apogee p.30). During the night of Christmas Eve 820, Michael's co-conspirators freed him from prison. Together they hacked Leo to death as he listened to hymns on Christmas morning. Afterwards they proclaimed the Amorian general emperor as Michael II. The 9th century (the 800s) was the golden age of TRANSLATIONS FROM GREEK TEXTS INTO ARABIC at the court of the Muslim Khalifs, though some translation had certainly taken place earlier. Al-Mamun, Caliph 813-33, was passionately interested in 'Hellenic studies' especially geometry. The emperor, however, declined to assist the caliph, offering polite refusals to a request that he send him Greek [Rhomaion: Byzantine] scholars and Greek texts (Mango 1980: 139). Al-Ma'mun, son of Harun ar-Rashid, was the first great patron of Greek-inspired philosophy and science in the history of Islam. He encouraged the holding of disputes in court on logical, theological and legal matters. He established in Baghdad his famous 'Bayt al-Hikmah' or House of Wisdom, combining a library and an academy. The library contained many books on literature, natural sciences and logic. Or at least the traditional view is that the Bayt was an academy: Gutas pp.58 ff argues it was just a antiquarian library and not a place for discussion or argument, disputes being held elsewhere. He argues that the library served as a storage place for ancient documents, and as a base for translation work and bookbinding. Cf 821: al-Khwarizmi.
820-829: MICHAEL II the Amorian, 'the Lisper or Stammerer [Gk: Traulos]
Born at Amorium in Phrygia, west-central Asia Minor, Michael was aged about 50 when he assumed the throne. Rising from the ranks, he served as a senior general under Emperor Leo V, who he helped gain the throne. Leo had him arrested for heading a conspiracy, but the plotters murdered Leo and raised Michael to the throne. In c. 823, his first wife Thekla having died, Michael II brought Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine VI, out of the convent to which she had retired and married her. It is said that he was illiterate (Hearsey p.118) which would seem unlikely for a general; but possible, as he had risen from the ranks. More probably Norwich, 1993: 41, is right in calling him barely literate. In the religious controversy, Michael tolerated both orthodoxy and iconoclasm but personally favoured iconoclasm. He lost (AD 825 ff) Crete to Spanish Arabs, while other Muslims from Tunisia began (827) the invasion of Sicily. Coinage Michael attempted a reform of the long neglected bronze coinage. Larger bronze folles struck at the capital were apparently pumped into the economy of certain Balkan areas as a matter of deliberate governmental policy [cf below: economic
recovery after AD 825], while the coins of the Syracuse mint in Sicily retained their appearance and served mostly the Italian provinces of the empire - the lower 'boot' of the peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia. This was a task that would only to be completed by his son Theophilos, with results basically persisting for over 250 years, until the late-11th c. monetary changes of Alexios I. Bozinovic, Byzantine Coinage, http://www.srpskoblago.org; accessed 2008. 820-23: Rebellion and civil war, perhaps the greatest and most widespread rebellion in all of Byzantine history (says Norwich 1993: 36). Turmoil in Asia Minor, and failed sieges of the capital 821 and 822: insurrection against Michael II by troops loyal to Leo under general Thomas 'the Slav', who, like Michael, had served under Leo (Curta 2006: 156). Thomas was in fact an Anatolian, i.e. a hellenized Slav born and raised in Anatolia. McCormick 2001:144 calls this revolt the last great uprising of the themes. The Bulgarians are persuaded to intervene on Michaels side. With the troops of the Opsician theme and his Bulgarian allies, the emperor eventually defeats the rebel army in Thrace (823). Thomas was patronized by the Caliph al-Ma'mun who permitted him to be crowned in Antioch by the patriarch of that city (Kennedy 2006). Thomas was crowned Emperor by the Patriarch of Antioch, and almost all the themes in Asia Minor except the Opsikon and Armeniakon accepted him. For more than a year, Constantinople was besieged by the rebels (see below: 821-22) until they were smashed by the Bulgarians in the spring of 823: see there. Theophanes Continuatus, "Chronographia", col. 53, in Greek Sources of Bulgarian History: GSBH, pp. 334 -5. On 10 April 824 Michael II or Theophilus wrote to the Frankish emperor Ludovicus or Hludwig or Louis I the Piousalso called le Debonnaire (the Fair)speaking thus of the 821-823 rebellion of the then dead Thomas the Slav: "Thomas... by taking our ships and boats, had the possibility to come into (some) parts of Thrace and Macedonia. In such a quick action, he besieged our city [Constantinople] and surrounded it with the fleet in the month of December, Indiction 15 [December 821]. Thomas is said by Skylitzes to have had 80,000 fighting men on his side in 821, when supported by all the themes except the Opsician and by a motley crew of adventurers beside (Tsangadas 1980: 156). Skylitzes (Wortley p.34) says the Armeniakon stayed loyal to Michael as well as the Opsician. As stated in the letter to Louis: "...he had powerful enemy forces ... from the regions in Asia, Europe, Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly and from the surrounding Sclaveni." Skylitzes says the Muslims also sent men to help him. The empires entire land army at this time was only about 90,000 in total (Treadgold Army p.67). We may picture, I suppose, 30,000 Greek soldiers being joined by 50,000 Slavic troops, armed civilians and a frew Muslim units. Haldon 1999: 102, however, prefers to dismiss the figure of 80,000 as inflated. In 821 when Thomass forces advanced on Constantinople, he equipped both bireme ships and other rounded grain-transporting [ships] together with horsetransporting [ships] which he assembled at Mitylene on the coast of Lesbos before advancing on Abydos. The horse-transports were presumably galleys (Theophanes Continuatus, quoted in Dromon p.308). Cf 824: Muslim horsetransports. After his capture Thomas was compelled to prostrate himself (proskynesis) before Michael* and was paraded before the loyal troops, probably to reinforce the fact of his complete failure. At Arcadiopolis he suffered double amputation and was paraded backwards on a donkey before being killed [impaled:** see 823]. Only then did Michael enter the city in a triumphal parade and preside over the victory races in the Hippodrome. He showed some clemency by not killing the other rebel leaders, although they were humiliated by being paraded through the Hippodrome bound and seated on asses (McCormick 2001: 146).
(*) An illustration in the Madrid Skylitzes shows Thomas kneeling forward with his head touching the ground. (**) At a later period (after 950), when carried out by Greeks, impaling (Gk anskolopismos) meant empaling, i.e. being tied up and exposed on a forked pole, and not having the stake inserted into or through ones body. The victim was first ridiculed and then either strangled or left to die of thirst (Notes to Leo the Deacon, trans. Talbot & Sullivan p. 216). 820-27: The Bibliotheca or Library of Photius, the future Patriarch, was a notebook written possibly between 820 and 827 AD. The date is much debated: Angold 2001 p.127 says not before 838. It consists of a series of book-reviews - summaries or 'codices' - of works he has read. Much of what he read is no longer extant, and his review often comprises all that we know of a particular work. 821: 1. According to Symeon the Logothete (SL), Michael relaxes his persecution of iconophiles, early 821. 2. Constantinople: Inscriptions show work was done on repairing the seawalls. Presumably this was to anticipate an attack by Thomas. The rebel army arrived before the land walls in December 821 (Tsangadas 1980: 62, 156). SL [date according to Symeon the Logothete]: Thomas the Slav marches on Constantinople Oct./Nov. 821. Siege from Dec 821 to Nov 822. From 821: The Balkans: The Bulgarians build a great new royal palace at Preslav, inland in east-central Bulgaria: west of Varna, to replace Pliska. In its later heyday, Preslav will occupy 3.5 sq km (1.75 km x 1.75 km); and today the remains can be seen of the eastern wall with its turret, the palace, the ceremony hall and the Rotunda (the Golden Church) whose dome was gilded outside and whose interior was covered with a precious mosaic on a golden background. Cf 831. c. 821 (during the reign of Ma'mun): Publication of the famous book on algebra by the Arab scholar al-Khwarizmi, which was to revolutionise mathematical studies for all time. 821-22: Thomass rebels besiege Constantinople for one year: Dec. 821-Nov. 822. So large were his forces that they extended along the whole line of the land walls, from the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn. But the sea routes were kept open. Several assaults failed. Thomas abandons the siege and plunders Thrace, November 822. Cf 823 the Bulgarians intervene. The forces of the would-be emperor Thomas brought up rams, tortoises, and some helepoleis [trebuchets] in order to shake down the walls of Constantinople (Theoph. Cont. 2.13). In addition to petroboloi [stone-throwers], ladders, rams, tortoises, and fire arrows from his ships, Thomas ordered the engagement of some four-legged helepoleis (2.14). These last were obviously large, trestleframed, traction (rope-pulled) trebuchets, the other petroboloi perhaps being smaller. Every day large bands of soldiers brought these machines forward against the walls of the city. Theophanes 2.18, quoted in Dennis, 1998/99, Byzantine Heavy artillery. The loyalists destroyed two fleets sent by Thomas. The second, arriving from Hellas and the Peloponnesus in the early summer of 822 was destroyed by Greek Fire (Norwich 1993: 34). In the course of the revolt, the central (Imperial) fleet destroyed the Aegean fleet;
but the fighting was debilitating on both sides. Hocker, in Gardiner 2004: 92, argues that this civil war seriously weakened the maritime power of Byzantium (and of course the army more so). Cf 825-28: loss of Crete. 822: 1. Siege of Constantinople, as related above. 2. NW Balkans: Slavic incursions into imperial territory. The name "Serb" is first recorded in 822. The Serbs briefly achieve independence and throw off their nominal allegiance to Byzantium; the Franks meanwhile reimposed their dominance over the Croats. As a later emperor wrote, when the Roman [Byzantine] empire - through the sloth and inexperience of those who then governed it and especially in the time of Michael from Amorion, the Lisper [Michael II, r. 820-29] - had declined to the verge of total extinction, the inhabitants of the cities of Dalmatia [present-day coastal Croatia and Montenegro] became independent, subject neither to the emperor of the Romans nor to anybody else, and, what is more, the nations of those parts, - the Croats and Serbs and Zachlumites [Zahumljans], Terbuniotes [Travunians] and Kanalites and Diocletians [Dukljans] and the Pagani (*), - shook off the reins of the empire of the Romans and became self-governing and independent, subject to none. Princes, as they say, these nations had none, but only "zupans", elders, as is the rule in the other Slavonic regions (Constantine VII, in DAI: De administrando imperio). Cf 878. (*) The Slavic chiefdoms on the Dalmatian coast were, from NE to SE: Croats, Pagani (Neretvia, Narentines), Zahumlje [east of Dubrovnik], Travunia and Duklja. The last three were proto-Serbian tribes. The interior was held by further Croats (NW) and Serbs (SE). The Croats recognized Frankish suzerainty, while the rest of Dalmatia was theoretically Byzantine. In practice officials appointed by Byzantium controlled only a handful of the Romance-speaking islands and coastal towns. Specifically the Dalmatian (Romance) speakers lived on the three northern islands of 1 Krk, 2 Cres and 3 Rab (Italian ''Veglia, Cherso'' and ''Arbe'') (in todays upper Croatia); and in five coastal towns: 1 Zadar: Greek Diadora, 2 Trogir: Gk Tragurion, 3 Split, 4 Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and 5 Kotor: Gk Askrevion (*) (respectively Zara, Tra, Spalato, Ragusa and Cattaro in Venetian and Italian), each of these towns having a local dialect. (*) Part of todays Montenegro. c.823: After his first wife died, the emperor Michael II chose Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine VI, for his second wife. This was the cause of some controversy, because of the fact that she was at that time a nun (PBW, citing Theoph. Cont. II 24 pp. 78-79, and III 1 p. 86, Zonaras. XV 24. 12-13; Genesius II 14, and Theod. Stud. etc). 823: Thrace: SL (Symeon the Logothete) says Michaels troops defeated and killed Thomas in mid-October 823. After withdrawing from the siege of Constantinople, Thomass forces captured Arcadiopolis in early 823. In alliance with Michael, as we have seen, the Bulgarians attacked Thomass forces from the rear and dispersed them. Michaels troops then laid siege to the town. After a siege that lasted until October, Thomass troops were starving; they surrendered him, and, as we have related, he was put to death at Arcadiopolis. First his hands and feet were cut off, then his body was impaled on, or empaled to, a stake (Norwich, Apogee 1991: 36; McCormcik 2001: 144; Bradbury 2004: 173).
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The result of the civil war was a general weakening of Byzantine military power (Browning 1992: 64). There would be no major campaigns until the next reign (under Theophilus, acc. 829). c. 824 (around 823-25): S Asia Minor: A large Muslim fleet attacked Antalya, the capital of the Kibyrrhaeot theme. Horse-transporter galleys: The future St Anthony the Younger, born John Echimos, was a senior official [ek prospou, deputy, imperial representative, personal appointee, lit. from the person] at nearby Syllaion, ca. 821-29, and could recall that 60 horsemen, including the Muslim commander, deployed from the ships. As Pryor & Jeffreys note, if the Arab commander was mounted when he disembarked, then he must have done so from a galley, because sailing ships of any size could not be beached (Dromon p.308). The vita of Anthony the Younger also preserves a precious detail that demonstrates that women's activity was not limited to religious disputes: when an Arab fleet, in about 825, attacked Attaleia/Antalya on the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor, the governor of the town summoned to the walls not only men, but also young women dressed in male clothing (Kazhdan & Wharton. 1985: 99). The Vita also reveals that adultery and fornication were far from unknown in Byzantium: see in Alexander Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex in the Fifth to Twelfth Centuries, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 131-32. 824: 1. Germany: An embassy sent to Hludwig (Louis) court travelled from Constantinople (April 824) via Venice to Rouen (present-day NW France: November 824). It took 10 silks of different colours among other diplomatic gifts. Cf under 825: silk trade to Bulgaria. Despite the agreement of 814, Emperor Michael in 824 addressed a letter to Hludwig (Louis) the Pious somewhat insultingly saluting him as "glorious king of the Franks and Lombards, [and] who is called their emperor". In Latin: glorioso regi Francorum et Langobardorum et vocato eorum imperatori: Mansi, Concilia, 14, 417; and Dlger, Regesten, 1, n. 408; idem, "Europas Gestaltung," 309 f, cited by Anastos, www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/milton1_14; accessed 2005. 2. Possible date for the creation of a theme of Thessalonica, raised from the status of an archontate or lordship: a letter from Michael II to Hludwig (Louis) the Pious in 824 seems to allude to it (Stavridou-Zafraka, in Burke and Scott 2000). Treadgold prefers earlier, in c.809: see there. Cf 836. By 825: A market economy is re-emerging, with strong recovery by 900. The number of Byzantine coin-finds begins to rise sharply early in the ninth century, in hoards and in single coins, both outside the confines of the empire and within it. This is interpreted as the resurgence of a market economy based on money following the dark ages of the period 650-800, during which the 'natural' market - barter and payment in kind - was prevalent (Browning 1975: 110). Under Michael II, 820829, the weight of the follis was increased to about eight grams; this broad, heavy piece was to become the characteristic copper coin of the middle Byzantine period. Ccile Morrisson notes that the recovery, regardless of its origins, occurred earlier in Italy than in the rest of the empire since it was felt in Calabria as early as 813. But in Capitanata, to the north of the Ofanto River - the greater Foggia region -, it clearly coincided with Basil Is reconquest later in the 9th century (i.e., by 886) and was manifested, she says, with some force. Around Bari and in the south, the continuity was more marked, albeit weaker, according to G. Guzzetta, who is not more specific (Morrisson, Byzantine money, in Laiou et al. 2002). The reasons for the re-emergence of a market economy are not clear.The state revenues from tax and excise etc have been estimated as 1.8/1.9 million nomismata (gold coins) in 775, rising to 3.1 million in 842 ( up 72%) and 5.9 million by 1025 (Treadgold, 1995 and 1997: 575).
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The typical soldiers annual salary was five nomismata in the 700s, rising to nine gold coins by the mid 800s [see below: Theophilus's reorganisation of 839]. In addition, each soldier held a farm of 150-720 modii, which is 30-144 acres or 12 to 58 hectares. Treadgold says that infantrymen may have struggled, but the farm of a cavalryman made him sufficiently rich, with tenant-peasants to work his land, that he did not to have to work himself. In practice, however, the cavalryman probably did take an active part in running the farm. Thus Browning remarks that military tenants were very substantial peasants, by which he means working farmers, indeed "almost small gentry" (Treadgold 1995: 159 ff and 175 ff; Browning p.130). In contrast, Bulgaria still had a largely non-monetary economy. Goods were paid for in oxen and sheep; the same applied to taxes. Gold coins were used only to pay for imported luxury goods, such as silk for the Bulgarian upper class (Browning p.111). 825-28 (*) 1. Exiles or adventurers from Muslim Spain, re-expelled from Egypt, overrun Romanic Crete, which becomes a pirate base. They are said to have numbered 10,000 men, not counting their woman ansd children; or at least that was their number when they left Spain (Norwich, Apogee p.37; Jenkins, Imperial Centuries p.144). See 827 invasion of Sicily. (*) Widely divergent accounts are given in Byzantine and Arab sources for the date of the Arab [Muslim] invasion. Perhaps the best date for the initial landing is 827 or 828; and it took years before the whole island was subjugated (Ignatius, ed. Mango, & Efthymiadis 1997 p.191). The Arabs in question (actually muladi or ethnically non-Arabic Hispanics), led by Abu Hafs, had left Spain for Egypt in 816, terrorized Alexandria for nearly 10 years and then swept into the Aegean, capturing and establishing themselves securely on the island of Crete. The first landing comprised only 40 ships, or 250 per ship if all 10,000 participated. For over 130 years, the Arab colony of slave-hunters was systematically to depopulate the islands of the Aegean and the coastlands of Greece to supply the Muslims slave auctions. The first or one of the first attempts by Byzantium to re-conquer the island was made in 826 (or after 829: Wortley, notes to Skylitzes p.47) by general Karteros or Krateros, strategos of the Kibyrrhaiotai, with a fleet of over 70 ships, and was initially successful. The site of the battle and the shattering of the local Romanic/Byzantine forces by the Arabs was todays Karteros, a few kilometres east of Heraklion [mod. Iraklion, north coast of Crete]. It preserves even today the name of the general. He disembarked to the east of Handaka (Heraklion) and stubbornly engaged the Arabs in battle for one whole day; finally, he routed the Arabs, who fled to the city. Karteros' army camped by the river Amnisos, where they abandoned themselves to drunkenness in celebration of their victory. When the Arabs were informed of this, they attacked the unguarded army during the night and destroyed it. Karteros fled in a ship, but the Arabs pursued him to the island of Kos, off SW Asia Minor, where they killed him (by cruciifixion, says Skylitzes, trans. Wortley p. 48). Another expedtion, probably 828: see there) was led by Photeinos or Photius or Photeinos, the governor of the theme of the Anatolikon, who had been appointed general-designate of Crete (Dromon p.46; Bury p.289 dates this to 825 or 826). He sailed from the Kibyrrhaeot theme, which is to say: via Rhodes. He disembarked on the island, but his attempt failed. This marked a temporary end of imperial naval supremacy in the Mediterranean.
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2. fl. Ignatius the Deacon, poet, hagiographer and archbishop of Nicaea. He wrote poetic fables and the lives of several saints and recent patriarchs, including Nicephorus (above: see 815). 826 = 100 YEARS OF ICONOCLASM. See next Theodore. 826: 1. Rebellion in Byzantine Sicily (held by as few as 2,000 imperial troops)*: The following year the rebels will seek Muslim help. See 827: Aghlabid invasion. In 826 or 827 the local naval commander (drungarius or tourmaches, deputy commander) Euphemius or Efthymios rebelled, killed Constantine Soudes/Souda, the senior strategos of Sicily, in a battle near Catania, captured the provincial capital Syracuse and proclaimed himself emperor. (*) Stathakopoulos 2008 offers conservative figures for population density in the Byzantine millenium of nine people per km2 in tough times, rising to 15 per km2 in fair to good times. The area of the island is 25,700 km 2. Thus its population may have been as large as 380,000. Euphemius of Messina, the turmarch or second-in-charge of the theme of Sicily, and local naval commander, abducts and rapes a high-born nun, or at least he forces her to marry him. Or such was the charge against him (Michele Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia [in Italian], Felice le Monnier, 1854, Vol, 1, p. 239). For this crime, Emperor Michael II orders Gregoras, the strategos of Syracuse to arrest Euphemius, cut off the criminals nose, and send him in chains back to Constantinople. Before this can be accomplished, however, Euphemius rose in revolt and killed the strategos. A strong fleet was dispatched from Constantinople to Sicily under the strategus of the Anatolics, Photinus, and Euphemius was soon defeated in a battle off Syracuse. But, eluding capture, he boarded a ship and escaped to Tunisia where he took refuge with the Saracen Aghlabid Emir Ziyadat Allah. The Venetian-Byzantine victory at Syracuse is listed by Pryor & Jeffreys (p.385) as one of the most notable naval victories achieved by the empire. Troops faithful to Byzantium, led by the Armenian general Palata [Arabic Balata, Gk: Photinus], resumed control, and Euphemius fled to Africa, taking with him the whole Sicilian Themal fleet (cf 832). He may also have taken the secret of Greek Fire with him. Euphemius proposed to the Aghlabid emir of Kairuan, Ziyadat Allah I, that the Muslims conquer Sicily and make it a tributary province. In exchange he asked to be recognised as governor with the title of emperor. The Greek exile convinces the Emir that Sicily can be conquered and that if Ziyadat Allah would set him up as Emperor in Sicily, he would pay the Saracens a large annual tribute. Ziyadat Allah willingly listened and agreed to mount a large expedition, but with the unstated intention of conquering the island for himself rather than Euphemius. Ziyadat Allah declares a holy war against the Sicilian Byzantines and readies his forces under the command of a 70 year old lawyer and holy man Ased-ibn-Forat (or Furat). He rallies supporters from throughout the Muslim world and soon has ready an army of Arabs, Berbers, Moors, Spanish Saracens, and even Persians. See further under 827. 2. d. Abbot Theodore of Studios, a major monastery in Constantinople. Since 798 he had been the leader of the "Zealot party; theologian and great defender of icons. Banished several times, he died on an island in the Sea of Marmara. Oikonomides, in Laiou ed., 2002, notes that in the first quarter of the ninth century, there were paper makers (not to be confused with parchment makers)
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in the monastery of Stoudios, which had a large scriptorium, and in the tenth century paper makers holding honorary titles are found in the Peloponnese; it would seem that they were suppliers to the court. We also possess the seal of a komes of paper makers, who (says Oikonomides) must surely have been a state official. Although paper was known from the 800s, it did not come into significant use until later and it never wholly displaced parchment (Cameron 2009: 136). 826-28: According to SL, Arabs make conquests in Crete, the Cyclades and Sicily. The Arab sources likewise date this to 825-28. See more under 827. 826-30: Constantinople: Tradition says that the female writer Kassia was at one point beaten for helping iconodule exiles and imprisoned monks. This may be merely a legend, but we do know that she was in contact with one of the chief iconodules, the monk Theodore of Studium. We have a letter he wrote to her c.826: the letter lets us know that while she was still a teenager she was already sharing her writings with others. Another tradition has Kassia being considered as a wife by the Emperor Theophilis in 830 [see there] and being rejected because she spoke up for women; again, the story may be untrue, but its existence shows her reputation for wit. Thus http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/kassia.html, accessed April 2005. Kassia was born around A.D. 810; her death date is uncertain. Her compositions were written during the reign of Theophilos (829-42) and his son Michael (842-67). She wrote in a period that was contemporary with the famous hymnographers from the monastery of Studios, including such composers as Theodore of Studite, Joseph of Thessalonika, and St. Theophanes. Mostly known as a composer of sacred poems, Kassia was also a writer of secular poems. As a gifted poet, Kassia wrote 261 secular verses in the forms of epigrams, gnomic verses, and moral sentences.* Diane Touliatos-Miliotis, Women Composers in Byzantium, at http://www.geocities.com/hellenicmind/dianeII; accessed Dec 2006. (*) For English translations, see Antonia Tripolitis, Kassia: The Legend, the Woman, and Her Work. New York: Garland Press, 1992. 827: 1. The middle Danube (Belgrade): Peace with Byzantium allowed the Bulgarians to focus on their western border, where the various independent Slav tribes gave only nominal allegiance to either the Frankish king or the Bulgarian khan. Accordingly Khan Omurtag now proceeded to conquer Pannonia, including the old Roman sites of Branicevo, Belgrade and Sirmium. He installed Bulgarian governors in place of the local Slavic chiefs (Vine 1991: 107; Shepard in NCMH 1995: 237). 2. Ambassadors from Michael II came to Louis II at Compigne, on the Oise River north of Paris. They brought holy books and were well received (McCormick 201: 912). From 827: Loss of Sicily: Aghlabids from Muslim Tunisia invade Sicily, besiege Syracuse and overrun much of the island. Cf 831: fall of Palermo, northern coast; also 829, 837, 878. On 17 June 827, in the midst of internal Byzantine conflict, the Aghlabids and the defector Euphemius arrived at, or rather near, Marsala in Sicily - on the far western tip of the island, - with a fleet of 70 or 99 ships, 700 horses and 10,000 men under the command of Asad ibn al-Furat ("Lion, son of the Euphrates"), a 68 (or 70) years old scholar, religious judge and non-military man (Scarfiotte & Lunde 1978; Norwich, Apogee p.28). Nuwairi says the invaders had 99 ships (cited in McCormick 2001: 912).
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Palermo was conquered in due course (831) and became the new capital.
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Aghlabids: rulers at Kairouan in what is now Tunisia. The Aghlabid emirs maintained a splendid court, though at the cost of oppressive taxes; their public works for the conservation and distribution of water, however, contributed to the prosperity of a country that was on the whole peaceful. Their fleet was supreme in the central Mediterranean (until Basil I revived the Byzantine navy: cf 829, 835, 836, 868). The dynastic name came from: Al-Aghlab (Abu `Iqal) bin Ibrahim bin Al-Aghlab, the fifth Aghlabid king or emir of Tunisia (ruled 816-841 A.D.). Cf 829. Muslim conquest of western Sicily Despite a number of naval adventures in the 7th and 8th centuries, a serious Muslim attack was not launched till 827 with a fleet that anchored in the far west, at Mazara del Vallo. Conquest did not prove quick and easy, and a decades long, bitterly fought struggle ended. after 75 years, only with the fall of Taormina in 902. Palermo, conquered in 831, became the new capital of a semi-independent emirate of the Muslim empire. In 845-46, the Aghlabids were able to sack the suburbs of Rome and briefly seize the heel of Italy. Greek and Latin speakers still dominated in the islands east: the Noto and Demone regions, with Arab penetration strongest in the Mazara (*) sector to the west. (*) The western third of Sicily was known as (1) the Val di Mazara. The south-east region, including Syracuse, was called by the Arabs (2) the Val di Noto, after the town of that name. The remaining third of the island in the north-east - the last to be conquered - was called (3) the Val Demone, and included Catania and Messina. The word "val" is derived from the Arabic word meaning "province". In 827 again, the general and rebel Euphemius invited Ziadeth [Ziyadat] Allah, Prince [emir] of Kairowan, to come. An expedition consisting of 100 ships (or 99; some say 70), 700 horsemen and 10,000 foot soldiers departs from Susa (Sus), Tunis, led by the Arab jurist (qadi) Asad ibn al-Furat (Ahmad, Sicily p.7; McCormick 2001: 912 citing Nuwairi and Amari). Landing with little resistance on the west coast at Mazara, the invading force contained Arabs, Berbers from Tunisia, Andalusians [a contingent of the Cretebased Muslim Spaniards], Persians and Sudanese Blacks. There were also a few renegade Byzantines under Euphemius. The rebel Euphemius accompanied the Saracens in the belief that the Sicilians would rally to him rather than support Constantinople. Although he had a small group of supporters, most Sicilians rejected him as a traitor and criminal. (17-18 June 827:) Saracen Aghlabids of Northern Africa invade Sicily. The invasion fleet, consisting of 100 Saracen ships, plus Euphemiuss ships, reached Mazara del Vallo on the southwest coast of Sicily, where they landed a force of 10,000 infantry and 700 cavalry. On 17-18 June 827 the general Asad ibn al-Furat with an army of 10,000 foot soldiers and 7,000 [or more probably: 700] cavalrymen crossed to Sicily and disembarked at Mazara del Vallo (near Marsala: almost the westernmost point on the island). Rodriquez says (more credibly) that the fleet included between 70 and 100 ships and transported 1,000 foot and 700 horse without counting on the forces of Euphemios. (If Arab horse transports carried the same number of animals as did Byzantine boats, namely 12 [see 763], then these 700 horses would have required 58 boats. The troops themselves, if we assume 50 men per vessel, might have required 34 vessels.) (15 July:) Photinus, the Byzantine strategos, attacks the Saracen invaders near
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Platana, in the vicinity of Mazara but suffers a major defeat, losing most of his army. Photinus manages to escape capture and retreats to Enna, and eventually to Calabria, only to die soon afterwards. It is reported that the Saracen victory was largely due to the state of religious fervour which Ased-ibn-Forat stirred in his followers prior to the battle. A story, probably apocryphal, said that Forat himself led the Saracen charge against the Byzantine front ranks and slew so many of the enemy that his hand became glued to his lance by their dried blood. Source: www.researchitaly.us/historyofsouthernitaly/ad501toad1130.html. Saracens capture Agrigentum and rename it Kerkent (or 828). They then continued eastwards towards Syracuse. The invasion begins to stall temporarily until a second wave of invaders arrives in 831. Having defeated the Armeno-Byzantine general Photinus or Balta, Ziadeths men captured Girgenti [Agrigento: middle of the south coast] the same year (or more likely in 828) and then proceeded to make a conquest on his own account (Metcalfe 2009: 12).The Romaniyans made an energetic effort to repel an enemy much superior to themselves. Syracuse held out. But Messina, opposite the toe of the peninsula, was taken in 831, and Palermo on the central north coast of Sicily in 831-32. Saracens besiege Syracuse. Lacking siege engines, and hungry from the Byzantine scorched-earth retreat, the Muslims failed to take the fortified town which is re-provisioned from the sea. Encamped outside the city, their army is struck by a severe plague, probably malaria from the nearby marshes along the river Anapo. Nevertheless the siege continues for almost a year. When the sickness finally (828) claims the life of their charismatic or fanatical leader, Asedibn-Forat [Asad ibn al-Furat], the Saracens lose heart and lift their siege. It has been suggested that Euphemios may have carried the secret of Greek Fire with him when he went over to the Arabs. At any rate, by 835 (see there) the Arabs were using Greek Fire, or at least some sort of incendiary material. The contest in the Mediterranean had become much more equal: Muslim warships from North-West Africa operating in the Tyrrhenian Sea [west of Italy] were equipped with Greek Fire, or at least some sort of incendiary instrument, by 835. The Spanish Umayyads were using it by 844. Toynbee guesses that the secret may have been conveyed to them by the turncoat Euthymius (see under 827) (Toynbee 1973: 330 and Browning p.138). Pryor & Jeffreys argue that the Greeks at this time kept their petroleum-fired siphons a secret and the Arabs were using other kinds of incendiary devices. But the Muslims perhaps did acquire the secret of the Fire itself after 900 if not the manufacture of siphons; importantly, there is no record of Muslims using force-pumps. For example, the Greek Fire used by the Egyptians against the Crusaders at Damietta in 1249 was contained in earthenware pots hurled by catapult (Dromon pp.611-12). 827/28: Baghdad: fl. Ar-Rumi, Arabic translator of the Greek Almagest by Ptolemy; also decimal numerals introduced. 828-29: Failed Muslim conquest of Sicily: As related above, on 17-18 June 827, an army from Tunisia had landed in the far west and fought its way across the island to Syracuse. The lack of food for the Ifriqiyans camped before the walls of Syracuse affected their morale seriously and facilitated an epidemic in their camp that killed their leader Asad at the beginning of the summer of 828. Not having time to consult Kairouan, the Muslim army chose as its new leader Mohammed ibn Abl Gawari or Abi-l-Jawari. Then, when Syracuse seemed within reach, there appeared on the coast the ships of a Byzantine fleet, including Venetian ships, sent by the emperor to aid the town. This time the imperial government was conscious of the danger of the situation and how difficult an endeavour it would be to recover Syracuse if the Arabs captured it. So they
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brought together all their available naval forces, including the fleet of the Cibyrrhaeots [Kibyrrhaioton: SW Asia Minor] commanded by the strategos [admiral] Crateros, and the Venetian fleet. The army that the fleet transported was commanded by the patrikios Theodotus and included Armenians (Arabic: alArman; or possibly al-Alman: Alamans or Germans from N Italy: see McCormick 2001: 263n). Seeing their way back to Africa barred, the Muslims burnt their own boats and retreated inland to Mineo, NW of Syracuse. Later they went west, where they stormed and garrisoned the important town of Girgenti (Agrigento). Next the main force arrived (828) at Castro-janni (Enna), the most formidable natural fortress on the island, where they repulsed an attack by the Byzantine general Theodotus who retreated into the fortress. Theodotus came from Syracuse to relieve Enna and entered the town, but he was defeated in a sortie, while a Venetian fleet sent to attack Mazzara returned unsuccessful. See 829. In the meantime the Muslims felt sufficiently in control of the hinterland that they even minted their own coins! When the Muslims besieging Castrogiovanni dropped their guard, Theodotuss troops sallied out and won a significant victory. The surviving Muslims fell back SE to Mineo again. At the same time the Muslim garrision of Girgenti departed for Mazara in the far west. See 829. All of Sicily was now briefly liberated from the Saracens, except for Mineo and Mazara (Ahmad p.9). See 830. 2. Loss of Crete: While emperor Michael's main fleet was trying to recover Sicily, a band of Arab [Iberian Muslim] adventurers from Spain led by Abu Hafs seized Crete. The imperial fleet was re-dispatched from Sicily back to Crete, but there it was routed by the Arabs. See 829, 843. The Andalusis landed with 40 ships (the figure given by Skylitzes) at the promontory of Charax in the same year 212/827 (or, according to Michael the Syrian, in 828: the dating is obscure). The camp became the town of Candia, the site of which is under the present town of Herakleion, in the central section of the north coast. From there they made raids into the island and conquered, one by one, 29 towns*, without encountering the resistance which might have been expected, either because of the absence of Greek troops or because of the indifference of a population dissatisfied with Byzantine rule. Cf al-Baladhuri: In the caliphate of al-Ma'mun, it [Crete] was invaded by AbuHafs 'Umar ibn-'Isa-l-Andalusi [the Andalusian], known [later] by the name of alIkritishi [the Cretan], who first reduced one fort and occupied it. Then he kept on reducing one part after another until none of the Greeks were left.* He also dismantled their forts. Muslim rule would endure there for nearly a century and a half, until the island was recovered in 960-61 by a great imperial armada led in person by the emperor Nikephoros Phokas. (*) Skylitzes (Wortley p.47) says the Greek population was enslaved and all the towns captured, except for one that was allowed to remain Christian. (Stathakopoulos 2008 offers conservative figures for population density in the Byzantine millenium of nine people per km2 in tough times, rising to 15 per km2 in average or good times. Thus Crete possibly had around 75,000 people in 827.) 3. The Aegean: In 828, the Arabs of Crete ravaged the island of Aegina off the NE coast of the Peloponnesus; in the same year the Byzantines attempted to reconquer Crete. Indeed Michael II may have sent as many as three expeditions in the late 820s seeking to recover the island (Norwich 1993: 37). Soon after 828, or in 825: see there, an expedition to Crete under the Greek commander Photios or Photeinos, strategos of the Anatolics, was joined by reinforcements (a large well-equipped force) under Damianos, count of the imperial stables. But the venture failed completely. Damianos was captured and
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Photios fled with great difficulty. Another expedition led by admiral Crateros landed on the island in the following year (or earlier: see 826), but after an initial success, the troops were surprised in the night and massacred. Crateros succeeded in escaping, but was pursued by the Saracens and captured on the island of Cos (off SW Asia Minor) and hanged (Bury 1912; Skylitzes trans. Wortley p.46). 4. d. Patriarch Nikephoros, historian, defender of icons and critic of the religious policies of Constantine V. His writings are a principal source of eastern European history in the post-classical Dark Age. 828-c.841: Abu Hafs Omar I, first Hafsid emir of Crete. The archbishop of the Byzantine capital Gortyn (Cyril) was assassinated during the conquest and the city so thoroughly devastated it was never reoccupied. Heraklion, which became the Arabs seat, was fortified with brick walls set on stone foundations, surrounded by a deep ditch or dry moat (khandaq), whence its new name Rabdh el Khandaq, meaning Fortress of the Ditch. This became Chandakas in Greek and Candia in Latin. 828-46: The Western emperor entrusted the defence of Corsica to Boniface II, duke of Lucca and count of the Tuscan march, first margrave of Tuscany. With a small fleet he conducted (summer 828) a successful expedition, or better: raid, against the African Muslims, and returning to Corsica built a fortress in the south of the island which formed the nucleus of the town, Bonifacio, that bears his name (McCormick 2001: 264). Boniface's war against the Saracens was continued by his son Adalbert, after he had been restored to his father's dignities in 846; but, in spite of all efforts, the Muslims seem to have remained in possession of part of the island until about 930. 829: 1. Sicily and the Aegean: Agrigento in the middle of the Sicilian southern coast fell to the Saracens. A further Byzantine naval expedition briefly recovers most of Sicily from the Aghlabids. Meanwhile the Crete-based Arabs, having landed in the Cyclades, were pushed back to Crete (Treadgold, State p.436). Rodriguez: The emperor sent an expedition to Sicily under the patrikios Theodotos, previously strategos of Sicily, and possibly familiar therefore with the region, with part of the central or imperial fleet (the Cibyrrhaeots were not sent, as their fleet was not yet back in fighting trim after their defeat in Crete in the previous autumn). After disembarking, Theodotos led his troops directly against the Arabs, who still were in the environs of Enna in the heart of the island. The Byzantines attacked but they were defeated by their rivals and they suffered many losses as well as the capture of 90 officials of high rank. After his defeat, Theodotos had to take refuge in the tactics of harassment. He was able the next day to overcome the Arab army that had been camped before the city, so taking revenge for the losses of the previous day. Lacking the food needed to resist for a long time, the Saracens tried a night attack but they succeeded only in being destroyed by the imperial troops who were ready for their assault. The Arabs, who had already lost to their leader Abl Gawari during the siege, finally decided to leave their camp and take refuge (March 829) in Mineo [SW of Catania], while the Muslim garrison at Agrigento [Girgenti: centre of the south coast], unable to support itself, dismantled its position and retired to Mazara in the far west of the island (Kennedy, The Muslims in Europe, NCMH 2000: 252). Thus in the autumn of 829, the Arabs only controlled two localities in Sicily and their threat seemed to be defeated. Cf 830, 831. 2. Breviarum Nicephori, a history of the period 602-769 by [Saint] Nicephoros.
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3. Michael II dies of natural causes. Age unknown, but around 59 years. He was the first emperor in 50 years to expire in his bed while still reigning (Norwich 1993: 40). 4. Venice: According to pious tradition, in 829 Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello carried from Alexandria the relics of Saint Mark, the future protector of the city. Imperial territory in 830 The empire comprised: Sardinia; two-thirds or at least half of Sicily (vs the Aghlabid Emirate: fall of Palermo 831); the toe and heel of Italy; Venice and the Dalmatian coast; nearly the whole of modern Greece (recently recovered from pagan Slavs); Thrace and Constantinople; and the immense heartland of Asia Minor. Crete had been lost to Muslims in 823/825, but Cyprus remained Byzantine. The Bulgar Khanate, which extended south to the edges of northern Thrace, was the enemy nearest to Constantinople. The empire's population was about eight million, concentrated above all in western Asia Minor (Treadgold 1995: 162).* At a guess, the distribution may have been thus: 5 M in Asia Minor and the capital; 1.1 M in the Balkans: AlbaniaGreece-Thrace; 1.8 M in Sicily-South Italy; and 0.1 M in Venice and Greco-Roman Dalmatia. For comparison, McEvedy & Jones offer the following figures for western Europe: France within its present-day borders 5 M; Italian peninsula 4 M, of whom about 3 M lived in Lombard and Frankish Italy; and Germany (present-day borders) 3.25 M. On these figures, Charlemagne's Carolingian Empire of Francia was, briefly, perhaps equal to or even a little larger than Byzantium's in population. More likely, Byzantium always had more subjects than Carolingian Francia. Iberian peninsula: Over 4 M, of whom perhaps 3.5 M lived in Umayyad alAndalus. (*) Stathakopoulos 2008 discusses the difficulties in guesstimating population sizes. He suggests that a conservative figure for population density was nine people per km2 in tough times, rising to 15 per km2 in average or good times. The conquest of eastern Bulgaria, Cilicia and western Syria at the end of the 10 th C briefly brought the empire to over one million km2, so Treadgolds eight million people may be far too low. If density began to approach 20 person per km2 around AD 1000 (ibid, 2008: 310), then the Empire may have ruled more than 15 million people by AD 975.
Above: Emperor Theophilus, from the Madrid Skylitzes.
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829-842: THEOPHILUS, last of the iconoclast emperors. Son of Michael II, Theophilus was aged about 16 at accession. Cf 840. Brief regency under his mother the Dowager Empress Euphrosyne, d. 840. Wife: Theodora, aged 15 when she married T. in 830. Children: seven, including Michael, born 840, the future Michael III. Unlike his father, Theophilus was highly educated; indeed Norwich 1993: 41 calls him an intellectual. He restored the Great Palace, evidently being inspired by the building work done in Baghdad by the caliphs. He also strengthened the citys defences, especially the seawalls along the Golden Horn; his name appears more frequently on inscriptions along the walls and towers more than does that of any other emperor (Norwich 1993: 45). GO HERE for a 12th C miniature showing conspirators being executed on Theophiluss orders: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sterk/histxnty/images/skylitzesexecution. jpg. 829: A new theme of Chaldia created in far north-eastern Asia Minor (or perhaps earlier under Leo). The seat of the strategus was at Trebizond. 829-30: 1. Embassy to Baghdad: The imperial ambassador, the synkellos [deputy patrriarch] John MorocharzianosJohn the Grammarian: afterwards Patriarch took 40 kentenaria (4,000 pounds*) of gold to be scattered to the crowd during his time there; he also brought two gold and gem encrusted kernivozesta or washing sets (bowls) that were probably filled with coins (Continuator of Theophanes 96.13). Kennedy 2006: 139 writes of two embassies led by John, one in 829, the second in 832. (*) One litra or Roman pound of gold was 72 nomismata; thus 288,000 coins! 2. Member of the Regency Council: Dowager Empress Euphrosyne, aged about 39. She was daughter of Emperor Constantine VI who divorced her mother, Maria of Amnia, ca. 770-ca. 830, and sent both of them to a monastery, where they stayed until 820 when Michael II of Amorion usurped the throne and married Euphrosyne in order to legitimise his reign. After his death, she was probably a member of the regency council for his son, Theophilos, though the sources are not clear about this. After she helped select his wife, Theodora, she retired (830) to a convent, though she did not stay totally out of politics. 830: 1. The Capital: Following a bride show arranged by Euphrosyne, Theophilos married Theodora, having first considered then rejected Kassia (who became a poetry-writing nun). Theodoras father Marinos, d. 815, had been a drungarios (colonel) and then turmach (brigadier or second in command) in the Theme of Paphlagonia. Theophilus crowned Theodora in the Oratory of St Stephen and was himself crowned on the same occasion by the patriarch Anthonios: Leo Gramm. 213, Georg. Mon. Cont. 790, Ps.-Symeon 624-625, Zon. XV 25. 11-20. 2. Sicily: The Byzantines defeat a major Spanish-Maghrebian attack led by the Berber adventurer Asbagh [Asbagh b. Wansus al-Hawwari] (NCMH 2000: 252).
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Following the setbacks of 829, the Muslims obtained reinforcements in the 830, in part from Ifriqiya (then engaged in beating off an attack by the duke of Lucca, Bonifacio II) and in greater part from al-Andalus, while in Sicily a group of mercenaries arrived under the command of the Berber Asbagh b. Wakl. In the summer of 830 Sicily was attacked by a powerful Andalusi (Spanish) fleet that joined up with reinforcements of North Africans. Between 20,000 and 30,000 men were transported in 300 ships (Ahmad p.10). The Muslims went to the aid of the town of Mineo, SW of Catania, still being besieged by the Byzantines under Theodotos. Faced by a significantly superior force, in August 830 the Romaniyans had to retire to Enna - further into central Sicily - while Asbagh and his men entered Mineo (August 830) to the rejoicing of the besieged Arabs (Bury 1923). As Rodriguez relates, after sacking and burning the town, the Saracen leader took all his troops to the siege of another town in the interior, probably Caloniana (Arabic Ghalwaliya, present-day Caltanisetta: west of Enna). But, as at Enna and in Syracuse, another epidemic broke out, causing the death of the commander-inchief, and although Asbaghs men were able to take the town in the autumn of that year, they decided finally to retire to their boats at the coast. This was the moment Theodotos was waiting for. In a series of ambushes he caused so many casualties among the Andalusis that they immediately set sail for home. Meanwhile in August 830 other (African) Arabs marched NE from Mazara to lay siege to Palermo (which falls the following year). The city fought alone because emperor Theophilos had not been able to send ships to the aid of the town, partly because of the losses suffered in recent years and partly because of the struggles that the Cibyrrhaeot fleet and marines were having against the Cretan Arabs in the Eastern Mediterranean. 3. Dalmatia: The Slavs on the Adriatic coast possessed a small fleet as early as 830. It was composed mainly of lmbi* fast boats with flat bottoms, suitable for taking up rivers and between the rocks in shallows and shoals and was used mostly in piracy. The tribal nature of Slav society meant that no distinction was drawn between war as a political act and mere plundering. They attacked everyone who travelled by sea: friends, protectors and allies, as well as enemies. Piracy became an ordinary kind of work with privileges, customs and rules. Provided the ruler was given a share of the booty, they expected a free hand (Praga, Dalmatia p. 57). Cf 834-46: cnflict with Venice. (*) As in the name of San Pietro dei Lembi. 4. In Baghdad, the Caliph al-Mamun builds his Bayt al-Mikma or house of wisdom, a Persian-style national archive or antiquarian library. - The city will reach its cultural zenith by the late 800s. 5. fl. al-Jahiz, Arabic writer, belle-lettrist and rationalist theologian. An Iraqi of black African ancestry, grandson of a slave. Author of 'compilations of entertainment', which included a "Book of Eloquence" and "The Merits of the Turks". Islamic superiority complex: In his Risala fi al-Radd ala al-Nasara, Letter On Refuting the Christians, c. AD 833, al-Jahiz noted that that the ancient Greeks such as Aristotle were neither Rum (Byzantines) nor Christians, and argued that the Christians and the Rum have neither science nor expository literature, nor vision, and their names should be erased from the register of the philosophers and sages: quoted in El Cheikh 2004: 104. - Cf 830: books; and 839-41: Byzantine scholars leading embassies to Baghdad. Also this: the Slavs are more stingy than the Byzantines, and the latter more intelligent and thoughtful. + 500TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF CONSTANTINOPLE. + YEAR 208 IN THE ISLAMIC ERA. 830-33: The Caliphate resumes war with Byzantium in Cilicia and SE Anatolia: (829-830:)
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Described earlier: ostentatious embassy to Baghdad, and treaty. See 837. The regency acting for Emperor Theophilus offered peace, but al-Mamun refused to come to terms and renewed the raids (831). Then the caliph died at Tarsus in 833, after capturing Tyana (Shaban p.61). The two powers agreed to a truce at that point. Coinage After a century of falling prices and a contracting money supply, Theophilus in 830-31 recoined the wretched bronze folles in circulation and augmented the production of fractional currency. Folles and their fractions henceforth carry Christian iconography and Greek inscriptions. The follis (8.0 gms), struck at 40 to the Roman pound, was tariffed at 288 to the nomisma [source: http://www.tulane.edu/~august/h303/currency/isaurian.htm]. 831: Constantinople: The young emperor, aged about 18, holds a triumph following his successes in the East against Arabs raiding the Armeniac Theme; and/or in 837: the number of these triumphs and the dating is unclear: McCormick p.146. But this was followed by a further Arab raid into Anatolia. The Triumph of 831 There were two ceremonial welcomes to the victorious emperor, as was by now customary. First, a private welcome, held in the Asiatic suburban palace of Hiereia, which was limited to senior officials and dignitaries. Ten days later there followed a gala in the capital itself. The main festivities commenced with a parade by troops bearing booty and leading prisoners. Carpets were hung from the windows, the streets were adorned with festoons of purple and silver, and the Mese - the main northern thoroughfare within the city was strewn with flowers. The emperor, the deputy emperor or caesar and heir apparent followed in a separate party, clothed significantly in military gear, although no doubt very ornamental. Wearing a diadem and carrying a sceptre, Theophilus rode on a white charger with jewelled harness; over his cuirass he wore a loose gold tunic embroidered with a design of roses and grapes. The imperial group was greeted at various stages with ceremonial receptions, before finally reaching Hagia Sophia (McCormick pp.148, 150; Norwich 1991: 46). After prayers, the emperor received the homage of the "city community" and delivered an account of his campaigns from a specially constructed platform. The next and following days saw an extravagant series of audiences, promotions and largess, in which almost the entire hierarchy of officialdom joined. Also, as usual there were races, or at least equestrian shows, and further parades in the Hippodrome (McCormick loc. cit.). 2. Sicily: After a year-long siege, Tunisian Muslims, aided by a few Andalusis, took the island's second largest city Panormus, present-day Palermo. Thence into peninsular Italy. See 837 and 838. A Byzantine sector will be preserved in the east of Sicily until the late 870s, at which time the Muslims will take the last major town, Syracuse. In Sicily, Rhomaniya/Byzantium's rule was threatened by the Franks and North African and Spanish Muslims. The Tunisians invaded Sicily in 827, taking Palermo in 831. The "Saracens" will even briefly hold the toe of Italy, raiding as far as Rome (see 837-41). Finally in 902 see there - they will take Taormina, the last Greek stronghold on the island. The Byzantine Emperor Theophilus withdraws troops from Sicily to help repel the Saracen invasion of Cappadocia. This severely weakens the Byzantine defences in Sicily to a point where the defenders can no longer effectively resist the Saracen threat on the island. After a laborious siege that extended for more than a year, Palermo capitulated
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on 12 September 831 when its food was exhausted, as was the hope of aid from the outside (Ahmad p.10). Its governor, possibly the spatharios Symeon, and its bishop Lucas, with other distinguished personages and the rest of the garrison, possibly were able to leave the town with their goods and to return to Constantinople. The rest of the population, which had been reduced to fewer than 3,000 souls, was considered as booty and shipped into military slavery (thus Rodriquez, http://www.imperiobizantino.com/italiabizdef.htm). Francia (Frankish Empire): Arabs launch a naval attack on Marseilles; and sail up the estuary of the Rhne. Cf 840 Vikings. 831-32: Pagan Bulgaria: Two of Omurtag's sons adopted Christianity, one losing his life in a persecution on the accession of a third son, the pagan Malamir, in 831 or 832. This may have been, however, just the normal Turkic elimination of rival claimants: Malamir appears a relatively tolerant ruler throughout his reign, though not himself a Christian (Vlasto 1970: 158). 831-33: New imperial kommerkiarioi. To keep its control of the east-west commercial routes and its near monopoly on taxing the slave trade, the empire gave tax collecting to the Byzantine traders or concessionaires (kommerkiarioi) who hitherto had dealt in silk (as subcontractors to the state) as well as collecting taxes. They now become state officials and full-time taxers of foreign trade (Rotman p.71; Oikonomides in Laiou 2002). c.831/46: The Bulgarians annex Slavo-Byzantine central Macedonia: they took Romanic/Byzantine-controlled Serdica, our Sofia, in 836. They renamed it Sredets, "centre," "middle". Cf 839 below. By 832: The Muslims were using the ex-Byzantine port of Palermo as an advance base to support their attacks elsewhere in Sicily. The seat of the Byzantine governor after the fall of Palermo was moved to the centre of the island, to the impregnable fortress of Castrogiovanni, todays Enna. One imagines Enna was chosen not only because of its topography but also because it was distant from the sea, and so unable to be surprised by a major Muslim naval expedition. Cf 834 and 841. 832: The caliph issues new coins bearing the words "Al-Quds", 'the Holy', the new Muslim name for Jerusalem. 832-33: 1. Asia Minor: The Caliph invades Cappadocia and defeats an East Roman army led personally by Theophilus, aged 19 or 20. A further invasion in 833 ended suddenly with Mamuns death.Jihad: According to Gutas p.82, the wars conducted by al-Ma'mun were qualitatively different from those of his predecessors, who had mainly engaged in seasonal raids. The aim now - although it did not succeed - was to wrest territory from New Rome and settle it with Muslims in order to expand the domain of Dar al-Islam, 'the House (realm) of Islam'. 2. Dating by Symeon the Logothete: Theophilus begins a persecution of iconophiles in late 832-early 833. ca. 833: The emperor reaches the age of 20. 833-42: Caliph Al-Mu'tasim, younger brother of the late Caliph. He appointed the philosopher al-Kindi, the first philosopher writing in Arabic, as tutor to his son. He also reorganised the military forces and aggressively recruited Turkish troops
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from Central Asia, a policy that would rebound on his son: cf 861. Mu'tasim's army would include up to 80,000 Turks. Mu'tasim was the last caliph to command the army in person. See 838. 833: 1. Crimea: Cherson is raised to the status of a theme and allocated probably 2,000 soldiers. Cf 835 Petronas Kamateros was sent by the emperor Theophilos to Cherson with a fleet consisting of warships of the imperial fleet and of the Katepan of Paphlagonia; from there Petronas went on to the river Tanais where his men built the brick fortress of Sarkel on the Don (far NE of the Black Sea) for the khagan of the Khazarout [Khazars]. He then returned to Constantinople and advised the emperor to appoint a military governor for the region. Theophilos then made Petronas a protospatharios [a senior rank] and appointed him [833] as the first strategos of Cherson. Const. Porph., DAI ch.42, 25-54; cited by Obolenksy p.232 and Hendy p.426. 2. Mt Athos:* The earliest known privileges (exemptions) enjoyed by the Athonite monks dates to AD 833 and, later, the personal interest of the Emperor Basil I. They were designed to protect them and the nearby Colobos Monastery at Ierissos against the incursions of state officials and the local population including shepherds, who were forbidden to graze their flocks on the peninsula. (*) In present-day NE Greece. The Chalkidiki peninsula south-east of Thessalonica has three long finger-like capes or sub-peninsulas. Mt Athos is near the tip of the top finger, i.e. ESE of Thessaloniki. 833-34: The East: The Abbasid army defeated the rebel Korramis or Khurramites (*) in the Zagros mountains between 20 October and 17 November 833. The rebel leader Nasr with some 14,000 soldiers of Iranian (Persian and Kurdish) origin crossed the Armenian highlands, entered the Byzantine thema or military province of Armeniakon and obtained protection and shelter from Theophiloss government (as related in Symeon Magister, Georgios Monachos, and Theophanes Continuatus; W. Treadgold, The Byzantine Revival: 780-842, Stanford, 1988 p. 282). (*) The Khurramite movement, headed by Babak in Azerbaijan at the beginning of ninth century, was an anti-Islamic movement that incorporated the ideas of freedom, independence and universal equality. The Khurramiyah were followers of a syncretic heresy melding Islam and Zoroastrianism. Their main tenet was that Abu Muslim al-Khurasani (governor of Khurasan 748-755, murdered by Caliph al-Mansur) was not dead but had gone into hiding and would return either at the head of the Mahdi's army or as the Mahdi himself, ushering in a messianic era. 834-35: Sicily: The governor (wali) of the Muslim part of the island since 832, the emirs cousin Abu Fihr [Abu Fihr Muhammad ibn Abd-Allah or Muhammad b. Abd Allah b. al-Aghlab, Abu Fihr], left on an expedition towards Enna (Castrogiovanni) at the start of 834. After defeating the Byzantines he forced to them to take refuge on the east coast. In the course of a year he returned to win in another two pitched encounters. After returning to Palermo the governor sent detachments in all directions to sack and to harass the enemy. On one occasion his men managed to capture a son of the Byzantine patrikios. The good fortune of Abu Fihr now ended, for in that same year 835 he was assassinated during a mutiny or revolt by some of its own men who looked for refuge among the Byzantines (NCMH p.252). His immediate successor, Ibn Yqub [Fadl b. Yaqub], returned to defeat the Byzantines before Syracuse and Enna and left his position in September before the arrival of Abl Aghlab [Ibrahim b. Abd Allah Abu l-Aghlab], a cousin of Ziyadat
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Allah (emir of Kairouan, Tunisia). The arrival of the new governor coincided with appearance in Sicilian waters of a new fleet just arrived from Constantinople. On 12 September the Greek ships faced the newly arrived Muslim boats, sinking or capturing many before the rest could retire out of danger to Palermo. Abl Aghlab nevertheless counted on at least answering this attack and dispatched all the ships in his port to face the imperial fleet. To even things up, he decided on deploying incendiary units (meaning fire-ships). In the naval action that followed, the Arabs managed to decisively defeat the Greeks and capture several ships. In order to take revenge for the previous defeat, the governor ordered all the prisoners immediately beheaded. After restoring the fortune of Muslim arms, Abl Aghlab ordered an attack (835) by sea on the Byzantine-controlled island of Pantelleria [SW of Sicily] and a land attack on the east-coast town of Taormina, where his men took prisoners, burned harvests and captured much booty (thus Rodriquez; also Ahmad p.11). 834-46: The Adriatic, Venice vs the Narentine [pagan Slav] pirates*: In 834 or 835 the Narentines broke their treaty with Venice and again raided Venetian traders returning from Benevento, and all of Venice's military attempts to punish the Marians (as the Narentines were known in Latin) in 839 and 840 failed. Later, they raided the Venetians more often, together with the Arabs. In 846 the Narentines broke through to Venice itself and raided its lagoon city (village) of Kaorle (Wikipedia 2010 under Pagania). (*) For more on them see below under 887. By 835: Increased demand for books: signalled by the earliest known Byzantine manuscript written in minuscule hand small characters style. Cf 839-41 and 902. 835: 1. Italy: As noted, the island of Pantellaria, between Tunisia and Sicily, was still in Byzantine hands at the time of a naval battle between forces dispatched by Ziyadat Allah I, d. 838, against a Byzantine fleet in 835. 2. Naples hires southern Italys first Arab mercenaries (Kreutz p.51). Cf 836. 3. Asia Minor: The Paulician leader Sergius, killed 835, was a Greek-speaker from Galatia. He established his headquarters initially at Cynochorion Neocaesaea (modern Niksar: north of Sivas), and later at the fortress of Aragoun, given to the Paulicians by the Emir of Melitene/Malatya (Hamilton and Stoyalov, Christian Dualist Heresies, North Dakota, 1998, p.20). Sergius, whose Paulician name was Tychicus, was a great propagator of the heresy; he boasted that he had spread his Gospel "from East to West, from North to South" across Anatolia and Cilicia (Petrus Siculus, "Historia Manichaeorum", p. 45). 835: (1) Midpoint of the Jewish Khazar kingdom in what is now the Ukraine and Caucasus. See 862. (2) d. Al-Khwarizmi, greatest of the Muslim astronomers. 835-36: Sicily: Saracen incursions in the region of Mt Etna (Dec 835) lead to the capture of so many prisoners that the price of slaves fell significantly: sold for almost nothing (al-Athir, text in Bat Yeor 1996: 289; Ahmad p.11). 835-44: The West: Greek Fire, or more likely another type of incendiarynaphtha [crude petroleum] thrown using catapultswas being used by the navies of the Tunisian
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and Spanish Muslims; it is first mentioned in accounts covering the year 835, namely by al-Marrakeshi ibn Idhari. By about 850, following the loss of Crete and most of Sicily, Byzantine naval supremacy in the Mediterranean will be broken, never to be quite fully restored (Browning p.138; Hocker in Gardiner 2004: 92). See next. 835-59: The West: The struggle in Sicily continues. In 835 the Arabs re-took the island of Pantelleria and in 843 captured Messina, an event illustrated in the Madrid Skylitzes.* Cefal and Enna fought on for some years before being conquered, razed to the ground and burnt. Cefal fell in 858, Enna in 859. Kleinhenz 2004: 705. (*) The Arabs, carrying circular shields, are shown camped in large conical tents before the towns walls. c.836: Malta: At some time between 835 and 837, the chronicler Ibn al-Athir reports a Muslim raid on the islands in Sicilian waters in which many towns and fortresses were vanquished and rich booty taken. The Maltese islands were presumably involved but absolute certainty is impossible and Ettore Rossis thesis that the capture of Malta took place at this time is, according to Buhagair (1997: 113) untenable (Buhagiar 1997). 836: 1. The Balkans: The Bulgarians expand west into the Slavic tribal lands beyond Serdica (modern Sofia). 2. The Balkans: First mention of a strategos of Thessalonica, in the Vita of Gregory the Decapolite (831-38) (Stavridou-Zafraka, in Burke and Scott 2000). 3. Italy: The Lombard-Italians (Longobards) of the dukedom of Benevento laid siege to Byzantine Naples. The Neapolitans asked Ziyadat Allah I, Aghlabid emir of Tunisia, to come to their aid. Ziyadat sent a fleet that forced the Beneventans to interrupt the siege. Thus Naples became the first to call in Saracen mercenaries to the Italian peninsula (Wikipedia 2010, History of Naples). 4. In Sicily, a Saracen naval unit personally commanded by the former wali Fadl b. Yaqub ravaged the Eolian islands and took some mainland fortresses of the Christians including Tindari (Tindaro) which was demolished (Ahmad p.11). Tindari is on the NE coast of Sicily, immediately south of the Eolian or Aeolian Islands. 5. Saracen raiders from Africa strike deep into the Adriatic, attacking Venice. 6. North Africa: The Grand Mosque of Kairouan is built. Iraq: Al-Mu'tasim abandons Baghdad in favour of a massive new capital at Samarra (away from the influence of his Turkish officers). c. 836: PBW: The dowager empress Theodoras name is recorded on a seal. The obverse has a bust of the emperor Theophilus and the inscription Theofilos basileus. The reverse has the inscription: Theotoke bohthei Theodorai augousthis [Mother of God protect the empress Theodora]. The seal is dated during her husband's reign and after she became augusta in 830, therefore between 830 and 842: Oikonomides, Dated Seals, p. 57, no. 48A. Army Beacons Leo the Mathematician, born ca.790, established, or perhaps upgraded, a line of
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fire signals - bonfires on platforms or towers - in the reign of Theophilus, 829-842. The system was later supposedly dismantled by Michael III, d. 867, because - it is said - the signals distracted the crowd in the Hippodrome at Constantinople. The accounts - in later Rhomaniyan sources, including Constantine Porphyrogenitus - tell the story as part of their polemic against Michael. Therefore the sources are not entirely sound, and this has led Aschoff to question the authenticity of the tale of their being dismantled. Toynbee 1973 had made the same point, noting that the dismantling story is not reported by the chronicle of Symeon the Logothete. V. Aschoff, Ueber den byzantinischen Feuertelegraphen und Leo den Mathematiker, Deutsches Museum: Abhandlungen und Berichte 48 (1980) 1, p.28. Also P. Pattenden, 'The Byzantine Early Warning System', Byzantion 53 (1983) 258-299; and Haldon, ed., Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Three Treatises, 254-256. In the accounts we have, there was a line of (eight or) nine beacons stretching from near Tarsus to the capital, designed to warn the city of Arab disturbances on the eastern frontier. When one psost saw a signal from the post futehr it it lit its own beacon-bonfire. Organised beacon systems had been used since distant Antiquity. Leo's particular invention (if he did invent it) was to link the sending of fire-signals to hours of the clock. The dispatch of a fire-signal at a given hour was an indicator of differing kinds of trouble. Drip-clocks or clepsydria were carefully synchronised at each end to avoid confusion, and ensure clarity. A signal origanted at the Arab frontier at two o'clock announced that hostilities had begun, and a three o'clock dispatch signified a conflagration. William Ramsay and others since have mapped out the geography of the route the signals would take, and have isolated the probable mountains involved in the relay. The distances between the stations vary from c.65 miles [100 km] in southern Anatolia to c.30 [up to 50 km] miles in the vicinity of Constantinople. Pattenden also cites evidence from late 10th C Palestine and medieval Greece (p.270), although the distances covered there were much less: Ramsay cited by P. Pattenden, 'The Byzantine Early Warning System', Byzantion 53 (1983) 258-299. If reliable, the account of the signals suggests that it was possible to relay messages over very long distances and difficult terrain, and that a system could be developed for sending more than one message. Using the Greek forms, Toynbee, 1973: 299, presents the list of stations thus: 1: Loulon; 2: Mt Arghaios; 3: Mt Samos or Isamos; 4: the kastron Aiyilon (Agilon); 5: Mt Mamas [in another source, no 5 is the Mysian Mt Olympus near Bursa]; 6: Mt Kyrizos or Kirkos; 7: Mt Mokilos or Moukilos above Pylai [modern Ciftlikoy, close to Yalova] on the south shore of the Gulf of Izmit (Nicomedia); 8: Mt Saint Afxendios [sic]; and 9: Constantinople: the Heliakos (sun-dial) ton Pharon in the palace. Gibbon, citing the continuator of Theophanes (l. iv. p. 122, 123) names the successive stations as: i. The castle of Lulum, Gk Loulon: Faustinopolis or Halala, Arabic Lulua or Sakaliba, north of the Cilician Gates, south of Tyana. Or in modern terms: SW of Nigde, east of Eregli. ii. Mount Arghaios/Argaeus in Cappadocia: possibly modern Mt Erciyas Dagi or Erjish Dagh, the high volcano near Kayseri and the highest peak in Asia Minor. Immediately south of Kayseri, its high point is 3,917 metres or about 12,000 ft. Others say Argaeus is Keikalesi or al-Agrab, a peak in the range called Hasan Dagi, about halfway between modern Nigde and Aksaray (Hild-Restle, Kappadokien, 135-37). The Hasan Dag range, high point 3,268 metres, near Aksaray, is much nearer Tuz Golu than Kayseri. The latter conclusion originates with Ramsay, cited by J B Bury (History of the East Roman Empire from the Fall of Irene 1912) and by P.Pattenden, loc.cit.. Bury says:
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not the Argaios which looks down on Caesarea, but another mountain, south-east of Lake Tatta. iii. Isamus or Mt Samos: perhaps Erciyes Dagh [3,918 metres], which we have already noted as the peak immediately s. of Caesarea, and well east of Lake Tatta/Tuz Golu/Lake Tuz. Bury and Ramsay, however, say Isamus was 30 miles [50 km] NW of Lake Tatta. In other words: south of Ankara.* It is a long way from Tuz Golu to Eskisehir (see next). Thus we would expect Isamus to have been at the top (north) of Tuz Golu or to its east. (*) As the crow flies, and light travels, the midpoint between Tarsus and Constantinople was/is west of Tuz Golu. iv. Aegilus between Troknades or Trocmades and modern Kaymaz: 38 km SE of Dorylaion/Eskisehir. The headwaters of the great Sakarya River rise near Kaymaz. v. The hill of Mamas: NW of Dorylaion/Eskisehir, so presumably near modern Bilecik. But Bury, following Ramsay, says it was a hill in the south-eastern skirts of Mount Olympus [Uludag], i.e. further west, on the Bursa side of Inegol, where there are several peaks of around 2,500 metres. vi. Cyrisus or Kyrizos: perhaps Katerli Dagh. vii. Mocilus: according to Ramsay this was our Samanli Dagh: highpoint 1,119 metres, N of Lake Ascanius, between Nicaea and Nicomedia, near modern Yalova. viii. The hill of Auxentius, near Chalcedon in western Bithynia, opposite or rather a little SE of Constantinople; and ix. The sun-dial of the Pharus of the great palace. He (the Continuator) affirms that the news were (sic) transmitted in an indivisible moment of time (Gibbon). In the 9th century, from Crete to Cyprus and Mesopotamia, the Rhomaioi [Byzantines] went on the offensive. For a long time, however, their advances were met by Arab re-conquests (AD 837-42, 927, 937), and there were more than a few debacles: e.g. Theophilus defeat by Mutasim in the 838, and reverses in Sicily. 836-892: The capital of the Caliphate was at Samarra, on the Tigris upstream from Baghdad. AD 837: 500th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, founder of Constantinople. 837: 1. Mesopotamia: Romanic campaign against the Muslims in the East. Dating according to SL: Theophilus and Manuel take Zapetra and Samosata*, March-April 837; and Theophilus celebrates a triumph in late spring 837. (*) Samosata, on the upper Euphrates, was the intersection point of several military roads; Zapetra lay NW of Samosata. Responding to an appeal from Babek, the Khurramite or Khurramiyya (*) (Iranian) leader, Theophilus and his general Manuel march east with an army that included the Persian turma (the corps of Khurramites already in Rhomaniyan service). Theophiluss expeditionary force is said to have numbered 70,000 counting both Neo-Romans and Khurramites, probably more than any other expedition since Heraclius time (Treadgold, State 1997: 440). Norwich quotes Michael the Syrian as estimating the expeditionary force at 50,000 men, which is rather more
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plausible. If 36,000 were Byzantines, this represented about one-third of entire enrolled land forces of the empire. This assumes that 14,000 of the 50,000 were Khurramites. Cf 863: battle of Poson. The imperial army takes the Abbasid frontier post at Zapetra and then the fortress-town of Samosata on the Upper Euphrates: March-April 837. Zapetera, Zibatra or Sozopetra was Gibbons obscure town, important as the birthplace of the reigning caliph Mutasim. Gibbon: Sozopetra was levelled with the ground, the Syrian prisoners were marked or mutilated with ignominious cruelty, and a thousand female captives were forced away from the adjacent territory. Theophilos then plundered Muslim-ruled southern Armenia so that Theodosiopolis (Erzerum: NW of Lake Van) and other towns paid tribute to avert further destruction. Having obtained the nominal submission of Melitene, the emperor and his army returned to Byzantium (Treadgold, 1988, p. 440, note 401). As noted below, further Khurramites now came over to the Byzantine side. (*) Adherents of an Iranian anti-Arab religious and political movement which appeared in Azerbaijan and Iran in 814. The Khurramites were influenced by Shiite doctrines, but with their roots in a pre-Islamic Persian religious movement. Their leader Babak incited his followers to hate the Arabs and rise in rebellion against the caliphal regime. The Khurramites proclaimed the breakup and redistribution of all the great estates and the abolition of Islam. In 816 they began making attacks on Muslim forces in Iran and Iraq. When the Neo-Romans under the emperor Theophilos threatened to put Melitene to the torch and carry the inhabitants away into captivity, as they had already done at Zubatra (Sozopetra), Amr or Umar successfully delayed the emperor with gifts and fine words until the approach of an Arab army forced the Romans (Byzantines) to withdraw (PBW, citing the Chron. 1234, 210). This event probably took place in 837; see Treadgold, Revival, pp. 293-294, with n. 401. In September 837, a second wave of about 16,000 Khorramis from Babak's defeated army crossed into Rhomaniyan territory. These fighters also converted to Christianity (Theophanes Continuatus, p. 124) and were incorporated into the Persian turma so that it now comprised around 30,000 experienced soldiers (Genesios and Theophanes Continuatus, cited by Venetis 2005). The emperor holds a further triumph following his successes in the East. It followed much the same style as that of 831, except that Theophilus was welcomed by all the city's children bearing wreaths. It was the emperor who led the first chariot race - something unimaginable for an ancient Roman ruler - and of course he won it (McCormick p.150). 2. The Danube: First ever hostile encounter between the pagan Magyars, the future Hungarians, and East-Romans, at the mouth of the Danube River (Curta 2006: 123). The Magyars were still based in what we know today as the 'South Russian steppe', having only just begun their migration to the west. Cf 894. 3. Sicily: (3a:) The Saracen governor Abu-l-Aghlab (Ibrahim) sends an expedition against the key Byzantine fortress at Castrogiovanni (Enna*). The Muslims entered the residential sector of the town and took enormous booty but could not take the citadel. A truce was arrived at and the Saracens returned to Palermo (Ahmad p.11). (*) Classical Henna, located at the dead centre-point of the island. At 1,196 ft or 949 m, the flat-topped mountain towers over the surrounding region. Romance-speaking Sicilians in the early medieval period called it Fortress Enna or Castro-Janni, Janni being a version of Henna. The Arabic version was Qasir-Ianni. This was later Latinised as Castrogiovanni or Castrugiuvanni (fortress of John), although etymologically it had no derivation from Ioannes/John. The name Enna was restored in the 1920s.
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(3b:) The Armenian Alexios Mousele, the emperors son-law [or intended brotherin-law: possibly the betrothal did not proceed to marriage], is (briefly) appointed strategos (stratelates and dux) of Sicily. This must be seen as a token of the importance attached to Sicily. It is said that he colluded with the Saracens, but one may think it more probable that he did not relish being exiled so far from the centre of power and engineered his own recall. Theophanes Continuatus recorded that he was beaten and imprisoned, and later retired to Chrysopolis, where he founded a monastery. 4. Italy: First appeance of Arabs on the mainland. At the request of the GrecoItalian* duke Andreas (Andrew) of Naples, a force of Arabs from (western) Sicily, Arabic Siqilliyyah, relieved the siege of Naples by Sikard, the Lombard-Italian Duke of Benevento. See 838. (*) Although its ruling culture and institutions were Greek, Naples should be seen as an independent power. It was minting a coinage lacking any reference to the Basileus (Kreutz p.16). Ravenna had fallen to the northern Lombards in 751, leaving Calabria as the nearest seat of Byzantine power. Not surprisingly, then, the duke of Naples had preferred since 763 to recognize the pope as his suzerain. Cf 841: fall of Reggio di Calabria. 837-38: The East: The caliph, al-Mutasim, sends (837) his army to Adharbayjan (Azerbaijan) under the Iranian general Afshin [Afshin Khaydar b. Qawus, d. 841] in a further attempt to put down the 20-year rebellion of the Khurramiyya (Khurramites) led by Babak. Afshin captures Babak and he is killed (January 838). In September 837, as we have seen, a second wave of about 16,000 Korramis (Khurramites) from Babak's defeated army crossed, presumably via Armenia, into Romanian (Byzantine) territory (Treadgold 1997: 441). According to Theophanes Continuatus and Genesios, these fighters too converted to Christianity and were incorporated into the Persian turma so that it now comprised around 30,000 experienced soldiers. Despite this considerable reinforcement, on 21 July 838 Theophilos's army was defeated in the battle of Danzimon (Anzen) in NE Anatolia by a smaller Abbasid army of ca. 30,000 fighters under Afshin. - See discussion below under 838. 837-43: John VII Grammatikos, the Grammarian, last iconoclast patriarch. Of Armenian descent. He had been Theophiluss tutor, and his brother Arsaber was married to a sister of the iconodule Empress Theodora. The latter deposed him in 843. In 830 (see there), while seving as synkellosdeputy patriarchJohn had led an ostentatious embassy to Baghdad. By 838: The West: The Aghlabids of North Africa had launched an extensive corsair fleet, making them masters of the central Mediterranean Sea and enabling them to harry the coasts of southern Italy, Sardinia, Corsica and even that of the Maritime Alps. See next. 838: 1. The West: Theophilus sends an expedition to Sicily against the Muslims. The Tunisians have already established a foothold on the Italian mainland . Cf 840, 846. In the spring of 838 (Ahmad p.11 prefers 837), after a long period in which the Muslim attacks in Sicily went unanswered, the government of Constantinople sent an answer to Sicily in the form of an expedition led by the son-in-law of the emperor and presumptive heir, the caesar Mosele [Alexios Mousele] (Treadgold
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1997: 441-42) After disembarking on the north coast, the expedition forced the Arabs to leave the site of Cephaledio, todays Cefal, the town to the east of Palermo. In the following months Mosele obtained several new victories although they were not very significant; and soon the impetus of the offensive stagnated and the arrival of Arab reinforcements threatened to undo its gains. Mosele was accused by some Sicilians of negotiating with the Arabs and conspiring against the emperor. As a result, Theophilos ordered him to return to Constantinople. See 840s: Muslim attacks on Taranto, Brindisi and Bari. c. 838: St Elia of Castrogiovanni, fl. mid-9th Century: A native of Castrogiovanni (Enna) in central Sicily. In 837 while still a minor [aged about eight], he fled with his parents from the Saracens who were attacking Sicily (Amari, Musulmani, vol 1 p.512). They took refuge in the citadel of St Mary (Castel di Santa Maria) [unlocated] but were ultimately taken captive. He was fortunate enough on this occasion to be ransomed in North Africa by some Christian mercenaries in the service of the Saracens. While sailing from Africa, his ship was met by a Byzantine warship to which he transferred. Soon (ca. 838), he was able to return home and reunite with his family. Eventually he had the misfortune to again be taken captive by the Saracens. Taken back to North Africa, he was sold as a slave to a fellow-Christian. Later, he was sold to a wealthy land owner who grew to respect him as a holy man. Freed at last, he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in ca. 850, remaining there for three years. 2. Arabs sack Marseilles; and settle in s. Italy (839). 3. Asia Minor: Great counter-invasion by Mutasim. Against the Byzantines, alMu'tasim personally led one of the largest Muslim armies ever assembled, and won battles at the Halys River, Angora, and Amorium (SW of Ankara). The Khurramite Kurds under Theophobos-Nasr again fought on the empires side. AlMutasim was ready to take Constantinople, but his plan fell apart when a storm destroyed the Arab fleet before it got there (839). Theophilus now took the offensive, and the two sides agreed to peace after the Muslims were pushed back to the prewar frontier (841). Mutasims Invasion of 838 Two very large Arab armies 50,000 and 30,000: the former marched initially in two columns -, with many Turkish horse-archers, enter Cappadocia. Mutasim's forces were supported, it is said, by 50,000 camels and 20,000 mules (*) (unlike in Byzantium, carts and other wheeled vehicles were little used in the Islamic world). Omar or Amr of Melitene accompanied the son of the caliph with an army of Turks and Armenians on an invasion of the Roman empire. At a site called Anzen, near Dazemon, they met and defeated a Roman army under the emperor Theophilos; their mission was to test the strength of the East Romans before an attack was made by the caliph himself on Amorion: PBW, citing Theoph. Cont. III 31 (pp. 126-128), cf. Zon. XV 29. 11. (*) These figures appear credible. Haldon, in Pryor ed. 2006: 158, has calculated, using known consumption and carrying levels, that some 9,000 mules were needed to carry provisions (human food, plus grain and hay for horses) for an army of 10,000 men (composed of 6,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry). The provisions will last for 24 days, longer if foraging is allowed for. Applying an average marching rate, this was enough only for a return journey of 240 km out and 240 km back. (Cf 500 km to the centre of NeoRoman Anatolia from Muslim Cilicia.) As noted, however, foraging and also confiscations or food tribute would have supplemented whatever the camels and mules were able to carry. Arab victories: Having defeated the Byzantines at Anzen, they press west and capture Amorium, SW of Ankara, the Basileuss birthplace and possibly the largest
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East Roman town in Asia Minor. As many as 35,000 civilians and soldiers were killed, most of them rural refugees from the wider region who had retreated into the fortress-town. The size of Amorion must have been substantial. Michael Syrus, in relating the capture of the town by the Arabs in 838, writes: "The monasteries and nunneries were so numerous that more than 1,000 virgins [i.e. nuns], not to speak of those who were massacred, were led away into captivity." Michael Syrus, Chronique de Michael le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199), ed. and trans. J.B. Chabot, 3: Paris, 1905, p.100. In the prelude, Theophilus was defeated in a bloody battle at Dazimon or Anzen*, in NE Asia Minor in July 838. His competent general, the Armenian Manuel, was killed and the Rhomaniyan army retreated NW to nearby Amasya, Gk: Amaseia. Then, after an energetic resistance of 55 days, Amorion fell into Al-Mutassem's hands through treachery on 23 September 838. Dating according to Symeon the Logothete; also Masudi IV, 358-59: Arabs defeat Theophilus and kill general Manuel at Anzen on 22 July 838; and the Caliph sacks Amorium 12 August 838. Other sources prefer September. (*) Mod. Dazmama, the fortress near Tokat, NW of Sivas inland from the mid-north coast of Asia Minor. Anzen was the name of a hill on the battlefield. Amasya-Tokat-Sivas lie on a notional line NW-SE. Amasia and Dazimon gave their names to the westernmost turmai (districts) of the Armeniac theme. The Rhomaniyans probably came to realise the usefulness of the trebuchet the rope-pull or beam-sling traction trebuchet* - in field operations after their defeat in the battle of Anzen in AH 223, AD 838. In this battle, the Byzantine army under Emperor Theophilus faced Abbasid forces under a caliphl general, Afshin. On the afternoon of 22 July, Turkish archers isolated and surrounded the emperor and a band of 2,000 Khurramite (Persians and Kurds) soldier-refugees originally from alJibaal (modern Luristan). They were closing in for the kill when a rainstorm rendered the Turks bows useless. The Muslims quickly brought up traction trebuchets and hurled stones on the Romanic forces**, which then dispersed in panic (Chronique de Michel le Syrien, ed. and trans. J.-B. Chabot, 4 vols. [Paris, 1905], 3:95, 4:535; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, ed. Bedjan, 149; W. Treadgold, The Byzantine Revival, 780- 842, Stanford, 1988, 300). (*) Five or more men facing away from the target pull down on short ropes attached the front end of the beam, which pivot-launches the back end of the beam: illustration in Dawson 2007b. The counter-weight trebuchet appeared later in the 1100s. (**) It is thought that early trebuchets were an anti-personnel weapon, not being powerful enough to batter through walls (see E McGeer, 1995, Byzantine Siege Warfare in Theory and Practice, in I Corfis and M Wolfe, eds, The Medieval City under Siege). Gibbon: When the armies drew near, the front of the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more closely planted with spears and javelins; but the event of the action was not glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs were [initially] broken, but it was by the swords of 30,000 Persians [Khurramites: see below under 839-40], who had obtained service and settlement in the Byzantine empire. The Greeks were repulsed and vanquished, but it was by the arrows of the Turkish cavalry; and had not their bowstrings been damped and relaxed by the evening rain, very few of the Christians could have escaped with the emperor from the field of battle. After a stout resistance of 55 days, Amorium fell into al-Mu'tasim's hands through treachery on 23 Sept 838. Some 30,000 of the inhabitants were slain, the rest sold as slaves, and the city razed to the ground.
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Treadgold Army 1995: 210 comments that this campaign showed Theophilus that, though the Romanian (Byzantine) army might defeat Slavs and Bulgarians and Arab raiding parties, it was still unable to withstand a regular Arab army in the field. Amorium was never to recover from its sack in 838. In the next century it was replaced as the major military centre of Anatolia by Cappadocian Caesarea. It is said that al-Mu'tasims troops found in Ankyra, Amorium and other centres in Asia Minor ancient Greek medical books that subsequently were translated into Arabic. That they were translated is certain; whether they were discovered on this campaign may be doubted. John Haldons Account of the Battle of Anzen, near Dazimon, 838 (Haldon 2001: 78 ff) A large division of Turkish horse-archers played a prominent role in the Caliphs army. Haldon argues that by 838 the archers in the Byzantine army were either very few or of poor quality. Cf 904: Slavic archers defend Greek Thessalonica. Haldons claim may be contradicted by the Taktika of Leo VI, ca. 900, in which the use of the bow, by Byzantine foot-archers and horse-archers alike, is highlighted. On the other hand, Leos insistence that every East-Roman boy should learn to shoot the bow could be read as implying that many or most did not. This too may be indicated by his order that, in the provinces, every house, or at least every soldiers house, was to keep one bow and 40 arrows. In June 838 Mutasim began assembling an expedition to capture Ankyra (modern Ankara) and Theophiloss birthplace, Amorion, in west-central Asia Minor. Hearing of this, Theophilos responded by leading out a force comprised of the Tagmata and thematic troops from Thrace and Macedonia.* Also in his expedition were Theophobos Kurdish (Khurramite) defectors. (*) The Tagmata were fulltime soldiers serving in elite regiments based in or near Constantinople, while the thematic troops from the provinces were semi-professionals who managed their farms when not on campaign. At Dorylaion the Emperor divided his forces, one part being sent to reinforce the garrison of Amorion, while he himself took most of his army, perhaps 25,000 men, towards Caesarea in Cappadocia, aiming to block the route from the Cilician Gates to Ankyra. The Muslims set out meanwhile in mid June in three columns. One column probably fewer than 20,000 men under Afshin - marched to Malatya and then pushed NW into the Byzantine Armeniac theme. This column included perhaps 10,000 Turkish horse-archers, who now make their first significant appearance on the stage of history. The second and third columns advanced through Cilicia and along the main road towards Ankyra. The plan was for the three columns to rejoin there before pushing on (which is to say: SE) to Amorion. Afshins column advanced as far as the Byzantine aplekton (fortress, storage base and assembly point) at Dazimon, which is modern Dazmana, between Tokat and Amasya. That is to say: NW of Sebaseia/Sivas. Theophilos was camped on the Halys River near Caeasaraea when he heard of this. Leaving a detachment to guard the road to Ankyra, he took most of his remaining forces, more than 20,000 men, north-eastwards against Afshin. The latters force was sighted on 21 July. The Byzantines formed up on the plain of Dazimon near a hill that bore the name Anzen. It served as an observation point. The Byzantines attacked at dawn on 22 July. They were immediately successful on one wing, driving Afshins forces from their positions and inflicting some 3,000 casualties. Meanwhile Theophilos moved to strengthen his other wing by personally leading across 2,000 of the Tagmata and his Kurds. As he moved across, the Muslims made a powerful counter-charge against the Byzantine wing that had already attacked. The missile-fire of the Turkish horse-archers brought the enemy advance to a halt. And now most of the Byzantines no longer had the emperors standard in their sight. They assumed he had fallen. Not realising he
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had simply moved to the other wing, they began to waver. The Byzantine battleline soon dissolved in the face of continued fire from the enemy horse-archers. Some Byzantine units escaped west, others escaped to the north, while others were simply annihilated. Theophilos himself, with his 2,000 Tagmata and Kurds, was able ro reach the hill of Anzen. The sudden appearance of a rainstorm left the Muslim horse-archers with useless bows, and the imperialists were able to take up a strong defensive position on the hill. Afshin now ordered siege catapaults (traction trebuchets) to brought from his baggage train to bombard the emperors position. Deciding his duty was to escape, the emperor broke through the Muslim lines with a small band, leaving the rest to their fate. Proceeding north, Theophiloss band joined up with a number of Byzantine units that had managed to reach the region of Chiliokomon near Amaseia. Subsequently he came upon the detachment he had left to cover the road to Ankyra; this corps had pulled back to the NW. Ankyra meanwhile was abandoned by its population. Theophilos sent some units to Amorion to reinforce it, while he himself proceeded towards the capital to kill the rumours there that he was dead. The first Muslim force reached an empty Ankyra on 27 July when Theophilos was still at Dorylaion. After sacking Ankya, the Muslim army moved on to besiege the fortress-city of Amorion at the beginning of August. The Arabs and Turks took it after two weeks, sacked it and slaughtered the Byzantine garrison. This was a great blow to imperial prestige. But this was as far as Mutasims armies went, as the Caliph soon withdrew them from Asia Minor to deal with a rebellion at home. c. 838?: The young Photius, aged about 28, a future patriarch, compiles his famous Myriobiblon or Bibliotheca, an annotated list of, and excerpts from, 279 books he has read. The date is disputed. Against the traditional date of 855 or possibly 845, Francois Halkin and Cyril Mango have argued for a date after 875, and Helene Ahrweiler and Paul Lemerle have argued for 838. Photius made the first draft of his encyclopaedic "Myriobiblion" probably while he was still a young man. At an early age also, he began to teach grammar, philosophy and theology in his own house to a steadily increasing number of students. About 838, aged about 28, he was sent on an embassy "to the Assyrians", as he notes in the preface to the "Myrobiblion", i.e., apparently to the Khalif at Baghdad or Samarra. He was made patriarch of Constantinople in 858. From 838: Italy: Arab forces appear for the first time on the Italian peninsula, briefly occupying Lombardic Brindisi in modern Puglia - in 838. Having burnt the town, they returned to Sicily (Ahmad p.18; Kreutz p.25). Rome will be attacked in 846. Bari will become the centre of a short-lived emirate, 84771. Sicilian Arabs sacked and destroyed Brindisi* in 838; then they occupied Lombardic Taranto in c. 840 [probably 839: see below] and Lombardic (exByzantine) Bari* in 841 (or late 840). In 842 they began to attack the west coast of Italy (Kreutz p.25). Cf 841-42: raids into the upper Adriatic. (*) Bari is on the lower calf or top of the outer heel of Italy, with Brindisi lower down on the heel proper. Taranto is on the inner side of the heel, at the top the Gulf of Taranto. There three port-towns were (are) nodal poinst on the anicnt highway system. The Appia Traiana, the upper leg of the Appian Way, from Bari,
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and the Via Appia proper from Brindisi via Taranto converge at Benevento. Potentially, therefore, the Arabs could control the whole south if they took Benevento and could at least dominate the south by holding Bari, Brindisi and Taranto. 838-41: 1. Sicily: The death of the Emir Ziyadatallah (10 June 838) and consequent uncertainty as to affairs in Sicily caused military operations to be suspended for some months; but in 839 his successor Abul Iqal [Al-Aghlab b. Ibrahim, Abu Iqal*] sent ships which raided the Romanic districts of the island, and in 840 Caltabellotta, Platani, Corleone, and Sutera all in the central-west - were forced to pay tribute (Bury p.304). Cf below under 840: loss of Taranto. (*) In the period 838-51, Muslim Sicily was ruled directly from Ifriqiya, and there was no resident emir. 2. Apulia/Puglia: As noted, in 838 Arabs from North Africa sacked Brindisi. In 840 and 841 they plundered Taranto and Bari - both former Byzantine ports now under Lombard-Italian rule (Whittow p.306). Cameron 2009: 184 dates the loss of Taranto to 839. This is probably correct, as we know definitely that by Feb-Mar 1840 an Arab fleet or a flotilla was already established at Taranto (al-Athir and Chron. Ven., cited by McCormick 2001: 919, note 121). Evidently the Arabs did not capture Bari until after 841. 838-47: As will be seen in the next few entries, this was period in which Byzantium suffered many reverses. Peace envoys were sent to the caliph in Samarra and the anti-caliph in Spanish Cordoba, while envoys seeking alliances were sent to Francia and Venice. Hostilities with Bulgaria were avoided. 838-69: Provence: In 838 and 842 Saracens raided Marseille. In 842 and 850 they will raid Arles. In 869 they will establish a base in the Camargue (the Rhone delta in Provence). c. 839: The N Aegean: The Andalusi pirates (slavers) based on ex-imperial Crete inflicted a major defeat on a Rhomaniyan fleet off Thasos. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the imperial navy. The Muslim raiders dedicated themselves to seeking slaves*, booty, tribute and ransom. They never tried to occupy Rhodes or Cyprus, although they did occupy some lesser Byzantine islands periodically: Aigina, Kos, Kythera and Karpathos. Naxos paid tribute in order to avoid being occupied (Dromon p.47). (*) Rotman pp.74-75 argues that Byzantine taxes on the Jewish slave-traders in the early 800s led to the latter using routes that avoided the Byzantine customs posts [see 846 below]. This raised the price of slaves in the Muslim East and Africa, which in turn made Arab piracy profitable. There were also a few, albeit fewer, Byzantine pirates who raided Syria, Palestine and Egypt to take captives. In the 800s the tax on an imported slave passing through the empire was two nomismata, equivalent to 20% of the value of a slave sold in the markets of Constantinople (Rotman p.199: conceivably the vale of a slave sold in the Muslim East was higher: it cost up to 30 nom. to ransom an adult male Byzantine from the Arabs). 839: 1. Romanic/Byzantine embassy to request aid from the Franks. Also to Venice, which is treated as an independent entity for the first time (Norwich p.49). Cf below, 839-40.
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The annals of Saint Bertan relate that in 839, the same year as the first appearance of the Rhos, Rus or Varangians (Norse-Russians) in Constantinople, the German Emperor Hludwig IIs (Louis, Lewis or Ludovicus) II court in Ingelheim on the Rhine was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine emperor. In this delegation there were two men who called themselves Rhos (Rhos vocari dicebant). Hludwig (Louis) enquired about their origins and learnt that they were people of Swedish descent (comperit eos gentis esse Sueonum: he learns them to be they are - of the people or nation of the Swedes) but evidently living in what is now north Russia (Duczko 2004). 2. Italy: The Amalfitans, exploiting internal warring factions within the Longobard/Latin court at Benevento, succeeded in sacking the nearby Beneventan city [read: fortified village] of Salerno: on the coast east of Amalfi. In September 839 they founded an independent republic, or rather they began acting as an autonomous political entity, no longer recognising Neapolitan suzerainty. Salerno likewise would break free from Benevento in 846 or 849 (Kreutz p.24). Even after her "declaration of independence" in 839, however, Amalfi continued to recognize at least nominal Byzantine suzerainity. Thus we can say that it was independent within the empire (ODB I: 73). Amalfitan political leaders and members of the nobility from the ninth through the eleventh centuries were often the recipients of titles or dignities bestowed by the Romanian (Byzantine) emperor, among which that of patrikios appears to have ranked highest. The birth of the State of Amalfi was partly due to the breakup of the two main political states of that time, the ex-Greek/Rhomaniyan Dukedom of Naples and the Latin/Longobard Principality of Benevento. In the same year (or rather in 840: see there) Salerno separated from Benevento, becoming an independent Lombard (Latin) duchy under Sicone II (839-851). (Cf 935: Capua.) 839-40: 1. Italy: Sicilian Arabs seize Taranto in S Italy (c.840) and repulse a Venetian fleet sent by Constantinople to recover it. The town will stay in Arab hands until 880. Theophilus, unable to withdraw forces from the East, in 839 asked help of the Venetians and even of the Franks and of the Emir of Spain to dislodge the strong Arab force that was occupying Taranto. An imperial legate arived at Venice in Feb/March 840. The doge Pietro Tradonico was conferred the title Spatharius by the Patriarch of Constantinople in in return for promising to help defend Byzantium against the Aghlabi Saracens from North Africa who had invaded Byzantine Apulia. The doge agreed to help, and in March 840 60 Venetian ships, assisted by a Byzantine flotilla, attacked the Arab fleet off Taranto, but they were nearly all taken and the crews massacred (Nicol 1992: 27; McCormick 2001: 919). See 840. 2. NE Asia Minor: Theophilus leads an army against Nasr (future Christian name Theophobos), the Kurdish pretender-emperor installed by the Muslims at Sinope on the north coast of Asia Minor. The pretenders 30,000 Persian (Khurramite) troops defected and were inducted into the Imperial army. Theophobos resumed his career as an imperial officer. The induction of the Khurramites and their dispersal across several themes was part of Theophiluss re-organisation of his armed forces: see details below after 841-42. Especially important was a significant pay rise. Treadgold (Army p.178) estimates that the lands held by the tagmatic and thematic troops and other military holdings may have made up around a quarter of the empire's cultivated area. The warehouse system for selling arms and uniforms seems not to have survived long after 840, as enough soldiers npw
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 gained enough money to do without it (p.185).
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According to the Greek chroniclers Theophanes Continuatus and Genesios, in the summer of 839, the Khurramite general Nasr-Theophobos negotiated in secret with The emperor and secured full amnesty for the Korramis (Khurramite). Although the emperor reorganised them into a Persian turma, dispersing units of 2,000 fighters to several districts (Rosser, p. 271; Treadgold, 1995, pp. 32, 69), he assigned the command of some units again to Nasr-Theophobos who in turn continued serving as a leading general of the emperor's army. The empires total land forces enrolled now reached at least 120,000. Haldon notes that Treadgold is inclined to give credence to the controversial testimony of the Islamic geographer al-Jarmi (fl. 845: cited by Masudi), but that is not the only basis for Treadgolds conclusions that the army consisted of 155,000 soldiers by the mid-ninth century, rising to 283,000 by 1025 (Treadgold, Army 1995: 16163). For a skeptical view of these numbers, see Whittow pp.190-192; he proposes (p.192) a total army enrolment of as few as 30,000 . 839-41: The emperor sends grand embassies to Saracen Samarra (which had superseded Baghdad), Muslim Cordoba (839-40), Christian Venice (840) and Frankish Aachen (842) (NCMH 1995: 374; mcCormick 2001: 920). For the embassy to Samarra, Theophilus supplied John the Grammarian with 400 pounds" (Roman litrae) (*) of gold, i.e. as many as 28,800 nomismata, to demonstrate the empire's largesse (Baynes p.74). In the period to 907, several leading scholars were dispatched on embassies to the Abbasid court: John the Grammarian, St Cyril (Constantine), Photius and Leo Choirosphaktes, suggesting that a further purpose was to show the Muslims that the wisdom of the Greeks was still, contrary to rumour, alive and well in Christian lands (El Cheik 2004: 103). (*) A litra in theory weighed 328 gms; in practice more like 320 gms, i.e. 11 oz or about two-thirds of a present-day pound (Entwhistle. Byzantine weights, in Laiou ed., 2002: 611). A nomisma weighed 4.5 to 4.4 gms. Cf weight of an Austalian 10-cent coin: 5.6 gms. Brown 1997: 243 notes that by 840 a degree of wealth and leisure had returned to the elites of Constantinople after the economic low-point of the previous century. Photius, the future intellectual scholar-patriarch, was at this time aged about 20. 839-42: 1. Outer Macedonia and Illyria: Having expanded westwards, the Bulgarians engage in war with the Serbians. 2. Peninsular Italy: According to the Muslim sources, the first serious Arab operation against Calabria took place in AH 225, AD 839-40. With the capture of hitherto Christian Messina in AH 228, AD 842-3, it became easier for the Muslims of Sicily to undertake devastating raids and lengthy sieges, by means of which they were able to keep the Calabrian territory under continual threat from their incursions. See next: Bari. In Calabria the Arabs will remain in control of the western coastal fortress-towns of Tropea and Amantea (from Arabic Al Mantiah; called Nepezia in Latin) and also St Severina: in the east near Crotone from 839 to 885; and they will even capture Cosenza in north-central Calabria for brief periods (Italian Wikipedia, 2009, under Storia della Calabria). 839-49:
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Italy: Civil war in the Lombard duchy of Benevento: the Tunisian Arabs intervene: see 840/42. In 840 or 841 Radelchis, the Longobard duke of Benevento, asked help from the Arabs to fight against his rival Siconulf of Salerno. The Arabs intervened and they took advantage by conquering (ca. 839-842) Taranto and Beneventan Bari . These were the two main ports of Apulia. As noted earlier, the Tunisians repelled a Venetian fleet that the emperor summoned to Tarantos aid. 839-866: Italy: The post-Byzantine* governor of Naples appoints (c.839) a certain Constantine as the first Hypatus or consul of Gaeta, the port-town between Rome and Naples (Skinner 1995). He was the son of Count Anatolius, a Byzantine Greek noble. Constantine soon raised his son Marinus I to share rule with him with the title of comes (count). A separate bishopric was established in 846. (Later in the 800s Gaeta will break free from Neapolitan rule, while remaining nominally part of the empire.) Cf 840: Salerno. (*) Ravenna had fallen to the northern Lombards in 751, leaving Calabria as the nearest seat of Byzantine power. Not surprisingly, then, the duke of Naples had preferred since 763 to recognize the pope as his suzerain. Territory In 840 the empire took in eastern Sicily, most of Calabria, the base of the Italian heel (just Apulian Gallipoli and Otranto: see 845), Venice, the Dalmatian towns and Albania (Dyrrhachium) in the West; and extended thence across Greece to Cyprus - shared as a tax base with the Caliphate - and Chaldea in far NE Asia Minor, and the S Crimea in the north. The Rhomaniyan archontate or lesser governorship of Dalmatia, created in about 810, comprised several coastal outposts (Treadgold 1997: 428). As before, present-day Greece and Asia Minor represented the heartland of the empire. In Asia Minor, western Cilicia was Byzantine; the Caliphate held eastern Cilicia, with the border drawn about halfway between Silifke (Seleucia) and Tarsus. The Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains between Kayseri (Caesarea) and Malatya (Melitene) were a no mans land. In the NE the border ran between Erzinan and Erzurum (Theodosiopolis) to the Black Sea corner east of Trabzon (Trebizond). Treadgold Army p.177 proposes that the Empire contained some eight million people. The empire comprised about 750,000 sq km [Treadgold 1997: 8]; so that is only about 11 people per sq km. If one prefers to apply Stathakopouloss (2008) figure of about 15 per km2for average or moderately prosperous timesthe result is over 11 million. For comparison, there were 13.6 million people living in Turkey at the time of its first census (1927); dividing that by its area of 784,000 sq km [present-day extent], we get 17 ppkm2. At that time still 83% of the workforce was in agriculture, and there was almost no mechanisation [O S Morgan, ed., Agricultural Systems of Middle Europe, New York 1933]. In terms of military manpower, the Byzantine Empires far western themes were not considered important: there were only some 2,000 troops permanently stationed in Sicily, notwithstanding that the Muslims already held the western third of the island. Based on the number of troops deployed, and the pay-rates of their commanders, the main borders were those of Macedonia and Thrace: against the Slavs and Bulgarians, and in the East the themes of Seleucia, Cappadocia, Charsianum, the Armeniacs and Chaldea: against the Caliphate. 840: 1a. Italy: Salerno breaks with Benevento. Siconulf, brother of the Duke Sicard who was killed by the partisans of Radelgis/Radelchis, was proclaimed (840 or 841) prince at Salerno, which from that time constituted an independent principality.
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With the assistance of the Saracens and with the spoils of the churches, the Salernitans under Siconulfus defended their independence, which was confirmed in 851 by the German (Frankish) Emperor Hludwig (Louis) II, to whom the prince had sworn allegiance. The chief towns of the principality, which covered most of the south-west, were ex-Byzantine Taranto [see next], Cassano, Cosenza in N Calabria, Paestum, Conza, Salerno, Sarno near Mt Vesuvius, Cimitile (Nola), Capua, Teano, and Sora (Cath. Encyc. under Salerno). 1b. Italy: (Or in 839:) As we have seen, Saracens took control of the port-town of Taranto, exploiting the weak Longobard control. Taranto became an Arab stronghold and privileged harbour for 40 years. It was from here that ships loaded with prisoners sailed (rowed) to the Arab ports, where the prisoners were sold in the slave markets (History of Taranto, 2009, Wikipedia). In the same year, 840, as we noted earlier, the Arabs defeated a Venetian/Byzantine fleet sent to relieve Taranto and Sicily. An Arab fleet left Taranto, defeated in the Gulf of Taranto a Venetian fleet of 60 ships summoned by the emperor Theophilus, and entered the Adriatic sea, sacking the coastal cities such as Ancona (Ahmad p.18). Cf 840-42: Bari. The doge Pietro Tradonico was conferred the title Spatharius by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 840 in return for promising to help defend Byzantium against the Aghlabi Saracens from North Africa who had invaded Byzantine Apulia. The Venetians suffered a humiliating defeat near Taranto, and was forced to retreat to Venice by the advancing Saracen fleet. 1c. Italy: The Adriatic towns suffered intermittently from Saracen attacks. As noted, Ancona was plundered in 840. Adria, in the delta of the Po, was unsuccessfully attacked in the same year; across the sea Ossero (Osor) on the Dalmatian island of Cherso was pillaged and burnt (Easter 840). On the sea two Venetian fleets were defeated, one near Ancona in 840, another in Sansego, just south of Cherso [modern upper Croatia], in 842, and everywhere the Muslims robbed and captured Venetian merchantmen (Nicol 1992: 27; McCormick 2001: 47, 919). 2. Sicily: The central-western towns of Platini, Caltabellotta, Corleone and possibly also Marineo and Geraci (*) came to terms with the Saracens and surrendered (Ahmad p.12). (*) Locations: Platini: in the central-south, NW of Agrigento. Caltabellotta: also in the central-south, NW of Agrigento. Corleone: inland west-central Sicily, south of Palermo. Marineo: S of Palermo, nearer to it than Corleone. Geraci Siculo: SE of Cefal. 4. (also 850, 869): Vikings enter the western Mediterranean and conduct largescale raids up the Rhone River in search of slaves and to capture nobles for ransom. See 844. c.840: 1. fl. Leo the Mathematician, born ca. 790. In 840-43 he was Metropolitan archbishop of Thessalonica. In the palace at Constantinople he created trees with mechanical birds, metal lions that roared, and the emperors fabled levitating throne (Rautman p.295). As described later by Luitprand in the 10th century, "in front of the Emperor's throne was set up a tree of gilded bronze, its branches filled with birds, likewise made of bronze gilded over, and these emitted cries appropriate to their different species. Now the Emperor's throne was made in such a cunning manner that at one moment it was down on the ground, while at another it rose higher and was seen to be up in the air. This throne was of immense size and was, as it were, guarded by lions, made either of bronze or wood covered with gold, which struck
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the ground with their tails and roared with open mouth and quivering tongue (in Mango 1986). 2. Italy: The batriq (patrikios) of Sardinia is listed among the Rhomaniyan provincial governors by Ibn Khurdadhbeh. Sardinia seems never to have formed a regular theme, and passed away from the empire during the later 9th century. We have, however, traces of its EastRoman governors in the 9th century. A seal of Theodotus, with the title hypatos [consul], who was doux [military commander] of Sardinia, has been preserved; and also seals of the archons of Cagliari, with the curious style archonti mereias kalareios (thus J B Bury, in his 1906 edn of Gibbon). Archonti: lords, magnates, rulers. Mereias means part(s), perhaps meaning that only part of the island was under Christian rule. Villages, Forts, Castles, Towns, Cities The Muslim writer Ibn Khordadhbeh or Khurdadhbih, writing between 840 and 845 or later, was the author of a geographical description of Romania. (Key Arab sources on the Empire: Ibn Khurdadhbih, an ninth-century Persian who was director of the postal and intelligence service in Iran; al-Yaqubi, an Armenian who in the ninth century wrote a Book of Countries; and Qudamah, a 10th-century Christian who had embraced Islam, served as a tax accountant at Baghdad and wrote a book discussing the postal and tax systems of the Abbasid Caliphate.) Excerpt: . . . Sandabart (Santabaris), 35 miles beyond which lies the Meadow of the King's Asses at Darawliyah (Dorylaeum). From Darawliyah it is 15 miles to the fortress of Ghartibuli, and three on to Kanais-al-Malik, the King's Churches (the Basilica of Anna Comnena), then 25 miles to At-Tulfll, 'the Hills and 15 to AlAkwir, whence in 15 miles you reach Malajinah (Malagina). From here it is five miles to Istabl-al-Malik, 'the King's Stables [a military ranch (*)] and 30 on to liisnal-Ghabri, ' the Dusty Fortress ' (namely Kibotos, whence the ferry goes over to Aigialos), and thence it is 24 miles on to Al-Khalij, ' the Strait ' (which is the Bosporus of Constantinople) (from Le Stranges Eastern Caliphate, at www.archive.org/stream/landsoftheeaster028596mbp/landsoftheeaster028596mb p_djvu.txt (*) Malagina was an aplekton or military depot and mustering camp, where armies assembled. Food, fodder and arms were gathered at these points before a campaign was launched. Khurdadhbihs Routes and Kingdoms probably received its final redaction ca.885; much of his information comes from al-Jarmi, a prisoner of the Romanics until 845 (ODB ii:974). He asserts that there were only "five" real cities in all of Byzantine Asia Minor, namely Nicaea; Ephesus; Amorium; Ancyra; and Samala (?), although there also a considerable number of fortresses of village size. In days of old, writes Khurdadhbih, cities were numerous in Rum but now they have become few. Most of the districts are prosperous and pleasant and have each an extremely strong fortress [presumably a reference to the thematic capitals*, the seats of the strategoi], on account of the frequency of the raids which the fighters of the faith [Muslim ghazis] direct upon them. To each village appertains a castle [read: acropolis or small fort] where in time of flight they may take shelter. Quoted in Hodges & Whitehouse p.63. (*) Ancyras extramural population was substantial, but its citadel was tiny: just 350 metres by 150 metres (Haldon 1990: 113, citing Foss). Browning, p.94, comments that the cities, or larger towns, were already medieval in style. A jumble of narrow alleyways had long since replaced the broad open grid pattern of classical Antiquity. Nicomedia, 80 km west of Constantinople, in earlier centuries a great imperial capital, now lay in ruins.
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840 or 842: 1. S. Greece: The general of the Peloponnese Theme, Theoctistus Bryennius, defeated two rebellious (or should we say self-assertive?) Slav tribes, the Ezeritai and the Milingoi, who occupied the Taygetos Mountains west of ancient Sparta in the Peloponnesus. They were forced to pay a tribute or tax to the Empire (Tobias 2007). They were still free in 920/40 and preserved their language at least until the time of the Fourth Crusade, 1204. 2. fl. Cassia or Ikasia, woman poet: writer of 12-syllable epigrams. Daughter of a Romanian (Byzantine) noble, she had taken part in a bride-show for the emperor Theophilus (in about 830). Her sharp tongue lost her the throne, and she spent the rest of her life in a convent. Cassia, Woman Poet Kassia, Ikasia or Cassia was from a wealthy family in Constantinople. Her father had the title of candidatos [a middle-level official] at the Imperial Court - a military title given to (minor) members of the aristocracy (Silvas 2006). Because of the honour given to her father, it is assumed that Kassia and her family were members of the Imperial Court. Like other aristocratic young girls of the court, Kassia, received a private education [from about 815] that was influenced by Classical Greek studies and which can be observed in her verse and writings. Cf c.845: Photioss Myriobiblion. The correspondence between the teen-aged Kassia and the abbot Theodore the Studite (d. 826) reveals her inclination to become a nun, although he tried to dissuade her from such a decision so early in her life. Kassia also sent to Theodore examples of her writings, to which he responded with compliments on her literary skills. Gibbon, citing Symeon the Logothete, writes thus on the bride-show of ca. 830: In the awkwardness of a first declaration, the prince [Theophilos] could only observe that in this world, women had been the occasion of much evil [in reference to Eve, the first created woman]; "And surely, Sir," she [Kassia] pertly replied, "they have likewise been the occasion of much good" [in reference to the Virgin Mary]. This affectation of unseasonable wit displeased the imperial lover; he turned aside in disgust; Icasia concealed her mortification in a convent, and the modest silence of Theodora was rewarded with the golden apple [i.e. she was chosen as bride]. It is said that in 843, aged about 33, Kassia founded her own monastery, whose abbess she became. Over 50 liturgical chants (hymns) are attributed to Kassia, but perhaps only 24 are really hers. She also wrote 261 secular verses in the forms of epigrams, gnomic verses, and moral sentences. Diane Touliatos-Miles, Women Composers in Byzantium, http://www.geocities.com/hellenicmind/dianeII.html; accessed 2007. 840-41: The East: The reformed Rhomaniyan army, strengthened by the renegade Persian Khurramites, holds off Arab raids in Cappadocia. Never had unaided thematic armies defended their land so well, writes Treadgold, 1997: 445. Cappadocia was raised in status from a cleisura or military district to a theme or military province at or after this time, with 4,000 troops. The seat of the strategus was at Corum* (ibid: 443, 465). (*) In the SE near Tyana (map in Treadgold 1997: 368). Not to be confused with modern orum (medieval Euchaita) frurther north. By the 900s Caesarea superseded the former as the capital of Byzantine Cappadocia. The Arab writer Khordadhbeh, fl. 840, records the Romanic army strength in the eastern themes as 120,000 men. If so, then we would expect the western themes in addition to have numbered some 50,000 total some 170,000 (Heath
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1976: 8). This is an over-estimate. Treadgold 1997 prefers 120,000 for the entire armed forces, east and west. He proposes that the Tagmata and the Asian themes totalled some 70,000 men; the land troops in the west 25,600; and the navy some 14,600 oarsmen: see table after the entry for 867, below. For a skeptical view of these numbers, see Whittow pp.190-192; he proposes (p.192) a total army enrolment of as few as 30,000 as late as 975 . . . 840-842: 1. Calabria, Apulia and Benevento: Called in by the Beneventans, Sicilian Arabs cross to mainland Italy and take the Byzantine town of Reggio at the tip of the "toe"; also ex-imperial Taranto (840) and Beneventan/Lombard Bari on the "back heel" of Italy (841) = establishment of the Muslim emirate of Bari: 841/42-871 (it was not formally recognized as such until 847). Evidently the Muslims who ruled Taranto were not associated with the Muslims who captured Bari, although they were on good terms with each other. As noted earlier, Venice sent "60" ships in a vain attempt to aid the local Byzantine forces. The Emirate of Bari In 840 the Longobard Radelchi/s, duke of Benevento, asked help from the Arabs to fight against his rival Siconolfo. The Arabs intervened and took advantage by conquering Bari. Capua, north of Naples, was burned to the ground by the Saracens. After Capua was destroyed (A.D. 841) by the Arabs, its inhabitants moved to nearby Casilinum and founded modern Capua. First in 840 the inhabitants of old Capua were evacuated to a nearby hilltop fortress called Sicopolis. They only returned to the plain in 856, in a different place, five km away fron the Volturno river-crossing. This became the new Capua. A Longobard prince, Radelchis, who was held prisoner in Taranto, was freed by his partisans, brought to Benevento, and made duke. At the same time, the Saracens took control of Taranto, exploiting the weak Longobard control. Taranto became an Arab stronghold and privileged harbour for 40 years. It was from here that ships loaded with prisoners sailed to the Arab ports, where the prisoners were sold in the slave market. - In the same year, 840, an Arab fleet of 36 ships (Skylitzes; figure) left Taranto, defeated in the gulf of Taranto a Venetian fleet of 60 ships summoned by the emperor Theophilus, and about 841 (uniquely) entered the Adriatic sea, sacking the coastal towns of eastern Italy. Saracens from Bari ravaged as far the Dalmatian towns Budva (Butova) and Rose (Rosa), plundered the Lower Town at Kotor (Kattaros) and besieged but failed to take RagusaDubrovnik (Constantine Porphyrogenitus III, 61, 62; Skylitzes trans. Wortley p.142). But, as we have said, they were excluded from the Adriatic thereafter. Bari fell to Khalfun, a Sicilian-based Muslim Berber warlord who Baladhuri calls alBarbari (sic: the Berber), by an act of treachery in 840 or 841. The area of SE Italy that he controlled was later (847) recognised by the Caliph in Samarra as an emirate or province (the title he received was that of wali, prefect). After Khalfuns death, first the Muslim brigand al-Mufarraj bin Sallam from 853-871, and then another Berber named Sawdan, controlled all the coast of the boot from ex-Beneventan Bari around to ex-Byzantine Reggio Calabria, and terrorized Southern Italy. Others say that the Saracens at Taranto were independent of Bari. In any event, the Saracens even plundered the Abbey of St Michael on Mt Gargano in N Apulia. They claimed the title of Emir, and independence from the Emir in Palermo, sending envoys to Baghdad/Samarra to get formal recognition (847) of their independence from Sicily (Kreutz, p.38; Stenhouse, Crusades in Context, http://www.answeringislam.de/main/green/crusades-stenhouse.htm, accessed 2009). Mufarraj (emir or wali from 853) built a mosque at Bari and occupied 24 or 48 fortresses, i.e. walled villages, in Apulia and raided the territory of Naples. But the Byzantines and Venetians remained dominant in the inner Adriatic; there
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 were no major Arab incursions there between 841 and 866 (Ahmad pp.18-19).
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In Sicily the Muslims held one-third in the west; the Empire still held the eastern two-thirds. 840-42: 1. Naples: Sergius was elected by the Neapolitans to be their duke in AD 840. He was seen as the only hope of keeping the Latins (Lombards) from seizing control of ex-Byzantine Naples since the Empire seemed unable to do so. Sergius used diplomacy as much as military force to defy the Lombard threat. He even called on the Saracens in Sicily for help (they had a history of cooperation going back to the 830s) (Kreutz p.73). In return for Saracen mercenary soldiers, Sergius was willing to provide Neapolitan ships to aid the Saracens at Bari in 841 and Messina in 842 (see below under 841-42).
2. Sicily: At the same time as they besieged Enna*, the Arabs had laid siege to the Cefal on the north coast 70 km to the east of Palermo (Metcalfe 2009: 14). (*) Enna = Gk: Castro Yannis [yEnna]; mistakenly borrowed as It. Castrogiovanni, castle of John. In the spring of 838, as related earlier, while the siege of Cefal was extended, naval reinforcements had arrived from Constantinople that forced the Arabs to lift the siege. The death at this time of Ziyadat Allah led to a pause in the Arab offensive on the island, but in the last years of the reign of Theophilos the situation quickly got worse for Byzantium. In 840, as we noted earlier, the centralwestern towns of Platani, Caltabellotta, Corleone and Geraci Siculo, among others, were lost. When Theophilos died at the beginning of 842, the western part of the island, the later Val* di Mazara, was already securely in the hands of the Arabs . Cf 840 below. (*) From Ar. wilayah, region. The term Val is first recorded much later, in the Norman period. 841: 1a. The Adriatic: The Venetian navy was quickly made ready, and in early 841 [McCormick 2001: 920 says in 840] 60 of its largest ships, each carrying 200 men, sailed out of the lagoon to their appointed rendezvous with a Byzantine squadron (J. Norwich, A History of Venice, 1989: 32). The combined fleet then moved on southward, until it came upon the Saracens off the little Calabrian port of Crotone. Whether the Greek admiral fled at the first engagement - as the Venetians were later indignantly to swear - or whether the fault lay elsewhere, will never be known; but the Christian defeat was total. The pride of the Venetian navy went to the bottom; the land force which had disembarked near Taranto was wiped out. The Saracen fleet then advanced unhindered up the Adriatic, sacking Ancona and reaching the very edge of the lagoon before the shoals and currents swirling around the delta of Po forced it to turn back. 1b. Italy, Puglia: Saracen Berbers under Khalfun capture Bari from the Beneventine Latins (Lombards) led by the Gastaldo Pandone, Radelchiss governor, and establish an emirate (to 871). 2. Italy, Campania: As noted earlier, Capua was sacked and completely destroyed by Saracens in the pay of Radelchis I of Benevento. Landulf and his eldest son, Lando I, took the initiative in fortifying the nearby hill of Triflisco on which will be
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built "New Capua", the Capua of today (Wikipedia 2010 Lando I). Cf next 841-42. 841: Christian Ireland: Pagan Norwegian Vikings establish a base at the mouth of the river Liffy - the future town of Dublin. 841-42: 1. Greece: A fresh rising by Slavs in the Peloponnesus, which was again suppressed, and military colonists were established there, as in northern Greece (DAI 1962). 2. The West: Muslim raids on the Italian mainland and into the Adriatic . As related earlier, Tunisian Arabs cross to mainland Italy (841) and take the Byzantine town of Reggio at the tip of the "toe"; also Taranto (839) and ex-Byzantine (Beneventan) Bari on the "back heel" of Italy (c.842) = a Muslim emir rules in Bari 842-871. Cf 873: The Byzantines return to Otranto (the town at the back point of the heel). In Dalmatia the Saracens (from Taranto) burnt down Osero - Osor on the island of Cherso or Cres - in 840 or 841, and the following year the Bari Arabs shattered a Venetian fleet and seized the port-towns of Budva, Rosa and Kotor in what is now Montenegro (Harris 2003: 33). Saracens from Bari ravaged as far the Dalmatian towns Budva and Rose, plundered the Lower Town at Kotor (Kattaros) and besieged but failed to take Ragusa-Dubrovnik (McCormick 2001: 919; Constantine Porphyrogenitus DAI III, 61, 62). Mid 800s: Muslim warlords hold nearly the entire toe and heel of Italy: low-point in the geographical size of the empire. Cf 868, 876. 841-59: Sicily: It required more than a decade for the Muslims to overcome the resistance of the inhabitants of the western third (the Val di Mazara, to 841) and even longer 18 years - to get hold, between the 841 and the 859, of the Val di Noto (the south-eastern third) and then the Val Dmone (the northeast: intensified struggle from from 860) (Ahmad p.17).
775, Constantine V: Total state revenues: In millions of nomismata. 1.9 million 842, Theophilos 959, Constantine VII
3.1
3.9
Source: Treadgold 1995: 198.
The Boukoleon Palace, a new southern part of the palace complex, lay between the older palace complex and the south-eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara. It was built by Theophilos (829-842) with a facade to the sea on top of the sea walls that had been thickened in this region some decades before. The Boukoleon Palace formed the main living quarter of the Great Palace between the 9th and 11th centuries. It was enclosed into the new fortifications of the palace by Nikephoros Phokas (963-969). Though the residence was shifted to the Blacherna palace after 1081, the Boukoleon Palace was still in use later. It was used by the Latin emperors between 1204 and 1261, but given up after the Rhomaniyan reconquest. The western part of the facade survived until 1873 when it was demolished to make way for the railway; but the eastern part still stands. A reconstruction (**) has been based on old drawings made before the destruction and the suggestions of E. Mamboury published in 1934. About the back parts of the building behind the facade and the railway, nearly nothing is known. Thus Byzantium 1200, at www.byzantium1200.com/boucoleon; accessed 2008.
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(**) See reconstruction at: www.byzantium1200.org/boucoleo. CHANGES IN THE ARMY UNDER THEOPHILUS After Treadgold 1982, 1995 and 1997. Following serious setbacks against the Arabs in 838, the army was enlarged and its pay increased in 839, first paid in Lent 840. Pay for an ordinary soldier rose from five to nine nomismata per year (Treadgold 1982: 76; also 1995). The soldier himself received pay (roga) and in some cases rations when he was called out on active duty. Browning p.130 notes that "sometimes" the tenant(s) of military holdings in the themes fulfilled their duty by paying a man to serve. Theophilus enrolled some 30,000 Khurramite Kurdish troops the Khurramites were a heretical, anti-Islamic movement - in the East Roman army after they defected from the Caliphate and converted to Christianity. They were distributed among the eastern themes, i.e. were given military farms. This raised the total number of troops in the Themes from some 68,000 to about 96,000. Theophilus also doubled the size of the Tagma of the Optimates, the logistics support corps, from 2,000 to 4,000 men. The new cleisurae and themes were: Paphlagonia (5,000 soldiers); Cappadocia (4,000); Chaldia (4,000); Charsianum (4,000); and Seleucia (5,000 troops: subdivided from the Anatolic and Armenaikon themes); and in the West: the former archontate of Dyrrhachium or Durres: present-day Albania, which was now raised to the status of a theme and allocated 2,000 men. Troop numbers from Treadgold, Army p.134. Further troops were also enrolled elsewhere in Europe: 2,000 in Thrace, raising its enrolment to 5,000 men; 2,000 in Macedonia (also to 5,000); and (as noted) 2,000 in the new theme of Dyrrhachium, present-day Durres, on the coast of modern Albania. The overall total including officers was probably 139,000 men (Treadgold, Army p.134). At a tactical level, Theophilus created new units called banda (singular bandon) of 50 cavalry and 150 infantry. There were five banda in a drungus or battalion of 1,000 men. The senior officer at this time was the strategos of the elite Anatolikon theme in central Asia Minor, with the senior Tagmatic commander, the Domestic of the Scholae, ranking after him (Heath 1979: 12). Ranked by their salaries, the generals can be listed as follows: GENERALS
SALARIES
lbs of gold: One litra or Roman pound = 72 nomismata . 40: 36 24 12 (864 The major commands: Anatolic, the senior theme; Scholae [the senior Tagma]; Thracesian; and Armeniac. Bucellarion; Opsician; and Macedonia. Cappadocia; Paphlagonia; and Thrace. The typical salary of a general, including those leading the Excubitors and the other Tagmata; Drungary of the (central) Fleet
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 nomismata ) 6: and the two marine themes (Hellas and Cibyrrhaeots); and the theme of Chaldia.
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Areas smaller than themes, i.e. the "Cleisura" of Charsianum and Seleucia and the duke (doux) of Calabria (serving under the strategos of Sicily. Also the two naval drungaries under the strategos of the Cibyrrhaeots, iue the Gulf (S Asia Minor) and the Aegean Islands.
Source: Treadgold, Army p.122.

THE NAVY
Treadgold presents the navy in 840 as divided between three commands as follows: 19,600 oarsmen in the central imperial fleet [131* galleys]; 12,300 in the theme of the Cibyrrhaeots in the East Aegean-Asia Minor [say 82** galleys] and 2,300 in Hellas [15 galleys] (Treadgold, Army 1995: 67). Total, 200+ ships. (*) Calculated using 150 rowers as an average per ship; some ships were smaller and others larger. In the 10th century the largest dromons were crewed by 200 oarsmen. (**) The known number of ships captains (67) and pilots (134: two per ship) in the period AD 811-42 implies that the Cibyrrhaeots could deploy 67 ships, or an average of 184 crew per ship 150 rowers and 34 others: marines, officers, helmsmen etc (Army p.131). In State, 1997: 376, Treadgold argues there was no distinct central imperial fleet until the 870s. This seems unlikely since the position of the droungarios tou plomou, Drungary of the (Imperial) Fleet, first occurs in the so-called "Tacticon Uspensky" of ca. 842 (ODB: 663-64.) From three to five naval commands: In the mid to late 800s, the old Cibyrrhaeots was broken up into three commands: a reduced new Cibyrrhaeots with 5,700 rowers: say 38 ships; a fleet of Samos with 3,980 oarsmen: say 27 ships; and, after 843, a fleet of the Aegean Islands: Aigaion or Aiyaon Plaghos, based in the Dodecanese islands north of Crete: 2,610 rowers and say 17 ships. Aiyaon: when gamma () came between vowels, it was pronounced like y. More exactly, the Aiyaion Pelaghos had been one of several drungaries within the Cibyyrhaeot command; they were now (c.844) split and each part came under its own strategos. Despite its name, the fleet of the Aegean Sea was responsible not only for the lower central Aegean but also for the bottom half of the Sea of Marmara (Const. Porph., cited by Toynbee p.261). Adding the Imperial Fleet with 19,600 oarsmen and possibly 131 ships, and Hellas with 2,300 and about 15 ships, we have a total of perhaps 374 ships in about 875 (cf Treadgold Army p.67; also Toynbee p.261). Alternatively we can estimate the total number of ships using Treadgolds overall figure of 34,200 oarsmen in the navy in the period 899-959 (Army pp. 67, 197). As a thought-experiment, we can imagine that one quarter were allocated to large, less fast galleys (large khelandia or chelandia or transporter-combatants with a crew of 200), one-half to medium sized fast galleys (smaller chelandia or dromons proper, with a crew of 140) and one-quarter to small vessels (each with ousakioi or complements of 100 men). This yields: 43 large dromons; 122 medium-sized ships and 86 small ousakio-galleys: total 251. Records indicate that the number of regular navy ships was actually around 240 in 949 (Treadgold 1995: 85, note 94). In other words there were few ships of the largest type. They were presumably distributed about 70-30-20-10-10 between the Imperial Fleet, the Cibyrrhaeots, Samos, Hellas and the Aegean fleet.
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The largest naval force able to be dispatched by the empire in the period 8701000 was about "300" warships, a figure that included requisitioned private ships oared galleys with auxiliary sails - converted to combat status. This did not include non-combat transports, also requisitioned; they were often pure sailboats (Army 1995: 85n). Specifically, in a major naval attack on Egypt in 852-53, Byzantium was able to deploy three separate fleets totalling "300" vessels, which would have included a significant number of requisitioned private ships. Of the 300, 100 were marakib or larger galleys (Norwich 1991: 57; Dromon p.47, citing the Arab writer al-Tabari). The figure 300 is also given by Leo the Deacon for the year 971. Cf 855. Military Lands Held by Oarsmen In about AD 950 the value of the inalienable state lands held by oarsmen was only two pounds [litrae] of gold in the case of the central imperial fleet, as against four pounds worth in the territories of the naval themes (Toynbee p.284 citing Const. Porph.). This seems odd, but perhaps the salaries of the former were higher, as an offset. The location of the lands of the central fleets sailors is not known, but presumably somewhere on the littoral of the Sea of Marmara.
To sum up. In the 9th century, from Crete to Cyprus and Mesopotamia, the Rhomaioi went on the offensive. For a long time, however, their advances were met by Arab reconquests (AD 837-42, 927, 937), and there were more than a few debacles: eg Theophilus defeat by Mutasim in the 838, and reverses in Sicily.
842-867: MICHAEL III Known as Mythists or ho methystes, 'the Drunkard'. Also called the Amorian or Phrygian: regency under Empress THEODORA 842-856. Son of Theophilus, and born at Amorium in Phrygia, Michael was aged just two (or six according to some) when he assumed the throne; his mother Theodora was 27. In 855, aged 15, he was forced by his mother to marry a girl chosen in the traditional bride show, Eudocia Decapolitissa, and not his mistress Eudocia Ingerina who he would have preferred to marry. This prompted him to conspire with his mother's brother Bardas, and they forced Theodora to resign (856). Aside from leading an occasional army, Michaels main acts [were] to squander money and to approve the murders of Theoctistus [see 855] and Bardas [see 866] (Treadgold 1997: 455). 842: 1. Death of Theophilus, 20 January 842, from natural causes, aged about 39. His son Michael III succeeds. During his minority, the empire was governed by his mother Theodora, her uncle Sergios, and the minister Theoktistos. 2. The way to public life was probably opened for a young Photios - the future patriarch: born ca 820 - by, according to one account, the marriage of his brother Sergios to Irene, a sister of the Empress-regent Theodora. Photios became a captain of the guard and subsequently chief imperial secretary (protasekretis). At an uncertain date, Photios participated in an embassy to the Arabs. See 876. 3. South-central Asia Minor: Off Cape Chelidonia the Chelidonian Isles near
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Antalya, - Mustasim's great fleet of 400 ships, commanded by Aby Dinar [Ahmad ibn Dinar], sets out from Syria to capture New Rome (Constantinople) but is destroyed by a storm.(*) The fleet is said (- which may appear to be exaggerated but is probably credible) to have totalled "400" galleys. Only seven made it back to Syria (Vita of the Empress Theodora, cited by McCormick 2001: 920). Oddly - given that the storm was responsible - this Romanian (Byzantine) victory is listed by Pryor & Jeffreys (p.385) as one of the most notable naval victories achieved by the empire. Certainly it was a major setback for the Muslims. (*) All galleys rode low in the water; and so risked being swamped in heavy weather. For this reason, they always sailed close to land when possible, so that they could beach ashore during storms. 4. fl. George, the self-described Hamartolus [the sinner], monk and chronicler. His Chronicle, written in a popular and simple style, is a typical production of Byzantine monastic piety (Dudley & Lang p.193). The sections dealing with the distant past are unreliable but the chronicle is a contemporary source for the period 813-42. 5. Sicily: (5a) Assisted by Naples, their ally since 832, the Saracens capture Byzantine Messina 9842/43 is the date prefred by the NCMH 1995: 342). They call the city Msna (alt. dates 839; 843). The siege of Messina began at the end of 842 or beginning of 843 and lasted for two years. In these operations the Arabs were helped by their Neapolitan allies. Attacked by sea and land, the town had to capitulate to the Muslims. A fleet under Fadl ibn Jafar [Fadl bin Ja'far Hamdani], assisted by the Neapolitans, who for protection against the Duke of Benevento had allied themselves with the Arabs, attacked Messina, and after a long resistance took it by an unexpected attack from the land side. (5b) Saracens destroy Formia, the town between Rome and Naples. The surviving Italians escape to Gaeta (alt. date 846) (Skinner 2003: 37). (5c). Italy: Civil war: Radelchis, the Lombard-Italian prince of Benevento, was expelled by the Arab mercenaries he had engaged against his rival Sikonolf of Salerno. (The latter also employed Arab troops.) Beneventan Bari falls (841/42) to the Sicilian Muslims = foundation of the mini-emirate of Bari. Cf 846. In spite of Naples having helped Muslim forces take Bari in 841 and Messina shortly thereafter, Arab freebooters continued their interference with Neapolitan commerce and became intolerable. In 842 they landed at Ponza, an island off Gaeta. Naples now formed an alliance with Amalfi, Gaeta and Sorrento to defeat the Muslim pirates (slavers), forcing them to abandon Ponza (Kreutz p.25); and in 846 (see there) a united Campanian fleet was to help to thwart an Arab invasion of Rome. Cf 843. Amalfi and Gaeta, which 100 years earlier were only castra, basically defence posts, had by now grown to become substantial towns (Wickham p.149). In Francia or the 'Carolingian Empire', civil war ends. A treaty is signed between Hludwig (Louis) 'the German' and Charles 'the Bald', called the "Oath of Strasbourg" - the earliest documents in Old High German and Old French. The Byzantine economy was growing strongly by this time. Treadgold estimates that the Byzantine states revenues grew as follows: 775, Constantine V: Total state 1.9 million 842, Theophilos 3.1 959, Constantine VII 3.9
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 revenues: In millions of nomismata. Source: Treadgold 1995: 198.
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842-43: Sicily: The Saracens focus their attacks on the eastern side of the island. As noted earlier, Messina was now taken. This gave them control of the Strait of Messina. Because they also held Pantelleria (the island SW of Sicily) and largely controlled the waters south of Sicily - although not yet Malta, which remained an imperial outpost -, it became possible for them to prevent the Romanic fleet from entering the western Mediterranean (Ahmad p.12). 842-47: Italy: With Arab aid, Sikenolf of Salerno takes from Radelchis all the Beneventan lands except Benevento itself and Siponto on the Adriatic coast (Kreutz p.31). Cf 844: Gaeta. 843: 1. The regent Theodora calls a Church Council = final defeat of iconoclasm; and orthodoxy is re-established. On 11 March 843 the empress and the patriarch led a solemn procession of icons from the Blachenai palace to Hagia Sophia. The figure of Christ was thereafter restored on Romanic/Byzantine coins - by her son Michael III: see 867. After her husband's death, Theodora and her son took over the empire; she restored the display and veneration of icons; she ordered the recall of all exiles and the release of all who were in prison for their support for icons and ordered that they gather in Constantinople. At the assembled Council the restoration of icon veneration was proclaimed and the iconoclast patriarch John was deposed: PBW, citing Vita Mich. Sync. 25. 2. Fourth expedition to recover Crete: The island is briefly recaptured from the Muslims by an expedition under one of the four regents, the eunuch patrikios Theoctistus. He held the post of logothetes tou dromon or minister for communications and foreign affairs* (Dromon p.46; Norwich 1993: 57). See 855. Dating acc. to SL, Symeon the Logothete: Theoctistus made the expedition against Crete, 18 March-later in 843. Byzantium, after seeing a storm destroy in 842 (see there) a powerful Arab fleet rowing towards Constantinople (but which came from Syria and not from Crete), decided to attack Crete. The expedition took place in 843, and was led by the logothete Theoctistes. It resulted in a temporary occupation of Crete, but Theoctistes returned to Constantinople because of rumours spread by the Arabs of political intrigues in the capital, and, according to the continuator of Theophanes, the troops left in Crete were massacred by the Arabs. Others propose that in fact the Byzantines held on to the island for several years (Norwich 1993: 57). Treadgold, Army 1995: 32, says that the failure to hold Crete led (c.844) to the creation ofit was detached from the Cibyrrhaeot themea new naval theme of the Aegean Sea with 2,600 oarsmen and 400 marines, the latter called hoplites or kataphraktoi. Cf 851. The number of oarsmen was sufficient to man about five large galleys and 17 smaller dromons. (*) At various times there were different officials called logothete. (a) The Megas logothetes or Grand Logothete, the head of the logothetes, was personally responsible for the legal system and treasury, somewhat like a chancellor in
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western Europe. (b) The Logothetes tou dromou, lit. of the course, i.e. Postal Logothete, was the head of diplomacy and the postal service. (c) The Logothetes ton oikeiakon, the Household or Domestic Logothete was head of domestic affairs, such as the security of Constantinople and the local economy. (d) The Logothetes tou genikou or General Logothete was responsible for taxation. (e) The Logothetes tou stratiotikou or Military Logothete was a civilian in charge of distributing pay to the army; or so most scholars consider him: the ODB ii:1248 argues that this role is not proven. 3. Sicily: The Saracen general Al-Fadl* concluded a new alliance with the Neapolitans, in spite of the opposition of the Pope. The emir (Abu-lAghlab) decided to assault the town of Messina and called to his aid his Christian ally. As we saw earlier, the two armies collaborated in siege of Messina which fell to the Muslims after some months. (* ) Fadl b. Jafar, the war-leader of the 840s; not to be confused with his son Abbas b. Fadl, who became emir in 851. Cf 852. The West: Following the Oath of Strasbourg (see earlier), Charlemagnes grandsons divide the Frankish kingdom into three realms. See 887-88. 840s: Ruinous expenditure by the caliphs: At Samarra, the new Abbasid capital, Mutasims palace, the Jauaq al-Khaqani, built 836-42, was larger than latter-day Versailles; and al-Mutawakkils Great Mosque, 848-52, was the largest ever built (Hodges & Whitehouse 1983: 156). The minaret of the mosque is a vast spiralling cone 52-55 metres high with a spiral ramp. - The entire city was so vast that it extended (wait for it:) fully 35 km along the Tigris. - If we imagine that every km contained 15,000 people, then Samarra may have peaked at a total population of 525,000 people. The Caliphate: When the caliph al-Mutasim died in 843, some 8,000 slaves, who had been bought with silver, were freed. He also left 40,000 saddle horses and 20,000 baggage mules that were tended by 30,000 slave grooms. Michael the Syrian, Chronique, III, 104, IV, 543. 843/44: 1. Crete and Asia Minor: The Arabs defeated Theoctistus at Mauropotamum in NW Asia Minor in mid-843 or 844 probably at the end of 843, if we follow Symeon the Logothete (SL) (thus www.byzconf.org/1978abstracts). While Theoctistus was engaged on Crete, the emir of Melitene, Amr, set out to attack Constantinople. Theoctistus left his army on Crete and mustered another. He was defeated at Mauropotamum in the territory of the Optimates (the section of Asia Minor nearest to the capital), and Amr penetrated to the Bosporus. Meanwhile the Arabs of Crete managed to defeat the army left there (Treadgold 1997: 447). 2. Eastern Asia Minor: The Paulicians form a small kingdom, a splinter state under Arab protection. Theodora persecuted them, and it is claimed that during her shortish reign (regency 842-55/56) the Byzantine army put 100,000" Paulicians to death by the sword, the gibbet or the flames or by drowning. This figure, equivalent to 640 killed per month, cannot be believed: 10,000 would be a more plausible number. Presumably the dead included many non-Paulician iconoclasts. Cf 868. Among those killed in 843-44 was the father of the Senior Messenger or protomandator, Carbeas or Karbeas, an important official on the staff of the commander of the Anatolikon Theme (ODB 1991: 1107). Carbeas revolted and with 5,000 other Paulicians fled to Argaoun (SE of Sivas); from there they offered their services to Amr b. Abdullah al-Aqtar, the Emir of Melitene. By 856 they had moved to Tefrice (modern Divrigi) where they were effectively independent of Melitene, although Carbeas continued to cooperate with the Emir. Bernard Hamilton & Yuri Stoyanov, Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, C. 650-c. 1450, 1998: 22.
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Their new capital-town at Tefrik or Tephrice, present-day Divrigi, founded before 856, was located about halfway between Sivas and Malatya*; also halfway between Caesarea/Kayseri and Trebizond/Trabzond; or one-third along a line from Trebizond to Antioch. (*) To be exact: north of Malatya and SE of Sivas and nearer the latter. Divrigi lies on a western tributary of the upper Euphrates. 844: The Bulgarians strike a treaty with the Franks. Cf 846. The West: Viking pirates storm and sack Muslim Seville, the 3rd largest town in Iberia. This encouraged the Andalusis, after 844, to build up their naval forces The historian Ahmad al-Ya'qubi, writing in 843-844, tells of the attack on Ishbiliyya (Seville) by the "Majus who are called Rus [ar-Rus]". Ibn alQutiya, a 10th-century Cordoban historian (d. 977), wrote that the attackers were probably Danish pirates who had sailed up the Guadalquivir River. They were repelled by the Andalusian forces, who used catapults to hurl flaming balls of naptha that sank 30 ships. Amir 'Abd al-Rahman II then managed to arrange a truce. See 859. A Norse fleet of 80 markib, i.e. long boats, and other lesser vessels first sailed (rowed) up the estuary of the Tagus and assaulted Lisbon. Beaten off, they sailed south and then went up-river along the Guadalquivir to attack Seville, which lacked walls (25 September 844). The citadel held out but the Vikings controlled the town itself for six weeks, i.e. 40 days. Troops sent from Cordoba by emir Abd al-Rahman II defeated the Vikings, who were still in Seville. The Saracens captured and hanged some 500 Norsemen. Other prisoners survived, some becoming Muslims and dairy farmers! (Rolf Scheen, Viking Raids on the Spanish Peninsula [1996], online [2009] at revistas.ucm.es/amm/02148765/articulos/milt9696110067a.PD; Dromon p.43). 844: The kingdom of Scotland absorbs the kingdom of the Picts. c.845: 1. The restoration of learning: Photius, the future patriarch [from 858] writes his Bibliotheca, summaries of the nearly 400 books he has read. Only about half of these works have survived to the present day. Others date his Bibliotheca to before 845 or to after 845. Angold 2001: 127 proposes either 838 or 845. 2. Baghdad: d. the Arab scholar-translator al-Gawhari or al-Jawhari (al-'Abbas ibnSa'id al-Gawhari). He knew Greek so well that he had memorised books on logic in Greek and, it is said, could recite them by heart. His most important work was his Commentary on Euclid's Elements. It contained nearly 50 additional propositions and an attempted proof of the parallel postulate. 845: 1. Sicily: The Muslims pressed into the Val di Noto the south-east - and occupied Modica, the fortress on the crags above the river Magro: inland west of Noto; SW of Syracuse (Ahmad p.12). See 846-47. 2. Italy: The Saracens of the Bari emirate capture Byzantine Otranto, the port nearest to Greece*, and hold it until 867. Low point of Byzantine fortunes in the heel. Cf 867: recovered by Hludwig (Louis) II.
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(*) Otranto is very close to the easternmost point of the heel. From south to north, on the outside, the key Romanic towns of the heel of Italy were: Otranto, Brindisi and Bari. Although Constantinople sent several small and large expeditions to aid Sicily proper, it is very noticeable that no attempt was made to recapture Apulia, nor to aid Calabria, until the 870s, after Basil I assumed the throne. It was left to the North Italian monarch Hludwig (Louis) II to challenge the Muslims of Bari, while Calabria (governed from Sicily) was left to its own devices. Treadgold, 1995: 68, has suggested that in the 840s just 2,000 professional troops were stationed the theme of Sicily, with probably 1,000 based on either side of the straits of Messina. 3. Iraq: The martyrs of Amorion were 42 Greek officers and soldiers captured by the Arabs at Amorion in 838. Taken to Samarra, they were executed on 6 March 845 after seven years of imprisonment (ODB 2:800-801). The story, which is one of the last examples of collective martyrdom in Rhomaniyan hagiography, was very popular and is preserved in numerous versions. 4. Cilicia: Exchange of prisoners between the Eastern Muslims and the East Roman Empire. As related by Yaqubi and others, Byzantium held many more prisoners than the Muslims; so the latter had to buy Byzantine slaves locally to make up the numbers. The number of Muslims covered was about 3,500-3,560 men (probably mostly soldiers), 600-800 Muslim women and children, and 100500 dhimmis, i.e. Christian and Jewish subjects of the Caliphate (Toynbee 1973: 391). Among those ransomed was al-Jarmi, an army officer who had served on the Syrian frontier; his writings (now lost) on the Byzantines were used by the historian al-Masd (whose Tanbih was written in 956). Cf Gibbon: Abulpharagius [the 13th century Syriac bishop Gregory or Abu'l-Faraj or Bar-Hebraeus] relates one of these singular transactions on the bridge of the river Lamus [Lamas Su] in Cilicia, the limit of the two empires, and one days journey westward of Tarsus (dAnville, Gographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 91). Four thousand four hundred and sixty Moslems, 800 women and children, 100 confederates, were exchanged for an equal number of Greeks. They passed each other in the middle of the bridge, and, when they reached their respective friends, they shouted Allah Acbar [God is Great], and Kyrie Eleison [Praise the Lord]. 845/46: 1. The regent Theodora orders a Byzantine expedition sent to Sicily (Ahmad p.12). The troops, many of them battle-hardened men drawn from the far eastern cleisura (military district) of Charsianum, joined combat with the Arabs in the neighbourhood of the town of Butera in south-central Sicily; but they were beaten (845) by Abl Aghlabs men and suffered the loss, according to Arab chronicles, e.g. al-Athir, of more than 10,000 men (Bury, From the Fall p. 306) (the true figure would surely be nearer 1,000; after all, there were only 4,000 men on the rolls of the Charsianum cleisura). See 846-47: east coast. 2. Rome: A combined Sicilian-African Arab/Berber fleet forces a passage past the river-fortress at Ostia and sails (846) up the Tiber: 11,000 men and 500 horses in 73 ships (Partner 1972: 56). If the horse-transports carried 20 horses per ship, that represents 25 transport galleys* (plus 500 horse-handlers or grooms if each was crewed by, say, just 20 men). If we divide the remaining 10,500 men among 48 ships, we have on average 219 men per vessel. But they have to be rowed. Let us assume that each galley has 100 oarsmen (i.e. total of 4,800 rowers); that leaves 5,700 fighting men: soldiers and/or marines [500 cavalry; 5,200 infantry] quite a strong force and comparable to the Romanic expedition that liberated Crete in the 10 th century. Probably the oarsmen too were capable of fighting.
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(*) It is nearly impossible to beach vessels in the non-tidal Mediterranean without wrecking them. Thus pure sail boats might be used for carrying supplies but could not be used to bring horses to shore (Dromon p.307). The Saracens land, attack Civitavecchia and Nova Ostia (Osti) [23 August 1846], and march on Rome, where they sack the extra-mural suburbs, including the Vatican; it was located outside the ancient walls. But they failed to take the city proper. After defeating a papal force of Saxons, Frisians and Franks (soldiers on pilgrimage to Rome) in the countryside between Ostia and Rome, the Saracens reach the suburbs of Rome. The basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, located outside the city walls, are sacked [27 August 846]. The pirates or raiders, being unable to breach the antique Aurelian walls of Rome, depart and continue to advance inland as far as Subiaco, in the foothills of the Apennines east of Rome. They proceed thence south to Gaeta*, which they failed to take (Ahmad p.19). In this sequel, a Longobard-Italian army clashed with the Arabs at Gaeta. Guy of Spoleto found himself in serious difficulties, but the Greco-Italian troops of Cesarius or Cesare, son of Sergius, the magister militum (commander) in exByzantine Naples, arrived in time (846). (*) From north to south the major towns in the greater Naples region were: Gaeta; Capua (inland); Naples; Amalfi and Salerno. A new Leonine Wall with 44 or 46 towers was built thereafter, in 847/48-52, by Pope Leo IV. The western extension around old St Peter's Basilica was the first extension of the city since Antiquity. Cf 848, 859. The Slave Trade 846: Approximate date that Abu'l Qasim Ubaid'Allah ibn Khordadbeh began his Kitab al-Masalik wal-Mamalik or Book of Roads and Kingdoms. He was the Director of Posts and Police (spymaster and postman) for the province of Jibal [western Iran, Media] under the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tamid (ruled 869885). The final version dates to later. He writes thus of the Radhaniyya or Jewish merchants who traded west-east and east-west from Francia to China. In the Mediterranean sphere their principal cargo was slaves for the Muslim lands, but they also traded in other low weight, high value goods: They journey from West to East, from East to West, partly on land, partly by sea. They transport from the West eunuchs, female slaves, boys [young slaves of both sexes], silk brocade, castor, marten [sable] and other furs, and swords [sabres]. They take ship from Firanja (Francia), on the Western Sea [Mediterranean], and make for Farama (Pelusium) [in Egypt]. . Some make sail for [make a detour through] Constantinople to sell their goods to the Rumi [Byzantines]; others go to the palace of [the land of] the King of the Franks to place their goods. Sometimes these Jew merchants, when embarking from the land of the Franks, on the Western Sea, make for Antioch (at the head of the Orontes River); thence by land to al-Jabia (alHanaya on the bank of the Euphrates), . Sometimes, also, they take the route behind Rum [i.e. down the Danube] and, passing through the country of the Slavs, arrive at Khamlidj, the capital of the Khazars. . . . [in square brackets, an alternative translation in the Encyc. Islam, quoted by Rotman p.67]. Slaves were their special merchandise, but not the only one. They also carried luxury goods such as precious fabrics and pearls. They dealt only in imported slaves, i.e. selling non-Christian slaves in the west and non-Muslim slaves in the east. Most captives came from central and eastern Europe, i.e. Moravia and the Balkans (Rotman p.68). The circuitous routes to and from the Levant were chosen in part to avoid or minimize the taxes* imposed by the Byzantine authorities
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(Rotman pp.68, 74). Ibn Khordadhbih also mentions Russian merchants operating on all sides of the Black Sea; they too were slavers. Both the Byzantines and Khazars taxed* them (Rotman p.77-78). (*) In the 800s the tax on an imported slave passing through the empire was two nomismata, equivalent to 20% of the value of a slave sold in the markets of Constantinople (Rotman p.199: conceivably the value of a slave sold in the Muslim East was higher: it cost up to 30 nom. to ransom an adult male Byzantine from the Arabs). 846-47: Eastern Sicily: Under Fadl b. Jafar, the conqueror of Messina, the Sicilian Arabs continued their advance, and in 846/847 they arrived in strength at Leontinos (Lentini), between Catania and Syracuse, and occupied it. There would be many setbacks for imperial arms in the following years. Cf below, 847, 848. 846-52: Naples: After the consul Sergius of Naples drove the Saracens from the island of Ponza in 842, his son Caesarius, in 846, as we have seen, went to the assistance of pope Leo IV against the same foe, and in 852 freed Gaeta; but to save their commerce, the Neapolitans thereafter again allied themselves with the Muslims (Cath. Encyc. under Naples). Cf 848. 846-60: It was in this period that the pagan Bulgarians began to dominate Rhomaniyan outer Macedonia. The chronology is unclear, but probably they penetrated into outer Macedonia - Skopje and the upper Vardar valley - by 860, as by the 880s they ruled as far west as Ohrid on the border of present-day Albania. This development is poorly recorded and the loss of these regions was not formally recognised by Constantinople until the treaty of 904 (Fine 1991: 111). 847: Low ebb in the Byzantine West: The caliph finally recognizes the small state formed by Sicilian Muslims at the small town of Bari on the upper back heel of Italy. See 848, 868, 871. It had fallen into Muslim hands in 841. The Emirate, or better: mini-emirate, of Bari endured until 871 (Kreutz 1996: 32). The German-Italian king Hludwig (Ludovicus: French/English Louis) later in the year tried, but failed, to re-take Bari for Christendom. The accounts of his campaign in Apulia are obscure but he returned to his base at Benevento by May 848 (ibid.) The monk Erigena arrived at the Frankish court: the Irish-born scholastic philosopher, c.810c.877. About 847 he was invited by Charles II, king of the West Franks - later Western "emperor, - to take charge of the court school at Paris. The tag "Holy Roman Empire" is sometimes applied retrospectively; in fact this name does not appear in official documents until 1254. 847-52: Francia: Production of forged papal canons nowadays known as the 'pseudo-Isidoric decretals': origin of the much later doctrine "Papa caput totius mundus" ('the Pope is head of the entire world'). They were used as a prop for local bishops in the Frankish empire seeking to assert their independence against their archbishops and the secular power of the Western emperor.
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847 or 849: 1. Iraq: On the orders of Al-Mutawakkil, 847-861, workmen begin building the the great spiral mosque at the (since 836) new capital Samarra. It will become, and remain, the largest mosque in the world. But it was abandoned when the court returned to Baghdad in later years (882). 2. fl. al-Khwarizmi (Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi), c.780-c.850, astronomer at the Baghdad House of Wisdom. Called the father of algebra. 847-48: Sicily: The Byzantines made an unsuccessful attempt to land in the Muslim heartland at the bay of Mondello, 13 km from Palermo (Ahmad p.12). Rodriquez places this in 849: see there for more on this. 847-58: Niketas, eunuch son of the late emperor Michael I, was Patriarch of Constantinople 847-858 and again in 866-877 as Ignatios. Ignatius (Niketas) had been castrated and tonsured in 813, when his father fell from power in 813. Canonised; born 799 or c.797, died 877. 847-861: Reign of caliph al-Mutawakkil, who abandoned the caliphal attempt to prescribe theological orthodoxy through Mu'tazilism (*), and gave support to Ahl al-Hadith (**) piety; persecuted the Shi'ites; first caliph to be murdered by his Turkish soldier corps. (*) The school promoting a synthesis between reason and revelation. For example, if a contradiction results from adopting the literal meaning, such as a literal understanding of the "hand" of God that contravenes His transcendence and the Qur'an mention of His categorical difference from all other things, then Mu'tazilis say an interpretation is warranted. Other streams in Islam criticise the Mu'tazilis for supposedly giving absolute authority to extra-Islamic paradigms. (**) Ahl al-Hadith scholars in Islam pay relatively greater importance to 'traditions' than to other sources of Islamic doctrine such as qiyas (legal precedents), and tend to interpret the traditions more literally and rigorously. 847-71: Italy: Autonomous emirate at Bari. A mosque was constructed on the site of the cathedral. See 850. 848: Severe famine in Sicily: Probably because of this, Ragusa-in-Sicily* - in the SE: inland from Noto - surrendered to the Saracens. The walls of the city (read: fortress-village) were razed to the ground (Ahmad p.12). * Not to be confused with Dalmatian Ragusa (Dubrovnik). 848-49: Failure of a Romanian (Byzantine) offensive against the Arabs in Sicily. See 849.iii. 849: 1. N Italy: Saracens plunder the port-villages of Luni in Liguria and Capo Teulada on Byzantine Sardinia. Africa, Spain or Sicily?-Luni-Provence. Arab raiders plundered the Italian coast from Luni to Provence: McCormcok 2001: 925, citing the Annales Bertiniani. 2. Italy: A small Greco-Italian fleet defeats the Saracens off Ostia.
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It was rumoured that a further great Muslim fleet was being formed to attack Rome from Sardinia. Prompted by the pope, a league was constituted among the Greek maritime cities of the South: Amalfi, Gaeta and Naples gathered their fleets to the mouth of the river Tiber near Ostia, the port of Rome. When the Arab ships appeared on the horizon, the Italian fleet, led by Cesarius, son of the GrecoItalian commander at Naples, attacked. Midway through the engagement, a storm divided the enemies and the Christian ships managed to return to port. The Muslims, however, were scattered far and wide, with many ships lost and others sent ashore. When the storm died down, the remnants of the Arab fleet were easily picked off, with many prisoners taken. The survivors were made prisoners (slaves) and they contributed with their work to the reconstruction of what they had destroyed three years before, i.e. building in the area Romes Leonine Walls, built (849-52) to surround the Vatican. Todays these walls constitute the western and southern boundaries of Vatican City. The wall was 40 feet or 12 metres high, 12 feet [3.5m] thick, and had 44 or 46 or 54 towers at bowshot intervals. 3. Sicily (or earlier in 847-48): The Byzantines tried a surprise landing in the bay of Mondello, 13 km from Palermo. With the aid of 10 chelandia [large warships or combat-transport galleys] they began a disembarkation but the troops became disoriented and had to return to the boats. On their return a storm surprised the squadron and sank seven vessels (thus Rodriquez). 4. (or 850:) Hludwig (Louis)) brokers a peace treaty between Benevento and Salerno and departs for the north. Bari, Brindisi and Taranto, the erstwhile Rhomaniyan or ex-Byzantine port towns in Apulia, although in reality held by the Arabs, were notionally allocated to the two Italian lords: Benevento claimed Bari and Brindisi, while Salerno claimed Taranto (Kreutz p.33). Cf 850, 852. Byzantine dominion in Italy was at a low ebb: the emperor controlled just a few towns in Calabria and lower Apulia. Several Arab warlords controlled most of the toe and heel. Cf 850. 849-50: 1. Sicily: The Saracens penetrate (850) the outer residential section, but not the inner citadel, of Castro-janni (modern Enna), the long enduring Byzantine provincial capital. After setting the houses to fire, they return to Palermo (Ahmad p.12). 2. Iraq: Caliph al-Mutawakkil deposes the Nestorian patriarch and institutes a persecution of Christians. 849-52: N of Baghdad: Building of the great Mosque of Samarra. by 850: The pagan Bulgars were now thoroughly slavicised, speaking a Slavonic language. The ruling caste originally spoke a Turkic languages, but in the two centuries to 850 this was replaced by the local Slavic dialect. c.850: 1. In Hagia Sophia: new post-iconoclastic mosaics, e.g. that of an angel (picture in Fossier p.324). 2. Central Asia Minor: Ancyra is re-fortified, signalling the early re-emergence of urban life in Christian Anatolia. Economic plateau in the Caliphate: The total annual revenues of the Muslim Khalifate were probably 300 million dirhams [silver coins of 2.97 gms] by AD 850, down from nearly 400 million around 750. With the break-up of the Islamic Empire, the revenues would fall to about 210 million dirhams in 919 (Fossier p.225).
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850: Italy: Four Saracen columns departed from Taranto and Bari to sack Campania, Lombard Apulia, Byzantine Calabria and Abruzzi. They were allied with Christian Benevento. As always the main purpose was to capture slaves (Kreutz p.53; Whittow p.306). Cf 851. 850-51: Constantine-Cyril, the future missionary: At the end of 850 or at the beginning of 851 he was appointed teacher at the so-called university (high school) in Constantinople. There he joined, as a colleague, Photios and Leo the Philosopher, his former teachers. 850-51: First Viking wintering in Britain. They will conquer East Anglia in 869-70. 851: Italy: The western Emperor Hludwig (Louis) II forced a peace on Radelchis of Benevento and Siconulf of Salerno and expelled the Saracen mercenaries from Benevento (warriors from the Emirate of Bari, who Radelchis happily betrayed). He divided the principality permanently. Salerno vs the Germans: With the assistance of the Saracens and with the spoils of the churches, Siconulfus of Salerno defended his independence, which was confirmed in 851 by Hludwig (Louis) II, to whom the prince had sworn allegiance. The chief towns of the principality of Salerno were (ex-Byzantine) Taranto, Cassano, Cosenza, Paestum, Conza, Salerno, Sarno, Cimitile (Nola), Capua, Teano and Sora. To the east, Bari was in still in Arab hands. Cf next and 854. 851-52: 1. Italy: The Saracen pirates (slavers) of Bari ravaged Greek Calabria and threatened Latin Benevento and Salerno (Ahmad p.19). Cf 858. 2. Armenia: In A.H. 237, AD 851-852, the Armenians rebelled and defeated and killed the Abbasid governor. The caliph Al-Mutawakkil sent his general Bugha [Bugha al-Kabir al-Sharabi] to deal with them. Bugha scored successes, and the following year attacked and burned insurgent Tiflis, capturing Ishaq ibn Isma'il. The rebel leader was executed (Tabari, trans. Kraemer p.122). The new army of the Caliphate, with its lite corps of mounted archers, proved extremely effective. In Egypt, which had seen unrest and chaos, the authority of the caliphate was restored. On the frontiers it [had] proved a match for the Byzantine defenders of Amorion [see above: 838], and in Armenia the Turkish soldiers led by Bugha the Elder in the campaign of 237/851-52 exerted the authority of the caliphs with a thoroughness that had never been achieved before and lingered long in the memories of the peoples of the area. Kennedy, Decline and Fall of the First Muslim Empire, at www.degruyter.de/journals/islam/2004/pdf/81_3.pdf. 851-54: Egypt: Arab land raids into Anatolia from Cilicia are answered by a major Romanic naval attack on the port-town of Damietta in 852/53 (Shaban p.77; Kennedy 2008: 337 dates it to the early summer of 853, i.e. at the end of Ramadan; McCormick 2001: 928 says 22 May 853). Norwich 1993: 57 describes the attack as the most daringly aggressive naval or military operation since the beginning of the Muslim invasions. The Arab writer al-Tabari says that Byzantium was able to deploy "300" vessels, which would have included some requisitioned private ships, in three separate fleets. Of the 300, 100 were large and small galleys: marakib and/or shalandriya carrying between 50 and 100 men (Kennedy p.338; Norwich 1993: 57; and
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Dromon p.47). Cf 855. 852-53: The Byzantines made a descent on Egypt with 300 vessels. Anbasa the governor had ordered the garrison of [the port of] Damietta [Ar. Dimyat] to parade at the capital Fustat [present-day Cairo]. The denuded town was taken, plundered and burned. The Greeks then destroyed all the fortifications at the mouth of the Nile near Tinnis, and returned with prisoners [Tabari says 600 Copt and Muslim women] and booty (1911 ed. of Encyc. Brit. under Caliphate; also Kennedy loc. cit.). Yaqubi, cited by McCormick 2001, says that 85 ships landed at Damietta, the rest of the ships presumbbaly attacking elsewhere; the captives numbered 2,920, i.e. 1,820 Muslim women, 1,000 Copts and 100 Jewish women. At 34 women per ship this sounds plausible. 851-59: Cordoba: Spanish Christians are persecuted following a public slander of Islam. 851-67: In Francia: fl. the Irish-born monk and philosopher, John Scotus Eriugena, the only Carolingian scholar who demonstrably had a genuine reading knowledge of Greek. Anastasius, the Vatican librarian of the day, marvelled at the fact that this barbarian (vir barbarus) from a remote land knew Greek. (It is not known whether he acquired his knowledge of Greek in Ireland or in Francia.) Soon after completing his translation of Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 862),a tetx given to the court of Louis the Pious by the Greek Emperor Michael in 827 he went on to translate other Greek Christian texts, including Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opificio, under the title of De imagine, which provided Eriugena with an account of human nature as an image of the divine, and possibly Epiphanius Anchoratus. De Fide. A number of interesting poems survive which show the breadth of Eriugena's learning; but also portray him as a courtier quite well versed in political affairs. Some poems are written specifically in praise of the king, including an important poem, Aulae sidereae [Starry Halls] which appears to celebrate the dedication of Charles the Bald's new church in Compigne on 1 May 875. The poems show Eriugena's fascination with Greek, indeed some poems are written entirely in Greek. 852: 1. N Sicily: The emir Abbas [Abu'l-Aghlab Abbas ibn Fadl ibn Ya'qub ibn Fezara] raided Caltavuturo, a strategically important fort inland from Cefalu, and took many prisoners (slaves) (Ahmad p.13; Metcalfe 2009: 14). 2. Bulgaria: acc. khan Boris: see 864. Boris was to greatly expand Bulgarian rule across the Balkans Western Black Sea coast: The regency government of Theodora, in order to have peace in the northern frontier, made some concessions to the Bulgarians. Thus, soon after 852, when Boris succeeded to the throne in Bulgaria, he received from the Rhomaniyans a belt of territory some 25 miles [40 km] wide, south of the old frontier of Thrace, including the ruined coastal fortresses of Develtos and Anchialos. The Bulgarians were also beginning to dominate outer Macedonia (Skopje and the upper Vardar valley), possibly from as early as 846. As we noted earlier, the chronology is unclear but probably they had established their rule over the Slavic sector of Macedonia by 860, as by the 880s they would be ruling as far west as Ohrid on the border of present-day Albania. This development is poorly recorded and the loss of these regions was not formally recognised by Constantinople until the treaty of 904 (Fine 1991: 111). 3. Turkish invasion of Abbasid-controlled Armenia. See 855. 4. Puglia: Responding to aggression by the emirate of Bari, the Frankish king of N Italy, Hludwig (Louis) II [Ludovicus, Ludwig] he will become western emperor on the death of his father in 855rides to the south, but again he fails to take the
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fortress-town (Kreutz p.37, Whittow p.307). Louis campaigned against Bari in 852, 867, 869, and possibly in 847 and 866 as well, but he only took the town in 871. 5. The first written mention of Croats by that name dates from 852, in a statute (inscrption) by Duke Trpimir, the founder of the Trpimirovich ruling dynasty (Curta p.140). The country was not formally recognized by the papacy as an independent dukedom until Pope John VIIIs protg Branimir conducted a coup detat in 879: dux Chroatorum. See 868: Byzantine Dalmatia. 852-53: E Sicily: The Saracens under Abbas ibn al-Fad' raid in the neighbourhoods of the Byzantine towns of Catania, Syracuse and Noto (Ahmad p.13; also Rodriquez). Catania is on the mid-east coast; Syracuse and Noto lie further south, Noto being not far from the corner-point of the island in the SE. Then Abbas besieges (853) Butera - inland in the central south: east of Agrigento, NE of Licata - for five months and takes a large number of prisoners (6,000 or 5,000), who were enslaved. Such slaves were taken to work as agricultural labourers in the Val di Mazara, the west of Sicily (Ahmad p.13). Cf 854. From 853: Italy: The Berber ruler of Bari, al-Mufarraj bin Sallam, occupied 48 fortresses (read: walled villages) in Apulia and raided the territory of Naples. But the Byzantines and Venetians remained dominant in the inner Adriatic; there were no major Arab naval incursions there between 841 and 866 (Ahmad pp.18-19). Cf al-Baladhuri: After Khalfun there arose one called al-Mufarraj ibn-Sallam who conquered and brought under his control 24 [sic] forts. He then forwarded the news of the situation to the Master of the Post in Egypt, and told him that he and his followers could conduct no [public] prayer unless the imam confirms him over his district and makes him its ruler, so that he may not be included in the category of usurpers. Al-Mufarraj erected [at Bari] a cathedral-mosque. Finally his men rose up against him and killed him. Baladhuri, online (2008) at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/the_origins_of_the_islamic_state. 854: 1. Sicily: The Saracens took Butera near the south coast, not far from Licata; but another source informs us that they besieged the strong place five months and departed at last, being bribed to give up the attempt by the surrender of 6,000 of the inhabitants as slaves. Crawford 1900: 76. 2. Italy: Departing from Taranto, an Arab raid, led by the Sicilian governor Abbasibn-Faid [Abu'l-Aghlab Abbas ibn Fadl ibn Ya'qub ibn Fezara], sacked villages in the Longobard principality of Salerno. 854: MID-POINT IN THE REIGN OF MICHAEL III; also midpoint in the struggle for Sicily: Palermo was lost to the Saracens in 831 and Syracuse in 878. 855: 1.Constantinople: The emperors uncle, Bardas the Caesar - Theodoras brother -, ousts Theodora from the regency and sends her (857) to a nunnery. The logothetes tou dromon or minister for communications and foreign affairs, Theoctistus, is killed by Bardas with the concurrence of Michael (aged 15), who in theory assumes sole rule in 856. Cf 859. Day-to-day rule was in the hands of Bardas. Among the offices he held was that of domestic of the Scholae or army commander. Bardas brother Petronas became strategus of the Thracesian theme [west-central Asia Minor] (Treadgold, State p.450). On coming of age, Michael entrusts the government to his capable uncle, Bardas, whose administration (85666) will be marked by the missions of saints
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Cyril [Constantine*] and Methodius to the Slavs and by the conversion of Tsar Boris I of Bulgaria. Michael's minority had seen the final overthrow of iconoclasm by his mother [843] and a severe persecution of the heretic Paulicians.
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(*) Born Constantine, he assumed the name Cyril when he became a monk in 869. Paulicians The Paulicians were a sect of very unorthodox Christians. Constantine of Mananalis, calling himself Silvanus, founded what appears to have been the first Paulician community at Kibossa, near Colonia (Koloneia) in western Armenia. He began to teach about 657. He wrote no books and taught that the New Testament, as he presented it, should be the only text used by his followers. After preaching for 27 years and having spread his sect into the western part of Asia Minor, he was arrested by the Imperial authorities, tried for heresy and stoned to death. The Paulicians believed in a plurality of Gods: the cardinal point of the Paulician heresy is a distinction between the God who made and governs the material world and the God of heaven who created souls, who alone should be adored. They held all matter to be bad; rejected the Old Testament; denied the Incarnation; held Christ to be an angel, and his real mother the heavenly Jerusalem: taught that faith in Christ saves from judgment; denied the sacraments and apparently believed in the transmigration of souls; condemned all exterior forms of religion and refused to honour the Cross since they maintained that Christ had not been crucified. They were Iconoclasts, rejecting all pictures (Cath. Encyc., Paulicians). See 855-56: Karbeas. Overview of Michaels Later Reign a. This whole period is difficult to evaluate due to the distortion of the Macedonian historians - historians who wrote under and for the benefit of the subsequent Macedonian dynasty. b. Under the command of Petronas, Michaels uncle, and the personal leadership of Michael, the East Roman army made good progress against the Arabs in the East. Cf below: 855 ff and 863. c. The period also witnessed important cultural developments. c-i. The re-founding of the University, or better: high school in the Palace of the Magnavra or Magnaura, the palace used for the formal reception of foreign dignitaries (Jenkins, Imperial Centuries p.164). The Magnaura was located in the south-east quadrant of the complex of buildings that made up the imperial palace. Leo the Mathematician, aged about 65 in 855, nephew of John Grammatikos, was named head of the University. Born in Thessaly, Leo was for a period Metropolitan [senior bishop] of Thessalonica. The historian Michael Glykas (fl. 1159) says Leo was responsible for the mechanical constructions depicting Solomons throne, singing birds and roaring lions. Moved by means of compressed air, these automata were demonstrated in a room of the Magnaura palace. He also updated and sytematised the fire-beacon system by which signals were relayed from the Cilician frontier to the capital. For more on this, see above under AD 836. c-ii. Constantinople re-emerged as a cultural and artistic centre with a splendour it had not experienced since the time of Justinian I.
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c-iii. The revival of Hellenistic cultural and scientific traditions was characteristic of the age, evidently stimulated by a jealous interest in the Caliphate's preoccupation with ancient Greek science. 2. Armenia: The caliph attempts to restore control: a large Turkish-led army lays waste (852) but is stopped by the Armenian prince Bagrat in Georgia with Romaic aid (855). See 885. 855: East Frankish empire: Upon Lothar's death, Francia Media, the territory of the Middle Franks, is divided among his three sons. Hludwig (Louis) II receives northern Italy and the Imperial crown, Charles receives Burgundy, and Lothar II the remainder, i.e. the Rhine corridor from Burgundy up to the North Sea: hence Lotharingia. Hludwig (Louis)'s title of emperor has little meaning since he rules only in northern Italy, and even there his reign is constantly challenged by independent Lombard dukes and by the Arab invaders of Southern Italy. He supports his brother Lothar II, king of Lotharingia, in a dispute with the Pope, and briefly (864) occupies Rome. He subsequently submits to the Pope. He also unsuccessfully tries to claim Lotharingia after Lothar's death. 855-56: Asia: The Paulicians fight alongside the Arabs. Their leader Karbeas, an ethnic Greek, had been a protomandator or chief herald serving (in 843 or 844) in the Byzantine army under the strategos of the Anatolikoi, Theodotus: Theoph. Cont. IV.16. He was a convinced Paulician and decided to desert after his own father was killed (impaled*) during the attacks on the Paulicians ordered by the empress Theodora. (*) Impaling (Gk anskolopismos) means being tied up and exposed on a forked stake, and not having the stake inserted into or through ones body (Notes to Leo the Deacon, trans. Talbot & Sullivan p. 216). With 5,000 Paulician followers, he deserted (843/44) to the Arabs, visiting first Amr [Umar al-Aqta], the emir of Melitene, and then the caliph, receiving a warm welcome (ODB: 1107). Thereafter his followers conducted warfare against the East Romans with enough success to attract many more followers, for whom he founded settlements at Argaoun or Arguvan, north of Melitene, and Amara [modern akrsu] also near Melitene, and then, as their numbers still grew, at Tephrike, further N of Melitene. Karbeas is said to have been the founder of Tephrike: Theoph. Contin. IV 23. In conjunction with Amr of Melitene and Ali of Tarsus [Ali ibn Yahya al-Armani] he continued to raid the Roman empire; later he and Amr joined forces and met the East Romans in battle under the emperors uncle Petronas: thus Theoph. Cont. IV 16, and Scylitzes. In c. 856 he fought with distinction at Samosata when an East Roman army under the emperor Michael was routed while laying siege to the city; he took a number of senior officers captive, later releasing them on payment of a ransom (PBW under Karbeas). PBW: About the time when the emperor Michael III reached manhood, and after the overthrow of his mother Theodora by Bardas, an expedition was mounted against the Arabs of Amr of Melitene (in c. 856; or 859); this ended with the siege of Samosata when the Romans were surprised and routed by an attack in which Karbeas played a prominent role. During the following year when Michael supposedly led a large army to seek revenge, Amr marched against him and they joined battle at a place called Anzen or Danzimon near Tokat, NW of our Sivas, where the Arabs threatened the emperor and Michael was allegedly rescued from capture only through the leadership and bravery of a man called Manuel. Amr finally gave the signal to withdraw, being short of fodder* and water: Theoph. Cont. IV 24.
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(*) Although Arab (likewise Byzantine) army mounts would gain some sustenance from free grazing while on the march, they basically were stallfed with grain, hay and/or cut grass (Pryor 2006: 15). ca. 855-56 (or 859): The emperor's uncle Bardas sets up a school, miscalled a university, in the Magnaura palace: Leo the Mathematician taught philosophy while three others taught geometry, astronomy and grammar (Treadgold 1997: 447). Various dates are offered, from 848 to 859. It was formed permanently in or some time after 843 when Leo was called back from Thessalonica to Constantinople. Symeon the Logothete has Leo first teaching at the Magnauara during 838-40, before he took up the post of Metropolitan of Thessalonica. 855-57: Increasingly fond of his uncle Bardas, Michael invested him as kaisar (Caesar: deputy emperor) and allowed him to murder the co-regent and logothete of the dromos, the eunuch Theoctistus, in November 855. Then, with Bardas' support, as we have said, Michael III overthrew the regency on 15 March 856, and relegated his mother and sisters to a monastery in 857 (Norwich, Apogee 1993). 856: 1. The Pact which the Venetians had first made with Lothair of Francia in 840 was renewed with Hludwig (Louis) II in 856 and with Charles III in 880. Unlike Byzantium, the Franks accepted that Venice was free to act as an independent power (Nicol 1992: 33). 2. When the Regent Theodora was relegated to a nunnery, 14 years after the death of Theophilus, there were said to be 109,000 lbs [litrae] of gold in the treasury: 72 nomismata made up one lb of gold, hence 7.8 million nomismata (Genesius and Theophanes Cont., cited by Bury, From the Fall of Irene p.231). This may have helped to finance the wars of Michaels reign (cf 863, below). 855-63: Rhomaioi successes in the East: further naval raid on Egypt, and land offensives in Armenia and Mesopotamia. In 856, the general Petronas raids as far as Amida, modern Diyarbakir, in far eastern Turkey as it now is: on the far Upper Tigris beyond Malatya, farther into Arab territory than any Byzantine commander since the 7th century (Treadgold, 1997: 451). Cf 860, 863. Treadgold 1995: 34 argues that it was due to Theophilus's reform of the army in about 840 that internal military rebellions virtually ended and practically all of the empire's territory became secure from raids. Cf 863. 856: Exchange of prisoners between the Eastern Muslims and the East Roman Empire. As related by Masudi and others, the Byzantines had 20,000 Muslims in hand. In the exchange, the Caliphate got back only some 2,200 people, nearly all men, the rest being left unransomed (Toynbee 1973: 391). See 860. 856-62: Frequent Saracen raids on and in southern Italy. On the one side the Christians faced the Muslims of western Sicily; and on the other the Berber emirate of Apulia (Bari). Cf 858 and 860. 856: ITALY: MIDPOINT IN THE MUSLIM EMIRATE OF BARI 856-63: The East: Michael III took an active part in the wars against the Abbasids and their
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vassals on the Eastern frontiers in 856863, especially in 857 when he sent an army of 50,000 men against the Emir of Melitene (Wikipedia 2010: Michael III). In 859 (see there) he personally besieged Samosata, but in 860 he had to abandon his expedition to repel a Rus' attack on Constantinople. Michael was defeated by the Caliph al-Mutawakkil at Dazimon in 860, but in 863 (see there) his uncle Petronas defeated the amir of Melitene and celebrated a triumph in the capital. ca. 857: First appearance in the historical record of Basil, the Armenian peasant and stable-attendant (born in Macedonia of Armenian parents), who will eventually become emperor. He will be appointed, first, the head of the imperial stables (857), and later grand chamberlain. One of Basil's early patrons (before 857) was the wealthy widow Danielis from the Peloponnesus. She had made her fortune raising sheep and using her slaves to weave wool into clothing and rugs. See below. She is depicted in the 11th century text the "Madrid Skylitzes" (Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional) being carried in a high flat sedan-chair or litter by her slaves. The latter wear knee-length tunics and very clearly drawn calf-high boots. This dates to after Basils accession in 867. (NB: The Skylitzes MS was executed centuries later and so may not reflect clothing styles of the 9th century.) Evidence of large estates in the outer provinces Danielis of Patras is described as owning no small part of the Peloponnesus. She visited Constantinople on several occasions, carried overland in a litter by 300 vigorous young slaves who worked in relays. She sought from Basil honours and spiritual favours that would ensure future privileges such as the appointment of her son as a protospatharios (a high court title or rank). Basil's Life pays great attention to Danielis' rich array of gifts - most notably the locally produced linen and woollen fabrics. The gifts which a rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus presented to the emperor Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern which imitated the spots of a peacocks tail, of a magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple name of Christ, of Michael the archangel, and of the prophet Elijah. She gave 600 pieces of silk and linen, of various use and denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye [i.e. imperial purple], and adorned by the labours of the needle; and the linen was so exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane (Gibbon). She owned lands exceeding any private fortune and barely inferior to that of a ruler, which comprised 80 rural estates or domains (proasteia) and over 3,000 slaves, i.e. an average of 375 slaves per domain. On one visit she brought 300 or 500 beautiful male slaves (of whom fully 100 were eunuchs) as a present to Basil I, and when she died 3,000 were given their freedom by Leo VI, acc. 886, to whom they were bequeathed, and sent as soldiers to Italy. Rotman p.129 regards the number of her slaves as unlikely and Harvey p.32 agrees: difficult to believe. This was barely half a century after the Peloponnesus had been recovered from independent Slav tribes and made into a theme (c.810). Danielis was already a grandmother at this time, implying that her father or husband came into this fortune in the years after 810, when we would expect soldier-farmers to be the dominant landholders in that region (Mango 1980: 48, quoting Theophanes Continuatus). 857: 1. Michael had his mistress Eudocia Ingerina married to one of his cousins, a son of his uncle Bardas. Following the death of this husband, Bardas began to live in incest with his new daughter-in-law, or so it was rumoured, and because of that the Patriarch Ignatius (846-57) refused him Holy Communion on the Epiphany of 857. Leo Grammaticus 240; Pseudo-Symeon 667; cited by Garland and Tougher,
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Eudocia Ingerina at http://www.roman-emperors.org/eudinger.htm--n_26_; accessed 2008.
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2. d. Yuhanna ibn Masawayh, physician to the caliphs, was a Baghdad-based Christian (Nestorian) Assyrian translator of Greek writings - from Greek into Syriac and Arabic - on medicine, astrology and pharmacy. Died in Samarra. His name was later rendered as Mesue by West European students. 857-58: Eastern Sicily: The Saracens again ravaged the areas close to imperial Syracuse, Taormina and other towns (Ahmad p.13). 858: 1. PBW: The empress dowager Theodora and her daughters were ordered by Michael - now aged 18 or 22 - to be imprisoned in the palace of Karianos and tonsured, i.e. forced to become nuns. This took place apparently in the aftermath of the Gebon* affair: Nicetas, Vita Ignatii 505B. According to the version in Theophanes Continuatus and Skylitzes, the empress was overthrown when on a visit to the church and baths at Blachernai; her brother Petronas, sent by Michael and Bardas, seized her and they had her tonsured with her daughters and confined in the palace of Karianos; their property was confiscated and they were only allowed to live as private citizens. (*) PBW: Gebon was epileptic and mentally unstable; he arrived in Constantinople in 858 from Dyrrachion dressed in clerical garb and claiming to be a son of the empress Theodora by a man other than her husband, the late emperor. Some of the populace of Constantinople supported his supposed claim to the throne , and the authorities had him transferred to safe custody on the island of Oxeia; when soon afterwards the patriarch Ignatios was deposed and exiled, Gebon was transferred to the island of Prinkipo, his arms and legs were broken, his eyes were put out and he was killed. This was supposedly an act of revenge on the patriarch Ignatios, whose opposition to the emperor's wishes had earlier been condemned by Bardas as evidence of support for the claims of Gebon: Nicetas, Vita Ignatii 505A-B. 2. Patriarch Ignatius refuses Michael III communion on the grounds of "incest" . 3. N coast of Sicily: The Saracens receive the surrender of the port-fortress of ancient Coephaledium, medieval Cefal, whose name they render as Gafludi. Its Greek inhabitants were allowed to depart but the fortifications were destroyed (Ahmad p.13). 3. fl. Husayn, Nestorian Christian doctor, translator of Hippocrates from Greek into Arabic. 858: 1. S Italy: An Arab fleet from Palermo under Ali raids the mainland coast and takes much booty; but a Byzantine fleet of 40 chelandia (war galleys) under the Cretan (probably John Creticus, the future strategos of the Peloponnesus) intercepted it. At first the Arabs were winning, taking 10 Byzantine vessels; but then the Byzantines got the upper hand and captured 20 Arab ships (karabia) (Bury, Irene p. 307; McGeer 2001: 931, citing al-Athir etc). 2. S Italy: The Saracens of Bari raided the territory of Benevento again; a new Frankish army (from Carolingian N Italy) which came to the towns aid was defeated (or in 860). The Muslims pressed on into Campania and devastated the suburbs of Naples; they occupied the castrum [fortress village] of Venafro and the valley of the Volturno. Venafro is in the upper Volturno valley well to the north of Naples, beyond Capua; and east of Cassino. Benevento paid tribute to avoid being attached again (Ahmad pp.19-20; Kreutz p.38 dates the taking of Venafro to 862). See 866.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Historically the Volturno was navigable from its mouth, NW of Naples, up to Capua; one may guess the Saracens rowed that far.
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from 858: Photius, aged about 38, is appointed patriarch: one of the greatest intellectual figures of the Middle Ages (Dudley & Lang p.204). His accession was disputed by Rome, partly on account of emerging differences between West and East in customs, disciplines and doctrine, as in the Western addition to the creed of the phrase filioque ["and from the Son"]. It was he who planned the missions to Moravia, which is our Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Russia: see below under 862. Photius: c.820892?, churchman and theologian, patriarch of Constantinople, b. Constantinople. He came of a noble Romaniyan (Byzantine) family. Photius was one of the most learned men of his time, a professor in the university at Constantinople, and, under Michael III, president of the imperial chancellery. The head of the sterner orthodox faction, Ignatius of Constantinople, was deposed (858) from the patriarchate, and Photius, a layman, was rushed through the stages of the holy orders and installed in the position. In 861 the legates of Pope Nicholas I [the last pope not beholden to civilian factions at Rome ] approved the election of Photius, but the pope himself refused to recognise him. Cf below under 864. In 867, Photius called a synod that challenged the rights of the pope in Bulgaria, questioned certain Latin practices, and challenged the pope's right to judge the canonicity of the election of the patriarch. Pope Nicholas died [867] without learning of the synod's work. But when Basil I became Romanic emperor (867), Photius was banished to Cyprus and Ignatius became patriarch again. Photius was condemned two years later at the Fourth Council of Constantinople, but he reconciled with Basil and Ignatius, and on the death of Ignatius, he again became patriarch (877). Pope John VIII, acc. 872, recognised Photius as patriarch (877) and sent legates to a synod, held in 87980, which the Eastern Church counts as an ecumenical council. This synod affirmed that Photius had been legally elected, nullified those synods that had condemned him, ruled against the elevation of laymen to the episcopacy, and agreed that New Rome (Constantinople) would relinquish authority in Bulgaria. The acts of this council were apparently approved by Pope John VIII, but without any retraction of his predecessors' condemnations. Photius continued as patriarch until the accession of Emperor Leo VI in 886, when he was forced to resign under imperial pressure; he died in exile. 859: 1. Campania: Sergius, the duke of (semi-Greek*) Naples, gave his son Gregory the antique title of magister militum (master of the soldiers). In May 859, a large joint expedition of Salerno, Naples and Amalfi - all post-Byzantine towns** marched on Lombardic Capua, led by his sons Gregory and Caesar or Cesare. Lando I of Capua was incapacitated at that time and so his son Lando II took up arms to defend the town. The Lombards defeated the forces sent against them, numbering some 7,000 men, at the bridge of Teodemondo over the Volturno. Caesar was captured along with 800 soldiers and led back to Capua in a triumph (Wikipedia, 2009, under Gregory III of Naples). (*) Greek remained the language of administration; but Latin and Romance, i.e. proto-Italian had become more influential. Since the 820s Naples coins had borne Latin inscriptions. (**) Ravenna had fallen to the northern Lombards in 751, leaving Calabria as the nearest seat of Byzantine power. Not surprisingly, then, the duke of Naples had preferred since 763 to recognize the pope as his suzerain. Salerno and Amalfi were part of the ducatus Neapolitanus, but semiindependent.
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2. Apulia: An attempt was made to prevent Sawdan, the Saracen emir of Bari, from re-entering his seat after a campaign against Capua and the Lavorno by Lambert of Spoleto; Gerard, count of the Marsi (in the Abruzzo); Maielpoto, the gastald or governor of Telese near Benevento; and Wandelbert, gastald of Boiano, NW of Benevento. But, despite a bloody battle, Sawdan successfully entered Bari (Wikipedia, 2009, under Lambert). The Hebrew Chronicle of Ahimaaz records that Sawdan, the last emir of Bari, ruled the region wisely and was on good terms the eminent Jewish scholar Abu Aaron, who spent six months in the town. (Aaron, who came to Italy from Baghdad around 850, taught cabalistic Judaism in several southern Italian towns.) Christian monastic chronicles, however, portray the emir as nequissimus ac sceleratissimus: "most impossible and wicked". Certainly Muslims raids on Christians (and Jews) slaving expeditions - did not cease during Sawdan's reign. Kreutz, 1996:39. 3. Sicily: (3a:) 23-26 January 859: Finally, after decades of struggle, the Saracens under Abbas capture the Byzantine provincial capital Enna, medieval CastroJanni, near the centrepoint of the island, ending a 30 year quasi-siege. They call the great hilltop fortress-town Qasr-yannih or Kasr' Yanni from the Gk: Castro Yannis [fortress of yEnna], which became Italian Castrogiovanni, castle of John. In truth Janni was just a version of the antique name Enna and had no connection with any John. The besiegers managed to enter the citadel through an unguarded sewer. A highranking Greek prisoner purchased his life from the Arab governor, Abbas ibn Fadl, by undertaking to lead him into the stronghold by a secret way. With 2,000 horsemen, Abbas proceeded to Castrogiovanni, and on a dark night some of them penetrated into the place through a watercourse which their guide pointed out. The garrison had no suspicion that they were about to be attacked; the gate was thrown open [by the entrants], and the citadel was taken (24 or 26 Jan. 859). Bury 1912: 306. Enormous booty was obtained and the sons and daughters of the Byzantine magnates were taken into captivity, some being sent as far as the court of the caliph in Baghdad, or rather: Samarra (Ahmad p.13). (3b:) A large Romanian fleet of 300 shalandiyyat, Gk: chelandia: large combattransport galleys, under Constantine Kontomytes or Contomites is sent to aid Sicily. The army landed at Syracuse, but was utterly defeated by Abbas, who marched from Panormos (Palermo). Then (see below) the Muslims defeat the fleet off Syracuse. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the imperial navy. Following the capitulation of Palermo to the Saracens in 831, western Sicily had fallen rapidly to Muslim control. The Byzantines adopted a strategy whereby they would protect their major city of Syracuse and Eastern Sicily by keeping the Arabs at bay in Central Sicily. The key to this plan was control of present-day Enna, located at the very centre of the island: formerly known as Ar: Kasr' Yanni or It: Castrogiovanni. After several failed attempts, the Arabs, led by their formidable emir Abbas Ibn Fahdi [Fadl], finally managed to take Enna in 859. Thus www.bestofsicily.com/enna. The fall of Enna prompted the emperor Michael III to send reinforcements to the island. As noted, a great fleet of 300 chelandia, which must have been nearly the entire navy, under the control of the patrikios Constantine Contomites or Kontomytes arrived at Sicily in autumn of that year. In a major naval battle that
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took place before Syracuse, the Muslim fleet defeated the Byzantines who lost more than 100 ships. In spite of the defeat, however, the news of the arrival of reinforcements animated certain towns that had capitulated before the Muslims to take arms again. There were uprisings by Christians at Caltavuturo in the north of the island: inland from Cefalu; Avola west of Catania; also Platani and Caltabellotta, both NW of Agrigento; and at Sutera also in the central-west: east of Plantini and west of Enna. The reaction of the Aghlabid army was quick, and, after beating the local insurgents and a part of the imperial expeditionary army in Cefalu, it forced the rest to re-embark at Syracuse, which allowed time for the refortification of Enna and its resettlement with Muslims (thus Rodriquez; also Ahmad p.13). Andalusia and Provence: A Viking flotilla of 62 vessels, in Arabic: marakib, sails/rows south to the Atlantic coast of Spain and thence into the Mediterranean (859-60). Their failure caused them to give up the idea of raiding the cosmopolitan powers; they confined themselves thereafter to attacking the Atlantic realms. The Norsemen conducted raids on the Balearics, Frankish Provence and Frankish northern Italy (Dromon p.43, citing Al-Bakri and others). Cf 860, 871. The western Mediterranean in this era was dominated by the Muslim powers; evidently the Norse found it easier to raid the Frankish realms. The Danes returned to attack what is now Portugal in 859 under the command of the Dane Hastein and the Swede Bjorn Ironside, two of the most famous Viking leaders. But their 62 dragon ships were no match for the Umayyad forces. After the rout, the survivors slipped through the Straits of Gibraltar to raid Malaga and along the Moroccan coast. The Balearics were also raided. The marauding pagan fleet went on to harry the south of France incuding Nimes and Arles and Italy, where they sacked the town of Luna on the northwest coast, believing it to be Rome (!). Some Arab sources say they reached Greece and even Egypt, but Luna is the last town known to have been atacked (Rolf Scheen, Viking Raids on the Spanish Peninsula [1996], online [2009] at revistas.ucm.es/amm/02148765/articulos/milt9696110067a.pdf.). When they returned to the Iberian coast two years after their first attack, they were defeated again, and Vikings never returned to the Mediterranean (although there were further attacks on the Christian lands bordering the Bay of Biscay).* Of their original 62 ships they returned with just 20. (*) Although set in the subsequent century, the 1964 movie The Long Ships has Vikings fighting Moors. Captured by the Moors, a number of Norse including a kidnapped Danish princess - are condemned to execution; but Aminah, the favourite wife of Mansuh [the Andalusian military commander nicknamed Al-Mansur bi-llah, fl. 988] convinces her husband to use them and their longship to retrieve a fabled bell. The bell is found but other Norsemen now appear, King Harold's men [the Danish king Harold Bluetooth d. c.985], who are out to rescue the princess, and a climactic battle ensues. It ends when the bell falls over and crushes Aly Mansuh [Al-Mansur actually died aged 74 in 1002]. The Moors are defeated and the Vikings victorious. From 859: Constantinople: Effective rule by Bardas, the Basileus's uncle [Michael was aged 19: see next]. As noted earlier, Bardas re-established a university, or better: secondary school, in the capital to provide higher education for government officials. Teaching was conducted in the Magnaura hall of the Great Palace. Leo the Mathematcian taught philosophy and three other professors specialised in geometry, astronomy, and grammar. There were other schools as well, but apparently they had only one teacher each (Tradgold 1997: 447). 859-60:
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Michael, now aged 19 or 20, personally led an army to besiege Samosata, but in 860 he had to abandon his expedition to repel a Rus' attack on Constantinople. In the year 1172 Sel. (AD 860/861), the regency of Theodora and Bardas sent an army to Cilicia and subdued the whole district of Anazarbos; Bar Hebr., p. 142 says that because the empire was ruled by a woman, the Arabs held the Romans in contempt and broke the peace. The dating is wrong inasmuch as Theodora was removed from the regency in 858. 859-61: Completion of the spiral minaret of the great Mosque of Abu Dulaf, Samarra, Iraq. ca. 860: The Aegean: The Muslim pirates (slavers) of Crete raided the Cyclades and the mainland, penetrating through the Dardanelles as far as the Proikonnesos (Sea of Marmara) (Dromon p.47, citing Theophanes Continuatus and others). 860: 1a. Asia Minor: Arab offensive from the East, supported by the Paulicians - the sect of unorthodox Christians - under Karbeas or Corbeas, a former imperial army officer. The Arab incursion under the emir of Melitene penetrated deep into imperial territory; they reached Malagina, the great aplekton or fortress supplypoint (*) SE of Nicaea (ODB ii:1274). 1b. Squadrons of the newly rebuilt Abbasid navy based at Tarsus were now sufficiently strong to attack Antalya (Dromon p.62, citing Al-Tabari). 1c. A further exchange of prisoners took place between the Eastern Muslims and the East Roman Empire. As related by Masudi, the Muslims recovered 2,367 men and women (Toynbee 1973: 391). (*) Food, fodder and arms were gathered at these points before a campaign was launched. The main imperial aplkta are named in a confused list of the 10th century and confirmed by historical accounts of ninth-century campaigns. They formed an arc running across the north-western and northern edges of the central Anatolian plateau - at Malagina, Dorylaion and Kaborkin (Kavorkin) for the westerly route towards Amorion and then on to Ikonion; at Dazimon, Koloneia and Kaisareia for the northern route. Bathys Ryax, the modern Kalinirmak Gap on the NE edge of the Ak Dag range - south-west of Koloneia and south of Dazimon - was established as a base near Sebasteia for the march towards either Kaisareia or Tephrike, further to the East. John Haldon, citing Constantine Porphyrogenitus , Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions. Introduction, text, translation, commentary (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, vol. 28, Vienna 1990): text (A); and commentary, 155-157. 2. Constantinople: In a surprise attack (see details below), pagan Varangians, the Rus' or Rhos: Viking "Russians" or commingled Scandinavians, Slavs and Finns as McGeer p.208 no doubt correctly imagines them - raid via the Black Sea to the imperial city in "200" canoe-ships. Such is the figure given by the Continuator of Theophanes and the Russian Primary Chronicle. The Venetian John the Deacon by constrast puts the number of boats at 360. The Rus Attack on Miklagard, AD 860 The Rhos or Rus were intrepid traders, and commercial contact with Constantinople was a primary objective, but it was not long before they would turn their thoughts to conquest and plunder. The Rhos sold slaves, furs, honey and wax; in Byzantium they bought silk, jewellery, brocades, fruits, wine and spices. On 18 June 860, at sunset, a fleet of about 200 Rus' vessels, according to the Greek sources, came into the Bosporus and started pillaging the suburbs of
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Constantinople which in Old East Slavic they called Tsargrad, Old Norse: Miklagardr. The Russian Primary Chronicle likewise says 200 boats. The date, given by the Brussels Chronicle, is nowadays accepted as definitive by historians. We know from Constantine Porphyrogenitus that in the 10th century a large ship (sagena) of the Southern (Balkan) Croats contained about 40 men. Using this figure, and 200 vessels, we may guess that the Rus-led expedition numbered of the order of 8,000 men. The Rhomaioi fleet was absent, as was the emperor; he was then with the army in Asia Minor. He had left on a land campaign in the East against the Arabs. The Rhos devastated the Black Sea coast and attempted to surround the capital. They also penetrated through the Bosphorus to the Princes Islands in the N part of the Sea of Marmara. Two contemporary sermons preached by Patriarch Photius make clear the surprise, the fury of the attack, the terror of the Byzantines and how severely the hinterland of the capital was ravaged. The chronology is unclear, but the raid or invasion may have lasted as little as a week (some argue it lasted several weeks). No actual resistance is recorded; but the Russian Primary Chronicle claims no victory and it has the expedition returning ignominiously, so there must have been heavy Russian losses at some point, perhaps during a storm (Davidson 1976: 118 ff). The defence of the city was in the hands of the patriarch Photios, who organised the citizens and, by parading the holy robe of the Virgin around the walls of the city, inspired them to defend the capital. Almost as suddenly as they had come, the Rhos departed, but their appearance came as a shock to the Romanics, and much of the missionary activity and foreign-policy manoeuvres of the time must be seen against the background of the pagan Russian threat. Having ravaged the suburbs, and almost entering the city, the Viking Rus/Rhos are defeated ( - or so Partington imagines: the sources do not support this conclusion) by Greek Fire, but more likely by a storm. As he notes (1960: 31), Greek Fire was a liquid, probably distilled petroleum, projected from jets that were either fixed in brass figureheads on ships or manipulated to turn in various directions. But Greek Fire would have been mentioned by our sources, and in any event the Byzantine navy was absent. The sermons of Photius offer no clue as to the outcome of the invasion and the reasons why the Rus' withdrew to their own country. The weather was still, and the sea was calm, but a storm of wind came up, and when great waves straightway rose, confusing the boats of the godless Russians, it threw them upon the shore and broke them up, so that few escaped such destruction (Russian Primary Chronicle). Photios led prayers at the Church of the Theotokos in Blachernai and then carried the omophorion [sic: maphorion, shawl] of the Theotokos down to the sea with hymn singing and dipped it in the water; a fierce wind suddenly arose and the Rus boats were destroyed: Leo Gramm. 241, Georg. Mon. Cont. 827, Ps.Symeon 674-675, Theoph. Cont. IV 33. The Byzantine government thereafter created the 'Bulgarian archontate', a special naval command of the coast between Mesembria, a Byzantine port-town in present-day east Bulgaria, and the northernmost arm of the Danube delta [modern Rumania]. Its admiral was called the archon Boulgarias [lord of the Bulgarian command] (Browning p.137). 3. The Frankish king of N Italy, Hludwig (Louis) II, again came down with troops into Southern Italy but again accomplished little in relation to the Arabs (Kreutz p.37). 860-61: Italy: Further break-up of the old Lombard duchy of Benevento. Capua (rebuilt in 856) breaks from Salerno, creating a third southern Lombard-Italian power-centre: Capua, Benevento and Salerno (Kreutz p.40). Salerno itself had broken from Benevento in 839, a division formalized in 849. Cf 877 Romaniyan Gaeta. And
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 887 ex-Byzantine Naples.
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861: Midpoint of Muslim rule in south-east Italy: the emirate of Bari. This marked the high tide of Muslim expansion in the western Mediterranean . It seemed only a matter of time before the Arabs would conquer all of Christian southern Italy (Kreutz p.38). Cf 862, 866. 861: 1. The papacy breaks off relations with the patriarchate following the deposition of Ignatius in favour of Photius. 2. Mission to Khazaria by Cyril and Methodius. Cf 863. The Khazar khanate ruled east Crimea and further east, which is to say: the Caucasian steppe, the region between the Sea of Azov and the upper Caspian Sea. They were a Turkic-speaking people who around 899 will desert paganism in favour of Judaism (the royal Khazar court itself adopted Judaism in the 860s: Rotman p.71, citing Zuckerman). 3. d. caliph al-Mutawakkil. Killed following a rebellion by his Turkish troops. c. 861: NE Asia Minor: A new Theme of Colonia, located inland, SE of Trebizond, was created by separation from the Armeniac Theme. It extended to a stretch of the far upper Euphrates River (Treadgold, Army p.76). 861-70: Iraq: In AH 247 / AD 861, as noted, the caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by Turkish soldiers who had come to form a sort of praetorian guard in Samarra. For nine years there was effective anarchy as one caliph succeeded another in quick succession. After 256/870, when the caliphate emerged from this period of darkness, the extent of caliphal authority was much reduced. Cf 862. It was left to the Emirs of Tarsus and Melitene, the border emirates, to deal with the Byzantine threat. See 863: Battle of Poson. 861-72: Masudi mentions three exchanges of prisoners between the Eastern Muslims and the East Roman Empire; no numbers are given. 862: 1. Church schism: The Roman pope Nicholas, having received letters from both sides, decided for the deposed patriarch Ignatius, and answered the letters of Michael and Photius by insisting that Ignatius must be restored as patriarch, that the usurpation of his see must cease. He also wrote in the same sense to the other Eastern patriarchs. From that attitude Rome never wavered: it was the immediate cause of a schism (Jenkins p.168). 2. Armenia: The caliphate restores some autonomy to Armenia: Ashot I Bagratuni 'the Great' is recognised by the caliph as "prince of princes" (but not by Byzantium until 885). 3. Italy: The Arabs of Bari extort tribute from the monasteries of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo: both monasteries paid 3,000 gold pieces to save their buildings being burnt (Kreutz p.38). 4. Sicily: The new Muslim governor Khafaja b. Sufyan arrives in Palermo. His son Mahmud raids the neighbourhood of Byzantine Syracuse but is repulsed and returns to Palermo (Ahmad p.14).
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862-63: 1. Upper Danube: The Franks pose a military threat to Slavic Moravia. The Moravian prince asks (862) for Romanic/Byzantine missionaries with a knowledge of Slavic to replace the Frankish Latin missionaries there. Emperor Michael sends (863) the Thessaloniki-born brothers Cyril (original name Constantine), aged 3536, and Methodius, aged about 42. Although there is no reference to the Byzantine Church's involvement, Cyril had been Photiuss pupil, so probably the patriarch chose the two brothers. Their father was Leo, a droungarios (battalionlevel commander) of the Byzantine theme of Thessaloniki, and their mother was Maria, who may have been a Slav. After working among the (mainly Jewish*) Khazars, Cyril and Methodius were sent (863) from Constantinople by Patriarch Photius to Moravia. This was at the invitation of Prince Rostislav, who sought missionaries able to preach in the Slavonic vernacular and thereby check Frankish (German**) influence in Moravia, todays Czech Republic. See 864/66. The extent to which Methodios helped his brother Constantine create the Glagolitic alphabet and translate Greek texts into Church Slavonic is unclear. Cyril and Methodius took the road that ran, and still runs, NNW from Thessalonica through our FYROM (then under Slavic tribal rule) to Skopje, and thence to Nish, and along the Imperial Road to Sirmium and Belgrade and thence up the Danube (Vanni, Routes 2007: 7). Later, in 867, Cyril and Methodius stopped at Venice on their way to Rome. A famous debate took place there in which the Greeks defended the newly created vernacular against the Latins, who insisted that the Gospel should proclaimed only in Hebrew, Greek or Latin. Cyril and Methodius deftly pointed out that many Eastern and certain Western peoples render glory unto God, each in his own tongue (quoted by Herrin 2007: 133). (*) The Khazars gradually adopted Judaism in the period 750-850. The first unambiguous evidence that they, or at least the court, had adopted the Mosaic law comes in 864-66. (**) In 843, following a civil war, the Frankish realm had been divided between the three grandsons of Charlemagne: the Frankish Kingdom of France or West Francia; the Frankish kingdom of Germany; and the Frankish-Lombard kingdom of (northern) Italy. (1) Lothair I received the central section (Middle Francia): what later became the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence and Italy, and the imperial title as an honour without more than nominal overlordship. He ruled from Aachen. (2) Hludwig (Louis) II the German, who was established in Bavaria, received the eastern (better: north-eastern) portion, much of what later became today's Germany. He held court at Ingelheim on the Rhine near Mainz. (3) Charles II the Bald, who held Aquitaine, received the western portion, which later became France. He held court at Liege and Compigne. 2. The pagan Bulgarians flirt with the Latin Christian Franks (vs Byzantines). See 864. Boriss first overtures appear to have been made to the king of Eastern Francia, Hludwig (Louis II) the German, in 862. The two rulers met at Tulln, near our Vienna, on the Danube. Louis sought Bulgarian military help against his rebellious son Carloman and Carlomans Moravian supporters. 3: Caliph al-Mutasir (861-62) is succeeded by his cousin, al-Musta'in (862-66). The period 861 to 866 will see five different people occupy the caliphal throne 863: About 100 YEARS SINCE THE CREATION OF THE TAGMATA REGIMENTS 863: 1. The Battle of Poson - a location not precisely identified: somewhere east of the Halys River - in NE Anatolia: a conventional date for the beginning of an Imperial
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counter-offensive against Islam in the East. Alternatively, the beginning of the counter-offensive may be dated to 900: see there. At any rate, the victory at Poson put an end to serious Arab-Muslim raiding in Anatolia. The young emperor and his uncle Petronas, leading their troops in three very large corps, achieve a major victory against a modest force the emir Omar or Amr [Amr al-Aqta] of Melitene/Malatya, who is killed. Omar was returning from Amisus (Samsun) on the shore of the Black Sea east of Sinope, so the battle would have taken place somewhere between Samsun and Malatya. Armenia and the Paulicians were also defeated. In a single summers campaign the Byzantines had eliminated [sic!] their three most formidable enemies in the east (says Treadgold 1997: 452). If there is one event which marked the decisive shift in the balance of power between Byzantines and Arabs, this was it (Browning 1992: 67). Logistics and Numbers at Poson Toynbee 1973: 300 ascribes the victory at Poson to planning and logistics: the skilful convergence of the various East Roman corps at the right point at the right moment. Petronas assembled his forces thus: [a.] On the enemys northern flank he posted elements of the Armeniakoi (perhaps 3,750 men), the Voukellarioi (Bucellarians) (4,000), the Koloneia (1,500) and Paphlagonia corps (2,500): subtotal perhaps 11,750 men; [b.] On the enemys inner southern flank, he deployed some of the Anatolikoi (possibly 7,500), the Opsikion (3,000), the Kappadhokia corps (2,000) and the troops of the Selefkeia (2,500) and the Kharsianon kleisourai (2,000) (in 863 the latter two were small military districts but with substantial troops): subtotal perhaps 17,000; and [c.] On the enemys central or western front: Petronass own corps, the Thrakesioi (perhaps 5,000), together with the Thracian (2,500) and Macedonian corps (perhaps 2,000) and detachments from the four Imperial Tagmata (cavalry) (8,000): subtotal perhaps 17,500. Here the bracketed numbers, drawn from Treadgolds Army (1995) show half the troops enrolled in each named division, so that, using a thoughtexperiment, we can crudely estimate the possible size of the forces deployed. The result is 46,250 men. This is quite close to what the contemporary sources say the actual numbers were (see next). Michael III is said to have led a field army of 40,000, or a third of the whole armed strength of the empire. The Greek sources, which are hostile to Michael, state that his uncle Petronas was the real general, but the Arabic sources make clear that Michael, 23 years old, was an active participant. On the other side, the Caliphate was capable of deploying a field army of up to 80,000 men (Treadgold 1982: 92). The theme commanders, led by Michael's uncle, Petronas, strategus of the Thrakesion theme, celebrated a splendid triumphal entry into the capital, which took place probably in the presence of the emperor. Prominent in the procession was the display of the head of the defeated emir and those of many of his followers. A second stage of the triumph took place in the Hippodrome, with the theme commanders again in pride of place. Although the ceremonial action fell to the victorious commanders, it was the emperor who was ritually acclaimed as the ultimate instrument of victory (McCormick p.152). Halkin: The patrician Petronas, brother of the Empress Theodora and Caesar Bardas, achieved (863) a brilliant victory over the Emir Omar or Amr of Melitene and pushed back the Muslim peril for two centuries [sic!]. The Byzantine chroniclers add that the victorious general did not survive for long after the
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glorious battle of Poson. What do they mean when they say, "for long"? . . . He died two years and two months after routing the Arab armies, on the same day as his spiritual father, Saint Antony the Younger, or 11 November 865. Halkin, Byzantine hagiography in the service of history, translated by David Jenkins: Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies , London: Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 345-354. John Haldons Account of the Campaign of 863 (Haldon 2001: 83 ff) Haldon attributes the imperial victory to good leadership and the good intelligence about enemy movements. The joint forces of the emirs of Tarsus and Melitene, totalling perhaps as many as 15,000-20,000 men, penetrated through the Cilician Gates, pillaging and collecting booty as they went. Kiapidou (2003) proposes that there were also some Paulicians with them. Forewarned, Michael III had assembled two armies to deal with the attack. For reasons unknown, the larger part of the invading forces turned back once it reached central Cappadocia (near Tyana), while Omar, the emir of Melitene, proceeded deeper into Byzantine territory with some 8,000 troops. In the region between Nazianos [Aksaray] and Nyssa [Nevsyehir] in other words, NE of Aksaray - they were attacked by Michael in person, at the head of about the same number of men, probably drawn from the Tagmata and the themes of Cappadocia and Charsianon. The Muslims called the area Marj al-Usquf, Bishops Meadow. After a short clash in which both sides suffered serious casualties, the Muslim army pushed on NE, pillaging as it went, to the Black Sea coast at Amisos (Samsun), east of the mouth of the Halys. Another larger Byzantine force under Petronas Haldon calls him commander of the imperial Tagmata - followed Omars army northeastwards. Or rather 13 different corps came together from various directions and joined up to surround the Muslims at a point on the Lalakaon River (a tributary of the Halys) in the border region between the Paphlagonia and Armeniakon themes. This was 130 km inland from Samsun. (*) Kiapidou 2003 notes that he held the posts of both Domestic of the Skholai and strategos of the Thrakesion. From the west, Petronas himself brought the four imperial Tagmas and thematic troops from the Thrakesian, Thrace and Macedonia. From the south came the troops previously commanded by Michael (who had returned to the capital) those of the Anatolikon, Opsikion and Cappadocia themes and the kleisourai of Charsianon and Seleukeia. From the north came troops from the Koloneia, Paphlagonia, Armeniakon and Boukellarion themes. The Muslims were outnumbered at least three to one, so Petronas may have had up to 30,000 men altogether. As we noted earlier, a figure of 40,000 is not impossible. Omar unwisely decided to fight rather then flee. Once surrounded, he tried in vain to break through the Byzantine line. He was killed and his army destroyed. 2. Rome vs Patriarch Photius: cf 867. Pope Nicholas refused (863) to recognise the deposition (in 858) of Patriarch Ignatius: Nicholas affected to excommunicate Photius and claimed jurisdiction over all the Eastern churches. Cf 867: counterexcommunication. This is called the Photian Schism. 3. The West: Because East Francia [the future Germany] was spreading its influence in Moravia through Frankish priests who preached in Latin, in 862 its ruler prince Rostislav asked emperor Michael III to send a bishop and teachers who would bring the Gospel to the Slavic peoples in their own language. As an expert diplomat, the de facto emperor Bardas understood the dangers of a Bulgarian-Frankish alliance and immediately concluded a treaty with the Moravians in 863 (Obolensky, Slavs p.44). What Bardas could clearly foresee was
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 that, along with the Frankish influence in Bulgaria, there was also going to be increasing religious influence from Rome (D S White 1981, Photius, excerpt at http://www.photius.com/photios/photios29.html).
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In the autumn of 863, in accordance with the usual strategy, Michael and Bardas moved the army to the Bulgarian frontier and sent a fleet along the western coast of Black Sea (source: Georgios Monachus Continuatus). Now, paralysed on three fronts, his country enduring incredible hunger after the poor harvest, stricken by plague and earthquakes, the Bulgarian ruler sued for the peace. His country was helpless. The immediate negotiations were finalised in the beginning of the 864 with a treaty called the Thirty Years' Peace. The main conditions in the treaty were: the alliance with the Franks had to be terminated and Bulgaria had to accept the Christianity from Constantinople. The territorial borders also were carefully outlined and confirmed. 4. [863 or earlier:] Constantinople: Re-founding of a university or perhaps better: high school in Constantinople by the junior emperor Bardas: a public school under imperial sponsorship and with a secular curriculum. Leo was made head, and taught philosophy. Others taught geometry, astronomy and grammar. Leos colleague Cometas prepared a new edition of Homer, probably in the new miniscule script (Mango 1980: 140; Treadgold 1984 p.87). See 950. Gutas queries the tradition concerning Leo, that the caliph al-Ma'mun sought to recruit him. Noting that al-Ma'mun already had at his court al-Kharizmi, the founder of classical algebra, Gutas thinks that the story simply reflects the Byzantines' jealous awareness that Arab mathematics was far superior. 5. Asia: Karbeass nephew Chrysocheir, a name that translates as "golden hand", becomes head of the Paulician sect. See 867. 863-65: Civil war in the caliphate: In AH 249 = AD 863, after the accession of al-Mustain, elements in the military mutinied to press demands for their pay, and shortly afterwards the Turks of Samarra (then the capital) led a riot against the caliphs financial agents. This resulted in the death of the chief administrator and the payment of unaffordably large sums to the soldiers. Another major crisis and more violence came with the war between the partisans of al-Mutazz and al-Mustain in 251/865, which resulted in a second siege of Baghdad. 864: 1. Sicily: The Muslims occupy the important and rich Byzantine town of Noto, in the SE angle of the island, and later Scicli, a town further inland, west of Noto (Ahmad p.14; Metcalfe 2003: 12). Cf 865. 2. Sardinia: A letter of Pope Nicholas I of 864 mentions for the first time the "Sardinian judges" [judex, plural: judici]. Their autonomy from the Empire becomes clear in a later letter by Pope John VIII, acc. 872, which defined them as "princes". Neo-Latin or proto-Sardinian gradually ousted the Greek language; indeed it had probably always been dominant among the non-elite; but Greek occurs in the official seals of the judges down to the 13th century. Encyc. Brit. 1911 ed., under Sardinia. 3. Important Arabic source: A. Vasiliev, Harun ibn Yahya and his Description of Constantinople, Seminarium Kondakaovinium 5 (1932), 149-63 text written c. 864; included in Ibn Rosta's Book of Precious Things. Harun was briefly a prisoner in Constantinople. He had been shown around the city at that time and was taken to the Hippodrome. He describes two men dressed in gold, each driving a quadriga [two-wheeled chariot] of four horses, how they enter and race three times round the place of idols and statues [the latter
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refers to the spinal section at the centre of the long oval racing course] (quoted in BBC - h2g2 Chariot Racing, 20 Mar 2008 at www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A32015611). 4. First 'Russian' (Varangian) incursion across the Caucasus/Caspian to plunder in Tabaristan and Azerbaijan (Wikipedia 2010, Caspian expeditions of the Rus). 864-65: Bulgaria: Boris capitulated in 864 and by mid-865 had probably been baptized. See next. It was around this time that Patriarch Photius (858-67; 977-86) sent Boris a letter in which he instructed Boris on the basic tenets of orthodoxy and exhorted him to adhere to the principles of Christian rulership. Greek missionaries were sent to Bulgaria to speed the process of conversion, but within a year Boris sought to distance himself from the patriarch in Constantinople and sent a legation to Rome to open negotiations with Pope Nicholas I (858-67) about Bulgaria's movement into the Latin sphere of influence. See next. 864/66: 1. Bulgaria: Hludwig (Louis) or Hludwig 'the German', the East Frankish king of Bavaria and N Italy, invades Moravia. But Byzantium out-manoeuvres the Franks in converting Bulgaria to Christianity: the East Romans insist, as a condition for withdrawing their army from Bulgaria, on the khans conversion (865: baptism of khan Boris). The result was a long period of peace with Bulgaria. See 865. Byzantium at first insisted that, in order to become Christian, the Bulgarians would have to abandon their trousers (Lat. femoralia: breeches) in favour of Roman dress (tunics etc). Pope Nicholas by contrast ruled (866) that dress was irrelevant (see Brown 1997: 319). He explained that Greek practices which differ from Roman are not condemned as such, and none of them bear upon doctrine. Indeed Nicholas even corrects Boris's misunderstanding of certain Romaniyan (Byzantine) teachings. Polygamy was severely condemned in Nicholass answers to the Bulgarians (Obolensky 1971: 126). 2. Photius's letter to the eastern patriarchs: Rome's errors condemned. Cf 865. 864-875: Africa, Sicily, Malta: The ninth 'Aghlabid' ruler of Tunisia was Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Al-Aghlab, called Abu al-Gharniq. During his reign the Byzantines reoccupied parts of Sicily. He sent troops to Malta and occupied it in AD 869/870 (see there) and built fortresses and strongholds on the coast. 864-84: First Russian (Varangian-led) raids on Muslim territories in the Caspian region. 865: 1. The emperors friend Basil already aged perhaps 54* - was given the high title of patrician and finally in 865 he accepted the post of Lord Chamberlain (parakoimomenos)**, a position which could support the suggestion, which is very speculative, that Basil and Michael also engaged in a homosexual relationship (the post required close personal attendance on the emperor, and was generally reserved for a eunuch which Basil was not). On this, see further 866-67.5. If there is any truth in the suggestion that Eudocia had become the lover of Bardas, it is clear that this situation had already been altered before the murder of Michael's uncle in 866 (see there), for Basil the Macedonian had become Eudocia's husband. The exact date of the marriage is not known, though it has traditionally been placed in the year 865 (Jenkins p.195). Basil was made to divorce an existing wife Maria, who was sent back to Macedonia with a suitably generous pay-off (Garland & Tougher, Eudocia Ingerina). (*) One line of evidence puts his birth in the 830s, i.e. in 835 or 836. If so,
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 he was about 33 when made Chamberlain. (**) Lit. sleeping at the side [of the emperor].
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2. Bulgaria: A letter sent by Patriarch Photios in 865 made clear that khan Boris was well aware that the Bulgarian bishops, all necessarily Greeks, would come under the Patriarch of Constantinople with all the political implications thereof. See 866-67 below. Norwich 1993: 73 says Boris travelled to Constantinople in September 865 and was baptised by the Patriarch in Hagia Sophia with the new baptismal name of Michael; the Emperor stood by the font as his sponsor. Cf 866-67: Bulgarian embassy to the Latin court of Germany. 3. Pope Nicholas I wrote to Emperor Michael III: "You ceased to be called 'Emperor of the Romans', since the Romans whom you claim to be Emperor of are in fact according to you barbarians" (Epistola 86, of year 865, in Patrologica Latina 119, 926, quoted in Wikipedia, Names of the Greeks, accessed 2009). See 866-67: Constantinople purports to excommunicate Nicholas. 4. Sicily: Muhammad b. Khafaja, a son of the Muslim governor, leads an expedition that advances to the SE nearly as far as Byzantine Syracuse; it is ambushed by the Greeks and loses 1,000 men (Ahmad p.14). See 866.3 below. 865-66: Major Italo-German campaign against the Muslims of southern Italy. See below under 866. 860s: Italy: A Frankish monk named Bernard, with a party of pilgrims, reached Muslimruled Bari on his way to the Holy Land. Kreutz p.39 notes perhaps surprising to us - that he expressed no concern or shock that this corner of Italy - formerly belonging to the Beneventans, as he remarks - should be under Muslim rule. But of course, it had been under Muslim rule for about a generation (since 841), and, as Kreutz remarks, this must have seemed a settled fact of life. (Hludwig (Louis) II see 865-66 took a different view.) Proceeding thence to Muslim-ruled Taranto, Bernard and his group took ship to Alexandria in a Muslim slave-ship. He witnessed thousands of Christian captivessupposedly 12,000 or 9,000 Beneventans in 11 or six shipsbeing loaded into ships to be taken to the Tripoli and Egyptian (Abbasid) slave markets, a fact that he did deplore (contrasting numbers in Kreutz p.53 vs McCormick 2001: 134). 866: 1. Asia: Photius wrote against the Paulicians and boasts in his Encyclical (866) that he has converted a great number. But they remained powerful, especially in eastern Asia Minor see 867 below. 2. (Or 867:) Italy: Hludwig (Louis) or Ludovick II, the nominal Western or
Frankish/German Emperor*, who was also the Frankish king of Lombardy-N Italy, attacks the Muslims in Apulia (the emirate of Bari). Preparations began in 865, and the expedition departed from Lucera in the spring of 866. Louiss northern Italian troops take Venosa and Canosa, Matera and Oria, but fail to capture Bari itself (cf 868). So he retires and, with his wife, tours (summer 866) through Campania. The tour
appeared to be designed to ensure that Louis/Hludwig's attempt to take Bari from the Muslims would not be interfered with by Arab sympathisers in Campania. From Monte Cassino, accompanied by the duke of Naples, Gregory III, Louis proceeds to Capua where he installs a governor from northern Italy. Capua it seems was taken by force. Continuing on through Campania to Salerno, whose ruler prudently welcomed him, Louis and his army then sallied forth (west) to Amalfi (independent but nominally Byzantine), after which the imperial couple sailed from Amalfi back around to Naples, which he did not attempt to enter. He bypassed Naples and bathed at Pozzuoli, a village further along the coast.** The
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tour ended at Benevento (Kreutz pp. 40-41; Ahmad p.20; McCormick 2001: 935). He donates Capri to the maritime republic of Amalfi. (*) Co-emperor with his father Lothair 844-855 [aged 19 to 30], after which he ruled alone. He was called imperator Italiae ("emperor of Italy") in West Francia while the Byzantines called him Basileus Phrangias ("Emperor of the Franks"). (**) There was [is] a famous Antique bathing complex at Baia, west of Pozzuoli, featuring warm natural mineral springs and thermal baths believed to be therapeutic. 3. Sicily: The Muslim governor Khafaja led another expedition against Byzantine Syracuse but met with no success, except that he captured Troina, located in the central-north of the island: presumably it lay on his route back to Palermo. Recently surrendered Noto, south of Syracuse, now revolted, along with Sicilian Ragusa (further inland), but they were reoccupied by the Saracens (Ahmad p. 14; Metcalfe 2009: 25). 4. Arab naval attack on Dalmatia: for details see below under 866-67. From about 866: The reformed army of the Caliphate is dominated by Turkish officers and troops. 866-67: 1. Eudokia Ingerina was the mistress of Michael and wife of Basil. She gave birth to a son, Leo, in September 866 and another, Stephen, in November 867. They were officially Basil's children, but this paternity was questioned, apparently even by Basil himself. The strange promotion of Basil to co-emperor in May 867 lends some support to the possibility that Leo at least was actually Michael III's son (Wikipedia 2009 under Eudokia Ingerina). 2. The Aegean: A fifth expedition to recover Crete was being organised when it was terminated by the killing (866) of its nominated leader, the Caesar ( Kaisar) Bardas. His rival, Basil the Macedonian, the future emperor, murders him in the presence of Michael III in camp at the port of Kepoi at the mouth of the Meander River (Dromon p.47). 3. Michael adopts (May 866) the older Basil, aged about 55, and makes him junior emperor. Basils transformation from peasant immigrant Imperial stable-hand to Emperor had taken just nine years. When it became evident that the emperor lacked the capacity to administer the affairs of state, now that Bardas the kaisar was dead, Michael III proclaimed Basil as his co-emperor and crowned him in Hagia Sophia on Pentecost Sunday, 26 May 866: indiction 14; Basil then assumed the effective control of the government: Theoph. Cont. IV 43 (p. 207), V 18 (pp. 239-240). Basil and Michael III ruled together for one year and four months: Leo Gramm. 228, 253, Georg. Mon. Cont. 811, 839, Ps.- Symeon 647. 4. Council of Constantinople: excommunication of the Roman patriarch Nicholas, who is also declared deposed (he died before even hearing of this decision). Michael and Basil presided as joint emperors. To preserve an Orthodox Bulgaria, Constantinople took the most serious possible step: pope Nicholas was excommunicated (summer 867). At the same time the Frankish/German king of Italy Hludwig (Louis) was conceded the Imperial title in the hope that he could thereby be detached from cooperation with the Pope. 5. Basil assassinates Michael [aged 27] (Sept 867) and takes the throne; Photius is deposed ("Photian schism"); new mosaics in St Sophia etc. Some scholars have proposed that Michaels homosexuality, or bisexuality, was the cause: he
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 taunted Basil, saying that he would raise another favourite in his place. But Treadgold has pointed out (1997: 943) that four hostile chroniclers describe Michaels debaucheries in detail without even hinting at homosexuality, which they surely would have done if they even suspected it.
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The dowager empress Theodora was still alive when her son Michael II was murdered (23 September 867); she apparently was then living in the palace of Anthemios: PBW, citing Leo Gramm. 250, 252, Georg. Mon. Cont. 836, 838, Ps.Symeon 684, 686. Theodora eventually died during the reign of Basil, who transferred her body to the monastery of Ta Gastria, where her daughters were also sent to live: Theoph. Cont. IV 22 (p. 174), Scyl., pp. 97-98. Michael III, having exhausted the treasury by his extravagance, had to melt down 20,000 Roman pounds (litrai) of gold ornaments from the throne room and used it to meet his army payroll (Treadgold, Army p.128). At 72 nomismata per pound, this represented 1,440,000 nomismata (coins). Photograph: Dalmatia: GO HERE for a shot of the 9th century church of St Donat in Zadar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/image:zadar_-_glise_saint-donat.jpg 6a. Dalmatia: Nicetas Ooryphas was in charge of the Imperial Fleet (droungarios tou ploimou*). In this capacity he sailed with 100 ships in relief of Ragusa against an Arab siege which had already lasted 15 months, and restored the imperial suzerainty over the coasts of Dalmatia. (*) The position of the droungarios tou plomou first appears in the socalled "Tacticon Uspensky" of ca. 842, and the exact date of its establishment is unclear (ODB: 664). Arabs from Sicily attacked first Budva and Kotor (866) in present-day Montenegro; and then Dubrovnik (medieval Ragusa) from the sea (867). But the latter held out against a 15-month siege. And at the request of the Dubrovnik inhabitants, the Romanian (Greek) Emperor - now Basil - sent Nicetas Oryphas or Ooryphas with over 100 warships, or some say 139 galleys (867 or 868: McCormick 2001: 941 says 868). Learning of this, the Saracens quickly withdrew (Ahmad p. 20; Vine 1991: 257; Harris 2003: 33). See 869. Basil sent (867-69) two fleets: one to beleaguered Syracuse, the other to besieged Ragusa. As noted, the latter succeeded in prompting an Arab withdrawal; the former, however, after landing in Sicily, was badly defeated (869). But Syracuse and Taormina were held (Ahmad pp.14, 20). A theme of Dalmatia, with its seat at Zadar (Zara) on the north Dalmatian coast nearer Venice, is first mentioned in 870; it was no doubt created soon after the naval excursions of 867-68. By 871 all of Dalmatia again acknowledged Byzantine suzerainty. But this suzerainty was loose: the emperor agreed that the Dalmatian towns could, instead of paying taxes to the governor (strategos), pay protection money to the neighbouring Slavic rulers (Harris 2003: 34). 6b. Meanwhile (spring 867) the Frankish king Ludovic or Hludwig (Louis) II 'the German' or Bavarian, king of East Francia and grandson of Charlemagne - he also held the title king of (north) Italy, - marches from Benevento into Apulia against Arab-ruled Bari. He captures Matera and Oria, burning the first of these (Matera is located inland north of the Gulf of Taranto, NW of Taranto itself; Oria is also near Taranto, on the east: halfway to Brindisi). Having installed a garrison at Canosa, on the highway NW of Bari, he returns to Benevento (Kreutz p.41; Ahmad dates this to 866). 7. Bulgarian embassy to the court of Hludwig (Louis) at Regensburg in Bavaria: an anti-Byzantine move, for Boris felt that the "Greek" (East Roman) clergy were becoming too dominant in Bulgaria. The Pope tries to woo Bulgaria to Latin
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Christianity. Cf 869.
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866-71: S Italy: In his efforts to restore order in Italy, Hludwig (Louis II the Younger) met with some success both against the turbulent princes of the peninsula and against the Saracens who were ravaging southern Italy. In 866-67, as noted, he had routed the latter, but could not follow up his successes owing to the lack of a fleet. Louis was back in Benevento by March 868 (Kreutz p.41). Seeing the need for ships, in 868-9 (see there) he negotiated an alliance with the eastern emperor, Basil I, who sent him some ships to assist in the capture of Bari, the headquarters of the Italian-based Saracens, which succumbed in 871. Louis and his wife Engelberga take a 6-month tour all of Campania beginning, as we have seen, in Monte Cassino in June 866, followed by Capua (which he disciplined by removing a Lombard leader), Salerno, Amalfi, Naples, and finally Benevento. The tour appeared to be designed to ensure that Louis/Hludwig's attempt to take Bari from the Muslims would not be interfered with by Arab sympathisers in Campania. Hludwig remains in Benevento for the next five years (until 871). See below: 867.
To recap. The Viking "Rus" (or proto-Russians) first appear in Romanic history in 860. (Their major base was to be formed at Kiev, so we could just as well call these pre-Christian rulers of Finno-Slavic Europe 'Ukrainians'.) Two hundred of their Slav-style monoxyla - large canoe-like boats with oars and a sail - arrived in the Bosphorus from the Black Sea, briefly investing the imperial capital before they retired. They dispatched further seaborne expeditions in 907 and 941; the Imperial navy repulsed these raids using Greek Fire. For long voyages the early Viking-Russians built a light, open vessel called a lodya. The Byzantines called it in Greek monoxile because it was made from a single tree, usually the hollowed-out trunk of an oak or linden. Layers of planking were secured to the hull to increase its height, and oars were affixed to the planking. A single mast with a square sail made the lodya seaworthy, and it was light enough, when the need arose, for overland portage . Although it seldom exceeded 20 metres in length, a lodya often held a crew of 40. Kievan Rus: Medieval state of the Eastern Slavs, ruled by Scandinavians. Earliest forerunner of Russia-Ukraine, it included most of present-day Ukraine and Belarus and part of NW European Russia. In about 862 Rurik, a Varangian or Scandinavian warrior, founded a dynasty at Novgorod. His successor, Helgi: Slavic "Oleg" (d. 912), seized Knugard (our Kiev), establishing the 'Kievan state' and freed the Eastern Slavs from the sway of the Khazars. Under Sviatoslav (d. 972), Kievan power will reach the lower Volga and N Caucasus. Then Waldemar: Slavic "Vladimir" I, r. 980-1015, will introduce Christianity. Under his son, Yaroslav (r.1019-54), the state reached its cultural and political apex, but after Yaroslav's death it was weakened by internal strife and ultimately fell to the Mongols in 1237-40. TROOPS NUMBERS 842-1025 According to Treadgold 1982, 1997. Treadgold is inclined to give credence to the perhaps controversial testimony of the Islamic war-captive al-Jarmi/Garmi (ransomed in 845), and proceeds to argue that the army of the mid-ninth century consisted of 154,000 soldiers and sailors, rising to 283,000 by 1025. For a skeptical view of these numbers, see Haldons article in Byzantion 48 (1978) 78-90; also Whittow pp.190-192; he proposes (p.192) a total army enrolment of as few as 30,000 around 975 . Year Body Tagmata Themes/ Navy Remarks
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 /Reign guar ds Land themes Includes cavalry and infantry. 20,000: Four (**) cavalry regiments each of 4,000; and two infantry garrisons each 2,000. Or 24,000 if the Optimates (4,000 military muleteers) are counted. 95,600+ Of which 70,000 in the Asian themes (Treadgold 1982: 16, citing the Arab writer Qudamah). /incl. naval themes/ [oarsme n] 34,200***
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842: Theophilus:
400 (*)
Some 120,000 paid land soldiers including Themes.
(*) The Imperials under an officer known as the Protospatharius, lit. first swordbearer: Treadgold Army p.110. (**) Nicephorus I, r, 801-811, enlarged the Tagmata, adding a fourth cavalry regiment, the Hicanati, in 809: Treadgold 1982 p.71. (***) As an indicative total, this was enough to man some 228 smaller dromons (100 rowers each) and 57 larger dromons (with 200 rowers): total 285 ships. Some expeditionary forces were very large: a. Theophiluss expeditionary force to the east in 837 is said to have numbered 50,000 or even 70,000 including Khurramites: probably more than any other expedition since Heraclius time (Treadgold 1997: 440). b. In his Eastern campaign of 863, Michael III is said to have led a field army of 40,000, or nearly a third of the whole armed strength of the empire. On the other side, the Muslim Khalifate was capable of deploying a field army of 80,000 (Treadgold 1982: 92). c. In 934, a combined Rhomaioi-Armenian army of 50,000 under John Curcuas, the Domestic of the Scholae or commander in chief, ravaged Mesopotamia. Melitene was captured. We may imagine, I suppose, that at least 30,000 of this number were Romanic/Byzantines. For comparison, in Late Antiquity, under Constantine I (in about AD 320) the mobile armies of the east [the comitatenses] numbered about 100,000 altogether, not including the border troops (Mango p.34, Ferrill p.43). But never on any one occasion did the whole mobile force come together. For example in 324 a field army of 20,000 under Constantine fought and defeated 35,000 under Licinus. So Romaniyan (medieval Greek) society was, if we ignore Constantines border troops, perhaps equally mobilised for war as the Roman East in Late Antiquity .
959: Constantin e VII
1,200
28,000. Note 1. Of which 20,000 cavalry and 8,000 infantry.
114,800 in the Themes.
34,200 naval oarsmen. Note 2.
144,000 paid land soldiers.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 1025: Basil II 1,200 42,000 /sic/. Of which 24,000 cavalry and 18,000 infantry including 6,000 Varangians. Note 3. 204,600 34,200 oarsmen
80 247,800 paid land soldiers. Nearly twice the number under Con. VII.
Note 1: Tagmata of 28,000 in 959 (Treadgold): - This derives from an interpretation of the Arab writer Ibn Khordabah, writing c.845, who seems to imply that each regiment was 6,000 strong. Heath suggests (1979: 12) that an alternative interpretation is that the entire Tagmata numbered only 6,000 ie each cavalry unit only 1,500. This is unlikely, as another writer Arab writer Kodama states that each Tagma had 4,000 men. And a later Byzantine source (c.980) speaks of a minimum of 8,200 men as the number that should accompany the emperor on campaign, which implies that the entire Tagmata was larger again (Heath p.13). Note 2: Enough to man some 228 galleys (57-86 large dromons and 171-228 smaller dromons). Cf discussion below under 882. Note 3: The Tagmata was divided in about 959 into an Eastern Tagmata and a Western Tagmata; this involved an overall increase to about 32,000 men. Then John Tzimiskes [emperor 969-976] further enlarged the Tagmata, creating a new cavalry division of 4,000 men called the Immortals. Then Basil II [976-1025] created the Varangian [Viking] Guard of 6,000 infantry. Over 247,000 troops in 1025: For comparison, under Justinian [d. AD 565], the whole armed forces, including border troops, had numbered perhaps 347,500 (see earlier). His empire was much larger than that of Basil II, so it may be concluded that under Basil II East Roman society was relatively more militarised than in Late Antiquity. Haldon, who takes a conservative view of numbers, concedes that armies led by the emperors of the ninth and tenth centuries - Basil I, Nikephoros II, John Tzimiskes, for example - may have numbered on occasion as many as 50,000 soldiers, perhaps more, although such figures seem to be exceptions, and there is a great deal of disagreement among historians on the issue, given the often contradictory and partial sources. John Haldon, The Organisation and Support of an Expeditionary Force: Manpower and Logistics in the Middle Byzantine Period, www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/haldon1.htm--_ftn86. The early Bulgarian state reached its peak under its first Christian rulers, khan Boris, 852-89, and tsar Symeon, 893-927. Bulgarian rule was extended, against various Slavic chiefdoms, to most of the west Balkans, and there was even a foothold as far west as the Adriatic Sea in what is now Albania. Alarmed by the political and religious imperialism of Michael III, the Bulgarians made contact with the Germans. But to avoid military intervention by the Rhomaioi, Boris was forced (or he chose) to abandon paganism in favour of the religion of Constantinople. He ordered the mass conversion of nobles and people in 864, an act tantamount to becoming an East Roman vassal (Browning p.147). At the same time he kept his options open by asking the Latin Patriarch in Old Rome to send him a code of laws (AD 867). The contest was won, however, by the Eastern church. Boris soon expelled the Latin clergy sent by the Pope and in 870 accepted a 'Greek' [i.e., Byzantine] as archbishop of Bulgaria. Boris I (?-907), khan of Bulgaria (852-889): Boris unsuccessfully campaigned against Serbia and Croatia. Under pressure from emperor Michael III, he embraced Christianity in 865 and imposed baptism on his subjects. In 889 Boris relinquished
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the throne in favour of his son Vladimir, who proved to be incompetent. The nobility revolted in 893. Emerging from retirement, Boris deposed Vladimir and replaced him with his younger son, Simeon, who received or assumed the title tsar in 913.
Above: Basil I (left) and his son Leo VI (right). From the Skylitzes manuscript.
867-886: BASIL I; Gk: Basileios. The Macedonian so-called. Born in Macedonia (the theme of that name, i.e. western Thrace), but probably of Armenian ancestry, Basil spent his formative years as a Romanian (Byzantine) exilea civilian prisoner or slavein Bulgaria. McCormick 1986: 152 calls his princely Armenian genealogy "forged", but the tradition was current in the emperors lifetime. Conceivably his parents were ethnic Armenians and not of princely descent. (Or his father: al-Masudi reports that his mother was an ethnic Slav from Thrace.) He entered the high-living, hard-drinking circle of emperor Michael III and was able to shine because of his skills in hunting, ball-playing, wrestling and jumping, discus-throwing, weight-lifting and running and drinking. Having become a high official and friend of the emperor, he was aged about 56 when he became co-emperor. He was illiterate (ODB ii:1234). He divorced his first wife Maria in 865 and by agreement married Michael IIIs mistress, Eudocia Ingerina, aged about 28 in 867 (d. 882/83). Eudocia's son Leo [VI], born 867, was officially Basils son but possibly Michael's. Basil renovated over 25 churches in the city and another six in the suburbs. But, except within the palace, he built no new buildings at all. The empire's tax base did not yet allow it to maintain an army and also build extensively. Construction de novo had to wait until the 900s (Mango, New Rome, 1980 pp.80 ff). And it was not until about 1000 that an integrated system of secular and religious education was re-instituted (Mango Ch 6). In military affairs Basil attempted to equal the accomplishments of his predecessor Michael III, or rather those of Michaels generals, but he fell somewhat short. Basil directed considerable attention to Italy, where the Arabs had been largely unchecked for some time. See 868, 876. In Asia Minor the heretical sect of the Paulicians, under the leadership of Chrysocheir, had become a military threat (867, 870). The situation was saved by
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the destruction of Tephrice, the Paulician capital, by an earthquake and by timely victories of Basil's son-in-law Christopher (873). Basil's campaigns against the Arabs (e.g. 873, 879) had little result. His best general was Nikephoros Phokas the elder. 867: Basil, probably aged about 56*, was crowned co-emperor in May 867 and was adopted by the much younger Michael III, aged 27. This curious development may have been intended to legitimise the eventual succession to the throne of Leo [VI], son of Michaels mistress, Eudokia Ingerina, who was Basils official wife. Leo was widely believed to be Michael's son. As already noted, Basil then assassinates Michael, on 23 September 867, and assumes the throne alone. While emperors were to continue to be murdered by their best friends or their wives, Michael was perhaps the only emperor to be assassinated by a combination of his (former) best friend and his own pregnant mistress. (*) One line of evidence puts his birth in the 830s, i.e. in 835 or 836. If so, he was only about 32 when he killed Michael. This fits better with the fact that as late as 877 (see there) he led an army on foot through the AntiTaurus mountains into Mesopotamia. 867-68: 1a. Italy: Apulia: Proceeding (867) from Benevento, the Frankish emperor of N Italy, Hludwig (Louis) II the Younger, leads German and Italian troops into Apulia, aiming to conquer the Emirate of Bari. Louis' army captures (spring 867) Canosa and two other Muslim-controlled towns between Bari and Taranto, namely Matera and Oria, and drives the Saracens out of Otranto. But he fails to take Bari, and by March 868 he has his troops back at Benevento (Kreutz 1996: 41, citing Erchempert). Louis besieged Matera and Oria, recently conquered, and burnt the former. Oria was a prosperous locale before the Muslim conquest; Barbara Kreutz thus conjectures that Matera resisted Louis while Oria welcomed him: the former thus was razed. This may have severed communications between Bari and Taranto, the other pole of Muslim power in southern Italy. 1b. Italy: Naples: Duke Gregory III of Naples renounces his loyalty to the western Emperor Hludwig (Louis) II and forms a new alliance with the Byzantines. He acknowledges the Byzantine Emperor Basil I as his suzerain and begins to mint coins bearing Basils image (Wikipedia, Gregory III). 2. Sicily: The Aghlabid governor Khafaja ibn Sufyan again (867) attacked Byzantine Syracuse and Catania, while Arab bands crossed without opposition through all of Sicily. Under the year AH 244 /AD 866, the Arab chronicler al-Athir reported that the Abbasid governor of Syria sent a fleet against Syracuse which encountered a Christian fleet of 40 shalandiyyat or warships: cf Gk chelandia, fightertransporter galleys. 4. Photius is deposed as patriarch. He was deposed not so much because he was a proteg of Bardas and Michael as because Basil was seeking an alliance with the Pope and the Western emperor Hludwig (Louis). 5. Icons renewed in the imperial cathedral: the famous mosaic of the Mother of God in the apse of Hagia Sophia, which still survives. You might think Her not incapable of speaking . . to such an extent have the lips been made flesh by colours, wrote Photius (Mathews, Art of Byzantium, London 1998 p. 43, and illustration).
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The Caliphate: In Shawwal AH 253 or October AD 867 the Turkish commander Wasif told the discontented soldiers to eat dirt, for he had nothing else to give them. Shortly afterwards, he and the unfortunate caliph al-Mutazz were brutally put to death - beaten and starved - because they could not find the 50,000 dinars necessary to satisfy the troops. -Hugh Kennedy, 2006, The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East, p.252. Pacification of, and Land Traffic across, the South-Central Balkans In the eastern Balkans, the overland south-north route from Patras in the Peloponnesus via Corinth and Thessalonica to Constantinople was open at this time, as is shown by several trips made by Basils patron, the rich widow Danielis, in the period 867-869. She was carried to the capital from the Peloponnesus and back in a slave-borne litter or sedan-couch. This road had first been opened in 783 during Stavrikioss grand campaign against the Slavs; but it was sometimes, or perhaps frequently, closed thereafter by Slav bandits. Even as late as c.820, we learn from the travels of St Gregory the Decapolite that it was virtually impossible to cross the Balkans by land without falling into the hands of Slavic brigands (Mango in Rice 1965: 111). But, as we have said, the eastern land route was very safely open thereafter, in Danielis time, by 867. It would be definitively cut again for many years by the Bulgarian conquests, beginning in 904-912 (see there). Danielis travelled unmolested. Thus Toynbee, 1973: 93, has suggested that either (1) the Slavs were less enterprising than in earlier times, or (2) the military forces of the Themes through which she travelled were mobilised to protect her. A third hypothesis would surely be that Romaniyan (Greek) farmers occupied all the littoral of eastern Greece (including north of the Chalcidike: the no mans land where the theme of Strymon would later be created), and that the nearest hostile Slavs were far enough inland not or know or care that Danielis was passing through. If they did know and care, perhaps they were deterred by the presence of thematic troops at and around Thessaloniki (a theme since 824) and elsewhere. See next: restoration of the east-west route. Precisely in 867 we also see restoration of east-west overland routes including the highway (the ancient Via Egnatia) across the central Balkans from Thessaloniki to the Adriatic at Dyrrhachium. Hitherto various Slav chiefdoms had controlled the interior between imperial Thessalonica and imperial Dyrrhachium. From 700 to the 860s, messages to Italy had to be sent by ship, around the Peloponnesus; and in the month of December, when it was too cold to sail/row, there were no communications at all between Rome and Constantinople. In 867 all that changed: in that year winter communications between the two places resumed for the first time since Late Antiquity (nearly three centuries earlier: see in this chronography under AD 578-88.) Specifically, Basil I wrote (*) to Pope Nicholas I on 11 December 867. McCormick, New Light on the Dark Ages: How the Slave Trade Fuelled the Carolingian Economy, Past and Present, 2002; vol. 177: 17-54. (*) Basils letter has been published in Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. Giovanni Domenico Manse et al., 31 vols., Florence, 175998: at xvi, 46A47C; cited also in McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 54953. The far southern Balkans had been recovered already in the early 800s, so this must have been a token of the (brief) reestablishment of imperial rule in the formerly Slav-dominated south-central Balkans. Presumably Basils letter was carried along the Via Egnatia to Durres (Dyrrhachium). The Bulgarians too may have begun to penetrate into outer Macedonia Skopje and the upper Vardar valley - from about 860, as by the 880s they ruled was far west as Ohrid on the border of present-day Albania. Presumably in 867 they were still not quite at Ohrid, possibly in the upper Vardar valley. As Fine 1991: 111 notes, this development is poorly recorded, and the loss of these regions to the Bulgarians was not formally recognised by Constantinople until the
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treaty of 904. In that year the Bulgarian-Byzantine border was fixed at a point just 21 km from Thessaloniki (Toynbee p.92). 867-68/69: 1. Rome and Constantinople: An embassy from the Frankish emperor/king of N Italy, Hludwig (Louis) II, led by the papal librarian, Anastasius, c.810-78, who had opposed Photios over the filioque, arrived in Constantinople. They travelled in the winter of 868-69 through (newly) Bulgarian-controlled territory, i.e. along the recently re-opened Via Egnatia. The ancient highway, as might be expected, was in very poor shape, and the travelling was hard (Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, 2001: 560). The goal of the embassy to arrange an alliance by marriage between the Franks of Italy and the new East Roman emperor Basil I. It was hoped that Basils son would marry Hludwig (Louis) daughter. Anastasius remained in Constantinople and attended the council of 869-70. He translated the works of Patriarch Nicephorus [deposed 815] into Latin, and wrote a commentary on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius. 2. Asia Minor: The soldiers of the heretical Christian sect of the Paulicians raid from beyond the eastern borders deep into imperial territory as far west as Ephesus, Smyrna, Nicaea and Chalcedon. See 871, 873. The Paulician leader John Chrysocheir {Gk: golden hand}, Carbeass relative (son, nephew or son in law), led a raid into the empire as far as Smyrna. Under Karbeas successor, Chrysocheir, the Paulicians retaliated against the empire in 867 by campaigning westward across the whole of central and western Turkey (as it now is) as far as Nicaea, Chalcedon and Ephesus, where they used the orthodox cathedral as a stable. Under their leader Chrysocheres, they devastated many towns and villages; in 867 they advanced as far as Ephesus, and took many priests prisoners. In 868 the emperor Basil dispatched Petrus Siculus (Peter the Sicilian) to arrange for their exchange. The emperor Basil I sent an embassy under Peter the Sicilian (as he was later known: he retired to Sicily after 871) to Chrysocheir to ransom captives and to offer an alliance. Chrysocheir reportedly responded by saying, Let the emperor, if he desires peace, abdicate the East and retire to rule in the West. If he refuses, the servants of the Lord [i.e. the Paulicians] will drive him from the throne. Peter learned that the Paulicians in Melitene were in contact with their counterparts in Thrace. Logistics Haldon 2001: 50 remarks that Basils army was unsuccessful in sieges of Tephrike and Melitene because the Paulicians and Arabs respectively were warned of the advance of the Byzantine attack and were well stocked with essentials as well as having good water supplies. It was the besieging army that ran out of supplies, having stripped the surrounding countryside to maintain itself. 867-71: The Adriatic: As we saw, an imperial fleet is dispatched to raise a siege of Ragusa - modern Dubrovnik, then part of Byzantine Dalmatia - by a Saracen fleet in late 867. Then Bari in Italy was invested (867-68) and finally recaptured from the Saracens by a joint Byzantine-Frankish-Lombard force, in early 871. The Dalmatians, i.e. the imperial towns of Romance-speaking Dalmatia, the Serbs and others (nominal subjects of Byzantium) contributed soldiers and ships, and the Croats as nominal subjects of Hludwig (Louis) sent a few regular ships and ground troops ferried over on Ragusan vessels. See 867. The fortress of Bari was invested (867) by the infantry of the Franks, and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian [recte: Berber] emir submitted (871) to the clemency of [the Frankish emperor]
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Lewis, who commanded in person the operations of the siege, writes Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall. The years 867-71 saw unusually close cooperation of the Franks and Greeks to the advantage of the Papacy against the Saracens in South Italy and on the Dalmatian coast. Cf below: 868-69 and 870. Thus Byzantine prestige was exceptionally high along the Adriatic coast, and the Slavs of Dalmatia were taking employment in the Byzantine as well as in the Frankish forces. Rhomaioi administration was re-established, as we have seen, in Dalmatia our coastal Croatia - by 870 as a Theme, and imperial rule was gradually reimposed in South Italy, partly as a protectorate over local Lombard princelings. 2. The Paulicians: Peter of Sicilys (see 868) knowledge was based on his official investigation associated with his diplomatic mission to the Paulicians between 867 and 871, evidently before he entered monastic life and settled in Sicily. 867-79: The Bulgarian state advances into the west-central Balkans. Ohrid in todays FYROM was taken in 867 according to the Wikipedia authors (2010).* In the process the Bulgarians must also have assumed control of most of the great highway, the Via Egnatia.** Most the region had been controlled by the Berzites/Berzetes and other independent Slavic chiefdoms. Direct imperial rule had extended only a little east from Durres (Dyrrhachium) and a little west from Thessalonica. See below, 879-89. (*) The name Ohrid (on the ruined antique site of Lychnidos) first appears in a Constantinopolitan document dating to 879. Specifically a (Greek) Bishop of Ohrid, under that name, signed the acts of the Council of Constantinople of 879-80 (Vlasto 1970: 166). The towns first Slav (Bulgarian) bishop, following the expulsion of the Greek clergy, was Naum of Preslav, from 893/94. (**) As noted above, the winter 867-68 also saw the reopening of the east-west land route from Thessalonica to Dyrrhachium (Durres). This is known from a letter that reached the Pope from the Emperor in winter, when travel by ship was not possible. 867-892: 1. The pagan Serbs accept Christianity. Unlike in Bulgaria, Constantinople imposed real political vassalage on the Serbs (Obolensky p.135). Cf 878 and 1219. The early history of Christianity in Serbia (Raska) is obscure, but it seems that Byzantine missionaries who travelled from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) established the first local bishopric after 871, during the reign [c.850-892] of Mutimir, himself originally a pagan. The bishop of Raska was subordinate to the Greek archbishop of either Split or Durres (Dyrrhachium) (it is not known which).Vlasto 1970: 207 ff. Serbia lay between Western and Eastern Christianity, with Rome and Constantinople competing to win the religious allegiance of the adjoining Bulgarian state. It is probable, but not certain, that Prince Mutimir was the same as the Mutimir 'dux Sclaviniae', to whom Pope John VIII sent a letter about 873, asking him to follow the example of his ancestors and to turn back to the ecclesiastical province of Pannonia, where now, by the help of God, the new metropolitan [senior bishop] is appointed, meaning Methodius of Cyril & Methodius fame. The throne of Raska was taken in 892 by Petar (Peter) Gojnikovich. The name Peter is Christian; suggesting that Christianity had started to permeate into Serbia, undoubtedly through Serbias contacts with the Bulgarians and Byzantines. Petar secured himself on the throne (after fending off a challenge from Klonimir, son of Stojmir) and was recognised by khan Symeon of Bulgaria.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 2. The East: Local rulers break free from the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq: Saffarid rulers take control in Iran and Tulunid governors in Egypt.
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868: 1a. S Italy: The Western Emperor Ludovicus or Hludwig (Louis) II the Young drives the Saracens from Canosa, Venosa, Matera, and part of Calabria and placed his own garrisons there. (As noted earlier under 867, Kreutz dates the capture of Matera to 867.) Bari could not be taken because Louis lacked a fleet: see next. 1b. At Benevento, Louis receives a Byzantine embassy. Negotiations begin between Basil and Louis about a combined operation against Muslim-ruled Bari. Louis needed Romaniyan (Greek) naval support; and a marriage alliance was discussed (Kreutz p.42). See 869. 2. Sicily: Following maneouvres in the Adriatic, a detachment of the Rhomaniyan imperial fleet appeared in Sicilian waters in 868. After disembarking, its troops faced the troops of Khafaja ibn Sufyan, and were defeated completely, leaving behind much baggage, arms and horses in abundance. Encouraged by this victory, Khafaja sent to his son Muhammad to the Italian peninsula where he sacked the territories of Gaeta, on the coast above Naples, before returning to Palermo (thus Rodriquez; also Treadgold 1997: 456). 3. The Caliphate: d. al-Gahiz or Jahiz, court propagandist to the caliphs of Baghdad-Samarra. He had argued for a distinction between - as he saw it - the inferior new Romans (Rumi), the Christian Byzantines, and their superior ancestors, the ancient pagan Hellenes (Yunani) and pre-Christian Romans. Some others were more generous, at least after the Macedonian renaissance of the 10th century: Al-Tawidhi, d. 1023, would write that the Byzantines excelled in science and wisdom, knowing nothing else (El Cheikh 2004: 109). c. 868: Asia: Petrus Siculus or Peter of Sicily, writing c. 868 or ?870: He had visited the Paulician fortress Tephrike to treat for the release of Byzantine prisoners: see above, 843/44. His History of the Manicheans is dedicated to the archbishop of Bulgaria, whither the Paulicians were sending missionaries (Cath. Encyc. s.v. Paulicians). Petrus Siculus was a monk (in later life) and learned nobleman, who in AD 870 was sent as a legate from the Romanian (Byzantine) emperor Basil I to the Paulicians, negotiating for an exchange of prisoners. He stayed in the Paulician city of Tephrike/Tibrica, now Divrigi, on the far upper Euphrates, for nine months. His Historia Manichaeorum qui Pauliciani dicuntur [the Latin name of the original Greek text] is one of the main sources for the history of the Paulician sect. 868-69: As described earlier: Romanic/Byzantine expeditions to lower Dalmatia, presentday Montenegro, and Sicily against the Muslims. At the request of the Dubrovnik (Ragusa) inhabitants, the Romaniyan (Greek) Emperor (now Basil) sent Nicetas Oryphas with over 100 warships; some say 139 galleys (867 or 868). Learning of this, the Saracens quickly withdrew from Ragusa (Ahmad p. 20; Vine 1991: 257; Harris 2003: 33). The imperials fleet that then proceeded (September 869) from Ragusa to Bari comprised 400 ships if the Annales Bertiniani are to be trusted (Kreutz p.44). One imagines that the imperial vessels were supplemented with Venetian, Dalmatian and even Slav ships. To reach the Ionian-Adriatic Sea, Admiral Niketas Oryphas had his whole fleet of 100 dromons dragged overland (868) from the Aegean across the Isthmus of Corinth in a quickly executed operation. This took place most likely on a different route from the rail-track crossing-point of Antiquity. The distance was (is) about seven km. R M Cook, Archaic Greek Trade: Three Conjectures 1. The
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Diolkos, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 99 (1979), pp. 152155 (152); also M J T Lewis, "Railways in the Greek and Roman world", in Guy, A. and Rees, J., eds, Early Railways. A Selection of Papers from the First International Early Railways Conference (2001), pp. 819 (at 8 & 15). Failed Arab siege of Ragusa/Dubrovnik (868): a Romanian (Greek) theme of Dalmatia was established by 878; perhaps as early as 868. The earliest surviving mention of it comes in 870; Treadgold proposes that only officials were sent, i.e. no garrison of regular troops was established, its creation simply being a sort of pledge to defend the region (1997: 456). The thematic capital was at Zadar/Jadera, classical Iader, NW of Trogir and Split: about midpoint on the coast of present-day Croatia. The main centres were, from NW to SE: the islands of Krk [Italian Veglia], Cres [It. Cherso] and Rab [It. Arbe]; and the mainland coastal towns of Zadar [Zara], Trogir [It. Trau], Split [Spalato, Aspalaton], Dubrovnik (medieval Ragusa) and Kotor (Cattaro). The last was in what is now Montenegro. The native language was Dalmatian, a Romance tongue descended from Late Vulgar Latin, while Slavic languages dominated the interior. Basil formed an alliance (868-69) with the Pope and the Frankish emperor to besiege Arab-held Bari; dissension on the Christian side led to failure (869: see below). The people of Ragusa [Dubrovnik] shipped (869) proto-Croatian and other Slavonic soldiers to take part in the (aborted) liberation of Bari from the Saracens. See also 887. 868-84: Egypt: Ahmad ben Tulun, a Turk, establishes the Tulunid State, which lasted from 868 to 906 AD. During this period, Syria enjoyed a measure of stability and prosperity. See 871. He acted largely independently of the caliphate in Iraq, and extended his power as far as Syria and into the Hejaz. He built a strong fleet - some 100 warships and 100 other vessels - so as to maintain his hold on Syria: his navy was a defence against both the Abbasid caliphs and the Byzantines (Pryor in Gardiner 2004: 107). See 892. 869: The West: Basil sends Nicetas Ooryphas from Corinth with a fleet of supposedly 400 ships to Italy, to aid the German emperor Hludwig (Louis) who is besieging Muslim-ruled Bari (400 according to the Frankish chronicle called the Annales Bertiniani: McCormick 2001: 942). The actual number of galleys may have been more like 40 [cf below: enlarging of the navy c.870]. Ooryphas led the Byzantine fleet that sailed in support of Louis II who was besieging Bari, but on arriving there, he found the Frankish army dispersed in winter quarters, and caused a diplomatic episode possibly by referring to Louis, who claimed the title of Emperor of the Romans, merely as "king". As a result of the quarrel, the main part of the Byzantine force left, without participating in the siege of the city. The joint Byzantine-German attack was scheduled for the late summer of 869 and Louis remained in Benevento to the end June in order to plan it. The Byzantine fleet - 400 ships if we may believe the Annales Bertiniani arrived under the command of Nicetas, expecting that Ludovic would immediately grant the hand of his daughter. In fact he refused the engagement, for reasons we do not know. Perhaps Nicetas refused to recognize Ludovics imperial dignity, as Ludovic wrote in a letter about the "insulting offer" of the commander. Perhaps, however, the fleet simply fell too much behind schedule, in autumn, and judged that it had to retire before winter came on. In any event Hludwig (Louis) refused to hand over his daughter, promised as a bride, and Nicetass ships simply rowed away Hludwig (Louis) fails to take Bari, and the Muslims raid into Lombardic northern Apulia as far as Gargano (Kreutz p.44; Ahmad p.20). See 871.
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2. Eastern Sicily: Failed Muslim attacks on Taormina and Syracuse. Khafaja [sic: Jafaga in Rodriquezs spanish spelling] made the first serious attempt to seize Byzantine Taormina on the upper east coast but his attack finished in failure. A few months later his troops were defeated by the Byzantines near Syracuse. Eager to take revenge, Jafaga led his troops to besiege the city but in June he returned to Palermo. This was his last exploit: on the return journey he was assassinated by one of his Berber soldiers, possibly bribed by the Byzantines who wished at all costs to eliminate a frightful enemy (thus Rodriquez; also Ahmad p.14). At this time the Byzantines held only the immediate environs of Syracuse and a strip of territory along the east coast, running from Catania and Taormina and thence to Rametta or Rometta and Messina in the NE. Map of Sicily in 870: GO HERE: http://www.imperiobizantino.com/italia/mapa8.jpg 3. On 9 February 869 an earthquake damaged the western side of Hagia Sophia. It was repaired in 870. 4. As noted, the Paulicians raided into Asia Minor and attacked Ephesus and Nicaea. During this raid, Chrysocheir captured and sacked Ephesus, where he desecrated the church of St John the Theologian by using it as a stable. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee. A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge 1947, reprinted 1955), p. 42, dates the raid of Chrysocheir in the Thracesian theme and Ephesus to 867 or 868. Papermaking and stationery were significant businesses in Baghdad. Ahmad ibn Abi Tahir, 819-893, the teacher, writer, and paper dealer, was established at the Suq al-Warraqin (the Stationers' Market), a street which was lined with more than 100 paper- and booksellers' shops. 869-70: Western Mediterranean: An Aghlabid naval party commanded by Ahmed ben Omar [Ahmad b. Umar] captures Malta - located SE of Sicily - in 869. The naval expedition embarked from the main bases in Ifriqiya (Tunis, Sousse, Sidi Daoud or Kelibia) and also included reinforcements from Sicily. The Byzantines rushed to the islands rescue and laid siege to the Muslim garrison. This siege must have gone on for some weeks, if not months, because the attackers had to inform Abu Abd Allah, who was presumably in the Maghreb, and the latter then asked his agent (amil) in Sicily, Muhammad Ibn Hafagah [Khafaja], to send a new leader (wali). The new Muslim army sent from Sicily surprised the imperialists on 29 August 870 and caused them to withdraw, thus assuring Arab dominion of the island (Ahmad p.15; Brincat 1995). See 871. At the time of the arrival of the Arabs, Malta was under Rhomaioi rule. Brincat guesses that its population was of the order of 5,000. The whole island had been Christian for centuries; Christian tombs have survived from the period. The Byzantine rulers had a doux, or military leader, on the island, as well as a drungarios: an officer equivalent to a colonel, and archon: a civilian official, indicating that they had there an important naval station. It is unknown what language was spoken, except that Greek was probably the language of administration. A few Greek inscriptions have also survived. Godfrey Wettinger, The Arabs in Malta, (in) Malta: Studies of its Heritage and History, ed. Mid-Med Bank, Malta 1986, p.87. The Muslim Conquest of Malta The Arabic document known as the Chronicle of Cambridge puts the date of the Arab conquest of Malta at 29 August 870 AD. Ibn Khaldun puts it in the previous year, but Ibn al-Athir explains that in AH 256 or AD 870-71 the Muslims of Sicily came to the relief of Malta, then besieged by the Byzantines - presumably a
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flotilla from Italy - who withdrew when they heard of Ahmads coming. Apparently, therefore, in 870 Malta was already in Muslim hands. What seems certain is that in AH 256 / AD 870 a Muslim squadron left Sicily under the command of Ahmad b. Umar in order to relieve Malta, which was being invested by a Romanian (Greek) fleet. This shows that the island was already occupied by the Muslims before that date, and the year 255 / 869 indicated notably by Ibn Khaldun (Ibar, iv, 430) and other Muslim sources seems correct. A Byzantine source mentions that the bishop or prior of Malta was unable to return to his see after the Council of Chalcedon in 868 because the island was (i.e. in 869) being invaded by the Arabs. The retreat, without a fight, of the Byzantine fleet on 28 Ramaan 256 or 29 August 870 seems to have given the signal for ill-treatment inflicted on the Greek population of the island, the arrest of its bishop, who was then sent into captivity at the Muslim-Sicilian capital Palermo, and the destruction of the church ( Encyc. Islam, at http://www.encislam.brill.nl/data/encislam/c4/com-0654.html; accessed 2007). Maltese: Surviving Greek terms which may date from the time of Byzantine supremacy, like lapsi: from Greek analepsis Ascension Day, are remarkably few. The linguistic board appears in fact to have been wiped clean to an astonishing extent by the Arab conquest of AD 870, which brought in the North African dialectal Arabic which is still the basis of Maltese. This included some Berber elements in the vocabulary (ibid.) The 14th or 15th-century geographer Ibn Abd al-Munim al-Himyari wrote Kitab alRawd al-Mitar fi Khabar al-Aktar (The Perfumed Garden). It gives the names of both the Arab general, Sawada Ibn Muhammad, who led the attack in AD 870 and the Byzantine commander of Malta, Amros [probably Ambrosius], who was deposed (Joseph M. Brincat, loc.cit.). Al-Himyari describes extensive destruction, and most historians believed until recently that the islands, whose position between Sicily and North Africa gives them strategic sway over transMediterranean shipping, were left completely or largely depopulated at least into the 900s. This is possible, if as Brincat guesses, their population had been as small as 5,000.(*) In fact archaeology suggests that the importation of amphorae and possibly also cooking pots to Malta - from Byzantine (later Muslim) Sicily - continues right into the 8th and 9th /early 10th Century. And a Byzantine source implies that in the 10th century there were eight cities (i.e. towns) on Muslim Malta and Gozo. Agostino Pertusi, Le isole Maltesi dallepoca bizantina al periodo normanno e svevo (secc. VIXIII) e descrizioni di esse dal sec. XII al sec. XVI, Byzantinische Forschungen 5 (1977), p. 263. At the main town of Melita - old Mdina - occupation actually increases over the 7th and 8th Centuries. Remarkably, the town seems to expand its physical extent and continues receiving trade in amphorae right up to the 10th Century and beyond, into the Islamic period. The imports were probably paid for in various services presumably for repairs and supply to passing ships, provision of market services etc - and/or the sale of items with low archaeological visibility, such as slaves or textiles. (**) The language spoken on the islands before 870 - whether it was Punic, low Latin or Greek is still uncertain - was supplanted by Arabic, perhaps overnight, or perhaps over a longer period. (*) For careful discussions of the literary evidence see Brincat, loc cit., and the first half of A. Luttrell, Slaves and Captives on Malta: 1053/4 and 1091, Hyphen: a Journal of Melitensia and the Humanities 7 (1992) 2, pp.97 ff. (**) Archaeology: Nathaniel Cutajar, The role of liminal territories in the early Byzantine Commonwealth: the Maltese example, at docenti.lett.unisi.it/files/ 30/8/1/1/abstracts_impaginati.pdf.
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2. A church council sat in Constantinople from October 869 to February 870. The papal legates arrived at Constantinople in September 869, and in October the synod was opened that todays Catholics recognise as the Eighth General Council (Fourth of Constantinople). This synod tried Photius, confirmed his deposition, and, as he refused to renounce his claim, excommunicated him. Cf 870. It also formally placed Bulgaria under the Patriarchate of Constantinople in an extraordinary session on 4 March 870, which the Papal legates refused to accept as valid. 869-71: Hostile correspondence between Basil and the Western emperor Hludwig (Louis or Lewis) II. (As noted earlier, this followed a failed deal for Byzantium to help Louis capture Muslim-ruled Bari in return for a marriage alliance.) Arguments over use of the style emperor of the Romans. Louis began by calling Basil emperor of the New Rome, but it annoyed the Byzantines that a Frankish kinglet (rex) should also style himself emperor [imperator augustus Romanorum]. Louis for his part, replying in 871, angrily called Basil king of the Greeks, pointing out that originally the Greek word vasilefs or basileus meant merely king (Toynbee 1973). 869-83: Zanj or East African revolt in Abbasid lower Iraq. Al-Tabari and Al-Masudi considered the revolt to be one of the largest and most brutally fought African slave or slave-driven rebellions in history. The revolt began near the city of Basra in 869 and ended in 883. During the time of the Abbasid rule there were large numbers of people imported as slaves from what is now East Africa, southern Sudan and Somalia. The Zanj worked in extreme conditions of misery. The male slaves worked in the hot, humid salt marshes of the Shatt Al-Arab (the lower combined Euphrates-Tigris) while the females and children were used for domestic labour. In agriculture their jobs were to clear away the nitrous top soil that made the land arable. Although African slaves sparked the rebellion, they were soon joined by other slaves, serfs, peasants, artisans, tribal Arabs and manumission slaves. Indeed Shabin, Islamic History: A New Interpretation, 750-1055: Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1976, has argued that the participants were primarily Arabs from the Persian Gulf and free East Africans who lived in southern Iraq because they chose to live there. He contends that the economic importance of African goods that were traded throughout the region made conflict inevitable. African traders and merchants in Iraq attempted to establish and protect an effective monopoly on trade routes. Certainly numerous references to other groups involved in the revolt like the Bedouins or local peasants indicate that the Zanj revolt was something greater than simply a slave revolt. The Zanj overran most of southern Iraq, sacking Basra in 871 and putting a reputed 30,000 men, women and children to the sword. For roughly 14 years they succeeded in achieving remarkable military victories and even building their own capital al-Mukhtara (The Chosen, The Elect City), and expanding along the Shatt al-Arab to within 70 miles or 110 km of Baghdad. Located between Basra and the Gulf, al-Mukhtara had huge resources that allowed the building of six impregnable fortresstowns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and warships. The armed forces of the Zanj reputedly numbered as many as 15,000 at their peak. The Caliph's brother al-Muwaffaq launched a methodical series of campaigns from 881 to 883 AD, driving the Zanj forces back into a lastditch defence of their capital city. 870: 1a. Papal legates attend a church council at Constantinople. The council condemned Photius and deposed him as patriarch and reinstated his predecessor
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Ignatius. It also ranked Constantinople before the other three (Muslim-ruled) Eastern patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
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Canon 21: No secular authority shall treat disrespectfully or seek to depose any of the five patriarchs; rather are they to be highly honoured, especially the pope of Old Rome, then the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem [in that order]. Nor shall anyone direct against the pope of Old Rome any libelous and defamatory writings, as was done recently by Photius and earlier by Dioscurus. If a secular authority shall attempt to expel the pope or any of the other patriarchs, let him be anathema. 1b. The council formally placed Bulgaria under the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Latin clergy are ejected from Bulgaria. The East Romans allow internal autonomy to the Bulgarian church but under nominal sovereignty of the Patriarch in Constantinople. In Bulgaria, church services were conducted in Greek [but see 885]. 1c. In the central Adriatic, Croatian pirate ships assaulted the papal legates who were returning from the Council of Constantinople. All their possessions were taken, including the written acts of the council. In retaliation the Byzantine fleet under Ooryphas attacked the pirates (slavers) bases, destroyed their ships and forts and imprisoned many (Giuseppe Praga, Dalmatia p.60). 2. The first Serbian tribes convert to Eastern Christianity - between 867 and 874. Cf 878 probable conversion of the zhupan Mutimir. The East Roman Empire in 870 managed to convert some of the Serbian leaders, thus opening the way to the mass conversion of the Serbs to Christianity, accompanied by strong political and cultural influences from the Empire. The Serbian principalities were subordinated to the ecclesiastical metropolitans in Split and Syrmium. (The first Serbian archbishopric was not to be established until 1219.) With Christianisation, some of the differences among the tribes were pushed into the background, especially those rooted in pagan beliefs, and the path to Serbian unification was opened up on the basis of a common Christian culture. Cf 878. Strengthening the Armed Forces In about 870 Basil built up the (central) Imperial navy and recruited 4,000 new marines. They were allocated lands near Constantinople. Evidently the oarsmen of the Imperial (central) Fleet too became professionalised and were provided with land-holdings and regular pay, and the central (metropolitan) fleet gained its own marines. This re-configured the central fleet of Constantinople as the equivalent of a theme (Treadgold Army 1995: 76, 135, 173; State pp.547, 570). Cf 873-75: vs Cretan pirates. In the central fleet the number of oarsmen was some 20,000 (19,600) in 900, with lesser numbers in the themes of Hellas, the Aegean, Samos and the Cibyrrhaeots (Treadgold Army 1995: 67). This number (19,600) was enough to man some 33 larger dromons and 87 smaller dromons, for a total of 120 ships. If this is correct, then each ship was manned by 30-40 marines [120 ships x 33 or 34 marines = 4,000 marines]. For comparison, in the 13th century, Angevin-Sicilian galleys each embarked 36 marines: Pryor in Gardiner 2004: 111, 114. From about 870 the sources begin mentioning a theme of Dalmatia with its capital at Zadar. But it seems this involved stationing no imperial troops or ships there; Dalmatia remained self-governing under local Romano-Dalmatian officials and provided its own local forces (presumably a militia of fewer than 1,000 men*).
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The main Byzantine Adriatic fleet and army units (the latter numbering just 2,000 men) were based at Durres/Dyrrhacium, in the Theme of that name (Fine 1991: 258 ff). (*) Treadgold, Army pp.33, 68, posits that there were just 80 trained imperial troops at Zadar; he calls them a token garrison. At this time a strategus was assigned a personal guard of two infantry companies each of 40 men (ibid: p.100), and we may guess this was also the case at Zadar. We must imagine there was in addition a part-time militia of (say) 700 men because it is hard to see seven widely separated towns being defended by just 80 men. [Cf below, 870-71: Slav troops in imperial service.] As we have said, the nearest substantial body of (semi-) professional soldiers was the 2,000 soldiers of the Theme of Dyrrhachium (Durres) in present-day Albania, some 300 km from central Dalmatia. They could be rowed to Dalmatia on galleys in under a week (so, allowing time for a ship to alert the strategos at Dyrrhachium, the response time was perhaps two weeks). d. al-Kindi, first Muslim philosopher and greatest of the early patrons of translation from ancient Greek into Arabic. The Norse, led by Gardar the Swede, discover Iceland. (Or c.860.) 870/71: 1. Asia Minor: Following the capture of Ankyra by the Paulicians, Basil campaigns to destroy the Paulician villages and their leader, the ex-Imperial officer Chrysocheir. Chrysocheir managed to repel (871) the Byzantine attack and forced them to break the siege of Tephrike, but during this campaign Basil sacked the town of Amara and the fortresses of Spathe and Koptos. The emperor initially suffered defeat before Tephrike and would have lost his life except for the valour of an Armenian peasant who afterwards joined the imperial guard: Theophylactus the Unbearable, the father of the future Basileus, Romanus I Lecapenus. The event was so traumatic for Basil that thenceforth he prayed daily in his chapel to live long enough to kill Chrysocheir. See 872/73. The Paulicians were a heretical sect believing in two co-eternal principles (good and evil), rejecting the Old Testament, denying the Incarnation, and holding matter to have been created by the evil principle. Under their leader Chrysocheir they had defeated Basil at Tephrice in 870/71; but the East Roman emperor then (871/72) sent an army into Asia Minor under his son-in-law Christopher, the Domestic of the Schools, to deal with them. Christopher caught Chrysocheirs forces at Bathyrrhyax at the foot of Mount Zogoloenus (in Cappadocia) as they were returning from a raid on the centre of Asia Minor, heavily loaded with booty. The Paulician forces were crushed, and Chrysocheir himself was slain (872) by a Greek he had captured in 870. 2. Italy: An Arab raiding party from Bari ravages the Gargano peninsula including the great Lombard shrine of St Michael at Monte Sant'Angelo, NE of Manfredonia. In response, marching from Benevento, the Western emperor Hludwig (Louis) leads (late 870) a Frankish-Lombard army down past Muslim Bari against other Arab targets in Apulia and Calabria. Then, with support from a Byzantineorganized fleet manned mainly by Sclavinai Croatian alies of the Franks and other Slavs in Romanian (Greek) service, - the Franks take Bari and capture the emir Sawdan (2-3 February 871). Constantine Porphyrogenitus claimed that all the Romance-speaking Dalmatian towns participated by [Byzantine] imperial mandate as well as several different tributary Slav tribes (DAI; also Kreutz p.45). And Louis wrote that Sclavenia nostra (our Slavenia), meaning the Croatians, took part (Fine 2006: 36). Cf below: 871-76. With their ships, the Dubrovnik people transported Croatian and other Slavonic soldiers to take part in the liberation of Bari from the rule of the Saracens. This is the first known case of a combined attack by the fleets and armies of Dubrovnik and Croatia in the defence of the Adriatic. The Slavs seemed to have served both
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 on their own ships and on regular imperial Byzantine ships (Vine 1991: 257).
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870-77: Italy: Arab-Italian cooperation: Sergio II, Duke of Naples from 870 to 877, was said to have turned the town into another Palermo, another Africa: a reference to his close commercial relations with the Arabs. He was excommunicated by Pope John VIII. See 871: Arab siege of Salerno. 870-92: r. Caliph al-Mutamid. From 871: Eastern frontier: The Romanics begin to gain control of the passes through the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains. Cf 879: Basil in person leads an expedition into Cilicia. 871: 1a. Bari moves from Muslim to Frankish and then to Rhomaioi rule, 871-75. End of the Emirate of Bari, 841-71: cf 873. - With some Byzantine aid, the Franks and allied Slavs under Hludwig (Louis) II recover (February 871) Benevento and the fortress-town of Bari from the Arabs. Subsequently the Lombard-Italians will allow the Byzantines to take control of Bari (in 873/74 or 876). Cf below, 873 and 874. The famous, long, hostile letter from Louis to Basil was written in the first half of 871, not long after Bari was captured. Jealousy between Louis and Basil followed the victory at Bari (871), and in reply to an insult from the eastern emperor, Louis angrily attempted to justify his right to the title emperor of the Romans. Gibbon: The fortress of Bari was invested [867] by the infantry of the Franks, and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian emir [actually he was a Berber] submitted (February 871) to the clemency of Lewis [Hludwig (Louis)], who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but their recent amity was soon embittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. Hludwig (Louis) had withdrawn into Benevento to prepare for a further campaign when he was attacked in his palace, robbed and imprisoned by Adelchis, prince of Benevento, in August 871. A landing of fresh bands of Saracens compelled Adelchis to release his prisoner a month later, and Louis was forced to swear he would take no revenge for this injury, and never enter Benevento with an army. Returning to Rome, he was released from his oath, and was crowned a second time as emperor by Pope Adrian II on 18 May 872. Then Louis won further successes against the Saracens, who were driven from Capua, but the attempts of the emperor to punish Adelchis were not successful. Cf next: Salerno. 1b. Italy: Arab (Sicilian) siege of Salerno 871-72; their first attempt to take a major Campanian town. The Frankish emperor Hludwig (Louis) dispatched a Frankish force supported by various Lombard contingents, and the Arabs withdrew (Kreutz p.56). The emir in Ifriqiya appointed a commander for Italy as well as a commander for Sicily. The former, Abd-Allah, landed at Taranto in 871 and sent columns in several directions. Abd-Allah himself proceeded to Salerno and laid siege to it, but died (*) in the course of operations. The siege continued without him and was only raised in 872 when the Arab forces had to fall back on Byzantine Calabria. Meanwhile, as noted, the Latins (Lombards) freed the imprisoned emperor Hludwig (Louis) II (Ahmad p.20). (*) Gibbon, vol. 2, ch. 56, following Baronius, who cites Erchempert or a document misattributed to Erchempert: It was the amusement of the Saracens to profane, as well as to pillage, the monasteries and churches. At the siege of Salerno, a
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Mussulman chief spread his couch on the communion-table, and on that altar sacrificed each night the virginity of a Christian nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the roof was accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head; and the death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ, which was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful spouse [the nun]. 2. As noted, Hludwig (Louis) II writes, from Benevento, an angry letter to Basil calling himself imperator augustus Romanorum. Basil replied asserting that neither he nor his grandfather, Louis I, had been authorised to refer to himself as emperor. 3. Greece: The first piece of evidence for renewed building dates to the late ninth century, viz. at Athens: the church of St. John the Baptist of Mangoutes, built in 871, demolished in the early 1800s. Building activity began again at Athens in the late ninth century, as demonstrated by the construction of the church of St. John Mangoutis in 871 and by the earliest structures in the settlement occupying the site of the ancient Agora, which archaeologists have dated to the ninth or tenth century (Curta 2006: 118). England, 871: The Christian Anglo-Saxons under King Alfred of Wessex inflict the first decisive defeat on the pagan Vikings (Danes). Nevertheless, under Guthrum and other leaders, the Vikings pushed west and southwest from East Anglia into Mercia and Wessex by 876. After a Viking defeat in 878, England was divided, and Guthrum became a Christian. Cf 878, 885. 871-88: Italy: Three-way contest between the Saracens, Franks (Italo-Germans), and Byzantines for control of Bari. The contest will be won by Constantinople. 872/73: 1. Sicily: Christian Syracuse outlasted a blockage imposed from 872 to 873 by emir Khafaja b. Sufyan b. Sawadan - Italian Wikipedia, 2009, under Storia della Sicilia Araba. But see 878 final siege. 2. The East: Paulicans - the large community of quasi-Christian heretics living in the borderlands of Armenia attack into Galatia. The Emperors son-in-law Christopher led a counter-attack (872) that would lead to the destruction of Tephrice and the Paulicians other fortifications in Asia Minor. The imperial army moved south into Mesopotamia and captured Zapetra and Samosata the next year; but it was defeated at Melitene. See 873. Basil sent a great expedition against them under his son-in-law and the Domestic of the Schools, Christopher. Their chief Khrysokheir or Chrysocheir was killed near Sebastea, and their capital Tephrike was subsequently* captured (878) and their power destroyed. Treadgold 1997: 457, citing Lemerle, dates Christophers campaign against Chrysocheir to 872; Haldon 2001: 85 places it in 878. The evidence is conflicting. (*) Chrysocheir was killed in action in 872, and his head was cut off and sent to the emperor as a trophy. But the fortress-town Tefrice, north of Malatya, remained independent until 878, when, having recently been damaged in an earthquake, it surrendered to the Byzantines. The imperial authorities enlisted some of their defeated opponents in their own armies. Cf 885 below: Diaconitzes, the trusted groom or aide of Chrysocheir became a Byzantine officer. Again Toynbee, 1973: 300, ascribes the victory of 872 to planning and logistics: the skilful convergence of the various East Roman corps at the right point at the right moment. Khrysokheirs army was encircled at Vathryax or Bathys Ryax, west of Sebasteia (latter-day Sivas), by the thematic troops of the Armeniakoi [perhaps 5,625 men] and Kharsianon [say 3,000], who occupied the heights
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commanding Khrysokheirs camp. The Armeniacs and Charsianum were the provinces neighbouring the Paulician realm. So we may imagine they deployed almost all of their forces into this campaign. The bracketed figures above represent 75% of their enrolled troops . Total: 8,625 men. Haldon (see next) offers a smaller figure: 4,000-5,000. John Haldons Account of the Battle of Bathys Ryax (Haldon 2001: 85 ff). The domestiskos of the scholai, Christopher, marched with tagmatic and thematic forces against Chrysocheirs Paulicians. The latter withdrew and were harassed by the Byzantines as they fell back to the region of Charsianon, NE of Kayseri. Charsianon is about two-thirds of the way along the main road from Ankara to Sivas. From Charsianon Kastron* the military road runs on to Bathys Ryax and then on to Sebastea (Sivas). The Paulician capital, Tephrike, modern Divrigi, lay further east. (*) The present-day village of Mushalem Kalesi, according to the French Wikipedia (2009), which is Haldons Mus[h]alem Kale or Mus(h)alim Kalesi. Kalesi = castle. The Paulician army marched towards Bathys Ryax, the modern Kalinirmak Gap on the NE edge of the Ak Dag range. This was an aplekton, or established marshalling point and supply base for the Byzantine forces of eastern Anatolia. The Byzantine commander stayed camped at Siboron, modern Karamadara, while he sent forward two thematic contingents, one from the Charsianon theme, the other from the Armeniakon, to follow and watch the Paulicians, to see which direction they would take back westwards into imperial territory or homewards to the east, towards Tephrike. If the latter, the two contingents were not to attack but report to the domestikos at Siboron. Chryoscheir made camp at the head of the valley of Bathys Ryax, evidently unaware that he was being shadowed. The Byzantines quietly camped nearby. Disobeying orders, the two thematic contingents decided to mount a dawn attack. A select force of 1,200 would attack the enemy camp, while the remainder (some 3,000) would create a great clamour with trumpets and drums, to panic the Paulicians into believing that the whole combined army under the domestikos had fallen upon them. The ruse was completely successful. The Paulicians were routed, Chrysocheir killed, and some escaping units ran up against the much larger force under the domestikos. The capital Tephrike held out for only a short while thereafter. 872: Dalmatia: Arab ships from Crete raided the Narentine (pagan Slav) island of Brach [south of Split] in 872. This would have included taking prisoners for sale as slaves (cf 876). The Arabs continued to dominate the Adriatic sea until the Byzantines pushed them out later in the decade. See next. c. 873: The newly expanded central imperial fleet routs Arab pirates (slavers) from Crete raiding into the N Aegean (Treadgold, State p.457). See 874. In 872, as noted, the Cretan Arabs raids reached as far as the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, and in the following year they laid waste the islands of the Aegean with a fleet under the command of a Greek renegade called Photios, probably accompanied by other renegades. Skylitzes (trans. Wortley p.47) says the Muslim fleet comprised 27 koumparia or large armed transport ships (oars and sails) and many myoparones (oar-propelled, light rounded ships with flat bottoms) and pentekontores usually known as galleys (small light ordinary galleys: galea). 873: 1. Asia and Mesopotamia: Basil personally directs an offensive partly against the emir of Melitene, a local ruler under the Abbasid Caliph, and partly against the
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Paulicians. The Byzantines raid east as far as Arsamosata (i.e. not Samosata]*, which was sacked, but they failed to take Melitene. Several Paulician forts were sacked. See 882. (*) Shimshat near modern Elazig in far upper Mesopotamia, where the Euphrates runs past (around) the sources of the Tigris. Not to be confused with Samosata (Arabic Samsat) on the Euphrates itself, now submerged beneath the great Ataturk Dam. Arsamosata was NE of Malatya/Melitene while Samosata was south of Malatya. See discussion in Whittow p.417. A triumph was held to mark the success, or at least to persuade people to the view that it was such. Having crossed from the Asiatic shore, Basil made a triumphal entry into the City. He was ceremonially welcomed with floral wreaths by representatives of every generation of city dwellers including children, and by the entire senatorial order i.e. the high officials and major dignitaries. After prayers at a shrine that he favoured, there was a parade via the Golden Gate, i.e. from the south-west, to Hagia Sophia, along the Mese, the main thoroughfare of the city. The itinerary was punctuated by victorious acclamations of the demes of the Blues and Greens: the competing city factions. Unlike earlier triumphs, no circus shows (horse parades) followed (McCormick, Triumph p. 155). 2. Italy: The Byzantine imperium returns to southern peninsular Italy when an imperial fleet wrestles the port of Otranto - at the bottom point of the heel* away from the Arabs (Kreutz p.57). The Lombard-Italian duke of Benevento, Adelchis, acknowledges Rhomaniya/Byzantiums suzerainty. Cf 875-76. (*) Otranto is very close to the easternmost point of the heel. From south to north, on the outside, the key Romanic towns of the heel of Italy were: Otranto, Brindisi and Bari. A Byzantine expedition under the strategos Gregorius, called baiulus, landed at Otranto in 873, beginning the Byzantine reconquest of Southern Italy. His title baiulus meant that he had been the imperial steward or preceptor (spiritual tutor). Gregorius was able to neutralise Hludwig (Louis) IIs power over the dukedom of Benevento, and he obliged its ruler Adelchi to acknowledge Byzantine hegemony. Cf 875-76 and 879 Bari and Taranto. 3. A letter sent in 873 by pope John VIII to the principes of Sardinia shows that Greek (Byzantine) merchants, presumably coming from Sicily or Calabria, went to the island to sell slaves. John asked them to restore freedom to slaves bought from the Greeks.* Iohannis VIII papae Epistulae, no. 27, cited by Cosentino, at www.degruyter.de/journals/ millennium/2004/pdf/2004_329.pdf; accessed 2005. (*) "There is one thing about which we should give you a paternal admonition, and unless you emend, you incur a great sin, and for this reason, you will not increase gain, as you hope, but guilt. . . . many in your area, being taken captive by pagans [presumably a reference to the slavers oerating on the European mainland], are sold and are bought by your people and held under the yoke of slavery. It is evident that it is religious duty and holy, as becomes Christians, that when your people have bought them from the Greeks themselves, for the love of Christ they set them free, and receive gain not from men, but from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Hence we exhort you and in fatherly love command that when you redeem some captives from them, for the salvation of your soul, you let them go free." 4. Edict of Basil I forbids the practice of Judaism. Cf 880.
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Baghdad, 873: d. Hunayn ibn Ishaq (al-Ilbadi), Arab Nestorian Christian and chief physician to the Caliph. Translator into Arabic of Plato, Aristotle and the ancient Greek medical doctor, Galen. Hunayn is said to have sent to Byzantium in search of Galenic texts. The first compendium of Islamic medicine was that of al-Tabari, produced ca.850 by Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (d. ca.870) who is not to be confused with the historian, Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 923). 873-75: Basils new navy regularly sails against the Muslim pirates of the Emirate of Crete. Cf 874, 879. In 873, the admiral Ooryphas defeated the Saracen pirates (slavers) of Crete in the Gulf of Saros [near Athens], and followed this victory up in the next year (see 874) with a celebrated feat: while the Saracens were plundering the western coasts of Greece, he had his men drag his ships across the Isthmus of Corinth, thereby surprising the Saracen fleet in the Corinthian Gulf and defeating them (Treadgold 1997: 457). The Madrid Skylitzes has an illustration showing Ooryphas punishing the Saracens of Crete: they are variously shown being hanged, tied to a tree or pole and shot with arrows, and boiled alive . . . The Arabs were ejected from the condominium of Cyprus*, which was briefly restored to sole Byzantine rule and constituted as a theme, c. 875-882. It was once again an Arab-Greek condominium by 907 when it appears as such in Leos Taktika. (*) In the censuses of 1831 and 1872, before mechanisation, the population of Cyprus was about 90,000 and about 140,000 people respectively (rising from about 10 to about 15 people per km2). Stathakopoulos 2008 has proposed nine per km2 as a low density in the Byzantine era. So with an area of 9,248 km2, Cyprus should have have supported at least 83,000 people. The medieval island may have supported around 100,000 people in good times. 873-85: Methodius works to build up his Slavonic Church in central Europe. But soon the Pope will ban the use of Slavonic in Moravia (in favour of Latin). See 924. 874: 1. Greece (i): Construction of the Monastery of the Dormition near Skripou (Orchomenus, Orkhomenos) in Boeotia/Viotia: an attractive example of middle Romanian (Greek) architecture: picture in Treadgold, State p.539. 2. Greece (ii): Arab pirates from Crete plunder the western Peloponnesus. The imperial fleet of 100 ships led by admiral Ooryphas sails/rows to Hellas; its ships are hauled overland (over six kilometres) across the isthmus of Corinth, allegedly in the course of just one night, and the Arabs are defeated in the Gulf of Corinth (Theoph. Cont. 5.61; Treadgold, State p.457; McCormick 2001: 1101). Cf 875-76: Venice. Only gradually were inland dioceses re-established all over Greece. It has been calculated that there were not above 25 all told down to the reign of Leo VI, 886912. Of these about 10 were in the Peloponnese. By then only a few pockets of unabsorbed (or untaxed!) and probably still pagan Slavs remained in the less accessible mountains, for example the Ezeritai and Milingi of the Taygetos range near Sparta. Vlasto 1970. Cf 879 evangelisation of Macedonia. Piracy vs Trade Most sea travel would have been for military purposes: There is no reason to doubt the assertion of Nuwayri, a 14th-century Egyptian chronicler, that the
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incursions of the Cretan Arabs into the Aegean in the ninth and tenth centuries effectively brought Byzantine trade [in the lower Aegean] to a standstill [i.e., until 961]. Some Italian influence can be seen [at Corinth] in the locally produced pottery in the late ninth century [say 875], in other words, after the reopening of the Adriatic [i.e. after the re-capture of Bari 871]. Furthermore, imports [to Corinth] of pottery from Constantinople only resumed after the recapture of Crete in 960961. Sanders, Corinth, in Laiou ed., 2002. - But see 876 and 944: Italian (Amalfitan) traders in Constantinople. Central Europe: The Slav prince Sviatopluk founds a kingdom called Great Moravia in the present-day Czech Republic. See next. 874-80: Slavic Kingdom of Great Moravia in todays Slovakia and Czech Republic: The Vita Constantini or The Life of St Cyril*, d. 869, was composed between 874 and 880, under the inspiration of his brother Methodius, by some of his disciples, possibly Clement, before Methodius returned from Moravia to Constantinople. The Vita aimed chiefly at defending the Slavic, proto-Cyrillic alphabet and liturgy just introduced in Moravia, by proving Constantine-Cyril to be a holy man and saint (Vlasto p.177). (*) Constantine took the name Cyril near the end of his life. c. 875: 1. Anatolia: An Arab incursion penetrated deep into imperial territory; they reached Malagina, SE of Nicaea (ODB ii:1274). 2. The Byzantines conquered Cyprus, and made it into a theme, briefly ending the old condominum arrangement with the Arabs. The imperial (central) fleet played a key role (Treadgold, State p.458, citing Vasiliev). Cf 876. 3. The Crimea: During the second half of the ninth century, Khersons mint struck an increased quantity of coins, which suggests that trade was flourishing. (Bortoli and Kazanski. in Laiou 2002). Strategoi in Italy: Gregorius Baiulus Imperialis Graecorum A. C. 875. Casanus seu Cassanus Patricius, A. C. 883. 884. Ioannicius Candidatus, Stratigo Augustalis, A. C. 884. 875-76: 1. Italy: A Muslim fleet, either from Sicily or Crete, makes a voyage up the Adriatic as far as Frankish Grado, NE of Venice, and on its way back sets fire to papal Comacchio on the coast N of Ravenna. But Venetian squadrons maintained their supremacy in the Adriatic, even though limited by the Saracen occupation of Sicily and Crete. New land reinforcements under Uthman, the commander in Taranto, raided the environs of Benevento, and occupied the towns of Telese on the road NW from Benevento and Alife further NW in the valley of the Volturno. The Lombards asked for Byzantine help, but the Beneventan ruler Adelchis feared Byzantine domination, and preferred to come to terms with the Saracens. The Byzantines, nevertheless, succeeded (25 December 875) in occupying Latin-ruled Bari. See next. Thereafter the Saracens in the Gulf of Taranto were on the defensive against the Byzantines (Ahmad p.21) 2. Italy: Proceeding from Otranto, the local army of New Rome (Constantinople) led by Gregorius [Gregory] receives control of Bari from the gastald and other Lombard subordinates of the Frankish emperor Hludwig (Louis). Bari seems to have been added to the Theme of Cephalonia (Treadgold, State p. 458; Whittow
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p.308). See 876 and 880. The local Latin chroniclers recorded this event thus: (a) Lupus Protospatharius, Chronicon rerum in regno Neapolitano gestarum: Anno 875.[sic: 876] intraverunt Graeci Barum mense Decembr. die Natalis Domini, feria 3. et Gregorius Stratigo, qui et Baiulus dicebatur The Greeks enter Bari in December on the 3rd holy day of the Lords Birth [led by] Gregory the Strategos known as the Baiulus [imperial steward, tutor, chancellor]*. (*) Gk bailos, imperial preceptor (spiritual tutor). Gregory had taught Basils sons. (b) Erchempert writes thus: Hoc audientes qui Barim residebant, Gregorium, baiulum imperiale Graecorum, qui tunc in Odronto degebat, cum multis exercitibus asciverunt, et Barim introduxerunt ob Saracenorum metum; qui statim apprehensum gastaldeum illiusque primores Constantinopolim misit, ut quibus iureiurandum fidem dederat. These partisans or supporters (audientes: hearers, obeyers, converts) living in Bari let in (admit) Gregory, the imperial tutor (baiulus, preceptor, chancellor) of the Greeks, who at that time based himself in Otranto, along with many troops-army-infantry, and [they, the Bariots] brought or let [the Byzantine troops] into Bari for fear of the Saracens; (and) immediately the arrested gastald and he [i.e. Gregory] sends the other officials (primores leading men, magnates) to Constantinople, having made them swear an oath of loyalty. British Isles: Christian monks abandon Lindisfarne, founded 635, for the last time. Viking raids had begun 793. Cf 878. 876: 1. The Aegean: The imperial navy defeats a large force of Cretan pirates (slavers), bringing some stability to the Aegean until the end of the century (Hocker in Gardiner 2004: 92). Cf 880. 2. The East: Further offensive against the emir of Melitene. 3. Italy: Byzantines begin an extended attempt to retake southern Italy from the Saracens. In the case of Bari, as we have seen, it was the local mainly Latin or Lombard population who invited (late 876) the Byzantines to return. Evidently the Bariots were tired of constant harassment by Muslims, other Latins (Lombards) and Franks (Germans), and saw the Eastern Empire as a better guarantor of their freedom. As already noted, the strategus of Otranto, Gregorius, was happy to oblige. But it was not until 888 that Byzantine rule in Puglia was finally secured: see there (Wickham pp.109, 111). We can judge the importance attached to Italy by noting the status of the men sent to govern it. Gregorius had been tutor to the sons of the emperor Basil and was therefore a man of high standing (Wickham p.112). Cf 877 Gaeta deals directly with Constantinople. Subsequently a general named Basil becomes Byzantine strategos in Bari and Southern Italy (to 884). N Apulia: The Byzantines rebuild Bovino, near modern Foggia, and fortify it with new walls. The walls around Bovino were rebuilt, and the streets were laid out in their characteristic narrow design (Wikipedia 2010 s.v. Bovino; no primary reference given).
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4. Italy: Byzantium takes Capri from the Lombard gastald installed by Hludwig (Louis) II in 866. Louis had transferred the island from Naples to Amalfis control.) Prompted by a Saracen raid as far as the neighbourhood of Rome, Pope John VIII tours Campania to promote an anti-Muslim coalition. The Carolingians of the North refuse to help him. His only recourse was to pay Arab bands not to attack Papal territory and later to plead to Byzantium for help. Cf 880-81. 5. (c. 876) Venetian edict against the slave trade: the doge sought to ban the purchase of slaves from pirates (Arab and Slav) and the transport of slave merchants (Jews) (Rotman p.72; McCormick 2001: 770-72). As Rotman pp.79-80 notes, this and the use of customs houses were partly an anti-Arab policy. More importantly, given that Venetian and Jewish traders sold slaves directly to Muslim Africa and the East, the Christian authorities were seeking to reduce or eliminate the competition in the slave traffic destined for Byzantiums own markets (largely for on-selling to the Muslim East), and to stop the slave trade in abducted Byzantines (for the Venetians would sometimes sell captive Greeks as well as Slavs and others). The figures assembled by McCormick 2001: 772 suggest the trade in slaves was a large scale industry. 6. Legal digest, the Procheiron (guide to the laws). 876-78: In about 876 or 878on the death of Ignatius, probably in October 878the former patriarch Photius was suddenly recalled to Constantinople and entrusted with the education of Basils children. After a decent show of reluctance, Photius again filled the patriarchal throne (Wikipedia, Photius, 2009). 876-79: Tulunid Egypt: Building of the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo. 877: 1. The East: At age 66* Basil personally led an army through the defiles of the Anti-Taurus from Koukouso (Gksun, SE of Kayseri) to Germaniceia (Marash). So poor were the roads or paths that they had to go on foot, a fact that also illustrates the ageing emperors vigour* (Haldon in Pryor 2006: 143). (*) He is usually taken as born in 811. Some have him born in the early or mid 830s (e.g. Tougher p.27). N. Adontz, tudes armno-byzantines, Lisbon, 1965, 67, offers an exact date: 25 May 836. If so he was 41 in 877. 2. Sicily: The Muslims under the governor Jafar b. Muhammad blockade the isolated and much reduced Romanian (Greek) outpost of Syracuse. Jafar began his mandate in 877 with an expedition to destroy the harvests in the environs of Byzantine Syracuse, Catania, Taormina and Rametta, i.e. along the length of the eastern littoral. After these preliminary movements, his troops advanced until they occupied the outer suburbs of Syracuse, and from August of that year they settled down to a siege of the city by sea and land. The defenders were well supplied to resist, but this time their attackers arrived determined and prepared to win. Among their armaments were a great number of siege machines, some of which by their size and terrible destructive effects caused great fear among the defenders. Having completed a wall, the attackers began to bombard the city day and night relentlessly (thus Rodriquez; also Ahmad p.15). See 878. 3. Italy: Gaeta lies on the coast above Naples, in the direction of Rome. Gaetas hypatus or consul John (Ioannes) II, or rather: co-hypatus - his father Docibilis was still formally in power, - received specific recognition as lord of the region directly from the East Roman emperor. That is to say, John accepted the title of patrikios from the Byzantines, and continued to rule Gaeta independently of Naples and the surrounding Lombard principality of Capua. When the term dux (duke) came to be used after 900, Gaeta formally became a duchy; but it
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continued to date documents using the reign-dates of the Byzantine emperors until 936. Docibilis had established the de facto independence of Gaeta after 867; but he remained nominally a vassal of Naples. John reversed the policy of his father of alliance with the Saracens and war with his Lombard and Greek neighbours, and was rewarded in 877 with the imperial title of patrikios. More concretely, we observe that Pope John VIII transferred the papal patrimonies or estates of (inland) Fondi and Traetto to Docibilis and his son Ioannes in return for their breaking their pact with the Saracens. 4. Constantinople: Photius is reinstalled as patriarch. 878: 1. SE Asia Minor: Genesios and Theophanes Continuatus record that in 878 the Byzantines defeated a Tarsan raiding party of 4,000 men. Toynbee 1973: 300 ascribes the victory to planning and logistics: the skilful convergence of the various East Roman corps at the right point at the right moment. Five army detachments or regiments, including local thematic troops from Kharsianon and Selefkia (Seleucia), under the command of Andreas the Skyth, converged on the Tarsans at Podhandos (Bozanti) immediately north of the Cilician Gates. The Arab incursion was modest. Let us therefore imagine, as a thoughtexperiment, that Kharsianon and Selefkia deployed only half their enrolled troops, i.e. 2,000 and 2,500 respectively (figures from Treadgold Army p.134). The other local theme was that of Cappadocia. If it also supplied half its enrolled strength (2,000), then the total East-Roman force may have numbered of the order of 6,500 men. 2. (Or 879:) The East: Byzantine forces under the domestikos ton Scholon Christophoros captured the last Paulician stronghold, Tephrike, following a siege, and destroyed it. A large part of its population was enslaved and forced to move to Byzantine lands, while some of them were incorporated into the Byzantine army and sent to Southern Italy. The fall of Tephrike signalled the end of the Paulician state, which for six decades had been a dangerous enemy of Byzantium on its eastern border. (See Treadgold 1997: 944, note 25, for a discussion of the chronology.) 3. Effective end of Rhomaioi rule in Sicily. After a nine-month siege, on 21 May 878 Syracuse falls to the Muslim Aghlabids, the last major town held by the Byzantines in Sicily. See 880, 902. Illustrated in Skylitzes. The fall of Syracuse, the administrative capital of Byzantine Sicily, after being starved by a nine-month siege in 877-78, nearly completed the Muslim conquest of Sicily, although the empire maintained toe-holds at Taormina and Catania and in south Italy. See 879 and 881. During the siege, the price of wheat in the town soared as supply dwindled. As a result, instances of cannibalism are reported which cause the spread of disease (Ahmad p.15; and below). The city is finally captured and sacked. Its great cathedral is converted into a mosque by the Saracens. Some 5,000 people were massacred during the sacking of the city. Those who survived were taken into slavery (Italian Wikipedia, 2009, under Storia della Sicilia byzantina). The Fall of Syracuse Theodosius, a monk, was captured at Syracuse and taken to Palermo: Such, he wrote, was the slaughter [during the siege of Syracuse] that on the same day every weapon with which defence had been made was broken to pieces, bows,
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quivers, arms, swords, and all weapons; the strong were made weak, and the violence of the foe drove to surrender those defenders, those brave men whom I may well call giants, who laboured with all their might, who hesitated not before that day to suffer hunger and all labours, and to be pierced with numberless wounds for the love of Christ, and who were all put to the sword after the city was taken. . . . We were vanquished after many attacks made upon us by night, and many a hostile ambush, after engines had been brought up against the walls with which these were pounded almost all day, after a grievous storm of stones hurled against our works, when the tortoise-shed that destroys cities had been used against us, and those things which they call subterranean rats [ie, undermining the walls]; for not one of those things which are of use for taking a city was left untried by those who were in charge of the siege. . . . we were taken captive after we had suffered hunger long, feeding upon herbs, after having thrust into our mouths in our extreme need even filthy things, after men had even devoured their children - a frightful deed, that should be passed in silence, although we had before abhorred human flesh - oh! hideous spectacle - but who, for his own dignity's sake, could weep such deeds in tragic strain? . . . No sort of domestic bird or fowl was left, and oil and all sorts of salt provisions had long been eaten up, even such things which, as Gregorius Theologus says, are usually the food of the poor; no cheese, no vegetables, no fish. . . . the enemy besieged the city with all their forces, and was so far superior in numbers, that although it is hardly to be believed, a hundred of them fought hand-to-hand with one of us, covering their antagonists with no common glory in dangers which it required the highest courage to face. . . .. - Quoted in F M Crawford, Rulers of the South, London, Macmillan 1900. Sicilian Genetics It has been estimated that 37% of the male lineages in Sicily today are of Greek origins (notably the haplogroups E3b1 and J2), and 6% of Arabic/North African origins (J1). At least 7%, but more probably over 10%, could be of Norman origins [from the 11th century and later]. Cornelia Di Gaetano et al., Differential Greek and northern African migrations to Sicily are supported by genetic evidence from the Y chromosome, European Journal of Human Genetics: advance online publication 6 August 2008; accessed at doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2008.120. 3. Serbia and Croatia: Mutimir, the Serbian zupan, chieftain or knez, prince, converts from paganism to Eastern (Greek Orthodox) Christianity. Also, first written record of the Slavic name Beograd (Belgrade), then under Bulgarian rule; the town had been called (Latin) Singidunum in earlier centuries. Our father of blessed memory, Basil, the Emperor of the Romans, prevailed on them [the Slavs] to renounce their ancient customs and, having made Greeks [graikoi] of them and subjected them to governors according to the Roman [Byzantine] model and bestowed baptism upon them, he freed them from bondage to their own rulers and taught them to make war on the nations that are hostile to the Romans. Emperor Leo VI, Tactica, in GSBH, II, pp. 467-469. Simultaneously in 878 the supreme power in Dalmatian Croatia was seized by a local duke or prince (knez), Zdeslav, who favoured Byzantium against Rome and the Franks. Zdeslav promptly acknowledged the political sovereignty of the emperor and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the see of Constantinople. This was a minor triumph (and brief) for the Eastern empire, whose political and religious dominion now showed promise of spreading as far as Istria [NE Italy] and across the Dinaric Mountains towards the valley of the upper Sava River. But see next: 878-79. [Or 886:] At the edge of the known world: Alfred, king of Wessex, defeats the Danes at Edington and captures the village of London.
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878-79: Dalmatia: The first native Croatian ruler to be recognised by a Patriarch of Rome was duke Branimir. Pope John VIII called him dux Chroatorum in 879. The new pro-Byzantine duke or prince of Dalmatian Croatia, Zdeslav, recognises (878) Constantinoples sovereignty, but is assassinated by pro-Papal elements. Under his successor Branimir, rural Croatia switched (879) to Latin Christianity Catholicism in our terms - and became in effect politically independent. This affected mainly the interior. The Dalmatian cities and islands continued to acknowledge Constantinoples rule and remained Orthodox. The episcopate of Nin (Slavic) near non-Slavic (Romance*) Zadar recognised Rome (it probably came under the archbishop of Aquileia), while Zadar itself and the archbishopric of Split recognised Constantinople. The jurisdiction of the archbishop of (Byzantine/Othodox) Split was recognised in the coastal towns and islands, notably Krk (Veglia), Zadar, Trogir, Ragusa and Kotor (Cattaro), but not inland (Vlasto 1970: 195). As a result, the limit of Latin Europe and what Obolensky, p.138, has called the Byzantine Commonwealth became Serbias western or Croatian border. (*) The Croats of course spoke a Slavic tongue. In the coastal towns, however, the language was Dalmatian, a Romance tongue, perhaps slightly more closely related to the dialects of Italy than to Vlach-Rumanian. The towns of Zadar, Trogir [near Split], Split, Dubrovnik and Kotor - respectively Zara, Tra, Spalato, Ragusa and Cattaro in Venetian and Italian - each had a local dialect. So did the islands of Krk, Cres and Rab (Veglia, Cherso and Arbe), all in the north near todays Slovenian border. The earliest reference to the language dates from the 10th century, and it is estimated that about 50,000 people spoke it at that time (Wikipedia, 2009, Dalmatian). 879: 1. The West: A fleet of 100 ships commanded by Niketas Ooryphas, the Drungarios tou Basilikou Ploimou kai Katepano ton Ploimon , which is to say: admiral of the imperial or central fleet and supreme commander of the (entire) navy, sails (rows) to the Adriatic to aid Ragusa (Dubrovnik) - the number as given by Const. Porph. in DAI, ch.29. It defeats the Muslim Cretans in the Gulf of Corinth and so relieves the Arab siege of Ragusa. This is listed by Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 as one of the most notable naval victories achieved by the empire. 2. The East: An East Roman army raids into Cilicia and Mesopotamia. (Or in 877: see there.) Basil personally directs a campaign against the fortress-towns of Germanicia and Adata, during which Tefrike, present-day Divrigi, also fell to Byzantine forces. A triumph was held in the style described earlier under 873. The patriarch Photios met the emperor Basil I (Basileios) and his son Constantine (Konstantinos) in their triumph of 878 at the Church of the Theotokos and went with them in a liturgical procession to Hagia Sophia: Const. Porph., Military Treatises I, 779-790 (Reiske, 502). 3. Greece: By 879 the evangelisation of the Slavs of inner or eastern Macedonia was well in hand. Paul, (Greek) Bishop of the Strymonians, a tribe which stood across the Bulgarian trade-route, and Peter, (Greek) Bishop of the Druguvitai who, with the Sagudatai, occupied part of the rich plains to the west of Thessalonica, were signatories to the acts of the Council of Constantinople in that year. The Ezerites and Serbs of outer Macedonia also had bishops by 879 (Vlasto 1970: 10). But politically the upper Vardar and upper Strymon rivers remained in the hands of pagan Slavs who acknowledged Bulgarian overlordship.
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3. A small Byzantine strike-force finally reclaims Taranto from the Arabs (Kreutz p.63). Or in 880: see there. 4. Sicily: Husayn b. Rabah made an expedition against Taormina, now the most important Christian/Byzantine stronghold in the island (Tobias 2007). In the battle that ensued, the Greeks lost their leader, a patrikios called Chrisaphios. 879-80: Constantinople: A church council was held from November 879 to March 880 which conceded the return of the church of Bulgaria to Romes jurisdiction and thus ended one aspect of the 20-year-old quarrel. Pope John VIII for his part recognised Photios. The so-called Photian Council: Pope John VIII recognised Photius as patriarch and sent legates to a synod, held in 87980, which the Eastern Church counts as an ecumenical council. As we noted earlier, this synod affirmed that Photius had been legally elected, nullified the synods that had condemned him, ruled against the elevation of laymen to the episcopacy, and agreed that New Rome (Constantinople) would relinquish to Old Romes religious authority in Bulgaria. The pope sent three legates, Cardinal Peter of St. Chrysogonus, Paul, Bishop of Ancona, and Eugene, Bishop of Ostia. The synod was opened in Hagia Sophia in November 879. This is for the Catholics the Pseudosynodus Photiana, but the Orthodox count it as the Eighth General Council. Photius had it all his own way throughout. He revoked the acts of the former synod (869), repeated all his accusations against the Latins, dwelling especially on the filioque grievance, anathematized all who added anything to the Creed, and declared that Bulgaria should belong to the Byzantine Patriarchate (Cath. Encyc. under Photius). The S Balkans, our Greece, was represented at the council by 12 metropolitans and bishops. 879-92: Vikings resume raids against N Francia. Cf 885-86. 879-89: Bulgaria: Tradition records that Boris built seven cathedrals for his new bishoprics. The number seven must, as always, not be taken too literally. The website Serbianna (sic: 2010, citing Vlasto)*, says that the following can be identified with varying certainty: 1: the basilica on an island in Lake Prespa, 2: one of the churches at Ohrid, and 3: one at Nesebur (Mesembria); 4: the church at Vodocha (near Strumitsa), which would seem therefore to be the cathedral of the see of Bregalnitsa (dateable to c. 886-9); and 5: the church at Cherven, south of Ruse on the Danube. Also in Bulgarian-controlled territory were such Greek sees as (i) Belgrade or Morava, (ii) Dorostol (Drustur), (iii) Serdica: modern Sofia, whose church of the Holy Wisdom still survives, (iv) Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and (v) Develt - a short way south of Burgas on the Black Sea coast. The seven bishops from Bulgaria who attended the Council of 879-80 in Constantinople therefore represented the majority, if not the totality, of the countrys episcopacy. Cf 893. (*) www.serbianna.com/features/entry_of_slavs/ entry_of_slavs_into_Christendom. 880: 1a. The Adriatic: The imperial fleet under admiral Nasar defeats the Muslims off Methone in SW Greece (879) and off Punta di Stilo on the sole of the toe in Calabria (880).* This is listed by Pryor & Jeffreys, p.385, as one of the more notable naval campaigns conducted by the empire. (*) Genesios writes of an Aghlabid fleet of 60 large ships, each carrying 200 men, operating off western Greece in ca. 880. It is not clear if this was the same fleet as that defeated off Calabria. As noted below, Nasar may have commanded as many as 169 Byzantine ships.
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1b. Italy: Basil sends (879) the imperial fleet with an army mainly from the western themes commanded by Prokopios against the Arabs of Sicily, and they recover (880) parts of Calabria and the Muslim-ruled port-town of Tarentum/Taranto in Apulia (or in 879: Ahmad p.21 and Whittow p.308 say 880). The troops were drawn from Sicily, Kephalenia, Dyrrhachium, Peloponnnesus, Thrace and Macedonia, along with some Slav auxiliaries, and reinforcements from Charsianon and Cappadocia (McCormick 2001: 956). The date according to the Chronicle of the Logothete was after 1 May 880. Lupus is the only Western source to note this important victory, but it is mentioned in several Byzantine writings, including Theophanes Continuatus, Skylitzes, and the Chronicle of the Logothete. Lupus: Anno 880. exierunt Agareni de Tarento. The Agarenes [Muslims] are forced out of (leave) Taranto. Two Byzantine armies, led by generals Procopius and Leo Apostyppes, and a fleet sailing (rowing) from Sicily commanded by the admiral Nasar, took Taranto from the Arabs, ending a 40 years dominion. Among the first actions taken by the Byzantine governor Apostyppes was the enslavement and deportation (sale) of the Latin-Longobard inhabitants of Taranto (laos, its people, army) who had almost completely converted to Islam and the import of Greek-speaking peasants, in order to increase the population. This signals the re-creation of Byzantine rule across the whole far south of mainland Italy. In the Mediterranean, the Aghlabids practically completed their conquest of Sicily, and until 880 held part of the heel of Italy (Taranto). In 880 they were expelled from the Italian heel by combined Frankish-Romanian (Greek) efforts, of which the East Romans gained the profit. It was their [Byzantiums] first territorial gain [in the West] for two centuries, and their possession of it was assured more by the political disunity and impoverished state of the peninsula than by the force of imperial arms (McEvedy 1961: 48). Expedition to Sicily, Calabria and Apulia, 879-80 The expedition was a strong one: Ibn Idhari writes of 169 ships in all, whereas the Vita of Elias the Younger offers just 45 (Tobias 2007: 175 accepts the latter figure). The contingents of the themata of the West Cefalonia; Dyrrhachium; and the Peloponnesus [if 1,000 each, perhaps 3,000 men?] were supported by detachments of Serbs and Croatians [say 2,000?] all under the command of Procopius the Protovestiarios or Keeper of the Imperial Wardrobe. In addition, some of the troops of Thrace and Macedonia [say 2,000?] were sent under the doux or strategos Leo Apostypos (Apostyppes). They linked up with troops of Sicily meaning Calabria [say 1,000].* Although we do not know the exact numbers, it was definitely an imposing army (says Rodriguez: square brackets are my guesses: MOR). As noted below, the expedition probably exceeded 10,000 men. This was more than the number Belisarius had led when he invaded Sicily in the 6th Century. (*) Nearly the whole of Sicily was under Muslim rule; there the Byzantines held only parts of the eastern littoral. But Calabria-Sicily was officially still called Sicily. One source says that the troops were drawn from all the western themata and specific mention is made of the theme of Sikelia itself: Kephalenia, Dhyrrakhion, Thrake, Makedhonia, and Sicily so-called, meaning the local troops of Calabria
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(Toynbees Greek spellings: 1973: 264). Evidently the Peloponnesus also contributed some troops. Or as Von Falkenhausen has it, the troops were drawn from 1 Sicily [Calabria], 2 Kephalenia, 3 Dyrrhachium, 4 Peloponnnesus, 6 Thrace and 7 Macedonia, along with 8 some Slav auxiliaries, and reinforcements from two Asian themes: 9 Charsianon and 10 Cappadocia (cited in McCormick 2001: 956). These themes had altogether 18,000 troops on their rolls; thus the expedition probably embarked over 10,000 troops. If Nasar had brought only 45 ships fron the East, they must have been supplemented by local ships or else several trips were made to ferry the army in. - See 881, 883, 885 and 887. Basil sent 45 ships of the imperial plimon (fleet) under the Syrian-born admiral Nasar, who had meanwhile replaced Nicetas Ooryfas in that position, against the Saracen fleet. Nasar was able to expel (879) the intruders from the Ionian sea, after surprising and annihilating an Arab squadron of 16 galleys in the port of Methone, the SW-most point of Greece. Nasar then proceeded towards the coast of Sicily and through the Strait of Messina; he reached Naples in October 879. Probably it was from there that a contingent of the fleet was dispatched (possibly early in 880), at the request of the Pope, to protect the coasts of Campania. Then, after reassembling his full squadron, Nasar commenced an offensive on the northern coast of Sicily, to the east of Palermo. A great naval battle was fought and won by the Byzantines off Milazzo, in the neighbourhood of the Lpari islands, Animated by the success of its fleet, Byzantium was now prepared to proceed with the second and more important phase of the operation, namely disembarking on Italian soil at Reggio in Calabria - the first imperial armies that those coasts had seen in more than a century (Rodriquez). A small strike-force also went to Apulia, where Taranto was captured. The following is adapted from Rodriguezs account. Having taken Syracuse, the Muslim Sicilians began to make expeditions against southern Italy and the islands off Greece. In some cases success was not achieved, as in 879 when a Saracen fleet of 16 ships that sacked the Peloponnesos was surprised at Methone by the ships of the Byzantine admiral Nasar which, operating in conjunction with the strategos of the Peloponnesos, John of Crete, surprised their enemies in a night attack and annihilated the flotilla, sinking some ships and capturing others. Nasar then sailed (his oarsmen rowed) in the direction of Sicily and sacked the coast around the Saracen capital of Palermo, capturing a great number of merchant boats and a great cargo of olive oil (which allegedly so increased the supply at Constantinople that prices fell dramatically). Next the fleet took course to Reggio in Calabria, where the land expedition under Procopios and Leo Apostypos was off-loaded. Leaving some ships in the northern Sicilian ports of Trmini and nearby Cefal*, Nasar directed the fleet from Sicily towards Calabria and there in 880, the disembarkation of the Byzantine army took place. The objectives for the campaign were to take or reassert control of Calabria, force the expulsion of the Muslims of Taranto and to unite those territories with the region of Bari already controlled by the empire. (*) Termini lies between Palermo and Cefalu on the farther northern coast. As it appears, by no means all of Calabria was brought under imperial rule in 880. A further army was sent from the East in 882-83 (see there); it attacked the Muslim outposts at Tropea and Amantea, on the instep of Italy, and Santa Severina, an inland town, near the front sole. 2. Italy and the Balkans: St. Elias the Younger, 823-903, in an attempt to escape the Arab inroads in his native Italy (Calabria), crossed the sea to the Peloponnese in 880. Cf 881. He arrived at Sparta, then went into present-day Albania (Butrint), where he was arrested as a spy. From there, he moved to the island of Corfu, and thence back to Italy. Eight years later he fled again from Italy, this time to Patras.
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Finally, in 903, he crossed to Hellas from Italy and arrived at Thessalonica, where he eventually died. His Life, written in the early 10th century, illustrates the degree of stability the Byzantine conquest had brought to the region. 3. An officially organised Jewish-Christian public debate (disputation) was held in Constantinople: it was followed by persecution of Jews and expulsions. 4. Guaimar [Waimar] of Salerno, son of Guaiferius, struggled (880) against the Saracens and the Byzantines, but on account of his cruelty he was deposed, blinded, and thrown into prison. In 881 (or 880) the Bishop of Naples, Athanasius, invited the Arabs, his allies against Rome and against Byzantium, to intervene. The Arabs established bases at the foot of Vesuvius and further south in Campania, below Salerno, at Agropoli, hitherto a Byzantine town. Guaimars opponents in Capua paid the Agropoli Arabs to come against Guaimar in 881 and they threatened Salerno itself. See below under 881. About 880: 1. The East: Harun ibn Jahya (Yahya) is captured by the Byzantines at Ascalon in Palestine. His memoirs reveal travel times: the journey by ship from Palestine to Attalia, capital of the Cybyrrhaeot theme, took three days (i.e. an ocean crossing via Cyprus). Cyprus was used by both Byzantium and the Caliphate as a forward staging point or convenient rendezvous, either for taking on water or for gathering together a whole fleet. From Attalia by horse it took eight days to arrive at Constantinople, a distance of over 300 miles/480 km i.e. 40 km a day, which again is a respectable speed for horses. Infantry and civilian pedestrians of course would have travelled much more slowly: at best about 16 miles/fewer than 24 km per day (Hyland p.38; McGeer p.341; Haldon in Pryor 2006: 141). Cf the average of 15 miles (24 km) per day for a British division marching in Palestine in WW1 (McGeer p.341n). Byzantine marching rates are given by Phocas: in G. Dagron and H. Mihailescu, Le trait sur la gurilla (De velitatione) de lempereur Nicphore Phocas, 963969 (Paris, 1986), p.79. Harun describes an imperial procession in Constantinople, with the houses along the way brocaded; men marching in massive contingents dressed in red, white, green and blue [sky blue]; men with gilded axes; eunuchs carrying golden crosses; regiments of armoured Turkish and Khazar lancers; and so on (El Cheikh 2004: 155). 2. Trans-Danubia: Migrating westwards, the Magyars (Hungarians) reach the eastern slopes of the Carpathians and the NW shore of the Black Sea, and so enter the range of Byzantine politics. (They will not cross the Carpathians until about 900.) At this time the Bulgarians controlled both sides of the lower Danube. 881: 1. Basil aged 70. He dedicates the Nea (new church) to Christ, the Virgin, Michael, Gabriel, Elijah and St Nicholas. 2. Italy: The Arab bandits or freebooters based at Sepinoinland, 40 km NW of Beneventowere (amazing as it may seem to us) being sponsored by the proByzantine and anti-papal bishop-duke of Naples, Athanasius. As mercenaries they helped defend Naples against the Lombards of Capua, Benevento and Salerno, who also employed bands of Arabs. In 881 the Sepino Arabs first ravaged the towns of Isernia and Boiano or Bojano and then in October destroyed the abbey of San Vincenzo al Volturno, the great monastery upstream from Capua. Tracing NW, Sepino lies SE of Boiano, which is SE of Isernia which is SE of San Vicenzo al Volturno.* The abbey was left abandoned until 914 (Kleinhenz p.756; Wikipedia 2010 s.v. Athanasius of Naples). Cf 883. The planctus (chant) recounting the sack of the Benedictine monastery of San
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Vincenzo al Volturno in 881 is still sung in the abbey on 10 October each year ( Richard Hodges, The Sack of San Vincenzo Al Volturno, History Today, Vol. 47, July 1997):Now the heathens come, the clamourous band rages. They bring war down on the monks, then turning act as a scourge, And with a rain of weapons make faith effeminate. The impious rustic servants of the monks make a gift to this host. They strike down their own masters in the slaughter. They assail the strong fortresses, the opponents swiftly rush together, The high buildings fall, the walls all collapse. (*) San Vicenzo al Volturno is located at the intersection point of a line drawn NE from Gaeta and another NW from Benevento. Cassino/Montecassino is halfway along the line from Gaeta to San Vicenzo al Volturno. The river Volturno runs down past Capua and into the sea. Muslim pirate-bases (raiding colonies) in Italy In 881 (or 880) the Bishop of Naples, Athanasius, invited the Arabs, his allies against Rome and against Byzantium, to intervene. The Arabs established bases at the foot of Vesuvius and further south in Campania, below Salerno, at Agropoli, hitherto a Byzantine town. And Docibilis, the hypatus (consul) of Gaeta, another enemy of the pope, allowed the Arabs to settle as his allies in the north, near Itri on the Appian Way inland from Gaeta, and then (881 or 882: see there; or 883*) on the right bank of the Garigliano River near Minturno (formerly Traietto) on the Gulf of Gaeta NW of Naples - south of Montecassino: quite near Gaeta itself. Specifically their fortified camp was at Monte dArgento, three km north of Minturno, looking down on the flat littoral where the Appian Way ran. See 886: attack by Theophylact. From Gaeta it is just 15 km in a straight line east across the Gulf of Gaeta to the mouth of the Garigliano. The Arabs built a fort there, from which they conducted raids. They attacked and again set on fire (883) the monasteries of St.Vincenzo and Montecassino. Source: Italian history website called Maat, at http://www.maat.it/livello2-i/mediterraneo-2-i.htm, page entitled Mediterranean Sea: From Centumcellae to the Garigliano; accessed 2008. (*) The date preferred by Loud, in NCMH p.626, is ca 881. 881-82: Sicily: Hasan b. Abbas, eager to erase the memory of the defeat of the previous year, undertook in 881 a new campaign against the Greek towns of Taormina and Catania on the east coast, in the course of which he defeated the strategos Barsakios. The situation improved slightly for the Byzantines at the end of that year, and in 882, when they were able to win in two encounters. The second victory at Caltavuturo (north-central Sicily, SW of Cefalu), won by the stratopedarch* [field commander] Musilikes, was, says Rodriquez, especially remarkable, or, as Ahmad says, a distastrous defeat for the Muslims (p.16). (*) Evidently this was a title given to eunuchs serving as high commanders (cf Talbot & Sullivan, introd. to Leo Diac. 2005: 37). Eunuchs were permited to hold all the high offices save only those of the City Prefect, Quaestor [senior judge and legislative clerk], commander of the four Tagmatic regiments and of course the throne itself (Norwich 1993: 130). This failure led to the fall of the Muslim governor Abbas and his replacement by Mohamed b. Fadl who resumed (882-83) the incursions into Greek territory and was able to repel chelandia (warships) sent to sack the north coast of the island. In a new battle, the imperialists lost 3,000 men and saw their possessions reduced to the territories on the eastern coast of the island, in the plain between
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the Mt Peloritanos and Mt Etna. However, the division among the Muslim Sicilians, the instability and brief reigns of their governors, and the fragile balance of their relations with Africa, prevented for a further generation the unification of forces that might have applied a definitive blow to the debilitated position of Byzantium in the island (thus Rodriquez). See 902. 881-86: Italy: Reassertion of Byzantine power over Calabria and part of Apulia. Cf 882/83: eastern troops under Stephen Maxentius campaign in Italy. c. 882 (before 892): Partly as a response to the danger from Muslim Crete, the Byzantine government created a naval Theme of Samos - headquartered in the eastern Aegean: off the SW coast of Asia Minor, near Ephesus - by separation from the naval Theme of the Aegean Sea. Cf 892. Treadgold, Army 1995: 67, 76, offers the following numbers for oarsmen and marines in 899: imperial fleet (central) 19,600 rowers and 4,000 marines; Cibyrrhaeots 5,710 and 1,000 marines; Samos 3,980 and 600 marines; (north) Aegean Sea 2,610 and 400 marines; and Hellas 2,300 and 2,000 troops [perhaps 400 marines and 1,600 land-soldiers]. Overall total rowers: 34,200. This was enough men to man 152 smaller dromons and 57 larger dromons, i.e. over 200 galleys. Samos would have had about 25 of these. Other evidence suggests that in fact the navy may have numbered 240-300 ships (presumably including some types smaller than a standard dromon of 100 oarsmen). The Arab chronicler Tabari put the Byzantine fleet at 300 ships in 852, i.e. even before it was expanded by Basil I. And, not including Hellas, the total regular fleet amounted to 240 ships in 949. Then Leo the Deacon speaks again of 300 ships available in 971. We know that on one occasion merchantmen were used to take troops and equipment to Italy (Leo Diac. 65.20). So the 307 ships sent against Crete in 96061 (see there) probably included some, even many, small requisitioned private ships, allowing some naval ships to be held back for operations elsewhere (Treadgold, Army p.85n). 882: 1. Mesopotamia: Basil leads the army east against Melitene; but is forced back. Though the balance of military power had definitely been shifted in the Byzantines favour, their advantage over the Arabs was still precarious (Treadgold 1997: 460). Byzantium was now in effective control of the passes through the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains. 2a. Italy: (or in 881) Saracens capture Agropoli in Campania, on the coast south of Salerno (Italian Wikipedia 2010, Agropoli). They turn the town into a base from which to launch further raids deeper into Italy. 2b. Naples is allied with the Saracens against Byzantium and a battle was fought at Santa Severina in east-central Calabria (883). See below under 882-85. 3. Russia: Origins of the Viking (Rus) lordship of Kiev: Prince Helgi (Oleg) unites the two points of the Greek route, Holmgard (Novgorod) and Kiev. Trade is established via the Dnieper River down to the Black Sea, and thence to Byzantium. See 907. 882-83: Sicily: Failed Muslim attacks on the Christians of the Catania, Taormina and Rametta regions (Ahmad p.16). See 885.
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882-885: Italy: In 882 or 883, after the return of Leo Apostypos, the emperor sent a new army to Italy, this time under the strategos of Cappadocia, Stephen Maxentius. Cedrenus and Skylitzes say he took a picked force of Thracians [say 1,667], Macedonians [1,667] and Cappadocians [1,333]. The expedition also included contingents from elsewhere in Asia Minor: the Anatolikon [say 5,000 men] and picked men from Charsianum (further east) [perhaps 1,333 men], who now make their first appearance in the Italian sources. Here the bracketed figures are just a third of the enrolled troops in these themes; so Maxentius may well have led a force of some 10,000 men. Maxentius began his attack against the Saracen pirate-bases. First his troops attacked Amantea on the instep of Calabria without obtaining any result, and soon his army was was badly defeated before Santa Severina (an inland town). Maxentius was recalled and in his place arrived, in 885, Nikephoros Phokas the elder (or in 884) (thus Rodriquez; also Tobias 2007: 177). 882-915: Muslim pirates (slavers) in Italy: As noted above, in 882 - or ca. 881 - Sicilian Muslims occupied a further military outpost or pirate base (raiding colony) on the coast of Italy north of Naples at the mouth of the River Garigliano: a little nearer to Naples than to Rome. They will hold it for over 30 years. They proceed to sack the abbey of Montecassino in 882-83. It was fear of nearby Capua that led Gaeta to invite the Aghlabid band to settle along the Garigliano. The Arabs served as Gaetas shield (Kreutz pp.62, 72). Cf next. 883: 1. The East: A large army was sent against Tarsus under the new army commander or domestikos ton scholon Kesta Styppeiotes; but they were attacked at night while unprepared (no proper camp had been dug) and the general was defeated and killed by the forces of Yaz(a)man al-Khadim, amir of Tarsos (John F. Haldon, Warfare, state, and society in the Byzantine world, 565-1204, Routledge,1999 p.185). As noted below, many on the Muslim side were Egyptians, Cilicia at this time being under Tulunid (Egyptian) suzerainty. 2. Leo, the presumed son of Michael III, is accused of plotting against the emperor; Basil orders some of Leos alleged co-conspirators blinded but Leo himself is spared. Leo was imprisoned for three years and his supporter, the general Andrew the Scythian, was deposed as domestic of the Scholae. 3. Italy: Arabs again sack and destroy Monte Cassino, the great monastery inland from Capua. See 885. The towns and duchies of southern Italy refused to form a common antiSaracen front under papal auspices; they cooperated with the Byzantines or aligned themselves with the Saracens in accordance with their individual ambitions and needs. As a result of this policy, the abbeys of San Vincenzo on the Volturno and the more famous Monte Cassino were burned and destroyed around 883; the abbey of Farfa, about 60 km from Rome, was besieged in 890; and the monastery of Subiaco, also about 60 km from Rome, was destroyed. The Arabs entrenched themselves firmly and comfortably along the Garigliano river at Trajetto or Traetto [Minturno]* and, more closely to Rome, inland at Ciciliano and Saracinesco**; from these bases they plundered at will. - Hilmar Krueger, The Italian Cities, at www.third-millennium-library.com/readinghall/ medievalhistory/iib-italiancitiesandarabsbefore1095; accessed March 2008. (**) Hence the name: 40 km NE of Rome. Ciciliano is 35 km E of Rome. (*) In 883, a band of Muslims, coming generally from Sicily but also from North Africa, settled down on the plain of the Garigliano, where the Via Appia ran, constructing themselves houses and a mosque: The field of the Garigliano began
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to take on the aspect of a town: an outpost strengthened with ramparts (ripari) and towers; it contained women, children, prisons, booty. The heights of the nearby hills (i gioghi del vicin colle) [where Minturno is sited] constituted an extremely safe citadel. The short stretch of the river, navigable to boats, made the houses comfortable and life easy Italian Wikipedia, 2009, under Traetto, quoting Michele Amari, Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia, ed. con note a cura di C. A. Nallino, II, p.191; my bad translation, MOR. 4. First coins (in silver) minted at Venice (Fossier p.517). Cf 996. Arab Tactics David Nicolle has observed that during the ninth century Muslim cavalry were deployed in a fashion similar to the East Roman pattern from within the protection of regular infantry formations. Or so says Leo. Nicolle interprets Leos comment here as probably referring to the Tulunid* army from Egypt that crushed a Byzantine force near Tarsus in 883 AD. Cited by Riedel 2004. (*) Ahmad b. Tulun (d. 884), the first independent ruler of Muslim Egypt, relied very heavily on black slaves, probably Nubians, for his armed forces. At his death he is said - the numbers seem too large - to have left, among other possessions, 24,000 white mamluks [cavalry] and 45,000 blacks [Abid: slave infantrymen]. They were organised in separate corps, and accommodated in separate quarters at the military cantonments. Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Oxford Univ. Press. 1994, ch.9. Strategoi in Italy: Casanus seu Cassanus Patricius, A. C. 883. 884. Ioannicius Candidatus, Stratigo Augustalis, A. C. 884: Cassano suffectus 884 [?was appointed (at/by) Cassano?]. Tradezi [sic: Trapezi] Straticus/stratigo, A. C. 886. Names from Erchempert and Leo of Ostia. c. 884 (after 883): E Greece: The fleet of amir Yazaman al-Khadim of Tarsos, 30 large galleys, attacked the fortress town of Chalcis on the Euripos (west coast of Euboea). The troops of Oiniates, the strategos of Hellas, used wet fire (ygron pyr, our Greek Fire) sprayed from the walls of the town to destroy the Muslim ships (Theophanes Continuatus, cited by Pryor & Jeffreys p.620). Strategoi in Byzantine Italy, according to Hofmann: Ioannicius Candidatus, Stratigo Augustalis, A. C. 884. Tradezi Straticus, A. C. 886. Theophylactus Stratigo, A. C. 887. 885: 1. (or 884:) Italy: Nikphros Phoks the older, the grand-father of the future emperor of that name, is sent to campaign in Calabria with a large army largely drawn from the Asian themes. His troops re-conquer, from the Muslims and Latins (Lombards), lost sections of Calabria and Apulia. All of Calabria was regained except for the valley of the Crati River in the NE sector: the region beyond Cosenza and the western shore of the Gulf of Taranto. Phocass Campaign in Calabria Skylitzes says Nicephorus Phocas senior replaced Stephen Maxentius the Cappadocian, who had earlier (see above: 882/83) taken to Italy a picked force of Thracians, Macedonians, Cappadocians and others perhaps 10,000 men. Further troops including Paulicians were sent when Nicephorus replaced Stephen; so the latters forces may have numbered as many as 15,000 men. Interestingly the Paulician tagma or regiment serving under Nicephorus Phocas the Elder in Apulia was commanded by Diaconitzes, the former trusted groom or aide of the late Chrysocheir, k. 872. (Chrysocheir had died in the arms of the then young Diaconitzes.) The Byzantines had enrolled a number of the defeated
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 sectarians after the capture of their capital Tefrike in 878.
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Kreutz p.63, no doubt correctly, imagines Phokass army as the largest Byzantine army seen there in centuries. Nicephoros divided his troops into several corps, assigning to them different objectives. The several Saracen-ruled fortress-towns were attacked simultaneously. While one corps settled down to the siege of inland Santa Severina, west of Crotone, another detachment marched west across Calabria to lay siege to Amantea on the west coast, south-west of Cosenza. This fortress-town did not take long in succumbing, like the town of Tropea further down, on the pimple of the instep (Fossier p.377). Amantea and Tropea lay on either side of the Gulf of St Euphemia. With them fell two of the main bastions of the Arabs in western Calabria. (The Arabs had held Amantea since 839.) Then it was the turn of Santa Severina. With its conquest in the middle of 886, effectively all of Calabria was into the hands of the Byzantines. The victors hurried to install garrisons in the conquered towns after deporting the Muslim population to Sicily, in line with the treaties of surrender (thus Rodriquez; also Kreutz p.63). The Lombard chronicler Erchempert writes thus: Tunc nutu Dei quendam Agarenum ab Africa evocans Agropolim, inde Garilianum, quo residebant agmina Hismaelitica, misit; atque omnium illorum mentem accendens eius hortatus universi Saraceni tam de Gariliano quam de Agropoli comuniter collecti Calabriam, qua residebat Graecorum exercitus super Saracenos in sancta Severina commorantes, properarunt ubi et omnes Graicorum gladiis extincti sunt. Dehinc Amanteum castrum captum est. Deinde et dictae beatae Severinae oppidum apprehensum est. Erchempert, Historia. My translation: Then by Gods command, summoning certain Agarenes (Muslims) from Africa, he (?God) sends (them) to Agropoli (*) and thence to Garigliano, where they were living as/with a troop/column of Ishmailites (Muslims) [i.e. in a pirate base or raiding colony], and stirring up the minds all of them, urged them, the massed Saracens, as many from Garigliano as from Agropoli, are assembled, they hurry to Calabria, where there was located an army of Greeks [Gracorum exercitus] delaying-detaining-holding back the [other] Saracens in St Severina; where all [the Saracens] are destroyed/killed by the swords of the Greeks [Graicorum gladiis]. Next the fortress [castrum] of Amantea is captured. Then the hill-town [oppidum] of holy-named Severina is occupied. (*) Located on the southern promontory of the Gulf of Salerno, Agropoli had been occupied as a Saracen camp fortress - Ar. rabat, stronghold, fortified town - since 882; it was not to be eliminated by the Christians until 915 (see there). Cf 886-87 below. 2. Sicily: Failed Muslim attack on Taormina (Ahmad p.16; Metcalfe 2009: 28). 885-86: Italy: Formerly a Saracen stronghold, Bari, from 885, becomes the seat of the Byzantine theme of Apulia - modern Puglia, the heel of Italy. See 887. Trapezi Straticus, ann. 886. apud Lupum Protosp. According to Lupus the strategus in Italy in 886 was Trapezi (du Cange). In fact Trapezi was the title of the imperial butler, Constantine, who arrived in 887 to assist the strategus Theophylact. 2. Bulgarian Albania: The Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius arrive in western Bulgaria, as it then was - Ohrid/a in modern FYROM, - bearing liturgical books in Slavonic. Two schools of Slavic literacy emerged thereafter: that of Ochrida and that of Preslav.
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885-86: Frankish or Carolingian forces defeat a major Viking (Danish) siege of the river-island village of Paris. The Vikings are said to have come up the river Seine during winter in 700 vessels (the figure given by the monk Abbo). This figure seems far too large: 700 longboats at (say) 40 men per boat is 28,000 Danes; such a number would easily have overwhelmed the small town. We do better to believe that the true figure was 70 x 40 = 2,800 men. 885-88: The Caliph restores independence to the Christian kings of Armenia and Iberia. See 915. Restoration of the Armenian monarchy: both Baghdad and Constantinople recognise Ashot Bagratuni as king of kings in Armenia: prince of princes of Armenia, Georgia and the lands of the Caucasus; rendered as archon ton archonton or lord of lords by Byzantium. See 890. Beardless Italians and Franks Harun ibn Yahya was held as a prisoner of war by the Byzantines in Constantinople. After being set free, he travelled to Rome. This visit probably took place in the year 886. In that city, governed by a king called Bab, i.e. Papa or Pope, he was most taken aback by the Italians habit of shaving their beards which Muslims and Byzantines did not do. I asked them why they shaved their beards and told them that a mans beauty is in his beard. What is your purpose in doing this? They answered that any man who does not shave his beard is not a true Christian. Because when Simon and the apostles came to us, they had neither shoes nor sticks, and were poor and weak, while we were kings, dressed in brocade and seated upon gold. They called us to the Christian religion, but we did not answer them. We arrested them and tortured them and shaved off their hair and beards. Once we had realized the truth of their words, we began to shave our beards to atone for the sin of shaving their beards. A curious story for post-Longobard (long-9999) Italy! But evidently many in the Latin West were shaving by the 9th century, although many still had beards. The Franks seem never to have emphasised beards. Already in the 400s Sidonius writes thus: Their faces are shaven all round, and instead of beards they have thin moustaches which they run through with a comb. Carolingian images of Christ are distinguishable from Eastern icons by the absence of a beard and the presence of youthful muscles. Or rather, some Carolingian images of Christ were beardless; and Byzantine ones never so (after about 600). And Charles the Balds Metz Sacramentary of c. 869/70 and the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram show everyone clean-shaven (although in other illustrations we do see moustaches). And the decrees or synods held under Charlemagne had ordered the clergy to be clean-shaven so that they would not appear like the barbarians (non-Christians) of Northern-Central Europe. For example, at the Council of Aachen (816), it was stipulated that priests and monks were to shave every two weeks. Evidently the beard as a symbol of royal dignity was not fashionable in the West until the era of the Ottonians, after 912: copied, one may guess, from the Byzantines. 886 Basil I died, aged about 75, in August 886, supposedly from wounds sustained during a hunting accident. He contracted a fever after a serious hunting accident when his belt was caught in the antlers of a deer, and he was dragged 16 miles through the woods. He was saved by an attendant who cut him loose with a knife, but he suspected the attendant of trying to assassinate him and had the man executed shortly before he himself died. Some, however, have suggested that he
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finally fell victim to a conspiracy, orchestrated by Stylianus Zaoutzes, the father of Leo's mistress. Tougher 1997: 61-62. 886-912: LEO VI the Wise, Gk: Leon Sophotatos Son of the empress Eudocia Ingerina, Leo was aged nearly 20 at accession. Although officially regarded as Basils son, he was more probably the illegitimate son of Michael III. Leo had four wives in turn: 1. Theophano, d. 897; 2. Zoe Zautzina, d. 899; 3. Eudocia Baena d. 901; and 4. Zoe Carbonopsina (married Leo 906). Warren Treadgold describes him as senitive and cultivated, and a competent and responsible ruler. On the whole his reign was a successful one (1997: 462, 470). GO HERE for an excellent photograph of the votive crown of Leo: http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/surveys/charlotte/0010/001023.jpg Of scholarly taste and weak health, Leo took no part in the military campaigns of his reign. Nevertheless, he initiated a revival of East Roman military science, publishing an important treatise on tactics (the Taktika) and many other literary and legal works. For example, his legal edict, the Basilica, was a revised version of Justinians Codex. The Book of the Prefect, which he issued, prescribes regulations minutely controlling the craft guilds (somata) of the capital. For the sake of political stability, the government sought to keep supplies of essential food, clothing and other commodities flowing regularly and at stable prices. It was feared that free trade would allow hoarding, which would stimulate or aggravate price rises and lead to popular disaffection (Browning p.107). Cf 894. The Seclusion of Women One of the few forms of recreation available to young girls - in the capital: baths were uncommon in the provinces - was excursions to a public bath, where they might linger to chat with friends and share a picnic. A well-brought-up young woman like Theophano, the future wife of Leo VI (acc. 886), did not venture forth to the bath until dusk so as to reduce the chances of being exposed to the glances of strangers; she was carefully chaperoned by servants while outside the house. c. 886: Italy: After his successful campaign of 885, general Phokas planted Armenians as settlers in Calabria (Toynbee p.86). Basil Is army re-established Imperial rule across most of South Italy and expelled the Muslims from the entire Dalmatian coast, but he failed to recover Sicily and Crete. East Roman rule had been re-established in the boot of Italy through the capture or subjection of the cities of Benevento (in 873) and Bari (876). As noted, the Lombard/Italian and Saracen-held parts of Apulia and Calabria were recovered in 885-886 by Basils general Nikephoros Phokas (the Elder: grandfather of the future emperor of that name). This led to a three-way contest in S Italy between the Franks (Germans) as hegemons in the West, the Rhomaioi and the Muslims. 886: Italy: Anno 886. facta fuit proditio in Baro mense Iunij, quando Princeps fecit
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proelium cum Stratigo Trapezi, et Graecis. Treason was committed in Bari in June when the Prince* made battle with the strategos Trapezus** and the Greeks. Lupus Prot., Annales. (*) That is, prince Aio [Aiulf] of Beneventum. See more details under 887. (**) Trapezus was actually one of his previous appointments: Gk ho epi tees trapezes, the Master of the Table or imperial butler; his name was Constantine, with the title of patrikios. Alternatively the strategos in 886 was Theophylact, Constantine being the more senior general who arrived in 887 to recover Bari. 886: England: Alfred of Wessex takes London from the Danes. 886-87: 1. Civil war among the Saracens in Africa and Italy (and again in 889-94); this gave a respite to the remaining Greek towns in Sicily such as Taormina until 896. 2. Italy: In 886, Guaimar of Salerno travelled with Lando II of Capua to Constantinople and did homage, returning in 887 with the title of patrician from the emperor. He received a contingent of Byzantine troops - mercenaries socalled, which would simply mean full-time professionals - and returned to ward off the Saracen menace, the pirates of Agropoli. But Salernos relationship with Byzantium soon soured over the struggle for Benevento. See next. 887: 1. (or in 886) Italy: The Romaniyan (Greek) strategos, Theophylact, marches from Bari into Campania, ostensibly to attack the Garigliano Arabs, but he prefers to attack several Beneventan towns. Aio of Benevento leads a counter-attack in which he manages to take Byzantine Bari (Kreutz p.65). Lombard-Italians briefly recover Bari with Arab help (887), but the town is quickly recaptured by the Byzantines (888). See 891. The Byzantine force was employed by the Salerno ruler Guaimar I. The Beneventan ruler, Aio, angered by the Byzantines aggression toward Lombard land, retaliates by taking Bari from the Byzantines. However, the fighting in Bari left Benevento unprotected. Athanasius II, duke of Naples, taking advantage of the situation, enters Benevento. Aio, however, rushes back to retake Benevento and ravages the Terra di Lavoro, the Naples-Capua region. Within a year the army of Leo VI (Leo the Wise) reclaims Bari for Byzantium (Kreutz p.65). It would stay Byzantine for another 180 years. Cf 891. At this time the non-Byzantine half of the Mezzogiorno consisted of three fairly extensive Lombard (Latin) domains, namely Capua, Benevento and Salerno, while Gaeta and Naples were independent Greco-Italian city-states or port-towns on the coast. The maritime city-states of S Italy Gaeta, Naples and Amalfi, the latter only nominally subject to Naples since 839 - were half-Greek, half-Latin in culture and acknowledged the Romanian (Greek) emperor as their overlord. We may say they were independent within the empire. The common people spoke Latin, or rather: Romance, proto-Italian; while the upper classes knew both Greek and Latin (Runciman 1963: 181). The Lombard duchies Capua, Benevento and Salerno, the latter a coastal town whose extensive inland domains extended to N Calabria were entirely Romance speaking, the Lombardic (Germanic)* language having almost entirely died out by this time. (*) Not be be confused with Lombard, the Romance dialect spoken in Lombardy, the greater Milan region. 2. Dalmatia: As Venices maritime activity in the Adriatic expanded, she soon
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came up against the Slavic pirates so-called, i.e. local farmers and herders who also engaged in fishing and seaborne pillaging. The chief pirates nest or base was at the mouth of the Narenta (Neretva) River, which gave its name to the Narentine pirates. Their land, located in what is now Croatian Dalmatia, below Split, was also called Pagania. As with the Byzantines and later the Turks, Venice entertained both commercial and warlike relations with these people, the doge Pietro I Candiano perishing in an encounter with them in 887. The Venetians launched a military attempt against the Serbo-Dalmatian Principality of Pagania. The doge advanced with a fleet of 12 galleys to the portvillage of Mokro, where he sank five Narentine ships. This was the main Narentine town: modern Makarska, SE of Split.* He landed near Mokro and advanced deeper inland, but the Narentines crushed his forces, killing him in open battle on 18 September 887 (Wikipedia, 2009, under Pietro). (*) The eastsrn point of the large island of Brac (Bratj) points at Makaraka. Constantine VII writing in the 900s: "From the river Orontius begins Pagania and stretches along as far as the river Zentina; it has three 'zhupanates', Rhastotza [Rastik or Rastoka] and Mokros [Makarska] and that of Dalenos. Two of these 'zhupanates', viz., Rhastotza and that of Mokros], lie on the sea, and possess galleys; but that of Dalenos lies distant from the sea, and they live by agriculture. . . . Neighbour to them are four islands, Meleta [Mljet], Kourkoura [Korchula], Bratza [Brach] and Pharos [Hvar]*, most fair and fertile, with deserted cities [read: villages] upon them and many olive-yards; on these they dwell and keep their flocks, from which they live (DAI trans. 1967 p.145). (*) Modern Croatia. The four largest of the islands off Split and Dubrovnik are: 1 Brach, south of Split: Italian Brazza, 2 Hvar [It. Lesina], 3 Korchula [It. Curzola] and 4 Mljet (east of Dubrovnik: It. Meleda). 887-88: Final dissolution of a united Frankish kingdom. This marks the early origin of France, Germany and (northern) Italy. The south of Italy was divided among three Lombard-Italian duchies and Byzantium. (In due course the German king will annex northern Italy, including the papal state see 961.) Sicily: The Jewish badge of shame, which afterwards became universal in the Western world, was first introduced into Europe as a measure of discrimination against Christians as well as Jews by the Sicilian ruler Ibrahim in 887-8; the Christians had to wear and display on the doors of their houses a piece of white stuff designed like a pig, and the Jews a piece in the shape of a monkey. The yellow badge had been first introduced by a caliph in Baghdad in the ninth century, and spread to the West in medieval times. Lewis 1987: 25-26.
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Above: Italy and Balkans in the late 800s. It shows Byzantine Langobardia (modern Puglia) which received that name in 891-92; and Bulgarian expansion south-westwards to Ohrid (before 890). Bulgaria should be labelled a khanate, as its ruler did not assume the title tsar (emperor) until the early 900s. The Macedonia marked here is the Theme (province) of that name; Macedonia proper is here marked Salonica. The Theme of Strymon (NE Macedonia and western Thrace) was created in the late 890s. Territorial review The empire in 888 consists of: [1] the immense heartland of Asia Minor; [2] Constantinople and Thrace: the Bulgarians are the nearest enemy; [3] coastal Macedonia; [4] nearly all of present-day Greece (not including the border region of western Thrace-northeast Macedonia, where in 888, according to McEvedys New Atlas, the Bulgarians still hold a stretch of the coast on the NW Aegean ); and [5] the boot of Italy - along with just a few strongholds in eastern Sicily: see AD 902. The rest of Italy was divided between Lombard-Italians and Franks. Muslim states dominated the whole southern rim and centre of the Mediterranean, from Umayyad Spain to Aghlabid Sicily and Tulunid Egypt-Syria. If one looks back for over a century, and compares AD 771 with 888, then the areas lost to the empire were: Sardinia (independent); most of Sicily [lost to the African Muslims]; Crete [to Muslim freebooters]; and western Cilicia [to the caliphate]. The gains are: in Italy, the littoral of the Gulf of Taranto and most of upper Apulia variously recovered from Arab pirates, Latin Salerno and Lombard Benevento; and in the Balkans: the western three-quarters of modern Greece [from Slav tribes]. So in 888 the empire is marginally smaller in area but also more prosperous. The armed forces - army and naval marines - have increased in size (if we follow Treadgold) from about 80,000 fighting men to about 120,000 (up by 50%). The navy is no larger but is better organised. Strategoi in Italy, as listed in J J Hofmanns Lexicon Universale (1698): (a) Constantinus Patricius, qui et Trapezi seu epi tes trapezes, [Gk ho epi tees trapezes, the Master of the Table or imperial butler], Praefectus mensae Augustali [Lat. prefect of the imperial table], AD. 887-889. (b) Symbaticus Protospatharius, qui et strategos i.e. Dux Macedoniae, Thraciae, Cephaloniae atque Longobardiae. = The protospatharius Symbatikos, general and overall commander [dux] of Macedonia, Thrace, Cephalonia [the Ionian Islands] and Longobardia [Puglia]. - Beneventum cepit [he captured Benevento] [in] AD 891. See there.
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(c) Georgius Patricius, cum Benevento praefuisset [had been in charge of Benevento] ann. 3. mens. 9. [for three years and nine months] a Guidone Duce et Marchione una cum Graecis inde pulsus est [was struck, beaten, i.e. killed by duke and margrave Guido: Guy IV of Spoleto]. Huic successit Barsacius Patricius.* - J B Bury, System 1911b, p.17, notes that George, appointed in 892, held the post of strategos of Cephallenia and Longobardia. (d) Cosmas Anthius Protopatricius, Basilicus Protonotarius** et Straticos [sic: strategus] Siciliae ac Longobardiae, AD 893. (*) After the death of George in July 894: see there, the patrikios Barsacios arrived in Italy as his successor. He returned to establish his residence in Bari, leaving the turmarch or brigadier Theodore as his delegate in Benevento. (**) Gk basiliskos: financial official; protonotarios, chief secretary and civil official under a strategos, responsible for provisioning thematic armies. 888-89: The West: A large fleet sent from Constantinople was mauled by the Arabs north of Sicily. Around 887-88, Leo VI sent an expedition to Italy under the command of Constantine, the patrikios and ho epi tees (tes) trapezes, Master of the Table or imperial butler. Historians do not say expressly that Constantine was a eunuch, but his position as ho epi tes trapezes suffices to indicate it (Guilland, citing Cedr. II 52, 725). Placed at the head of the western provinces, Constantine was defeated (888 or 889); his army was annihilated and he himself barely escaped (Cedr. II 253; Theoph. Cont. 356, 701, 852, 852. See J. Gay, LItalie mridionale, 143 f.). This seems to have checked the brief revival of the Byzantine navy , says Hocker in Gardiner 2004: 92. At any rate, Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list it as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the imperial navy. A Muslim counter-attack began in AH 275, AD 888, and ended in the waters of Milazzo, on the north coast of Sicily, near the NE tip, with the rout (889) of the Romanic expedition, the sack of the mainland town of Reggio and the resumption of the raids, henceforth continuous, into the interior of Calabria: see next. Rodriquez: The imperial fleet faced the Arab ships off Milazzo. The battle ended in a real disaster for the Greeks, who lost more than 10,000 men. The result was panic in southern Italy. Reggio was deserted when the Arabs sacked it. See further description below under 888-89. In 888 emperor Leo recognised that the Byzantine forces in Italy were too weak to be able to decisively incline the situation in their favour, and therefore the shipment of new troops was necessary. The commander he dispatched, Constantine, according to the chronicles, had under his control all the troops of the West (meaning detachments from the various European provinces). On the other side, the Beneventan ruler, Aio, had taken into his service a body of Saracen mercenaries and, with their aid, he had offered battle to the newly arrived Byzantines under the walls of Bari (887). The result was a total defeat for the imperial army, whose commander with great difficulty was able to save his life. Instead of the open combat, the Byzantines chose to force Aio to lock himself in Bari which was blockaded. Deserted by his Saracens, the prince of Benevento in vain tried to ask aid from the count of Capua, Atenolfo. The latter changed sides and, instead of helping his benefactor, offered help to Constantine in return for an imperial title that equaled his rivals in Salerno. Deserted by all, Aio chose to negotiate with Constantine, and in 888 Bari returned to Romaniyan (Greek) rule. See 891. 2. The new Doge or duke Peter (Pietro) Tribuno declared Venice, hitherto a nominally Romanic/Byzantine city within the Frankish Kingdom of Italy, a free city. But Venice remained politically and culturally oriented to Constantinople.
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3. Constantinople: Promulgation of a new re-compilation and revision of the law, later to be known as the Basilika (Imperial Code). The project had been begun by Basil I. fl. Al-Tabari, the Arab historian. Born in Tabaristan, the region south of the Caspian, he travelled to Syria and Egypt before settling in Baghdad. Author of commentaries on the Quran and a universal history, the Annals. (Or 890 or 891:) Saracens from Spain set up a military outpost on what is now the littoral of southern France at Garde-Freinet, inland from the coast of Provence, between Cannes and St Tropez. A Hispano-Arab force from alAndalus captured the highland village of La Garde-Freinet (Fraxinetum), 15 km NW of St Tropez, west of Ste. Maxime, above the Mediterranean coast between Marseilles and Nice, in 891 and held it as a fortress for almost a century, using it as a small colony and a base for maritime and overland raids. The colony eventually extended over the whole district (about 400 sq km) including the St Tropez peninsula (Snac, Zones ctires, p.115). It endured until well into the next century. The Muslims called their base Fraxinet (in Arabic, Farakhshanit and Jabal al-Qilal*), after the local village of Fraxinetum, named in Roman times for the ash trees (fraxini) then common in surrounding forests. Cf 906, 911. The modern Massif des Maures ("plateau of the Moors"), west of St Tropez, takes its name from the Saracens of Fraxinet. (*) Mountain of [many] Peaks/Towers, referring to our Massif des Maures. 888-89: Italy: The Sicilian Arabs launch a new attack, this time in the region of Reggio. As we have seen, a Byzantine fleet crossed the Straits of Messina but, as noted, was defeated completely (888) near Milazzo on the NE coast of Sicily: around the corner from Messina. The news of the disaster caused panic in the region, impelling the inhabitants of the towns to leave their homes and to look for refuge in the interior. The situation improved shortly afterwards when the drungarios Michael counter-attacked, took prisoner the head of the Arab fleet, Mujbir b. Ibrahim, and regained control of the passage of the Straits. In the following years, 889-94, internal discord in Muslim Sicily allowed Calabria, and the Greek outposts in eastern Sicily, to experience a brief respite (Ahmad pp.16, 21). This may also have facilitated the Byzantine advance in Apulia: see 891. 888-898: Italy: First national or indigenous kings in ex-Frankish, postLombard Italy. The dukes of Spoleto forced the pope to crown them as emperors. Cf 891. 889: Abdication of Bulgarian khan Boris. Cf 893. 889-92: The Ukrainian steppe: Driven further west by the Khazars and Cumans by 889, the Pechenegs in turn drove the Magyars (Hungarians) west of the Dnieper River by 892. 890: The new king of Armenia, Sembat or Smbat, adopts a pro-Byzantine stance, which sets him against Baghdad. See 909. From 890: 1. Northern Mesopotamia (seat at Mardin from 890) is ruled by the Hamdanid dynasty, later also at Mosul (Mawsil) (from 906) and Aleppo (from 945). 2. Permanent Muslim outposts in Provence. See 932.
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891: Italy: Leo shipped an army from the Balkans to Italy. The Romanics take the Lombard-ruled city [fortress-town] of Benevento and hold it until 894-95. Lupus: Anno 891. intraverunt Graeci Beneventum mense Octobris, et Stratigo Sabbatichi in Siponto mense Iunij. The Greeks enter Benevento in October and the strategos Simbaticios [enters] Siponto [on the Adriatic coast] in June. On 18 August 891 the strategos of Calabria, the protospatharius* Simbaticios [Gk Symbatikios], arrived with his army before the walls of Benevento but met with a determined resistance on the part of the local population. One Latin source gives his title as Dux Macedoniae, Thraciae, Cephaloniae atque Longobardiae, but this probably meant only that he had among his forces detachments from the themes of Macedonia, Thrace and Cephalonia. A siege of three months finally forced the Beneventans to capitulate on 18 October. Simbaticios transferred the government of the Byzantine province from its seat in Bari to the new possession and immediately set up residence there, turning it into the new capital of the imperial territories in Italy (Kreutz p.65; also Rodriguez). It remained the capital until 895: see there. (*) This was a high court title, i.e. not an office. Leo of Ostia calls him Dux Macedoni, Thraci, Cephaloni atque Longobardi. Noting that the Byzantine term for the principality of Benevento was (lesser) Longobardia, and that the contrasting term Greater Longobardia designated the former northern Lombard kingdom, it is (says Rodriguez) possible to deduce that the Theme of Longobardia (Gk: Lagoubardoi or Loggibardai: Laghouvardha in Toynbees transliteration, 1973) was constituted at that precise moment, after the conquest of Benevento in October 891 or early in 892. Kreutz p. 66 and the ODB ii:1250 agree; others think Apulia was not separated from Cephalonia until after 900. The first surviving mention of a distinct strategos of Longobardia comes in 911. From the new capital, Simbaticios now began to manage civil affairs, as shown in a document dated to June of 892 recognising privileges for the Montecassino monastery. See 895. By 900, Rhomaniya/Byzantium will dominate the whole south of Italy, with the Latin Italians (Lombards) retaining only parts of the Capua-Salerno plain and the south-central Apennines. Scientific Warfare and its Opposite The Byzantines saw themselves as cautious and careful, seeking to fight only when the timing or terrain suited them. The Greeks fought with disciplined order in separate units which by organisation and drill were readily able to manoeuvre on the battlefield. Latin methods of warfare were very different. From Emperor Leos Tactica, c.907: The Franks and Lombards (Italians) are bold and daring to excess, though the latter are no longer all that they once were. They regard the smallest movement to the rear as a disgrace, and they will fight whenever you offer them battle. When their knights are hard put to it in a cavalry fight, they will turn their horses loose, dismount, and stand back to back against very superior numbers rather than fly. So formidable is the charge of the Frankish chivalry with their broadsword, lance [spear*] and shield, that it is best to decline a pitched battle with them till you have put all the chances on your own side. You should take advantage of their indiscipline and disorder; whether fighting on foot or on horseback, they charge in dense, unwieldy masses, which cannot manoeuvre, because they have
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 neither organisation nor drill (emphasis added).
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(*) The method of couching the spear or lance under ones arm for the charge was not in use. The cavalry spear was used for thrusting, stabbing and poking. Unlike the Franks, the East Romans had inherited the discipline of Antiquity: they formed up carefully and they fortified their camp every night with a ditch and palisade (Leo Diac. IX: 1). Appropriate tactics against the Franks included flank and rear attacks and feigned retreats: Tribes and families [among the Franks] stand together, or the sworn war-bands of chiefs, but there is nothing to compare to our own orderly division into battalions and brigades. Hence they readily fall into confusion if suddenly attacked in flank and rear a thing easy to accomplish, as they are utterly careless and neglect the use of pickets and vedettes [scouts] and the proper surveying of the countryside. They encamp, too, confusedly and without fortifying themselves, so that they can be easily cut up by a night attack. Nothing succeeds better against them than a feigned flight, which draws them into an ambush; for they follow hastily, and invariably fall into the snare (thus Leo). The Franks were to be worn down and, when convenient, bribed: . . . perhaps the best tactics of all are to protract the campaign, and lead them into hills and desolate tracts, for they take no care about their commissariat, and when their stores run low their vigour melts away. They are impatient of hunger and thirst, and after a few days of privation desert their standards and steal away home as best they can. For they are destitute of all respect for their commanders, - one noble thinks himself as good as another, - and they will deliberately disobey orders when they grow discontented. Nor are their chiefs above the temptation of taking bribes; a moderate sum of money will frustrate one of their expeditions . On the whole, therefore, it is easier and less costly to wear out a Frankish army by skirmishes, protracted operations in desolate districts, and the cutting off of its supplies, than to attempt to destroy it at a single blow. MIDPOINT OF THE EMPIRE COUNTING FROM THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE in 330 TO ITS final EXTINCTION BY THE TURKS in 1453. 891-892: Italy: Aio of Benevento dies, 891. Marching from Bari, the Byzantines under Symbatikios take Benevento (October 892), ousting Aios [Aiulfs] successor Ursus or Orso (as we have related). The Byzantines expand, taking several Lombard territories: the Chronicon Salernitanum records that, after the Byzantine capture of Benevento in 892, the Byzantines unsuccessfully attempted to capture Salerno. -Kreutz 1996, p. 66 and 178 footnote 51. As we have also noted, Leo VI sets a formal mechanism of governance in southern Italy centred around Benevento which becomes briefly - the new seat of the strategos of Apulia (Kreutz p.65). Cf 894-95. Probably from about this time (892), all of the reclaimed and newly conquered land the upper back heel is renamed Longobardia, Gk: Lagghouvardha, although, as we have said, the first documentary reference that survives occurs in 910-11. Calabria itself, ruled from Reggio/Rhegium, still bore the anachronistic title of theme of Sicily (where Byzantium now held only several towns on the east coast). Cf 895. 892: Bulgaria: In 892, Pliska became the scene of a pagan revolt led by khan Vladimir. This brought the old khan Boris out of his monastery. After the crushing of the revolt, Vladimir was dethroned, and the younger son of Boris I, Simeon, was installed into power. One of the first steps of the new ruler was to move (893) the capital SW to Preslav, a fortified town, probably because of the steadily strong pagan influence in the old capital (Fine 1991: 130). Cf 893.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 2. Arabs from Crete plunder Samos in the Aegean. Cf 899, 904. 3. Treaty between Tulunid Egypt and the Caliphate: the latter retained Mawsil/Mosul, but most of Mesopotamia and Syria was ceded to Egyptian rule. THE YEAR 893, AS IT TURNED OUT, WAS THE MIDPOINT OF MUSLIM RULE ON CRETE .
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892-902: Caliph al-Mutadid. Cf 897. Baghdad may have had 500,000 people. Fossier p.249 notes that its area was at least four times that of Constantinople and 13 times as large as nearby Ctesiphon had been under the 6th century Sassanids. 893: Bulgaria: As noted, finding his eldest son Vladimir flirting with paganism, the old khan Boris emerged from his monastery, blinded him, and lifted a younger son, the Greek-educated* SYMEON (aged about 30), to the throne of Bulgaria. Symeon would become the most powerful of the early Bulgarian rulers, taking the title Tsar in abouy 913. His accession was announced at an assembly in Preslav which also proclaimed Bulgarian (Slavonic) as the only language of state and church and directed that the Bulgarian capital would move from Pliska to Preslav, near present-day Shumen (inland, west of Varna). Topographically Preslav lies at the northern foot of the Balkan Mountains. (*) He was expected to become a cleric, so spent some 10 years in Constantinople studying Greek, theology and other subjects. Such was the influx of things Greek into Bulgaria from 864 that Symeon must have gone to the City (c. 878: aged about 14) already proficient in the language. He attended the academy in the Magnaura Palace. Liutprand of Cremona confirms that Symeon also studied profane learning, i.e. Aristotle and other classical authors. The Bulgarian capital is transferred from old pagan Pliska, near the modern village of Pliskov-Aboba, south to new Christian Preslav [afterwards called Ioannoupolis in Greek], a better strategic point and less linked with Bulgarias pagan past Cf 894. Greek was replaced by Slavonic as the church language and the Cyrillic script adopted By this time, no Turkic culture remained among the ruling caste of Bulgarians: they had long since become a fully Slavic people (Obolensky pp.92, 198). The year 893 marks the coming of age of the Bulgarian Slav church. At a council he summoned in the autumn of that year, Boris installed Symeon as the new ruler and decreed the official adoption of the Slav language in the church. By about 920 some observers will describe Preslav as rivalling Constantinople in its magnificence (no doubt a great exaggeration!). The Bulgarians still ruled on both sides of the lower Danube; the northern side was contested with the Magyars and Pechenegs. Map: GO HERE for a map of the Balkans in 893: http://www.ancient-bulgaria.com/images/why_khan_krum_map_bulgaria.gif 894-95: 1. (c. 889-93 is preferred by McCormick 2001: 606). The Balkans: Byzantium, or rather certain scheming officials in Greece, transfers the point of Bulgarian trade from the capital to Thessalonica, i.e. so as to rake off the export-import taxes.* When his protest is ignored, khan Symeon invades Thrace. As McCormick
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remarks, at the eastern end of the Danubian route a trading world had grown up whose commerce was valuable enough to start wars. (*) Trade with Bulgaria: Manufactured items, notably dyed silken robes, were exported from Byzantium in exchange for Bulgarian wheat, cattle, linen and honey. Thus the Book of the Prefect, c. 912, records merchants in Constantinople bartering with Bulgar traders bringing honey and linen from the North. At this time, silk was produced only in Constantinople itself, but in the next century came to be produced in other cities. Cf 950, 1147. Emperor Leo responds by calling in the pagan Magyars [Hungarians (*)] from the north - present-day western Ukraine; and dispatches an imperial army under general Nicephorus Phocas from the south. (*) Hungarian is a Finno-Ugric language, with connections to Turkish and the languages of Central Asia. The Hungarians or Magyars came into eastern Europe in 895 AD (see more below), crossing the Carpathians from what is now Ukraine and thereafter conquering the Slavs who lived in the Pannonian basin (and thereby dividing the south Slavs from the Czechs, Slovaks and Poles). Emperor Leo invoked the help of the Magyars, who sent an army under a commander named Levente (Arpads son) into Bulgaria. Levente conducted an effective campaign and invaded deep into Bulgaria, while the Byzantine army entered Bulgaria from the south. Caught in a vice of Magyar and Romanic forces, Tsar Simeon I realized he could not fight a war on two fronts, and quickly concluded an armistice with the Byzantine Empire. Ferried across the lower Danube in Romanian (Greek) boats, the Magyars sacked the new Bulgarian capital Preslav. Symeon sues for peace; but while negotiations proceed, he in turn calls in the Pechenegs - also known as Patzinaks: a Turkish nation living in what is now eastern Ukraine, - who remove the Magyars the latter flee into what is now Hungary (the Pannonian plain) (896) (Vine 1991: 138). The Magyars quick success worried Leo, who switched sides, offering his support to the Bulgarians and recruiting the Besenyos (Pechenegs) to their aid. Their combined forces defeated the united Magyar armies in a battle in which thoer commander Levente was killed and all parties suffered heavy losses (DAI, ch 38). 2. Italy: Anno 894.[actually in 895] exierunt Graeci de Benevento mense Aug. per Francos. The Greeks leave [are forced out of] Benevento in August on account of (by) the Franks [i.e. Frankish-ruled northern Italians*]. Lupus Prot. After the death of George in July 894, the patrikios Barsacios arrived in Italy as his successor. He returned to establish his residence in Bari, leaving the turmarch or brigadier Theodore as his delegate in Benevento. (A turma numbered several thousand soldiers; turmarch was the title of deputy to a strategos.) The Beneventans now chose to try to expel the Byzantine garrison. Guido or Guy, Lombard-Frankish margrave of Spoleto*, came south to the aid of the former in August 895, bringing his Frankish (German) troops before the walls of the town. The attempts of Theodore to gain reinforcements from Bari were useless in the face of the collaboration of the local population with the Lombard-Spoletan attackers who secretly entered the city [7 August 1895] and collaborated energetically in the expulsion of the small Byzantine garrison. After his victory Guido retained control of Benevento for two years instead of giving it back to the old dynasty (Kreutz pp.66-67). (*) Spoleto under duke Guy IV, 889-97, was a realm within the Carolingian (Frankish) kingdom of Italy. 895: 1. Bulgarian War: The experienced commander Nikephoros Phokas was called
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back from Italy to lead a separate army against Bulgaria in 895 with the mere intention of overawing the Bulgarians. Simeons Bulgarians, unaware of the threat from the Magyars in the north, rushed to meet Phokas' forces, but the two armies did not engage in a fight. Instead, the Byzantines offered peace, informing him of both the Romaniyan (Greek) land and maritime campaigns, but intentionally they did not notify him of the planned Magyar attack. Once notified of the surprise invasion, however, Simeon headed north to stop the Magyars, leaving some of his troops at the southern border to prevent a possible attack by Phokas. Simeon's two encounters with the northern enemy in Northern Dobruja resulted in Magyar victories, forcing him to retreat to Drastar (Silistria). After pillaging much of Bulgaria and reaching Preslav, the Magyars returned to their lands, but not before Simeon had concluded an armistice with Byzantium towards the end of the summer of 895 (Wikipedia, 2009, Simeon; Tougher 1997: 176). 2. Italy: As noted, the Byzantines were forced out of Benevento by Guy of Spoleto; and once again Bari becomes the administrative capital of Byzantine Italy or Longobardia as it will become known (Kreutz p.66). The empire now controls southern Italy below the line almost north-south from the Gulf of Manfredonia in N Apulia to the Gulf of Policastro*, i.e. to the top of Calabria. The region above this line was under Lombard (Latin-Italian) control: the duchies of Salerno, Benevento and Capua; and the independent Italo-Greek or post-Byzantine port-towns of Naples and Gaeta. (Naples had asserted its independence from the Byzantine empire in the early 800s, and now Gaeta was easing itself out from under Neapolitan control.) Cf 899. (*) Today a tongue of land belonging to the modern province of Basilicata reaches west to the Gulf of Policastro, separating Campania from todays Calabria. 896: 1. Thrace: The emperor replaces Nicephoros Phokas as domestic of the Scholae with the less experienced Leo Catacalon. In Thrace: Symeon defeats a major East Roman army under Catacalon at Bulgarophygon: modern Babeski, south-east of medieval Adrianople. Thus Bulgaria had won the war. Cf 897: Serbian-NewRoman alliance. Treaty between Bulgaria and Byzantium: the empire ceded a little territory in Thrace but obtained a peace which endured until the death of Leo IV in 912. The themes of Strymon and Nicopolis, first mentioned in 899-900, presumably date from this time. Strymon - east of the river Struma: Serres and the coastal plain of Thrace - was detached from the theme of Macedonia, which was renamed the theme of Thessalonica. Nicopolis, comprising most of Epirus, was separated from Cephalonia. According to the Arab writer Ibn Rusta, at this time the emperor was accompanied by large numbers of Khazars and Turks. This may have referred to an ordinary regiment of mercenaries or, perhaps more likely, an element of the emperors bodyguard. Khazars and Turks are first attested in the Hetaeria (imperial bodyguards) in 855 (Treadgold, Army p.110). Browning p.81: Bulgaria in the 9th and 10th century was not a land of horsemen. The Bulgarian army was mainly an infantry force, while the Byzantine army depended upon a core of cavalry partly maintained by land grants. This statement, although essentially correct, is simplistic, ignoring the fact that the Bulgarian elite units were cavalry and that Byzantine field armies nearly always contained more infantry than cavalry. Moreover cavalry was less effective in hilly Bulgaria than infantry. 2. Hellas: A Saracen fleet attacks Aegina, the Aegean island east of Corinth, and the Muslims conduct raids into Greece. The inhabitants of Aegina fled to the mainland following a raid, known to us from the Life of Luke the Younger, which carried on into Greece. His parents were among those who fled (Fossier p.376).
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3. An exchange of prisoners between the Eastern Muslim and the East Roman Empire: various figures are given, the highest being Masudis 3,000 people recovered by the Caliphate (Toynbee 1973: 391). From 896: Rome: So-called papal pornocracy, i.e., alleged rule by papal mistresses (896-962): decline of papal authority in the West & political fragmentation of Italy. The pornocracy is probably an exaggerated concept. But certainly appointments to the papacy were decided by competition among the rival aristocratic factions in Rome. 897: 1. Death of the Basileuss first wife, Theophano. Leo marries (no.2) his long-time mistress Zoe Zautzina, aged 34. Zoe was daughter of Leos chief counsellor, Stylianos Zautzes or Tzautzes, the Master of the Offices and Logothete of the Course; and Himeriuss niece; her grandfather Tzautzes had been strategos of Macedonia. See 899. 2. Serbia allies with Byzantium (until 917). 897-98: The East: Arab land incursion into Cappadocia, and Muslim naval victory over the Cibyrrhaeot theme. The eunuch admiral Raghib, the mawl [lit. protector, i.e. governor] of al-Muwaffaq [brother and regent of the caliph], took 3,000 Byzantine sailors as prisoners and beheaded them. Thus Tabari, s.a 285; also Wikipedia, 2009, under Byzantine navy, and Tougher (1997), The Reign of Leo VI (886912): Politics and People, Brill, pp. 185186. 899: 1. East Aegean: First mention of a new naval theme, that of Samos, created about 882 (Treadgold, Army p.76): head-quartered on the island of Samos off Ephesus = continued revival of the Romaniyan (Greek) navy. Some say Smyrna was the capital. Cf 911. 2. Death at age 25 of the emperors 2nd wife, Zoe Zautzina or Zaoutzaina. See 900. (Zoe was also the name of his 4th wife, marr. 906: Zoe Carbonopsina.) Zautzina had given him two daughters but no son. 3. The Magyars raid into N Italy and defeat the Italians under Berengar at the river Brenta (which passes Padua and enters the Adriatic south of Venice). Cf 906. 4. S Italy: Capua asserts control over Benevento. But the Lombard-Italian prince of Capua-Benevento and his neighbour the duke of Salerno continued to be respectful to Constantinople as their nominal overlord. Cf 901. The Themes in 899 The Kletorologion of Philotheus, firmly dated to 899, lists 10 themes in Asia Minor, including the naval or marine theme of the Kibyrrhaeots. The main ones were 1: the Anatolikon, 2: Armeniakon, 3: Thrakesion, 4: Opsikion, and 5: Bukellarion. These had been subdivided in the ninth century to form the themes of 6: Kappadokia (AD 830), 7: Paphlagonia (847), 8: Chaldia (863) and 9: Charsianon (873). Next to be formed were 10: Mesopotamia (901), and 11: Sebasteia (911). More exactly, from west to east, the full list of provinces or Themes of the empire was this: THE WEST: 1. Sicily so-called, HQ at Rhegium or Reggio on the point of the toe: it comprised some pockets in NE Sicily and all of Calabria: see entry for 901. 2. Cephalonia, HQ at Panormus, todays Fiskardo, on the island of Cephalonia: at this time the theme may also have covered the future theme of Longobardia* (Apulia:
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the calf and heel of Italy: modern Puglia) which made up its larger part [map in Treadgold 1995: 208]. 3. Dalmatia, HQ at Jadera or Zara [modern Zadar]: just the fringes of what is now coastal Croatia. Officially Dalmatia was a theme but in practice just a collection of independent vassal port-towns and islands, namely, from NW to SE: Osero, Veglia/Bekla, Arba/Arbe, Zara, Trau, Spalato/Aspalaton and Ragusa. (*) The Byzantine theme of Longobardia, capital at Bari, is first mentioned in 911, but may date from as early as 891. In the period 968-70 (see there) it will be placed with the rest of Byzantine Italy under an overall commander called the Catapan (Katepanos). BALKANS: 4. Theme of Dyrrhachium, HQ at Dyrrhachium or Durres: the coastal plain of modern Albania. 5. Nicopolis, at Nicopolis: = Epirus, ie modern westcentral Greece. 6. (eastern) Peloponnesus (Corinth). 7. Hellas (?Thebes --**). 8. Thessalonica (Thessalonica). 9. Strymon, HQ at Caesaropolis: NE of Thessalonica. 10. Macedonia so-called (Adrianople in outer Thrace). 11. Thrace (Arcadiopolis in inner Thrace). (--) Maritime themes, i.e. those with warships or providing marines. (**) Leo, d. 848, strategos of Hellas was buried at Athens on the Acropolis; this may be evidence that Athens became the seat of the Theme. Cf M Kazanaki-Lappa, Medieval Athens, in Laiou ed 2002: 641.
Above: Asia Minor. This map is generally but not fully correct. In the west the Thracesion theme extended to the coast, and Samos was a maritime theme. In the SE, Cappadocia was actually larger, adjoining Cilicia, with Charsianon smaller than shown here. The unnamed theme east of Paphlagonia is the Armeniac. There are several misspellings: Opsikon should be Opsikion, and Selelicia should be Seleucia. ASIA: 12. -- Aegean Sea i.e. the north Aegean, HQ probably at Mytilene on Lesbos. 13. -- Samos, at Samos: the south Aegean including Rhodes. Crete was under Muslim rule. 14. -- Cibyrrhaeot (HQ at Attalia): the south Asia Minor coast and sea. 15. Thracesian (Chonae). 16. Opsician (Nicaea). 17. Optimates (Nicomedia). 18. Bucellarion (Ancyra). 19. Anatolic (Polybotus a town south of Amorium). 20. Paphlagonia (Gangra). 21. Armeniac (Amasia): no longer a border theme. 22.
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Charsianum (Charsianum). 23. Cappadocia (Corum): bordering the caliphate at the Gates of Cilicia: see under AD 908 below. 24. Seleucia (Seleucis): western Cilicia including a stretch of the coast. Eastern Cilicia and Cyprus were under Muslim rule: cf AD 900 below. 25. Colonia (Colonia): inland from Trebizond; and 26. Chaldia (Trebizond). Underlined = border provinces with the Caliphate. For comparison, the Notitia Episcopatuum (official listing of bishops) quantifies the number of sees under the first patriarchate of Nicholas I Mystikos, 901907, namely 442 bishops, archbishops and metropolitans in Asia Minor (70%); 22 in Rhodes and the Aegean (3%); 139 in the Balkans (22%); and 34 in southern Italy and in Sicily (5%). Maritime Forces Oarsmen and marines: after Treadgold, Army p.67. The numbers of ships are my guesstimates, M.OR. Oarsmen Imperial Fleet (central): 200+ ships (north) Aegean Sea: about 20 ships Hellas: about 20 ships Samos: about 35 ships Cibyrrhaeot: up to 50 ships Total ships: over 300. (*) Hellas had 2,000 troops: presumably only about 400 were marines, the others being land soldiers. 900: 1. Asia: The emperor Leo sent an army into the Emirate of Tarsus which overwhelmed its army and captured the emir (Treadgold 1997: 466). 2. Sicily: The Tunisian emir Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, 875-902, was eager to end the resistance to his authority in the island. In 900 he sent his son Abl Abbas Abdala with a substantial fleet. Abl Abbas quashed the revolt with enormous cruelty, and after the fall (recovery) of Palermo in September of that year, thousands of Muslims fled to the east coast looking for refuge among the Christians of Taormina. After subjugating Palermo, Abul advanced east in the autumn against the Byzantine towns of Taormina and Catania. See 901. Rodriquez: Seeking to take advantage of the circumstances, a patrikios was sent to Reggio with a New-Roman army, and more troops were concentrated in the town pending the arrival at Messina of a fleet from Constantinople. Meanwhile Abl Abbas did not remain inactive, and, after subjugating Palermo, he marched against Taormina and Catania which he harassed without effect. 3. Italy: Anno 900. descendit Melisianus Stratigo in Apulia (Lupus): Melisianos [or Melissenus] arrives in Puglia [as] strategos. S Italy: By 900 Byzantium controlled most of the South. Only parts of the 19,600 2,610 2,300 3,980 5,710 Marines 4,000 400 400?* 600 1,000
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Capua-Salerno plain and of the south-central Apennines remained Lombard (Romance-speaking). In that year the count of Capua, Atenulf I, conquered Benevento, and the Lombard-Byzantine border towns. Atenulfs Principality of Capua-Benevento thereafter ruled about one-third of the south. 3. Last ever bride-show conducted , for Leo for his third wife, he chooses a Phrygian girl named Eudocia Baiana (see 901).
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4. First mention of a theme of Strymon (between Thessalonica and Thrace). As noted earlier, it lay east of the river Struma. 900-919: Revival of Abbasid rule: Baghdad reasserted its rule over Iran and Egypt. See 905. Gutas remarks, p.168, that at this time the population of Egypt (between four and five million) was still more than half non-Muslim, i.e. fewer Muslims than Christians and Jews. - The same process can be traced in Islamic Spain using Christian and Muslim personal names: there it took about 300 years for Muslims to reach majority status and more than half a millennium for the religion of the conqueror to wholly displace the religion of the conquered: Fletcher 1992: 36 ff. Commanders in Italy, as listed in J J Hofmanns Lexicon Universale (1698): Melissenus seu Melisianus, Italiae Stratigus [commander-general of Italy], AD 900. Nicolaus Patricius, cognomine Picyglus [sic: the patrikios Nicholas, known as Picingli], AD 915. Ursileo, AD 921-26. 901-02: 1. Failures in the West; successes in the East: A Syrian fleet under the apostate Christian Damian of Tarsus sacked Demetrias in Greece; while in Italy the Sicilian Arabs sacked the thematic capital Rhegium (see below) and drove off a fleet sent from Constantinople (Treadgold 1997: 466). In the East, however, successive Byzantine expeditions expelled the Arabs from part of western Armenia, and ravaged through Cilicia and Northern Syria. Italy: Under Abul Abbas, son of the amir Abd-Allah II ibn Ibrahim, the Aghlabids of Sicily briefly capture Rhegium/Reggio, at the tip of the toe of Italy, capital of the Romanic-Byzantine theme of Sicily so-called, the larger portion of which was formed by the toe and instep of Italy (see 902). The Saracens drove off a fleet sent from Constantinople. See next. Sicily: Having prepared a new expedition during the winter, on 25 March 901 Abul Abbas sent a fleet to sea while he himself led his men to the siege of the town of Demona in eastern Sicily which he bombarded for days with his ballistas. Abl Abbas received false news of great preparations that the Byzantines were supposedly making in Reggio. He decided to raise the siege of Demona and to go to Messina whence he embarked (June 901) in the presumed direction of the marshalling area of the enemy. After brief resistance, Reggio fell on 10 July 901 and in the town the victors gave themselves over to a real massacre (Bury 1911: 141). After taking 15,000 captives many refugees as well as local Reggians - and an enormous booty, Abl Abbas received the submission of the neighbouring populations who paid tribute not to undergo the same fate as Reggio. On the return journey to Messina, the Arabs found time to face (early in 902) the New-Roman fleet and to sink 30 of its vessels ( - thus Rodriguez). See entry below for 902. The Arab writer Ibn al-Athir says that a Byzantine relief fleet under Eustathios Argyrus, the strategos of Calabria, was defeated and lost 30 ships off Messina in 902. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the imperial navy. Next, having taken Mico*, Aci** and, further north, the last Greek outpost, Taormina (August 902), Abd-Allahs father, the ex-emir Ibrahim, crossed into Calabria. But there he died while besieging Cosenza (23 October 902), whereupon his army melted away (Ahmad pp.17, 21). See more below under 902.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 (*) Not located.
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(**) Today there are five towns in Catania province having Aci as part of their name, including Aci Castello on the coast N of Catania, SE of Mt Etna. Anno 901. [sic: 902] descendit Abraham Rex Sarracenorum in Calabriam, et ivit Cosentiam Civitatem, et percussus est ictu fulguris. - Ibrahim king [sic: in fact his son was the emir] of the Saracens comes into Calabria and he marches to the town of Cosenza and is struck down [on 23 October 902] by a lightning bolt (sic: he died from an infectious disease, probably dysentry).* Lupus Prot.. (*) Lupus would be referring to the meteor shower known as the Leonids. See the discussion in Mark Littmann, The Heavens on Fire: The Great Leonid Meteor Storms, Cambridge University Press, 1999. He gives the date as 14 October Julian calendar or 30 October Gregorian. 2. Creation of the theme of Mesopotamia: in Armenia, straddling the far upper Euphrates, i.e. between the rivers Arsanias (mod. Murat) and imisgezek. Manuel, the Armenian lord of Takis, ceded his lands to the empire in return for safer estates elsewhere. Thus the imperial border was extended eastwards for the first time since the 7th century (Treadgold 1995; and 1997: 466). Cf 908. It seems fantastic, albeit very interesting, that Leo VI apparently believed that the Byzantines were so many times more numerous than the Arabs that the Christians would be sure of being the victors if only they would supply their troops with equipment of the Muslims standard (Taktika, cited in Toynbee p. 78). The only way to explain this is to suppose he was comparing prosperous Asia Minor with the less prosperous and much-ravaged border regions of the Caliphate, i.e. Cilicia, North Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. And perhaps the higher quality armaments of the fully-professional Arab armies stood out against those of Byzantiums semi-professional thematic troops. 3. Death of the emperors third wife, Eudocia Baeana. See 906. 901: Magyars enter N. Italy and raid as far as Pavia, which they sack. Cf 918. 902: 1. End of Byzantine dominion in Sicily. As we have noted, Taormina, the fortresstown on the east coast near Mt Etna, the last Byzantine strongpoint in Sicily, falls to the Saracens. Destroyed in AD 902 by the Arabs, Taormina was rebuilt by the Christians of Val Demone*, a valley or region in northern Sicily, before being taken again in 962 by the Arabs under the al-Muizz clan, who renamed the town Muizziyah. Mt Etna, coastal Taormina and Catania form a triangle in East Sicily, with Mt Etna as the inland point. This was followed by an Aghlabite offensive into Byzantine Calabria. (From Rodriquez:) Abu Ishaq Ibrahim II, the ninth Emir of the Aghlabids in Ifriqiya, ruled 875-902, handed formal authority to his son. Then the ex-emir crossed the Straits with an army and advanced, devastating everything before them, until they reached the valley of the Crati, the river that runs N through Cosenza in northern Calabria. Their advance was so fast that there was no time to send Byzantine reinforcements from Constantinople. Despising the emissaries of the towns that rushed to submit to him, Ibrahim arrived before Cosenza at the end of September 902. The inhabitants of the town, after trying in vain to negotiate with their attackers, prepared themselves for a long siege that began with an assault on 1 October which they were able to
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repulse. But the sudden death of Ibrahim on the 23 of that same month from dysentery or the plague ended the blockade. The demoralized Arab army lifted the siege, and Ibrahims successor, his grandson, was content to withdraw, which brought relief for the tormented populations of the region. Kreutz p.76 says that the huge expedition under Ibrahim was not just a raid but a jihad. But, as noted, Ibrahim died suddenly in October 902 while besieging Consenza in Calabria; his army faded away (see further details below). Meanwhile imperial rule continued uninterrupted in the heel and calf of Italy, which was originally administered from Cephalonia; the heel was now (or earlier) named the theme of Longobardia and separated from Cephalonia. It is first mentioned by its new name in 910/11. (*) The island was divided by the Saracens into three departments or valli; Val Demone in the north-east; Val Mazara in the west; and Val di Noto in the south-east, a division that was maintained later by the Normans. 2. The slave trade: Edicts prohibiting the Venetian slave traffic were issued four times by the emperor and/or doge: in 876, 902, 945 and 960. As Rotman pp.79-80 notes, this policy failed until the mid-10th century. Such prohibitions, and the use of customs houses, were partly an anti-Arab policy. More importantly, given that Venetian traders sold slaves directly to Muslim Africa and the East, the Christian authorities were seeking to reduce or eliminate the competition in the slave traffic destined for Byzantiums own markets (largely for on-selling to the Muslim East), and to stop the slave trade in abducted Byzantines (for the Venetians would sometimes sell captive Greeks as well as Slavs and others). 3. fl. Arethas of Caesarea, theologian, scholar and bibliophile. Although holding the archbishopric of Caesarea in Anatolia, Arethas resided mainly in the capital. His chief claim to fame today lies in the care he took in seeking out MANUSCRIPTS OF RARE CLASSICAL WORKS, have them copied in the new minuscule hand, and supply them with marginal comments. The oldest surviving text of Homers Iliad is the one commissioned by Arethas. He had in his library the full works of the classical Greek poets Pindar and Callimachus that have survived today only in part. Rautman p.288 notes that an illustrated second-hand Gospel book might easily cost as much as a horse or mule. At a time when day labourers earned six to 10 nomismata a year, new books ran to 15 to 30: two-thirds for the scribing and onethird for the materials. This was half the annual salary of a middle-level civil servant. One MS of Plato commissioned by Arethas in 895 cost 21 nomismata (13 for transcription and eight for the parchment), the equivalent of two years wages of a labourer (Mango 1980: 238; Browning 1992: 130). Literacy Restored in Byzantium The commonplace view is that the level of literacy was lower in the medieval Empire than in the ancient Empire, albeit significantly higher than in the medieval West. This question was revisited in 1990 by Margaret Mullet: Writing in early Medieval Byzantium, in R McKitterick, ed., The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1990). As she correctly notes, much depends on which century one looks at, because Byzantium had its own Dark Age. The 7 th and 8th centuries were a watershed or period of reduced literacy in which reading and writing were at a low ebb, if not almost lost (p.161). She notes, for example, that around AD 725 a group of scholars were not familiar with as important a text as Procopiuss Histories. (Procopius was still available in the libraries: but they had
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not read him.) On the other hand, by about 900 there is plenty of evidence of relatively widespread literacy. It is enough to record that, besides the expected upper-class letters and literary works, Byzantine charters have survived with rich arrays of peasant signatures (p.162). In the West, of course, the number of literate peasants was approximately zero. (In 8th century Italy, among lay subscribers to charters, i.e. nobles and others members of the secular upper classes, only 14% could sign their names, which is no great feat in itself; thus the truly literate must have been under five per cent: Ward-Perkins 2006: 166, citing the work of Petrucci. And of course even the western emperor Charlemagne, born AD 742, was notoriously illiterate.) No quantitative estimate of readers and writers in the East Roman Empire is possible, but we can make a subjective comparison with the ancient Empire and with the Latin West in later centuries. The percentage of people who do (not) know their true age correlates moderately well with (il)literacy rates. The figures below, collated by Clark 2007: 178, show the percentage who did know their true age and thus were literate. 62-48%: 39%: rich men in antique Roman Africa and Rome, 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Byzantium in AD 1000 probably did not exceed this. rich men in England, ca 1350. Presumably lower than in Byzantium in AD 1000.
68%-47%: Renaissance Florence: males, rural and urban, all classes, AD 1427. The city of Florence = 68%; all Florentine territory = 47%. Presumably higher than Byzantium in AD 1000. Looking at this data, one might hazard the guess that in the Empire in AD 9001000 about half the rich would be at least functionally literate, and perhaps an eighth of the non-rich - males in both cases. (NB: This does not imply that they all read Homer.) 902/03: Mediterranean and Aegean: The Saracens (Aghlabids) already held Malta and Syracuse, and in August 902, as we have seen, they captured Taormina, the last Romanian (Greek) foothold on Sicily, effectively ending Byzantine rule on that island. The Aegean islands and coastal towns too were vulnerable to intermittent Arab raids, in their case from Crete; and in 902 (or 901), despite stiff resistance, the wealthy town of Demetrias on the coast of Thessaly was destroyed. In the spring of 903, the NE Aegean island of Lemnos/Limnos fell, with many of its inhabitants taken as prisoners by the Arabs (McCormick 2001: 965). The West: The Muslim Umayyads of Spain [the Caliphate or anti-caliphate of Cordoba] conquer the Frankish protectorates of Majorca [Mallorca] and the Balearics. (Christian rule did not return until 1299 when the Catalans conquered the Balearics.) 902-908: Caliph al-Muktafi. 903: Italy: Although more usually fighting among themselves, Capua, Naples and Amalfi combined for a joint attack on the pirate Arab encampment (raiding colony) - based there since 881 - on the Garigliano River south of Gaeta. The Gaetans, the Arabs sponsors, came to their aid, and together they repelled the allied Christian attack (Kreutz pp.76-77; Skinner 2003: 50). See 914-15.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Wool, silk, precious stones, silver and gold: Thessalonica in 903
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Memoir of the priest John Kaminiates: There was a main public road [the Via Egnatia] that ran from west to east through the middle of the city; and it induced those who passed through the neighborhood to stop and procure whatever they needed. We were able to obtain many beautiful things from those people ( costoro: these people, them, they). So great was the number of [our] people and foreigners [forestieri, i.e. local Slavs and possibly Bulgarians] in that place that they so crowded the roads to make it easier to count the grains of sand beside the sea than the people who covered the public square of the market where transactions were concluded. As a result, many accumulated gold treasure in great amounts, silver and precious stones, and woven goods in silk ( seta) and wool (my translation of the Italian text in Vanni 2007: 12). See next: 904.2. If (see next: 904) the population was 100,000 then a market district crowded with 10,000 people is credible. 904: 1. The East: Andronikos Doukas and Eustathios Argyros campaign against the Arabs. After a major victory over the combined forces of Mopsuestia and Tarsos, they lay siege to the town of Marash (Germanicea) (Polemis p.17). Others prefer AD 905: see there. 2. The East: A substantial Arab fleet - 54 large galleys under Abu l-Hadith Lawun or Leo of (Syrian) Tripoli, a renegade New-Roman (Greek) born in Greece or Attaleia in Asia Minor*, sails from Syria to attack Attaleia (Antalya). Rotman p.47 calls it an Egyptian force, adding that the Arabs of Crete were not involved. The port city was taken by force and 60 Byzantine ships or vessels were captured (Kennedy 2008: 337; McCormick 2001: 966). Then, sailing from Crete, Leo proceeds up the eastern Aegean as if headed for Constantinople. The Arab fleet sacks Abydos. But when confronted by the imperial fleet under the droungarios tou ploimou or admiral in chief, Eustathios Argyros, it withdraws and diverts to, and sacks Thessalonica, the empires second city (Toynbee 1973: 335). Treadgold, State p.572, argues that, because 15,000 (others say 5,000) were killed and 30,000 survivors were enslaved, the citys population had been up to 100,000.** One of the first visitors to the city after the withdrawal of the Arab fleet was the Calabrian monk St Elias the Younger who died there a week after they departed. His Vita records the situation of the city as sheer misery. Curta 2006: 202. (*) Leo, who took the Arab names Gulam Zurafa, Abu l-Hadith Lawun (lawun = Leon) and Rashiq al Wardami, was an admiral and master of the port of Tripoli in Syria. Theophanes Continuatus and Cedrenus give his birthplace as Attalia. The traveller and future historian al-Masudi met him some time after 904 (Shboul 1979). (**) Johanek (in NCMH p.72) gives its urban area as 3.5 sq km, which is less than one-seventh that of Constantinople. If Constantinople had 275,00 people (Johaneks guesstimate), then one would expect T. to have had under 40,000 people. A Greek eye-witness account survives, by the priest John Cameniates, Kaminiates or Kameniata, in his Capture of Thessalonica. The event is also reported by the Muslim writer al-Masudi, who quotes Muslims who took part in the expedition. As noted, he met Leo/Lawun. In the summer of 904, the Saracens entered the Dardanelles to approach Constantinople, the beating heart of the Byzantine empire. Along the way, Leo of Tripoli sacked the island of Abydos, a well-fortified customs post of the Byzantine capital. The anxiety of the inhabitants of Constantinople was assuaged only when the Arab ships turned aside before the massed Byzantine fleet without giving
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battle. Instead, they sailed (rowed) back into the Aegean and laid siege to Thessaloniki, a city well-situated on the Via Egnatia and endowed with a large port. The citizens, in fact, were anything but remiss in their use of archery, and used it to great and conspicuous effect by stationing all the Sklavenes [Slav tribes] gathered from the neighbouring regions at those points from which it was easiest to shoot accurately and where there was nothing to deflect the momentum of their missiles (Cameniates). As related by Cameniates, Leos Arabs used a now famous tactic of lashing together the long lateen (sail) yards and quarter-rudders of paired ships to form mobile siege towers (Hocker in Gardiner 2004: 92). Some [of the Saracens] used bows and arrows, others the handmade thunder of stones. Others applied themselves to stone-throwing engines and sent giant hailstones of rock hurtling through the air. Greek Fire was deployed, but unsuccessfully by the Thessalonicans: shot from bronze siphons using, probably, compressed air. The Byzantines deployed ships with men stationed on bridges running from the mastheads whence they used hand-held siphons (Partington p.16, and Pryor & Jeffreys p.612, citing Kameniata). The Arabs (Gk Sarakinoi) took Thessaloniki on 30 July 904. They abandoned the town three days later with 22,000, or 30,000*, prisoners who they transferred to Tarsos in Kilikia/Cilicia (where there was a major slave market) (22,000 is given by NCMH 2000: 556). But finally the captives were returned following diplomatic agreement. See 905 sack of Tarsos. (*) Leo also captured 60 Romanian (Greek) ships, but even adding them, we have a figure of 193 prisoners per ship taken away (i.e. 22,000 / 114) which is at the limit of credibility. (Galleys were very small by our standards.) 3. New-Roman (Greek) retreat in the NW Balkans: The Bulgarians push west to the coast of present-day lower Albania, and re-establish their dominion as far as the Adriatic, not including Dyrrhachium (see Stephenson 2000). Byzantium struck a treaty recognising Bulgarias possession of the greater part of Thrace and outer Macedonia. Symeon was able to use the recent Arab sack of Thessalonica to his advantage: in return for agreeing not to seize the city, he received the greater part of Macedonia, including most of the Vardar river. He already held the northern sector of the valley; this treaty now gave him most of the south. Dyrrhachium remained in imperial hands, and Serbia still acknowledged Constantinople. On the Aegean side, an inscription in Greek was placed at Nea Philadelphia, just 22 km north of Thessalonica, to mark the Bulgarian-Romanic frontier (Toynbee p. 92; Browning p.129; Fine p. 140). 4. Baghdad: fl. the vizier al-Qasim, minister to several Abbasid caliphs. It was he who had commissioned Hunayns [d. 876] Arabic translation of Aristotles Physics, the best and final translation, (and) the one extant today (Gutas p.131). The Maghreb: The Fatimids, a sect of Ismailite Shiites, begin their conquest of Algeria and thence eastward to Tunisia by 907. Their army was made up mainly of Berbers. See 909. Imperial Roads and Public (State) Carriages In Asia Minor, writes Avramea, the public [government-maintained] road must have run [diagonally] through Nicaea, Malagina, Dorylaion, Caesarea, and Melitene or have headed south into Syria through the Cilician Gates. This would have been the road taken by the koubikoularios [imperial chamberlain] Samonas, who at his own expense and using his own horsesjudging the public horses at each change to be uselessfled to the Arabian border in 904. Anna Avramea, in Laiou ed., 2002, citing Hendy, Studies, 609.
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Apart from the public horses, the state also provided demousia ochemata or public carriages. In the reign of Theophilos, 829842, Manuel, stratelates* or commanding-general of the East, covertly leaving the city as far as the Gates and riding in public carriages, escaped as far as the defiles of Syria (ibid., quoting Georgius Monachus, 796.) If carts could be taken so far, it suggests that at least the major highways of Antiquity were still being maintained . (*) Rendered as supreme commander by Talbot & Sullivan (Leo Diac., trans. 2005: 37). 904-961: N Aegean: Saracen pirates (slavers) originating in Crete hold Thasos or Thassos, the northernmost island in the Aegean, a scant few kilometres from the Thracian coast. Cf 905. 905: 1a. The Aegean: Himerius, drungary (drungarios) of the fleet, i.e. admiral of the central fleet, won a major victory over the Arabs in the Aegean in October of 905 (Browning 1992: 101). This is listed by Pryor & Jeffreys (p.385) as one of the most notable naval victories achieved by the empire. But cf 911. 1b. Cilicia: In revenge for the sack of Thessalonica, Byzantine forces sack Tarsus. The port city was reduced to ashes. The claim (by Arethas) that the domestikos tn scholn, Andronikos Doux, had 18,000 Arabs put to death is plainly exaggerated (Polemis p.17; also Norwich 1993: 110). 2. (or 904:) Re-creation of the Caliphate: The Abbasids of Baghdad retake Syria, Palestine and Egypt from the Tulunids. The second-last Tulunid ruler died in 904 during the Abbasid invasion; the last in 905. The Abbasids now controlled the central Muslim domains from Egypt to S Persia. Crete was an independent emirate. The Fatimids ruled N Africa from Libya westwards. The Saminids governed in NW Persia and cental Asia (Transoxiana). 3. b. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, future emperor, Leos son by his mistress Zoe Carbonopsina (coal-black eyes). Zoe Karbonopsina was a relative of the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor and of the admiral Himerios. Cf 906 marriage. 905 and 908: Negotiations for an exchange of prisoners took place between the Eastern Muslims (Abbasids) and the East Roman Empire: the discussions were broken off in 905 but the Byzantine diplomat Leo Khoirosphaktes stayed in Baghdad and persevered. In 905 the Muslims recovered over 1,100 people before the negotiations broke down. Then in 908 they regained up to 3,000 people according to Tabari and Arib (Toynbee 1973: 391). No figures are given for the Christian side, but we may assume that they were one-for-one. 906: 1. The emperor marries for the 4th time, to Zoe Carbonopsina (C. = coal-dark eyes), and proclaims her empress. This provoked a crisis with the church, which refused to allow a third marriage. See 906-7: revolt; 913, and 914. 2. Bulgaria: Constantine, bishop of Preslav, translator of St Anastasius: creation of a sophisticated vocabulary in Slavic (Bulgarian). European Alps, Kingdom of Provence: By 906, the Andalusi (Spanish Arab) adventurers or bandits of Fraxinet had seized the mountain passes of the Dauphin west of the main Alps, crossed Mont Cnis on the present-day
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French-Italian border, and occupied the valley of the Suse on the Piedmontese or modern Italian frontier. The Arabs erected stone fortresses in areas they conquered in the Dauphin, Savoy and Piedmont often naming them Fraxinet, after their base. The name survives to this day in these areas, in various forms like Fraissinet or Frainet (Lebling, Pirates of St Tropez: http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/4040/pirates.htm, accessed 2010). Cf 911. 3. The Magyars, the future Hungarians, conquer Slavic Moravia, the present-day Slovak-Czech region. Cf 943. From 906: The imperial fleet is built up for a future expedition to Crete - see 911. 906-07: Revolt by the army commander Andronikos Dukas, instigated by patriarch Nicholas Mysticus. Cf 913. By 907: Transdanubia: The Magyars have displaced the (Slavic) Moravians as the ruling power on the Hungarian plain. See 934. In 907 AD, the Magyars inflicted two heavy defeats on the Bavarians, destroying their army at Bratislava and laying Germany open to Magyar raids. 907: 1. The Black Sea: The Russian Primary Chronicle says that the pagan Varangian Rus or Russians(*) launched an enormous land and sea expedition to Constantinople Runcimans word: 1963, pp.110-111. Davidson 1976: 89 ff and others, however, think that even its occurrence is not necessarily credible: the Greek sources do not mention it, so the episode may be fictional. (*) The westward move of the Magyars into present-day Hungary allowed the Viking Russians (Kievan Rus) briefly to grab a part of the Black Sea coast in what is now Ukraine. (The Patzinaks forced them out a little later.) If we may believe the Russian Chronicle, the pagan Varangians and their subject Slavs threatened the capital. Prince Helgi or Oleg - Norse Helgi, Slavic Oleg - leads a large fleet of 2,000 vessels [200 would be more plausible], carrying his infantry forces, towards Constantinople. We know from Constantine Porphyrogenetus that in the 10th century a large boat (sagena) of the Southern (Balkan) Croats contained about 40 men; this is also the figure stated in the Russian Primary Chronicle. Using this figure, and assuming the true number was 200 vessels, we have 8,000 men involved. The ships, or rather boats (sailing-canoes), were dragged overland on portable wheels and re-embarked on the Golden Horn. There was some fierce fighting with the Byzantines before peace was agreed. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, but this is not corroborated in the Byzantine sources, Oleg demanded silk (!) sails for his ships and linen ones for his Slav allies, and hung his shield over the city gate in a sign of victory. A trade treaty was then signed with the Russians, who were allowed to import goods into the empire duty-free. They sold slaves, furs, honey and wax to Romaniyan (Greek) buyers. Cf 911. 3. Constantine Lips**, a high-ranking member of the New-Roman (Greek) court, inaugurated a church dedicated to the Virgin in the presence of the emperor Leo VI. An inlaid marble plaque representing a female saint was part of the buildings revetted decoration. The most likely candidate for the represented figure is the third wife of Leo VI, Eudokia Baiane, the outstandingly beautiful girl from the Opsikion theme, who, like the emperors other wives, was immortalised by
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unofficial sainthood and by imperially sanctioned art. - Sharon E. Gerstel, Saint Eudokia and the imperial household of Leo VI, The Art Bulletin, Dec, 1997. (**) Lips, meaning southwest wind, was a nick-name (ODB ii: 1232). Constantine of Lips [was] first spatharius and domestikos of the scholai, the present anthypatos patrikios and great hetaeriarch [commander of the bodyguard], according to Constantine Porphyrogenitus (G, 184, 370). The Imperial guard, the Basilike Hetaireia, numbered about 1,200 men in the later 900s. Some were recruited from among Greeks, e.g. from western Thrace [the so-called theme of Macedonia]; and some from among foreigners such as Khazars (Toynbee p.285; Treadgold, Army p. 197). 3. Possible date of Leos military manual, the Taktika. - Book XIX is devoted to naval tactics, training and equipment. 908: Eastern Asia Minor in the Anti-Taurus mountains: A number of mini-themes or military border districts called cleisurae [kleisourai] - literally, fortifications in the form of mountain passes or defiles - were created in the CappadociaMesopotamia sector. They were: Lycandus in far eastern Cappadocia; Symposium, later called Taranta*, east of Lycandus; and Abara* or Amara, east of Symposium, each with probably 800 soldiers (Treadgold, Army p.77). In effect they loked down from the mountains upon the great valley of the Euphrates around Malatya. There the emirate of Malatya resisted the Byzantines until 934: see under 916, 926 and 927. (*) Taranta was the name of a fortress situated by the Tohma-su River, 4 km northwest of the modern town of Darende (80 km northwest of Malatya/Melitene) (Nesbitt et al. 2001: 161). The town of Abara lay SW of Tephrice [mod. Divrigi]; the cleisura was an excision from the theme of Sebastea (Sivas).
908-932: Baghdad: the boy-caliph al-Muqtadir, aged 13 in 908. His 25 years reign saw 13 Viziers, one rising on the fall, or on the assassination, of another. The long reign of this Caliph will bring the Abbasid Empire to its lowest ebb. Africa was lost*, and Egypt nearly [see 914-15]. Even Mosul will throw off its dependence, and the Byzantines will make raids almost at pleasure on the helpless border. Cf 910. The total annual revenues of the Muslim Khalifate had been probably 300 million dirhams [silver coins of 2.97 gms] around AD 850, down from nearly 400 million around 750. With the break-up of the Islamic Empire, the revenues would fall to about 210 million dirhams in 919 (Fossier p.225). (*) More specifically: Morocco had fallen to the Idrisids already by 800; and the Aghlabids in Greater Tunisia (Algeria to Libya) continued formally to recognise Baghdad but in practice ruled independently after 812. The later were ousted by the Fatimids (see 909-10).
909: Armenia: The Muslim general Yusuf, the independent-minded amir of Azerbaijan, promotes Gagik, the prince of Vaspurakan, the small state east of Lake Van, as an anti-king against Sembat. Cf 909-13. England, 909: The troops of Wessex harry the Viking kingdom of York. 909-10: North Africa: Shiite Fatimids capture the Aghlabid capital of al-Qayrawan
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(Kairuan) and take control in Tunisia and Sicily. Al-Mahdi [Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah a.k.a Said ibn Husayn], first Fatimid ruler (909-34). Radical Ismaili Shiism.* Al-Mahdi was proclaimed caliph in rivalry to the Abbasids of Baghdad. Tunisia: Triumphal entry to Kairuan by the Fatimids under Ubaydullah: the city of al-Mahdiyya [Mahdia] is founded (912) on the north-east coast of preswnt-day Tunisia, as the new capital. Al-Mahdi took up residence in al-Mahdiyya in 920. Cf 969. (*) The metaphoricist Ismaili group of Shiias focussed on the mystical nature of the Imams and the mystical path to Allah, while the more literalistic Twelver group focusing on divine law (sharia) and the deeds and sayings (sunnah) of Muhammad and his successors. North Africa returned to Sunni rule under the Zirids, from 1045. 909-13: Yusuf conquers Christian Armenia. For four years the terror continued, until in 913 the Armenian King Smbat, in the vain hope of saving his subjects' lives, finally surrendered to Yusuf and was rewarded by a particularly hideous martyrdom (thus Norwich, Apogee p.131). Cf 950, 1147. See 913, 915. 910: Syria: Sailing (and/or rowing!) via Cyprus, a fleet of Byzantine galleys under admiral Himerius sacks the Syrian (Abbasid) city of Lattakia (Gk: Laodicea), south of Antioch, and plunders its hinterland. See 911. - Niketas probably accompanied Himerios on the successful expedition of 910 which, as Jenkins, 1966: 210, suggests, might have sailed first to Crete to secure the neutrality of the Cretan Arabs before attacking Syria and sacking Laodikaia. The central imperial fleet had some 19,600 rowers at this time; this would translate (at 150 per ship) into a central force of some 130 galleys. Adding ships from the several naval themes, the empire could easily form a fleet of over 200 ships. Of the 197 major ships deployed against Crete in 911-12 (below), most were drawn from the central Imperial fleet, with lesser numbers from the three lesser naval themes: Hellas; Samos and the Aegean; and the Cibyrrhaeots [Asia Minor]. 910-911: Preparations for the coming (911) invasion of Crete began in 910. Imperial officials were dispatched to the themes to assist in collecting and transporting the supplies. An imperial officer described simply as a certain basilikos was sent to the Anatolikon region in 910/911 to raise barley, biscuit (hard tack), grain and flour for the Kibyrrhaiot forces at Attaleia. Haldon, Byzantium at War 1997; citing De Cer., 659.7-12 Cf 911-12. 910-982: Capua under the rule of Benevento. 911: 1. Heel of Italy: First mention of a theme of Longobardia; it had been created perhaps as early as 887. There were three segments of Byzantine Italy: (a) the Romance-speaking Theme of Longobardia, which comprised the upper back-heel centred on Bari; (b) the mainly Greek-speaking Land of Otranto: the heel proper including Taranto, Brindisi and Otranto: evidently this segment was administered from Calabria ; and (c) Greek-speaking Calabria or the so-called Theme of Sicily. (Sicily itself was under Muslim rule: map in Runciman 1963: 176). 2. (or 912:) Europe: Further trade treaty with Kievan Russia. Significantly, all the Kievan signatories bore Scandinavian names. That is to say, they were still Vikings
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and not yet Slavs. In later accounts - the first complete Russian chronicle dates from 1116 - their names are Slavicised: Helgi becomes Oleg, Helga turns into Olga; Ingwarr Igor and Waldemar appears as Vladimir. The Rhos brought slaves and furs, exchanging them for money (gold coins) and silk in Constantinople, which they knew as Miklagard, the Great Town* (Davidson 1976: 99 ff). (*) Miklagrd, from Old Norse Miklagar: mikill + gardr = big city or grand city. The treaty mentions that some Rus/Russian Vikings were already enrolled in the Byzantine army (but not yet grouped in one unit). Cf 988. Kingdom of Provence or Lower Burgundy*: In 911, the bishop of Narbonne, who had been in Rome on urgent church business, was unable to return to Francia because Muslim bandits controlled all the passes in the Alps. And by about 933, light columns, very mobile, held at least during the summer all the country under a reign of terror, while the bulk of the Muslim forces was entrenched in the mountainous canton of Fraxinetum, in the immediate vicinity of the sea [near St Tropez], writes Levi-Provenal. See 931. (*) A small Frankish kingdom, located between the Frankish kingdom of N Italy and the Frankish kingdom of France. The Rhone runs through what was then western Provence. Capital, after 911: Arles, on the lower Rhone below Avignon. In 933 Lower and Upper Burgundy were combined into a Kingdom of Arles. 911-12: 1. Italy: Last minting of coins at the mint of Reggio di Calabria (Morrisson in Laiou ed., 2002). 2. The salaries of the military and civil commanders of the provincesthe strategoiare known to us from a catalogue of the year 911/912 in Constantine Porphryogenituss De cer., 1: 69697. The strategoi (generals) of Asia Minor, Thrace, and Macedonia received 2040 litrai per year, i.e. 1,440-2,880 nomismata; those of the maritime themes 10 litrai; and the so-called guardians of the passes: the kleisourarchai - military commanders of smaller regions, who did not hold the rank of strategos - received only five litrai [1 litrai or pound = 72 nomismata]. Oikonomides, in Laiou ed., Economic History of Byzantium, 2002. 3. The Aegean: Admiral Himerius, departs from Phygela, the port near Ephesus on the mainland opposite Samos, in about July 911, leading a major Romanic/Byzantine expedition to re-conquer Crete. This venture fails after six or eight months fighting (by about April 912). Among his commanders was Romanus Lecapenus, strategus of the (naval) Samian theme and future emperor: see 920. When the fleet was about halfway home, off Chios, or as others say when it was rounding Samos, it was intercepted and destroyed by an Arab fleet under Gulam Zurafa, an apostate Greek known to the Byzantines as Leo [Lawun] of (Syrian) Tripoli (April or May 912: before 11 May) (Rotman p.220 note 98). Leo had served as a seaman in the Kibyrrhaiotai theme; having been captured, he converted to Islam (Dromon p.62). The Expedition to Crete in 911 Some estimate may be formed (writes Gibbon) of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the reduction of Crete. A fleet of 112 galleys (dromons), and 75 vessels [total 187] of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in the capital, the islands of the
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Aegean Sea, and the seaports of Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried 34,000 mariners [oarsmen], 7,340 soldiers, 700 Russians, and 5,087 Mardaites [marines]*, whose fathers [i.e. ancestors] had been transplanted from the mountains of Libanus [S Syria and Lebanon] (Decline and Fall, citing Const. Porphy. De Cerem.: Constantine VII's "Ceremony Book"). Total of non-oarsmen: 13,127 fighters. Cf below: Whittrow and Haldon say 17,000+. (*) Mardates (marda+ites): Descendants of Christian refugees from Syria; first settled in the Aegean naval themes in the 680s. Ships: 112 + 75 = 187 vessels, or an average of some 240 men per vessel (rowers and troops). Or, if we spread the number of troops evenly, then the result is 34 soldiers per vessel (or 90+ if there were 17,000+ troops). Of the 197 (or 187 or 180 or 119)* major ships in the Romaniyan expeditionary fleet, most were drawn from the central or Imperial fleet, with lesser numbers from the themes of Hellas; Samos/Aegean; and the Cibyrrhaeots of Asia Minor. (*) Treadgold, State p.470 says 119 ships; Constantine says 187, namely 75 elite chelandia pamphyloi and 112 other dromons: text in Pryor & Jeffreys p.550. Given the number of rowers and marines, the higher figure of 197 given by Heath should perhaps be preferred. Ship Numbers In the Cretan expedition of 911, the contingents of the fleets were as follows according to Gibbons Decline, vol 9, p. 354. The figures in square brackets are from Heath, Dark Ages, 1976. The Central Fleet: 100 [or 102] ships from the central or Imperial Fleet - 40 elite* pamphylians and 60 other dromonds [sic]. (*) This distinction follows Pryor & Jeffreys, who argue that pamphylians were vessels crewed by picked mariners rather than being a distinct ship type or design. Provincial Fleets: (a) 31 from the Cibyrrh. Theme: 16 elite pamphylians and 15 other dromons. Oarsmen and marines: 6,760 men, average 218 per ship. Cf ships complements in the Thematic fleets in 929: 108-110 men per Ousakios; 120-150 per Pamphylos; and 220 officers and oarsmen per large Dromon (Heath 1976: 13). Average: 164, not including marines. (b) 22 from the Samos Theme: 12 pamphylians and 10 other dromonds. Oarsmen and marines: 5,690 or average 259 men per vessel, so nearly all must have been bigger ships (e.g. 200 rowers, 40 marines and 19 others). (c)17 from the Aegean Theme: 7 pamphylians and 10 other dromonds. Oarsmen and marines: 3,100 or average 182 per ship, so possibly none was of the largest type. Subtotal 35 and 35 [vs Heaths 33 and 42]. (d) 10 from the Helladic Theme: 10 dromonds [Heath: 10 ships]. All were the larger type of dromon, i.e. with 230 oarsmen/naval crew and 70 marines each (text of Constantine in Pryor & Jeffreys p.550). Grand total 180 ships [Heath says 197], i.e. 75 pamphylians and 105 other dromonds, Or according to Toynbee, 1973, p. 33, 33 larger and 42 smaller type pamphyla; and 102 other dromons: total 177. As noted, Constantine himself says 187 in all.
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There is no actual reference to specialist horse-transport ships, but there is mention of large amounts of barley and also skalai, which no doubt meant gangways or boarding ramps. Leo says he [Nicephorus] had brought ramps with him [to Crete] on the transport ships and thus transferred the army, fully armed and mounted, from the seas to dry land (Leo Diac. I:3; also Dromon p.306). - See below for a discussion of what may be deduced from the amount of barley; it is possible that Constantines 187 meant only warships and that there were further ships dedicated to transporting horses. Mariners, Marines and Soldiers The estimates for the number of fighting men, or at least the number of specialist fighters - marines and embarked soldiers - vary from about 6,000 (Treadgold) to over 17,000 (Whittow and Haldon). These scholars assume, which is by no means certain, that the rowers did not fight, or at least not on this expedition. It is stated explicitly, at least for the later expedition of 949, that many or even most of the rowers were armed to fight: see Dromon p.261. i. Of the 42,774 men on the 911 expedition, 36,837 or 86% were rowers, according to Treadgold. The embarked fighting men or specialist fighters may have numbered only about 5,937 (sic: Treadgold, Army p.190, note 11). ii. Heath 1976: 13, following Gibbon, offers these figures: 34,000 rowers; 7,340 land troops; 5,087 Mardaites of the West [marines]; and 700 Rus mercenaries. These are the actual numbers quoted by Constantine himself: text in Pryor & Jeffreys, Dromon p.550. Adding the last three we have 13,127 fighting men. Cf Whittows figures, below. iii. Haldon says just over 17,000 (excluding oarsmen) in his Byzantium at War 1997, excerpted at http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/haldon1.htm. Irrespective of what one makes of Treadgolds aggregate statistics and projections, one should remember that for an imperial field-army of the middleByzantine period to have consisted of 25-30,000 troops was exceptional, and even when on campaign against strategically vital targets such as Crete in 911 or 949, the [fighting] forces deployed could be considerably smaller (Haldon 1997). iv. Mark Whittow, The Making of Byzantium, 600-1025, University of California Press 1996, p.185 presents the figures thus: Marines: Mardates (from the Peloponnesus and Cephalonia) Imperial fleet, marines Kibyrrhotai fleet Russians (Imperial fleet) Samos flotilla Hellas flotilla Aegean flotilla Subtotal 5,087 4,200 1,190 700 700 700 490
13,067
13,067 / 70 = 187. This figure nicely tallies with the 187 ships said to have sailed, 70 being a standard complement of marines.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Land troops: Tagmata Thrakesian Theme Sebasteis Theme (Armenians) Armenians from Palation (in the Anatolikon) Armenians from Priene (in the Thrakesion) Sub-total Grand-total
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1,037 1,000 1,000 500 500 4,037 17,104
The amount of horse-feed carried would have fed as many as 10,000 cavalry mounts for about two weeks, but in all probability the number of horses taken was more like 5,000 (say Pryor & Jeffreys, Dromon p.306). This figure seems high, noting that in the later expedition of 949 (see there) the cavalry mounts numbered only a few more than 2,000 animals. Moreover 5,000 horses translates as 27 animals per ship on average. And we know that medieval specialist horsetransport ships ordinarily carried fewer than 30 horses each (Gardiner 2004: 115). If the expedition really had that many horses, then it was very severely overcrowded, each ship also having to accommodate on average about 230 humans (using Treadgolds figures). Of course Constantines 187 vessels may have meant only the warships; the several thousand horses could well have been transported in a further 100+ civilian galleys. The latter seems more likely, given that the expedition of 949 comprised 3,308 vessels of all sizes, including troopships, horse-transporters and supply boats. The 911 operation cost 234,732 nomismata, more than a ton of gold. The campaign of 949 was less ambitious, costing only 127,122 nomismata. Or so says Oikonomides in Laiou, ed. 2002. The figures given by Treadgold, Army p.189, are 239,128 nomismata for 44,908 men in 911 and 209,622 nomismata for 27,010 men in 949, the latter being only a partial tally. On both occasions, contributions in kind had been levied on certain provinces; these met some of the needs of the expeditionary forces (foodstuffs, technical equipment, packhorses) and were not included in the accounts. Among the 8,000 or so non-marine troops there was one regiment of 700 Rus (Varangians). The rest were drawn from the Tagmata and the eastern frontier themes, while the nearby Thracesian theme, west-central Asia Minor, was passed over, or at least its Greek troops were. This may have reflected the waning quality of the inner themes. The region of Prine in the Thracesian did contribute 500 soldiers, but it was an Armenian colony (Toynbee p.85). Some cavalry from the Thracesian Theme who were not joining the 949 expedition were asked to pay four nomismata each to be excused; the proceeds went to soldiers of the Charpezicium Theme (*) in far eastern Anatolia [NE of Melitene], who did go. We may guess that the latter were more highly regarded as fighting troops (Treadgold, Army p.78). (*) In 949 the the roll of Charpezicium was 2,400 men, all ethnic Arab cavalrymen (ibid.). The French king (West Francia) allows Vikings to settle permanently in what is now Normandy, provided they convert to Christianity. Over the next century they will become more French than the French. The Economy Constantinople: The Book of the Prefect, Gk: To eparxikon biblion, a legal text
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written in 911 or 912, provides the fundamental framework for a consideration of commerce in the medieval capital. Its regulations cover 22 types of activity by guilds (systemata), some of which are assigned to designated parts of the city. Cattle traders, butchers, fishmongers, bakers, spice and silk merchants, the latter of both raw and finished silk, shipwrights, even notaries, money changers and goldsmiths - all had to belong to the guild organization. As for enslaved workers, the Book of the Prefect fixes no limits on their use except in banking. The text portrays a level of commercial activity that is buoyant if regulated, according to Talbot, Commercial Map of Constantinople, online at www.doaks.org/dop54/dp54ch10.pdf, accessed 2005.
911-19: England: Under Edward the Elder, r. 899-925, son of Alfred [Aelfred] the Great (d. ca 899/900), the southern Anglo-Saxons of Wessex annex parts of the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia and begin to dominate the region NE of the Thames River. Oxford and London are annexed in 911. From there they will conquer north-east and north into the Danelaw, the Danish Kingdoms of East Anglia and York. By 918-19 Edward will establish fortress-villages as far north as Nottingham and Manchester. By 912: Croatia had emerged as a kingdom. Although often allied with Byzantium, it looked more to the Frankish kingdoms of N Italy-Germany-France for its model of civilisation. The Croats shared a border with the German-Franks in what is now Slovenia. 912: 1. Death of Leo IV, aged 46. Leos son Constantine was only seven years old, so Leos younger brother ALEXANDER, aged 42, succeeded to the throne in 912. Alexander set about to reverse the policies and programs of Leo, but he died* in 913 after accomplishing little other than stirring Symeon up against the empire once again. See 912-13 below. (*) The Continuator (as the anonymous chronicle author is called) says that Alexander died of a stroke brought on by an ill-advised game of polo played in the heat of the day after a heavy lunch (Norwich 1993: 125). 2. The Aegean: As noted, on the way home from the disastrous failure of the Cretan expedition, Himerius and the imperial fleet were crushed by the Muslims admirals Leo [Lawun] of Tripoli and Damianos [Damyana] of Tarsus (the latter probably also a Byzantine renegade) in a battle off the island of Chios in the spring of 912. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the imperial navy. Himerius was replaced as admiral of the fleet by Romanus Lecapenus (the future emperor). At this time, either on the way west or, more likely, when returning eastward, Damian of Tarsus carried off Christians from Cyprus because the inhabitants had broken the treaty [of AD 688]. That is to say, they had either refused to pay taxes or molested the Cypriot Muslims, or both. Others say Damian was taking reprisal for an earlier breach of Cypruss neutrality by Himerius (Toynbee 1973: 335). 912-13: Leos successor emperor Alexander, reigned 912-13, breaks the treaty of 896: Khan Symeon invades Thrace and his army penetrates to the walls of the EastRomanic capital (913). The war with Bulgaria will continue off and on until 927. In the 20th year of his reign, Symeon led the main body of the Bulgarian army on a march without opposition through East Roman Thrace and camped before the walls of Constantinople itself. His troops ringed the whole length of the land walls, from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara.
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913: Western Persia was conquered by the Buwayhids, a Deylamite Persian tribal confederation from the shores of the Caspian Sea. Buyids were a Shiah Iranian dynasty which founded a confederation that controlled most of modern-day Iran and Iraq in the 10th and 11th centuries. They made the city of Shiraz (in the Pars Province of Iran) their capital. 913: 1. Emperor Alexander dies [6 June 913], having named his nephew, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Leo VIs son, as his successor. Regency under Patriarch Nicholas. 2. As noted, Khan Symeon invaded Thrace and his army penetrated to the walls of the East Roman capital. There he is crowned emperor (see below for discussion of this). 3. Arab sea expedition under Damian, Emir of Tarsus; it fails when he dies (Runciman p.123). At the same time the Arabs conducted a successful land expedition from Mesopotamia into Anatolia. 4. Failed coup by the general Constantine Ducas. Ducas was killed by the militia, and the coup collapsed; his son was castrated and his supporters were variously empaled, blinded or exiled (Runciman 1963: 50). 5. In Armenia, to save Christian lives, king Sembat surrenders to general Yusuf and at Dvin is killed horribly; the Christian world sees Sembat as a martyr. Yusuf rules in Armenia while in Abasgia [modern Georgia], Sembats son Ashot receives the Armenian crown. (See 914.) War ensues between Armenian rivals in Azerbaijan. 6a. Sicily/Africa: The Fatimid emir of Sicily, Ibn Qurub [Ahmad ibn Ziyadat Allah ibn Qurhub], breaks with Kairouan, nominally allying himself with Baghdad but in reality declaring independence (Metcalfe 2009: 47). See 917. 6b. Ibn Qurub sent a flotilla to raid Calabria (McCormick 2001: 968). 913-920: Regency for the eight years old boy-Basileus CONSTANTINE VII Porphyrogenitos' (born in the purple', i.e. born to a reigning emperor), son of Leo IV. The patriarch Nicholas Mysticus was regent 913-14; then the emperors mother, ZO Carbonopsina, 914-919/20. The Crowning of Tsar Symeon, 913 The Bulgarian kynaz (prince) was conducted (913) into the city, or rather his sons were. At the same time the patriarch Nicholas Mysticus - who was president of the regency council: the new emperor, Constantine, was a boy of eight - went out of the city, and there, presumably in the Bulgarian camp, in an ambiguous ceremony, he crowned Symeon [aged 48 or 49] as emperor, Greek Basileus or Slavic Tsar, as in Caesar. The full passage in Theophanes Continuatus reads thus: The Patriarch Nicholas and Stephen and the magistros John took the emperor [young Constantine VII] and made for Blachernai [palace], where they welcomed Simeon's two sons who dined with the emperor in the palace. Then the Patriarch Nicholas went out [of the city] to Simeon, and Simeon bowed his head to him. After he had prayed, the Patriarch placed his own mitre [or patriarchal veil: Gk epirrhiptarion] instead of the crown (stemma) - so they say (hos phasi) - on Simeon's head. - Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bekker, p.381 ff.
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But emperor of whom or what is not certain. Some propose he was crowned as emperor of Byzantium, i.e. co-emperor with eight-years-old Constantine VII, or perhaps just emperor of the Bulgarians; others have suggested that he was made Caesar, i.e. junior emperor of Byzantium. But it is clear from Nicholass letters to Symeon that the latter was in 913 seeking to obtain the Byzantine throne. The majority opinion is that he was crowned as emperor of the Bulgarians (Fine 1991: 145; also Norwich 1993: 128). At any rate by 925 at the latest, he was styling himself emperor of the Bulgarians and Romans [Byzantines]. Never before, writes Obolensky, had a Christian prince whose country was part of the Byzantine Commonwealth claimed the supreme rank in the oecumenical society of nations whose legitimate head was the emperor in Constantinople, namely the boy-emperor Constantine. A further Byzantine source writes thus of the events of 913: He [Symeon], hidden beneath his helmet of darkness, called for fellow celebrants and proposed the confirmation of the covenant. But he [Nicholas] opposed this and said straight out that it was abominable for Romans to do proskynsis [perform prostration*] to an emperor (basileus) unless he was a Roman; Rather wear your makeshift diadem for a little, and let your fellow celebrants [Bulgarians] do you proskynsis (Theodore Daphnopates). In Jenkins 1966b. Thus the sources may seem to imply that the coronation of 913 was a sham ceremony; but this is likely to be a later Byzantine slant, as it seems clear that Symeon himself departed satisfied with whatever had transpired . . . (Browning p.62 and Fine p. 145, quoting the Chronicle of the Logothete) . Cf 920, 925. (*) Kneeling three times with the head touching the ground. Cf Obolensky 1971: 144 on Symeons imperial titles: In the 9 th century nationalism as we know it today did not yet exist. Political thought, at least in Eastern Europe, was dominated by the idea of one universal empire whose centre was in Constantinople. This empire was by definition a unique and all -embracing institution. And so Symeon, impelled by restless ambition, convinced of the innate superiority of all things Byzantine and well grounded as he was in East Roman political philosophy, was driven to the only course of action he could logically adopt: to try to make himself master of an enlarged Byzantine Empire which would include Bulgaria. To achieve this he needed to capture Constantinople and seat himself on the imperial throne. Cf 917. Bulgaria under Symeon Slavonic culture flourished in Bulgaria under Symeon, khan 893-927, ruling with the title of tsar or emperor from 913. As we saw, he established a new capital at Preslav, near the Black Sea coast. His father Boris had proclaimed Slavonic as the language of the Church in Bulgaria, and introduced the new Cyrillic alphabet in the last year of his reign. Under Symeon, Slavonic became the medium for written communications: Greek was discarded except in messages to other rulers. In tactical terms Symeon usually prevailed in his military clashes with Byzantium. For example in 895 he destroyed a large imperial army at Bulgarophygon near Adrianople. By 904 he held parts of northern Greece within sight of Thessalonica, and lower Greece was regularly plundered. The Bulgarian-Byzantine frontier at this time lay just beyond Adrianople. See 914. The Bulgarians ruled in Philippopolis. They also controlled a tongue of land north of Thessaloniki which reached to the Aegean, meaning that there was no overland route for the Byzantines from the capital to Thessaloniki. The Caucasus: A massive Russian (Viking Rus) attack in the Caspian region, as related by al-Masudi: 500 boats each holding 100 men both figues look exaggerated - came down the Don River, and sought
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permission from the Khazars to cross to the Volga, which gave them entrance to the Caspian (the lower Don and the lower Volga almost touch as one point, and the Volga runs thence into the Caspian). They raided all around the Caspian Sea, even as far as Muslim Tabaristan, the south shore of the Caspian. As Davidson remarks, 1976: 127, Masudis account reminds us of Viking raids on the British Isles. On their return the Rus were intercepted by a Muslim force and heavily defeated. 912-961: The Islamic state in greater Andalusia (al-Andalus: Muslim Spain) reaches the peak of its power and renown under emir Abd ar-Rahman III, who from 929 will style himself Caliph. Cf 947, 949. 914: 1a. Zo seizes control of the regency government. Learning that the empress would not let the boy-emperor marry his daughter, Symeon of Bulgaria again invades Thrace, and, by bribery, takes Adrianople. Zoe promptly bribes the city back into Byzantine hands (Runciman 1963: 83; Treadgold, State p.474). See 91516. Symeon I demands to be recognised as the emperor of Byzantium, but Nicholas writes rejecting this. 1b. The eunuch Damianus was appointed Drungary (commander) of the elite regiment of the Watch during the regency, 914-919, by Empress-regent Zoe, mother of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Theoph. Cont. 386). 2. The yearly Syrian-Arab land raid from Tarsus ended in failure. Cf 915. Shepard, in NCMH vol 3 p.556, notes that Saracen forces raiding into Anatolia at this time usually numbered fewer than 10,000 men. 3. Zo decides to aid the exiled Armenian king Ashot. He travels to Constantinople, and plans are hatched for a joint campaign against the Muslims. See 915. 4. Italy: Nicolas Picingli is appointed Strategus of Longobardia (modern Puglia), with a brief of uniting the local Christian princes against the Italian-based Muslim brigands. He arrives in Italy with extra troops (see 915) (Runciman p.53). The Arabs of Sicily raid Calabria, but an attack from behind by the African Fatimids, their previous overlords, brought this attack to nothing. Cf next. 5. Italy: Constantinople directs the strategos of Calabria, Eustathios, to conclude a truce with Ahmad ibn Ziyadat Allah [Ahmad ibn Ziyadat Allah ibn Qurhub], the amir of Sicily, agreeing to a humiliating annual tribute of 22,000 pieces of gold (Runciman p.54; Dromon p.68). The treaty was concluded sometime in the period 915-917. 914-915: North Africa: The Abbasids defeat several Fatimid attacks on Egypt. 914-28: r. Pope John X. With the backing of Berengar I, the German-Italian king of Italy, John helped persuade the Latin aristocracy of Rome to unite with the Byzantines (Romaniyans) against the Italian-based Saracens whose raids were ruining central Italy. The Muslims were defeated (below: 915) by a combined army led by the Romaniyan (Greek) general, Nicholas Picingli. 915: 1a. The new Emir of Tarsus, Bishra or Bishr, leads a successful land raid into Byzantine Anatolia. He claimed to have captured 150 patrikioi (nobles and senior officials) and about 2,000 people altogether (Tabari, trans. Rosenthal p.206).
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1b. The Armenian War: Zoe sends a Rhomaioi army under the Domestic, Leo Phocas, to Mesopotamia to relieve pressure on Armenia by the Arabs - a great force from the tagmata and themes, including Melias and his Armenians (Treadgold 1997: 474). Leo defeats the Arabs of Tarsus, Germanicea and Samosata, and then proceeds to the north-east, reaching the outskirts of Dvin, seat of the Muslim governor of Armenia. King Ashot reclaims control of eastern Armenia. See 919. 2. Italy: As a direct result of the fear produced by the large Saracen attack of 902, several of the various autonomous states of southern Italy the Capuans, Beneventans, Salernitans eventually agreed to join forces with the Byzantines and the Papacy to wipe out the Arab forces settled since 881 on the Garigliano River just south of Gaeta (to the north or NW of Naples). Extirpation of the Muslim Pirate Nest in West-Central Italy The new Strategus of Longobardia, Nicholas Picingli, forms a pan-Italian alliance Lombard-papacy-Byzantine - against the Arabs headquartered in their formidable fortified raiding colony [kairouan, fortified settlement, literally an army resting point or camp] on the Garigliano River on the coast above Naples. Reinforcements are sent from the East (Byzantium) to Italy to help clear the last Arabs from Campania: major Christian victory over the Muslims near Capua. This greatly raised Byzantine prestige in the West (Runciman, Lecapenus p.53) Cf 926. It is recorded that for one expedition to Italy around this time the Peloponnesus was commanded to supply 1,000 horses (Lefort in Laiou, ed. 2000, citing Const. Porph.) The Christians scored two significant victories at Campo Baccano, on the Via Cassia and in the area of Tivoli near Rome. After these defeats, the Muslims occupying Narni and Ciculi (both north of Rome)* moved back to the main Saracen stronghold on the Garigliano: this was a fortified settlement (Ar. kairuan) whose site, however, has not yet been identified with certainty. The siege began in June 915. (*) Ciculi is near near Terni: on the upper river Salto. When Picingli marched north, Naples and Gaeta were induced to break with the Saracens and briefly cooperated with the Byzantines; the Pope, the Lombard duke of Spoleto and the Capuans sent forces to aid Picingli. Picingli bestowed the still prestigious title of Patrikios on the dukes of Gaeta and Naples, and induced these former friends of the Saracens to participate in the league. In Gaetas case, a further inducement was the promise of the Pope to cede part of his territories to Gaeta. Picingli then led his fleet to the delta of the Garigliano, while the southern Italian lords took their position on the coast below the Saracen fortress. From the (upper) land side, other troops moved in close, possibly led by Pope John X in person, or at least he was titular commander. June-August 915: Romaniyan (Greek) ships blockaded the mouth of the river Garigliano. Starved out after three months, the Saracens fled inland but were all killed. The Garigliano Saracens received no help from outside because the Sicilian Arabs were fighting the Tunisian Arabs (Runciman 1963: 185). Picinglis Byzantines, Atenulfs Capuans, the Beneventans and Guaimars Salernans took a position south of the Arab encampment; while the Papal and Spoletan troops under Berenguer of Friuli and the margrave of Spoleto encircled the encampment on the north. The Byzantine fleet blockaded the river-mouth, cutting off a sea retreat. While Pope John X is supposed to have led the troops of Tuscany, Rome and Lazio (Latium), the key commanders on land were probably Theophylact of Tusculum, the military commander of the troops of Rome and de facto ruler of the
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city; and duke Alberic of Spoleto who was married to Theophylacts daughter. As Rodriquez relates, the Byzantine fleet began to enter the mouth of the river in June while the land troops maneuvered to form a human wall around the fortified Arab camp. In this action all the main lords of Southern Italy were present: Duke Gregory of Naples, Atenulf of Capua and Guaimar of Salerno accompanied by the two northerners, count Berenguer of Friuli and the margrave or duke of Spoleto. The commander of the coalition, the strategos Picingli, directed operations against the foot of the main hill where the Saracen defence was concentrated. For three months (June-August) the fort was carefully blockaded until, urged by necessity, the besieged Arabs decided in August to sneak out following the advice of the lords of Naples and Gaeta. After setting fire to the camp, the Arabs tried to flee in small groups through the neighbouring mountains; but there they were attacked by the Christian troops and few managed to escape alive. In Romanic/Byzantine Italy from the 10th to the 12th century, the Basilian monks will cultivate calligraphy at Grottaferrata, at St. Salvatore at Messina, at Stilo in Calabria, at the monastery of Cassola, near Otranto, at St. Elias at Carbone, and especially at the Patir [patirion, foundation-site, mother-monastery] of Rossano [NE Calabria]. The latter was established later (in the eleventh century) by St. Bartholomew, who bought books at Constantinople and copied several manuscripts. Brehier 1910. 915-16: The Balkans: The Bulgarians under Symeon campaign south to Thessalonica, and perhaps as far as the Gulf of Corinth, and west towards the Adriatic. Adrianople falls to the Bulgarians once again; but when Zo dispatches a large army, Symeon withdraws. Cf 918. 915-21: Armenia: Building of the cathedral of Aghtamar, on an island in Lake Van. Designed by the architect Manuel for King Gagik. 916: 1. Asia Minor: Double raid by Muslim forces: general Munis led an army from Melitene and Abul-Kasma led another from Tarsus. The former was successful; the latter was apparently stymied by the Byzantines (Runciman p.125). 2. Bulgaria: d. St Clement of Ohrid, scholar and writer, the first Bulgarian archbishop. He was commissioned by the late Boris I of Bulgaria to teach and instruct the future clergy of the state into the Slavonic language. For a period of seven years - between 886 and 893 - Clement taught the Slavonic language and the Glagolitic alphabet to some 3,500 disciples. 916-17: Italy: Some Romaniyan (Greek) forces are withdrawn from Italy (recalled to Thrace: see 917); also Picingli departs. The new Strategus of Calabria makes a treaty (c.917?) with the Sicilian Saracens, at the price of 22,000 gold pieces yearly (Runciman 1963: 186). 917: 1. A major East Roman embassy went to Samarra and Baghdad. This is described by several Muslim writers and is thus our best recorded event of this kind. In the resulting prisoner exchange, the Caliphate recovered 5,500 people, says Ibn alJawzi. The caliph paid for the release some of the enslaved Greeks involved in the exchange (Kennedy, Near East p.177). The Byzantines envoys were received with the most elaborate ceremony at the caliphs palace along the bank of the Tigris River. The sources describe at length the palaces (with 700 porters or doorkeepers) traversed by the ambassadors, the armies in satin uniforms, and the menageries of exotic animals that they witnessed: lines of elephants, giraffes, leopards, and 100 lions. The Arabs laid
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out massive amounts of gold and silver objects, jewels, and carpets (22,000 floor carpets and 38,000 pieces of tapestry) to impress the visitors. The cost of the furnishings, drapes, and carpets for the audience hall alone was 30,000 dinars. Book of Gifts and Rarities: Kitab al-Hadaya wa al-Tuhaf , by Anon., ed. and trans. G.H. al-Qaddumi: Cambridge, Mass., 1996, pp.152, 155. 2a. Zo decides that she should concentrate her forces against Bulgaria. See next. She opens negotiations with the Arabs, which commence with a grand reception in Baghdad for her ambassadors. But, while discussion was taking place, dual raids were again conducted into Anatolia. A peace treaty was struck thereafter, and the raids ended (until 922). The Byzantines also raised the status of Lycandus, east of Caesarea in the direction of Melitene, from a cleisura to a full theme. The fortress-town of Lycandus, in the N foothills of the Anti-Taurus range, lay about halfway between Caesarea and Tephrice. Cappadocia: Many of the rock-cut buildings, with their elaborate defences, in the Goreme valley west of Caesarea/Kayseri date from the first half of this century (ODB ii: 860). Defeat at Achialus and Katasurtas 2b. Attack on Bulgaria: Zoe orders a large combined land-sea operation against Symeon. This results in one of the worst defeats in New-Roman (Byzantine) history. Leo Phocas commands the army, while Romanus Lecapenus commands the navy. Symeon fears being squeezed between the Pechenegs and the imperial forces. Leo offers to ferry the Pechenegs across the lower Danube; but they withdraw, judging that the monies already paid to them are enough. Then, on 17 August, north of Anchialus/Acheloos on the Black Sea coast, the Bulgarians crush the imperial army under Leo Phocas and sweep back into Thrace. There at Katasurtas Symeon defeats a second large Byzantine army. The Bulgarian Tsar was now de facto master of the Balkans . The generals Leo Phocas and John Bogas, formerly strategos of Cherson (Khersn), our Crimea, were able to gather additional troops from Asia Minor, supposedly 110,000 men in all - although this is far too large a figure. After all, the entire enrolled army and marines, serving from Italy to Chaldia, was only 124,000 (Treadgold, Army p.67). The troops brought across from Asia are mentioned in Leo Grammaticus, Chronographia, p.244. Let us imagine, therefore, that half the Tagmata (14,000) went on expedition, along with the full strength of the themes of Macedonia and Thrace (10,000) and the same number (10,000) drawn from the themes of Asia; that would give us 34,000. As noted below, Haldon guesses 30,000 troops. Romanus Lecapenus commanded the fleet at the mouth of the Danube. The Bulgarians, under Simeon the Great, had an army supposedly of 70,000 men (Miracula S. Georgii, cited in Wikipedia 2009, Battle of Anchialus) but again this seems too large a figure. Theophanes Continuatus: having made the customary cash payments to the tagmata, both conscripted forces and the thematic armies were transported [shipped from Asia] to Thrace. ... The magistros Leo Phokas was Domestic of the Schools [commander-in chief]: he was a man more renowned for his bravery than for his knowledge of generalship. Then the venerable and life-giving cross was led out to Thrace by Constantine Kephalas, protopapas [vicar, head priest] of the palace, and Constantine Balelias, where everyone bowed before it and and swore together to die for each other, and they set forth in full array against the Bulgarians. The tagma of the Exkoubitoi was commanded by John Grapson, the tagma of the Hikanatoi by Maroules son. Romanos Argyros was a general, as was
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his brother Leo, and Bardas Phokas, with whom went Melias with the Armenians and all the other generals (strategoi) of the themata ( - thus Theophanes Continuatus). It is claimed, but the figure must be rejected, that 70,000 out of 110,000 Byzantines were killed. So many were killed nevertheless that it was said their bones could still be observed 75 years later (Wikipedia 2009, Battle of Anchialus, citing Leo Diaconus). Subsequently: The Bulgarians were so inspired by the victory that they invaded as far as the City. Leo, the Domestic of the Schools, John the hetaireiarches [commander of the imperial bodyguard] and Nicholas the son of Doukas went out to a village in Thrace called Katasurtas, taking a very large army against the Bulgarians. At night the Bulgarians launched a surprise attack on them, and the Domestic fled, but Nicholas the son of Doukas was killed alongside many others. Theophanes, quoted in http://homepage.mac.com/paulstephenson/trans/theocont2.html: accessed 2003.
Above: The Battle of Anchialus/Acheloos, 917. From the Madrid Skylitzes Left: Bulgarians. Right: Byzantines. Points to notice: (1) the foremost Bulgarian cavalryman seem to be using his kontarion or pike to poke (i.e. it is not couched under the arm); (2) the saddle on the riderless Byzantine horse, with its highish pommel and and canticle; (3) the shields of the Byzantines, shaped like an almond or inverted teardrop. John Haldons Account of the Battle of Acheloos (Haldon 2001: 87 ff) It is, he says, a good example of the role of chance in battle, for an otherwise wellprepared and well-led army managed to lose because of a misunderstanding halfway through the fight and the ensuing panic which set in. The Byzantine plan was to have the Pechenegs fall on the Bulgarians from the rear, while the imperial army attacked from the front, the navy guarding the Danube mouth and Black Sea coast and providing logistical support. In August 917 general Leo Phokas led the army as far as the region of the Acheloos river, the modern Aheloj or Aheloy, a little inland from Anchialis, modern Pomorie. The Aheloy River enters the Black Sea about midway between Pomorie and Nesebar (medieval Mesembria). He had perhaps 30,000 men, drawn from the Tagmata, Thrace and Macedonia, and some of the Asian themes. Symeon came forward, and his army, whose size is not known: presumably smaller, took up a position in the hills (east of modern Aytos) overlooking the coastal plain where the imperial troops were encamped. The two armies formed up on the plain, and Symeon ordered an attack. In the
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first phase the Byzantines got much the better of it, but when Leo dismounted to take a drink at a stream his horse bolted. The riderless horse caused some of his troops to believe Leo was dead. Scylitzes (Cedrenus) says that Leo was bathing at the time, and his riderless horse took fright and caused a panic among the troops, who thought their general dead. Meanwhile the Bulgarians had begun to made an orderly withdrawal, and Symeon, seeing the Byzantines begin to panic, ordered his men to turn around and attack. This halted the Byzantine advance and indeed panicked them into a disorderly retreat and then a rout. The Bulgarians pursued with vigour. Byzantine casualties were high, although Leo himself managed to reach Mesembria (modern Nessebar or Nesebur) on the coast. (From the mouth of the Aheloy to Nessebar is about eight km.) So many were the dead that it was reported some 60 years later that heaps of skulls and the whitened bones of the fallen could be seen strewn along the banks of the Acheloos. This disaster ushered in period, says Haldon, in which the Byzantines improved their fighting ability by insisting on greater discipline and more caution or at least thoughtfulness. 4. Italy: The Strategus of Calabria, Eustathius, strikes a treaty with the Fatimid Caliph or anti-caliph of Africa or Tunisia, who was engaged in re-subduing the independent emirate of Palermo. With the fall of the Emir of Palermo, Abu Sa'id Musa ibn 'Ahmad, called al-Dhaif (917), the Fatimids resumed control over Sicily (Runciman 1963: 54, 186). See 918. New governor of Sicily: the Berber (Algerian) leader Salim ibn Asad ibn Rashid al-Kutami, 917-37. 5. Idrisid Morocco becomes a tributary of the Fatimids. See 985. 918: 1. Byzantine diplomacy entangles Bulgaria in war with Serbia. 2. Italy: Perhaps because of the switch-over from Eustathios to Muzalon as strategos, the payment to the Arabs is not made. The army of Salim ibn Rashid, the Fatimid Emir of Sicily (917-37) crosses to Reggio on the toe-point of the Italian peninsula, which he captures and sacks, then withdraws. This ensured prompt payment of the Romanic/Byzantine tribute (Runciman p.187). Magyars raid west as far as Basel, in p.d. Switzerland (Germany-Burgundy). 100th anniversary of the first clash between Rhomaniya/Byzantium and the Varangian Rus 918-30: Byzantine Calabria: Almost annual attacks on Reggio and other towns by Arabs from Sicily: in 918, 923-24, 925-26, 928-29 and 929-30 (Kreutz p.98). Fatimid emir: Salim ibn Asad ibn Rashid al-Kutami, 917-37. From 919: Series of letters to Tsar Symeon by Patriarch Nicholas. As noted, in 913 Symeon came east unopposed to the walls of the imperial city itself. But there he had to halt: the Bulgarians could not threaten the empires heartland in Asia Minor because they lacked a navy. The Rhomaioi therefore always had the upper hand strategically and could wait out any of Symeons challenges. But Byzantium was not, as Browning says, essentially a maritime power (p.135). Political struggles were decided on-shore. The navy did, however, provide the strategic framework for the armys offensives on land, especially against Bulgaria and in Italy. Symeon extracted from Byzantium the title Basileus (913) and was promised
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the hand of one of the emperors daughters, an unprecedented concession. This turned out to be the usual cynical Greek diplomacy: the marriage was not delivered. And, although Symeon crushed a combined sea and land operation directed by the Rhomaioi against the centre of his power in NE Bulgaria (917), the walls of the Great City continued to block him from his ambition, which was to occupy the Roman throne. He ravaged in vain through Thrace and the Balkans for the next ten years, until defeated by the Croats, the allies of Byzantium, during a north-western expedition. He died the following year (927).
THE ARMED FORCES OF NEW ROME AND THEIR WEAPONS IN AD 900

TROOP TYPES: CAVALRY By this time cavalrymen no longer carried both bow and lance as they had in the Sixth Century. Horsemen specialised either as archers or as lancers armed with the kontarion or long thrusting spear. The two types were brigaded together. The thematic (provincial) cavalry formed up in units five deep: the first two ranks were lancers, then two ranks of archers [40% of the unit] and finally another rank of lancers. (1.) Lancers The predominant cavalry weapon was a very long thrusting or poking lance or light pike, called a kontarion or kontos: some 12 feet or 3.7 metres long according to Heath 1979: 34 (or longer: Dawson 2007b:61 offers four metres). It was typically wielded with both hands. The sword was the longish spathion of up to 36 inches: 85-90 cm, less commonly suspended from the belt than hung from a baldric or transverse shoulder strap: in the Roman fashion, as Leo says in the Taktika, VI.2. When worn on a baldric, the sword hung vertically by the leg; belted swords hung nearly horizontally. One depiction of the spathionin a soapstone carving reproduced in Dawson 2007b:19allows it to be deduced as 85 cm long from the pommel to the tip of the blade. As against this, Parani, 2003:131, citing the Sylloge Tacticorum [Gk Syllog Taktikn] (s.38), says infantry swords were 94 cm or 0.936 metres [sic: 36 inches] long from pommel to point. Cavalry swords, she says, could be a little longer: up to 110 cm or 43 inches. For comparison, Frankish (Carolingian) spathae were usually between 90 and 100 cm in length, of which the blade represented some 75-80 cm (Couplan 1990). The Byzantines also used the war mace: not only as a striking weapon as it was principally used, but also as an effective throwing weapon. The Tactica of Leo shows that the tzikourion (the throwing axe), the bardoukion and the matzoukion (two types of maces) were employed as throwing weapons. Leo states that the cavalry mace should have a spiked head of iron. The head featured spiked projections designed to produce serious wounds. The shaft, normally of wood, was between 60 and 80 cm long according to Kolias, cited by DAmato 2008. The cavalry shield was typically round and medium-size: diameter about 30 inches or 75 cm (up to 101 cm/40 inches if we follow Haldon 1999: 131). Kiteshaped shields would not become common until the late 900s. In Leos Taktika and the later Syll. Tact., the round shields of the cavalry range from 0.936 metres [sic: 36 inches or three feet; the over-specificity is just the result of Paranis literal translating into metric] to 1.053 metres [ sic: 3.5 feet or 42 inches] high (Parani p. 132). Shields seem to have become a little larger during the century: Nicephorus Phocass [Nikforos Fkas] Praecepta Militaria or
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Composition on Warfare of ca. AD 965 (text in McGeer) refers to cavalry shields of around 105 cm. Leos Taktika also mentions a small target, a round mini-shield attached to the upper arm, of some 12 inches or 30 cm, presumably more commonly used by the horse-archers. These troops wore iron helmets with aventails (neck protectors), usually of lamellar iron, or a hood of mail under the helmet. The predominant body armour was laced lamellar, (*) usually of iron platelets [Gk: petala], although scale armour and mail were also in use. Lamellar: metal platelets that point upwards. Scale: overlapping metal platelets that point downwards (illustrated in Dawson 2007b). (*) After about AD 940 lacing was replaced by the method of rivetting the platelets to a leather backing strip. See discussion later of the New Lamellar. The lamellar or scale corselet (klibanion, plural klibania) reached only to the waist and was either short-sleeved or even sleeveless whereas mail extended to the mid-thigh and elbow. Sometimes a sleeveless lamellar corselet would be worn over a sleeved mail tunic, so providing double protection. Pteruges or leather thongs or strips provided upper-arm protection. The troops were required to keep their klivania (klibania) with their laced iron platelets polished so that they were glittering and bright (Taktika, quoted by Dawson 2003, Levantia Historical Guide). Some cavalry also wore splinted lower leg armour (greaves) of bronze (Haldon 1999:131), but high leather boots seem to me more common in the pictorial sources. GO HERE: http://www.geocities.com/egfroth1/Joshua1.jpg for a wall-painting (fresco) from the 11th C in which lamellar armour is well depicted. The fresco is in the monastery of Hosios Loukas near the town of Distomo in todays central Greece.
Above: An 11th C Byzantine ivory casket with illustration of soldiers or nobles hunting [Troyes Cathedral treasury]. Points to notice: lamellar corselets; knee-high boots; recurve bow (left); slashing sword (spathion, right); round shield. The headress of the figure on the left is a toupha, the crested crown or helmet worn during a triumph.
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(2) Light javelin-cavalry: There were also unarmoured cavalry called trapezitoi, carrying two or three nine-foot or 2.75 metre javelins [Gk: akontion; see in McGeer] as well as a kontarion and sword (Heath 1979: 38). Parani proposes, citing the later Syll. Tact., that javelins were up to 2.81 m long [sic: just over nine feet] (Reconstructing the Reality of Images, 2003: 139). (3) Horse archers: Heath says that the same bow was used by both cavalry and infantry, namely the 45-48 inch [1.1-1.2 metre] Hunnic composite bow. This is an error. Leo says expressly that the bow of the infantry archer is larger and carries further. That the infantry bow was larger than the cavalry bow is also stated in later 10th C sources, e.g. the Sylloge, cited by McGeer p.213. Parani 2003: 141, citing the Sylloge, say that bows were 1.17-1.25 metres long meaning cavalry bows. Leo says that horse-archers should not carry any shield; but it seems likely that they did in practice carry, or wear, small targets of about 12 inches or 30 cm on their upper arm (Heath 1979: 8). Archery There is a longer treatment of archery in ORourke 2010, where I describe and compare the Eastern composite bow and the Anglo-Welsh simple longbow. Emperor Leo VI, d. 912: Archery is a great weapon and an effective one, especially for use against the Saracens and Turks [sic: Magyars]. Foot archers [are] their special dread, since the bow of the infantry archer is larger and carries further than that of the horsemen. Quoted by Toynbee 1973: 315 and Hurley p.311. It is not clear from Leo VI whether archery was already declining or remained allimportant into the 10th century. His insistence that every East-Roman boy should learn to shoot could be read as implying that many or most did not (wholly neglected and has fallen into disuse). This too may be indicated by his order that, in the provinces, every house, or at least every soldiers house, is to keep one bow and 40 arrows. On the other hand, if the order was futile, it would not have been issued. Archery did remain important in East-Roman armies until at least 1204, and Leo does list bows and arrow first among the spare weapons that Romaniyan (Byzantine) troops must provide themselves with (Leos Taktika, cited by Toynbee 1973: 315). Writing later in the century, Phokas recommends that if there are 16,000 infantry, then 4,800 (or 30%) should be archers, while the rest are to be armed with the kontarion (pike or long spear) (cited in Toynbee 1973: 314). This may imply that many Romaics were expert archers until well into the 11 th century. (I would speculate I can cite no actual evidence (*) that archery remained vital among the native Greeks until the Comnenian period after AD 1100.) (*) The sons of emperor Alexios I, 1081-1118, were brought up on archery and hunting (see in Epstein, Cultural Trends). And Kinnamos says that prior to the changes made by Manuel I, 1143-80, who made the couchedlance charge the key tactic of his armies bows were very common in the Byzantine army (cited by Pirani 2003: 141). Indeed Manuel himself deployed many Byzantine foot-archers on occasion, albeit that he relied for his horse-archers mainly on Cumans and Turks (Haldon 1999: 216-217). INFANTRY TYPES IN AD 907 a. Armoured infantry
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The main infantry weapon of the East-Romans was the long thrusting spear or light pike, the kontarion: over 12 feet long or up to 4 metres for the infantry. As with cavalry, the sword was the medium-length 90 cm or 36 inch spathion. Parani, p.131, citing the Syll. Tact. (s.38), says that infantry swords were 0.936 [sic!] metres long from point to pommel; this is simply her exact metric rendering of 36 inches.* (*) Easily visualised: the same length as todays standard large umbrella. Leos Taktika states that only the first two ranks of the skutatoi (shield-men) wore mail or lamellar corselets in units formed up eight or even 16 deep. The other six+ ranks wore the bambakion, a very thick padded and quilted surcoat of heavy cotton (Heath 1979: 32).(*) It would become nearly universal after 944: see later in this paper. (*) Soldiers must have sweated in battle, at least in the south of the empire: Athens and Antioch/Antakya both have average maximums of 300+ in the hottest months, similar to that of Miami [31.70 in July and August] and greater than that of Canberra or Sydney [28.00 and 25.90 respectively in January]. Constantinople/Istanbul is warm enough too: average daily maximum 28.50 in August. (These are present-day values: we pass over the Medieval Warm Period in silence.) The general infantry shield (skuta) was oval or nearly round: about three by four feet, 90 cm x 122 cm, according to McGeer (or up to 137 cm = 4ft 6in if we follow Haldon 1999: 131). Hence the term for a heavy, or rather medium, infantryman was skutatos, plural skutatoi. The shield essentially protected the body from shoulder to knee. Quite possibly shields increased in size later in this century: Phokas writes in the 960s of infantry shields no less than [140 cm] but if possible even larger (in McGeer p.205). Dawson 2007b: 23 notes that while the manuals say a round or oval shield might be a large as 90 cm or 35 inches in diameter, they are commonly depicted as smaller, i.e. as little as 77 cm or 30 in. Tear-drop or almond shaped shields could be 43 in or 110 cm long (high) but more commonly 37 inches (95 cm); we see 95 cm in both the manuals and in artworks. Angus McBrides illustration, in Dawson 2007b: plate H, shows an heavy infantrymen with an iron helmet of Phrygian shape: peaked at the front; a mail coif or cowl to the shoulders; upper arm-guards of lamellar, a long lamellar cuirass to mid-thigh, and high leather boots reaching above the knees. The soldier carries a tear-drop shaped shield and a spathion hung on a baldric. b. Light infantry Light infantry archers (unarmoured) carried on a baldric a combined quiverbowcase of 40 arrows. It was a round-bottomed cylinder with the arrows inserted point downwards (in contrast to the cavalry quiver). For the length of an arrow, Haldon 1999: 131 offers 68 cm or 27 inches. Parani 2003: 141, citing the Sylloge, says at least 70 cm or over 28 inches. The Romaic arrow, because the bow was drawn with the thumb, was fletched with four feathers. The flights (feathers) were a symmetrical crescent shape and quite small (illustration in Dawson 2007; also in Karasulas 2004: 25). Foot-archers could be brigaded together in all-archer units or joined in combined units with spearmen (typically 25% archers, 75% spearmen). Poisoned arrows: In Leos Taktika we learn that the Saracens (Arabs) are better versed in military science than all other peoples; this information the emperor knows from generals who have fought them, from reports to preceding emperors and from his father, Basil I (Leo, Taktika XVIII.123). Also, since the Arabs make great use of cavalry, the Romans should use poisoned arrows to kill their horses. The Arabs place high value on these apparently unarmoured fast-attack horses; if
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 they know that the Byzantines are using poisoned arrows, they will retreat in order to save their horses, because without the horses, they cannot save themselves (XVIII.135-136).
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Against horse-archers from the steppes, e.g. the Magyars operating in Bulgaria and Thrace [cf 934 below], Leo VI advised that the imperial cavalry should engage quickly without exchanging preliminary arrow fire; the Byzantines heavier cavalry could break them with their maces and thrusting spears. So too could the Byzantine infantry with their more powerful bows, which shot further, enabling them to shoot down the Magyar horses before the Magyars closed (Hyland p.50, citing Oman). To repeat Leos statement: Archery is a great weapon and an effective one, especially for use against the Saracens and Turks [i.e. Magyars] . . . Foot archers [are] their special dread, since the bow of the infantry archer is larger and carries further than that of the horsemen, wrote Leo VI, quoted by Toynbee 1973: 315. fff Leo the Deacon (II.2) reports that Leo Phokas used night attacks against the Magyars, no doubt because this prevented them from using their usual fast maneouvering. c. Servants, Groomsmen, Drivers Carts or wagons were used, although sometimes in the Balkans nearly all the equipment must have been carried on the backs of pack-mules. One muleattendant/servant was assigned to every 16 infantrymen to transport the tents, provisions and other equipment (including a hand-powered grain-mill) and munitions such as spare bows, arrows and caltrops (Leo, Taktika, cited by Dawson 2007b: 45). One imagines that pack-animals far outnumbered two-wheel carts, with fourwheel wagons limited to carrying the heaviest items. A pack-mule can carry no more than 90-100 kg for extended periods (Haldon 1999: 282; and Pryor, in Pryor ed, Logistics of Warfare 2006: 18). If there were 10,000 infantry, the mule-attendants numbered 625. Assuming (which is not certain) that each mule required one driver, we have perhaps 350 pack-mules, 180 cart-mules pulling 90 carts, and 95 wagon-mules pulling 20 larger wagons . . . Mobile Artillery Leo also mentions artillery devices. The fact that they revolved at both ends or in a circular fashion makes it almost certain that these alakatia were small traction (rope-pulled) trebuchets. They were probably pole-frame models that could be transported in wagons, quickly assembled, and operated by one or a few soldiers, much as depicted in the illustrated Madrid Skylitzes manuscript, whee we see three men operating a smallish rope-pulled trebuchet (Dennis, 1999, Byzantine Heavy Artillery; the Madrid Skylitzes illustration is featured on on the cover of Leo Diaconus, trans. Talbot and Sullivan, 2005). Unit Sizes and Battle Formations in AD 907 Hollywood movies, with their crazed melees, have distorted our understanding of all modes of warfare. Especially they distort the realities of the warfare in the period before the gun. We shall therefore look at East Roman formations in some detail. In both cavalry and infantry, unit sizes (bandon, plural banda, regiments) could range from 200 to 400 men. But the theory said that a cavalry bandon had 300 men: 180 lancers and 120 archers, six lancers for every four horse-archers, organized in six allaghia or winglets, each of 50 men. The infantry bandon officially had 256 men: a heavy infantry bandon comprised 192 spearmen (skutatoi) and 64 archers (ratio 3:1 spearmen: bowmen), organized in 16 subunits of 16 men each. Other units were typically all one type, i.e. 256 foot-archers in a
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light infantry bandon or arrow regiment and 256 spearmen in a guards-infantry regiment or spear bandon (Heath Armies 1979: 4). In Leos Taktika, the Thematic (provincial) cavalry are formed up five deep: the first two ranks were lancers, then two ranks of archers (40%) and finally another rank of lancers (one bandon = six allaghiai = six x 10 files of five men = 300). In earlier centuries, the Tagmata (the elite metropolitan regiments)(*) had drawn up in formations 4-men deep and the thematic cavalry 8-men deep, with lancers in front and horse archers behind. Thus the front line of a Tagmatic (central elite) unit if formed of 300 men in four ranks, was 75 horsemen wide (when four deep: 300/4 =75). The Thematic cavalry drew up in deeper lines: if formed in ranks five-deep, a bandon was 60 horsemen wide (300 / 5 = 60). (*) The Tagmata or standing central regiments, based in and around Constantinople, were created by emperor Constantine V in the 760s. The cavalry element (there were also infantry Tagmata) originally consisted of three regiments or brigades: the Scholae, Excubitors (Exkoubitoi, Sentinels) and the Watch (Vigla). A fourth, the Hicanati (Hikanatoi, the Able Ones or Worthies), was added in 810 by emperor Nicephorus I. A fifth brigade, the Immortals (Athanatoi), who were cataphracts or superheavy cavalry, were recruited by emperor John I Tzimiskes, 969-76. Each had an enrolment of 4,000 men (Treadgold, Army pp. 36, 66; DAmato 2007 for the equipment of the Hikanatoi). Example One: a mixed army of 18,000 men The Rhomaioi preferred to assemble their main force in depth two, and later, three lines. This enabled the delivery of successive shocks in battle and discouraged attacks from the rear. Let us imagine an army of 18,000 men of whom 12,000 are infantry. Let us imagine again that half the infantry units (6,000 men in about 23 banda) are allocated to the front line. Further we will imagine a fairly modest density of eight files, which means ranks of 32 (256 men per bandon = 8 ranks x 32 files). Packed very tightly into a shield-wall formation (half a metre per man), an infantry bandon of this depth would be just 16 metres wide. Now we also imagine that two metres are left between each of the 23 banda, e.g. for returning cavalry to ride through. This line of infantry units will have a front of about 410 metres [23 x 16 = 368 metres pus 42 between units = total 410]. To complete the picture, we put cavalry on either side of this first line (two lots of 1,000 men: left and right); and on either side of the second line (two lots of 1,000: left and right); while the third line is a small all-cavalry line (2,000 men). Now 2,000 horsemen on either flank of the front line will be 400 horsemen wide if formed up five-deep (2,000/5 = 400). Let us imagine they are tightly packed, i.e. just two metres per horse. This gives us 800 metres. We add that to the infantry front, for a combined front of about 1.2 kilometres. Example Two: a large all-cavalry army of 25,000 There would be about 83 units in a very large all-cavalry expeditionary army of 25,000. Assuming that as many as 5,000 men would be held aside as flank-guards and reserves, the main body of such an army would total 20,000 horsemen. With 67 units deployed (20,000/300 = 67 banda), each of the three lines might comprise 22 units (67/3 = 22). With each Tagmata unit presenting a 75-horse front, we have a line extending for 1,650 horse-widths (75 x 22 = 1,650). Formed up looselyallowing three metres per man (*)the armys battle front would
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have extended for up to five kilometres (1,650 x 3 = 4,950m). In practice, most units would be packed deeper, producing a narrower front.(**) But in any case, one is looking at a front of several kilometres. [My calculations broadly based on data in Heath 1976; also Hyland p.29 and McGeers analysis of later 10th century practice.] (*) Cavalry sometimes formed up so densely that there was only about one metre or 1.5 metres per horse, i.e. with stirrup touching stirrup (Hyland 1994: 33). (**) For comparison, under emperor Manuel Comnenus, in the 1150s, when on the march, the army extended for some "16 km" (10 miles: Baynes p.73). Dividing by a half, to allow for a three-line battle-formation (3-2-1: 50% in the front line), its front when formed up might have extended for up to eight km. In practice, to allow for the loose array of the march and the tighter formation when formed for battle, we should say probably more like four km. And in the middle period, before Manuel's time, i.e. in AD 9501050, armies were generally larger.
THE NAVY For a longer discussion of this topic, see ORourke 2009. The ships of the Byzantine navy were mainly war-galleys generically called dromons or dromonds, meaning in Greek racers, runners, couriers (Gk dromein, to run). This term had appeared already in the sixth century historian Procopius (fl. AD 550). In Antiquity war-galleys had relied on the tactic of ramming, for which speed was more crucial. In contrast the New-Roman or medieval Greek dromons were fireshooters [Greek Fire] and marine-carriers [platforms for archers]. Greek Fire was a liquid, probably distilled petroleum, projected from siphons or pump-jets through a nozzle or nozzles that were either fixed in brass figureheads on ships or manipulated to turn in various directions. The main or default propulsion was the use of oars, but supplemented or replaced by a sail or sails when conditions allowed. The largest dromons sometimes had three lateen sails but more usually two (Pryor & Jeffreys: Dromon p.448). Good illustrations can be found in the Time-Life book, 1989 (photograph of a scale model), in Gardiner 2004, and in Pryor & Jeffreys. The maximum speed of a dromon was perhaps 10 knots or 18 km/h: 300 metres per minute; but this was the fighting dash that rowers could maintain for no more than about 20 minutes (Pryor 1988: 71). Pryor & Jeffreys p.449 state that the average routine speed of a standard dromon under oars in all conditions was probably around four knots [7 km/h]; Makris says five knots. Todays small Boeing 737 twin-jet airliner is up to 36 m long, or 31.1 m in the case of the 500 series, and its fuselage is 3.8-3.5 m wide very near the dimensions of the early medieval galley. By the Macedonian Age (from the late 800s), the term dromn had become a generic for any war galley, big or small, that could take its place in the line of battle. By the 10th century, the standard Byzantine war galley was a bireme: two banks of oars on either side. Thus we may speak of the pure, non-horsetransporting narrow large galley (4 x 25) as the dromon proper.
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There were also wide-bodied, or wider-bodied, galleys called chelandia used for transporting war-horses, or originally designed for transporting horses. Chelandion, plural chelandia, means simply eel-shaped thing, i.e. any long thin vessel (from the Gk kheli, egkhelys, eel) (Pryor & Jeffreys pp.192, 411 etc). The Ousiakocalled (plural) chelandia ousiaka in AD 949used to be considered a type of vessel. The current thinking is that an ousia was not a type of ship but rather just a reference to the standard complement of 108* (or 110) crew for a warship. Thus a chelandion ousiako took its name from one company or Ousia (entity, unit, complement) (Toynbee 1973: 332; Pryor in Gardiner 2004: 103; Pryor & Jeffreys 2006: 255, 450 etc). So chelandion ousiako was simply another name for the smaller type of bireme (two-banked) galley or dromon: two sets of 25 oars on both sides of the ship, one man for each oar. The lower rank rowed only, while the upper rank would either row or disengage to fight when required. Adding 30 or more non-rowers, i.e. siphon operators (Greek Fire), a trumpeter, helmsmen, bow-hands, servants, aides and the captains (two per ship), the total crew could come to 130 or more. Here we assume zero marines on board. The Pamphylos, in 949 called (plural:) chelandia pamphyla, likewise used to be regarded as the name of type of ship: a fast two-banker, with a crew of between 120-160 (or 120-150).* More recently Pryor & Jeffreys, Dromon p. 191 ff and 260, have argued that pamphyloi were so-named because they were crewed by picked rowers, rather than being a specific type of vessel. They note that it was not specified how many of the 130 or 160 men were oarsmen and how many were non-rowing marines. The figures for oarsmen range from 100 to 110 (i.e. around 108 men), and 120 or 130 to 160 for total crews. The difference was represented by officers, helmsmen and soldiers or marines. (*) Crews totalling 152108 oarsmen [four banks of 27 oars], 36 marines, and eight other non-rowers: four helmsmen [operating two steering oars: two per oar], two ships boys and two mastersare known from the betterdocumented Franco-Sicilian (Angevin) galleys of the late 1200s. They of course were not equipped with Greek Fire. The chelandia were able to be used as horse-transports, or at least they were originally designed as transports and afterwards also used in battle or evolved to become war-galleys (Pryor & Jeffreys 2006, pp. 166169, 188192, 322325, 449. Thus it appears that a chelandion was not as slim or as fast as a dromon proper. Probably they had more depth in the hold and were wider in the beam, i.e. width at widest point.* They were emulated in the Latin West and in the Muslim world, in both roles, as early as the ninth century (Dromon pp.325, 449 etc). Describing the Cretan expedition of 961, Leo says that he [the Byzantine commander Nicephorus Phocas] had brought ramps with him [to Crete] on the transport ships and thus transferred the army, fully armed and mounted, from the seas to dry land (Leo Diac. I:3). (*) The beam at the wale [highpoint of the hull] was up to five metres in Italian horse-transporter galleys of the 13th Century (Gardiner 2004: 115). The largest dromon crew known is 300: 230 ships-crew and 70 marines. There were at least 200 rowers manning four banks of 25 oars, i.e. two rowers per oar, and up to 30 non-rowers, i.e. siphon operators, a trumpeter, helmsmen, bowhands, servants, aides and the captains (two per ship). Adding 70 marines, we have a total crew of 300. On another hypothesis, the banks each comprised 27 oars, as in the 13th Century. The bottom banks had just one rower [27 x 2 x 1 rower = 54 rowers], while the upper banks were allocated three men per oar [27 x 2 x 3 rowers = 162] (Hocker, in Gardiner 204: 94-95). Total: 216 rowers or two ousia. Adding 70 marines and 14 other non-rowers, i.e. a trumpeter, helmsmen, servants, aides and
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the captains (two per ship) etc, we have a total crew of 300 in a non-Greek-Fire armed vessel. There were also smaller monoremes, i.e. with just 25 oarsmen on either side, which were fast and light ships used for scouting. These latter were called ghalaa or galeia (plural galeai: possibly meaning cat-fish), whence comes our word galley (Toynbee 1973: 332; Pryor in Gardiner 2004: 102, 105, 106). Marines, Soldiers and Armed Oarsmen Both our best sources, emperor Leo VI, fl. 900 and Nikephoros Ouranos, fl. 995, make clear that the rowers also doubled as soldiers, or at least that 150 of the 200 rowers on the large type of dromon should be able to fight (Dromon p.255). The Naumachica of Leo VI, d. 912, describing very large dromons with 200 men, says that 50 are oarsmen at the lower level, while 150 armed men are stationed above, ready to do battle with the enemy (quoted in Gardiner 2004: 142). We also hear of crews totalling 300. This does not mean there were extra oars to be rowed. There were still only four banks of 25 oars (25 x 2 x 2 = 100). The bottom two banks of 25 oars were rowed by 50 unarmed men (one man per oar); while in the upper banks there were three armed rowers per oar (150 men). The remaining 100+ men were marines, fire-siphoners, helmsmen and officers (or so says Hocker, in Gardiner 204: 94-95). In the case of the 949 expedition to Crete, we can perhaps calculate the number of fighters per ship using emperor Constantine VIIs enumeration of the equipment carried by a dromon of the central Imperial fleet (Gk basilikon ploimon): De cer. of Constantine VII, cited by Heath 1976: 13; Dromon pp.285, 557. We assume here that the ship is a 4 x 25 bank dromon (100 oarsmen). Counting the mail hauberks (22 for those fighting at the bow, at and above the fire-siphon); the padded surcoats (50: presumably all for oarsmen-fighters, those manning the top banks); and the lamellar corselets (70: one per marine), it would seem that at least 142 men, or over 3/4 of the ships complement of about 180, were expected to fight in Constantines time. The picture becomes less clare when we look at the other arms and equiopment. Only 100 shields, 100 swords and 90 helmets were supplied, indicating that close-in fighting was not undertaken by everyone on board. We might guess that the shields were allocated to the marines (70), bow-fighters (22) and officers (8). If so, then the 50 oarsmen-fighters probably fought without shield or helmet, protected only by a padded surcoat (bambakion). The bambakion, along with a thick felt turban, was the normal body-armour of land infantry at this time. It is not clear who used the 50 bows and 10,000 arrows (200 per bowman). The arrows would be fired while the ship was still being rowed, indeed precisely when it was charging to engage. So we may guess that the marines fired them, rather than the top-bank rowers. One imagines the latter would have used the javelins and heavy pikes. As against this, Leo and Nikephoros Ouranos state that on a larger dromon the oarsmen of both upper and lower oar-banks (or 150 of them) were all soldiers (stratiotai), but only those above deck (100 men) were armed as kataphrakatoi, i.e. wearing mail corselets called lorikia and/or cuirasses of lamellar armour called klibania. By implication the marines may have been light-armed archers. Armament of Ships Greek Fire, the napalm of the Middle Ages, was used for about 500 years: from AD 673 to about 1185. The last mention I have seen comes in 1173 in the aftermath of the anti-Venetian pogroms, when Kinnamos says that the Byzantine fleet that pursued fleeing Venetian ships across the Aegean was equipped with it. Then after 1185 the navy was run down and effectively disbanded. The weapon was not deployed in 1203-04 against the Venetians and Franks when they besieged
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Constantinople. Greek Fire is the Western term: the East Romans called it wet fire or liquid fire (hygron pyr), sea fire (pyr thalassion) and processed or artificial fire (pyr skevaston) [Theophanes, Chronicle: AM 6164, 6218, AM 6305 etc]. In the bow was the calcar or trampler-down, a long iron or iron-clad spur or beak, 6.6 m long in Angevin-Sicilian galleys of the 1200s. It was used primarily as an offensive oar-breaking weapon and secondarily by the ships marines as a boarding ramp. The spur was not used as a ram to directly sink the enemy ship but to ride up and over the oars of an enemy ship, smashing them and thus disabling its power sources (Pryor 1992: 59; Dromon p.143). This contrasted with Antiquity when ships had blunt rams low in their noses, designed to sink enemy galleys. Further back there were raised wooden platforms or small castles (Gk xylokastro, timber forts)say one metre highon both sides amidships, or rather: slightly forward of amidships, with a clearway between them. They were placed on either side of the foremast. From these castles the marines could shoot catapults, fire their crossbows and arrows, and throw pots of Greek Fire, etc (Dromon pp.205, 235, 448 etc). In smaller single-masted ships, the castles may have been located in the bow (Alertz, Naval Architecture, in Gardiner 2004: 156). The large catapults or bow-ballistae were presumably fixed on swivel-mounts of some sort so they could be aimed. The smaller cheirotoxobolistrai or hand-bowballistae were apparently a type of crossbow (Dromon pp.380 ff). Tactics Naval tactics are not much discussed in the chronicles and other sources. It is clear, however, that the standard or default formation was the line abreast in a shallow, crescent-moon semi-circle. The stronger and larger dromons were placed in the middle of the line. Lines of two or four deep were usual in Antiquity (Gardiner 2004: 59); but what the practice was in AD 950, we do not know. One of the classic battle tactics was to disorganise an enemys formation by feigning flight until the enemys ships in pursuit became strung out. Then further reinforcements would be sent in, or the line would turn around in formation and overwhelm the disorganized enemy ships one by one (Dromon p.400). The initial phase would be a missile exchange at a distance. First they would fire the large catapults, then crossbows, ordinary bows and finally javelins. As noted, in the Cretan expedition of 949, some ships carried 20 crossbows or handheld bow-ballistae, 50 bows, and 100 javelins. Greek Fire had a limited range and required both calm conditions and a following wind. As we have noted, the spur in the ships bow was not designed to puncture a hull and sink an enemy ship but rather to destroy its motive power by smashing its oars. Thus, rather than manoeuvering to obtain a position to ram and sink as in Antiquity, in Byzantine times the aim was to degrade an enemy ships ability to resist. Then it could be grappled, boarded and captured. It was hand-tohand combat with pike and sword that finally decided the outcome ( Dromon pp.384, 403 etc). Fleet Sizes As early as 852-53before the navy was enlargedByzantium was able to deploy three separate fleets totalling "300" vessels for a major naval attack on the coastal towns and forts of Muslim (Abbasid) Palestine and Egypt. This would have included a large number of requisitioned private ships, any probably skiff-sized. Of the 300, only 100 were (Arabic:) marakib or larger galleys (Norwich 1991: 57; Dromon p.47, citing the Arab writer al-Tabari). Again in 859 the emperor sent a large imperial fleet of 300 ships: Ar. shalandiyyat, Gk: chelandia: large combat-transport galleys, under Constantine Kontomytes or Contomites to aid his subjects in Sicily. The army landed, but was severely defeated by Abbass Sicilian Arabs, who marched from Panormos (Palermo). Then the Muslims defeated the Greek fleet off Syracuse. The
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Byzantines are supposed to have lost more than 100 ships (Rodriquez; also Ahmad p.13).
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As with the army, there was a central force, the Imperial Fleet, supplemented by provincial fleets maintained by the several maritime Themes or regional commands. Archival documents quoted in the De Ceremoniis of emperor Constantine VII, acc. 945, indicate that in AD 911 the navy had about 20,000 oarsmen and 4,000 marines in the central Imperial Fleet and about 14,000 oarsmen in the Themes (total oarsmen: 34,200: Treadgold 1995: 67; Haldon in Harris 2005: 75). To produce a guesstimate of the total number of ships, let us imagine that one-sixth of the rowers manned small 50-oar galleys (galaia), two-thirds manned the common 100-oar types and one-sixth again rowed in the large-crew types (150 oarsmen per 100 oars). This give us 114 galaiai, 228 normal dromons and 38 heavy dromons for a total of 380. Treadgold proposes that the Navy probably deployed a maximum of about 300 major ships during the 9th and 10th centuries (1995: 85 note 94). This may indicate that there were few ships of the largest type, or more likely that in specific campaigns some civilian vessels were requisitioned and converted to fighting craft. Nikephoros Phocass successful Cretan expedition of AD 960-61 was said to have comprised a most unlikely 3,308 (sic!) vessels of all sizes, including troopships, horse-transporters and supply boats. Treadgold 1995: 85n and 1997: 495 reads this as 307 ships supported by hundreds of small craft. The earlier Cretan expeditions of 911 and 949 are stated to have numbered fewer than 200 ships. The sources are somewhat unclear about the number of fighting men (marines and land-soldiers) in the 949 expedition, but they totalled at least 10,097 (4,697 marines and 5,400 from the Tagmata and Themes: Whittow p. 186). If we use 70 marines per ship as an average, transporting them would have required 144 ships. Allowing for the escorts and transports that would have to be added, 307 is credible. The supposed 3,308 sea craft included 1,000 combat vessels of all sizes, each armed with Greek Fire: siphonophores, pump-bearers. Or Pryor and Jeffreys say: 1,000 dromons, i.e. pure combat vessels [29% of the fleet]; 2,000 chelandia (fighting-transports) also equipped with Greek Fire [60% of the fleet]; and 360 karabia or unarmed transports [11% of the fleet] in a total of 3,360 (Dromon p.408). Warren Treadgold guesses that most of the 1,000 siphonophores were requisitioned private ships and boats converted to military purposes (the merchantmen of Leo Diac. 65.20). And no doubt the non-combat vessels included many pure sail-boats as well as oars-and-sails galleys. Large bronze siphon-pumps were fixed in the prows of the siphonophores, and in addition the marines used small cheirosiphona (hand-pumps) or hand-held piston-siphons (Toynbee p.331; Partington p.15). Number of Ships, Oarsmen and Marines in AD 900 Province or Fleet Name Main Base Number of ships (guesstimat es: Note 1) 245 [note 2] Oarsmen Marines
Imperial (central) Fleet
Constantinopl e
19,600
4,000 [formed in AD 870]
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Theme of the Cibyrrhaeots [southern Asia Minor] Theme of Samos [created AD 844; or perhaps as late as 882] Theme of the [northern] Aegean Theme of Hellas [our eastern Greece] Totals
Attalia
72
5,710
1,000
Samos [in the south-east Aegean] Mytilene on Lesbos (probably) Thebes
50
3,980
600
33
2,610
400
28 428
2,300 34,200
Nil [Note 3] 6,000
Adapted from Treadgold 1995: 67, 76, passim. Note 1: Using the numbers of oarsmen, we calculate the number of ships by assuming that three-quarters are 100-oar galleys and one-quarter are 50-oar galleys. Note 2: Naval squadrons were posted in some of the non-maritime Themes. For example the squadron stationed in Calabria seems to have had seven ships in 929 (Runciman 1933/1975: 153, citing Ibn Adari). Note 3: Whittow proposes that the Thematic troops of Hellas included 700 marines. List of Naval Battles -- 820 - Arabs defeat Franks? near Sardinia -- 821 - Byzantine central imperial fleet defeats rebel provincial fleets during the revolt of Thomas the Slav -- 841 - Arabs defeat a Venetian squadron near Taranto -- 849 - Ostia [near Rome] - Italian city-states vs Muslims -- 853? - Byzantines defeat Syrians ? -- 868 - Byzantines under Niketas Ooryphas destroy 2 Arab (Cretan) fleets near Thrace and in the Gulf of Corinth -- 880 - (1) Night Battle of Cephalonia - Byzantines under Nasar destroy Arab fleet (2) Sicily: First Milazzo - Byzantines under Nasar destroy Arab fleet -- 885 - Frisians defeat Vikings -- 888 - Second Milazzo - Arabs defeat Byzantines -- 908 - Battle in the Aegean Sea - Byzantines under Himerios defeat Arabs -- 912 - Chios - Syrian-Cilician fleet defeats Byzantine squadron under Himerios -- 923 Byzantine victory off Lemnos -- 931 Byzantine fleet or squadron successfully attacks an Arab flotilla at Fraxinet in Provence -- 935 - Genoa was surprised and sacked by a fleet from Sicily and N Africa: 200 (or 20) ships sent by the Fatimid (Tunisian) ruler Ab al Qsim Muhammad. But the Genoese fleet followed up the enemy and defeated them off Sardinia near the island of Asinara. -- 941 - Rus'-Byzantine War - Byzantine fleet under Theophanes destroys the Kievan Rus' fleet under Igor near the Bosporus Strait: Greek Fire used -- 956 (1) Tunisian fleet destroyed by Christians near Mazara (2) The fleet of the Cibyrrhaeots under Basil Hexamilites defeats the navy of Tarsus off Lycia.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 ----958 962 964 966 Tunisians vs Christians in Messina Strait Italy: Arabs destroy a Byzantine fleet in the strait of Messina Arab fleet destroys Byzantine fleet under Niketas near Calabria. Spanish Arabs defeat Danish Vikings off what is now Portugal.
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920-944: ROMANOS I Lekapenos His father was an Armenian peasant who was rewarded for saving Basil Is life by being enrolled as a palace-guardsman (see 870-71 above). Romanos achieved the rank of strategos of the naval Samian Theme before being appointed drungarios or admiral of the central imperial fleet, i.e. head of the entire navy, from 912. Aged about 50 at accession. Norwich 1993: 160 assesses him as a good emperor, perhaps even a great one. Wife: Theodora, d. 922. Four sons and three daughters including Helena, married (919) to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Romanoss illegitimate son Basil (fl. 975) in later life became the Grand Chamberlain. Cf 976. 919: 1. Peace in the East (under the treaty of 917). 2. Europe: The Bulgarians invade Thrace as far as the Dardanelles, where they encamped opposite Lampsacus, across from the old Troy region of the northern Troad (Runciman, History of the First Bulgarian Empire 1930, p.164). 3a. Zoe proposes to marry the senior army general Leo Phocas. Then, called in by Theodore, the tutor of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, admiral Romanos Lekapenos seizes control of Constantinople by trick and through his use of the fleet (Treadgold 1997: 475). He slowly ousted Zoe from power. In 919 the nominal emperor Constantine VII, aged 14 or 15, was married to Romanos daughter Helena. Romanos will make himself co-emperor in 920 and gradually gain precedence over the young Porphyrogenitus. 3b. Revolt by Leo Phocas, domestic of the Scholae. He is captured in Bithynia and blinded, although apparently not on Romanuss orders (Norwich 1993: 136). 919-36: Germany: Henry I, first Saxon emperor. German heavy cavalry fought the horse-archers of the Magyars or Hungarians in what is now eastern Austria. See 955. 920: Ifriqiya/Tunisia: Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah a.k.a. Said ibn Husayn was the founder of the Fatimid dynasty, the only major Shiite caliphate in medieval Islam. He established Fatimid rule throughout much of North Africa. Ubaydallah took up residence (920) at the newly established capital of his empire, Al-Mahdiyyah, which he founded on the Tunisian coast 16 miles or 25 km south-east of Al-Qayrawan, and which he named after himself. 919-21: Italy: Raising taxes to pay the Arabs causes unrest; the strategos Muzalon is killed (921) in an uprising. 920: 1. The former admiral of the fleet, Romanos, aged about 50, was named Caesar and then on 17 December 820 was crowned by Patriarch Nicholas as co-emperor
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 with Constantine VII, aged 15. Nicholas served as principal adviser to the government in foreign affairs.
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2. The Serbs, as allies of Rhomaniya/Byzantium, engaged the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians captured the pro-Byzantine Serbian prince Zacharias (Runciman p.87). Barcelona-France-Provence: Abdul Rahman, uncle of Abdul Rahman III, ruler of al-Andalus, crosses the Pyrenees into France and reaches Toulouse. In the same year pirates (slavers) from the local Muslim pirate base (raiding colony) of Fraxinet attack the villages of Marseilles, Aix and Piedmont in the Kingdom of Provence (Lebling 2009). 920 or 921: Italy: Revolt in Calabria against the new strategus John Muzalon (also called Bizalon in the sources), who is killed. The cause was probably resentment at high taxation, needed to pay off the Saracens of Sicily (Runciman p.187). Muzalon took an unpopular decision when he increased taxes to be able to pay the Arab tribute. The result was a revolt in which he was assassinated, after the accession of Romanos I Lecapenos, possibly between 921 and 922. The insurrectionists requested aid from Landulf III of Capua. See below under 921: revolt in Apulia. 920-970: Growth of Bogomilism in the Balkans: anti-orthodox para-Christian dualism . . . 921: 1. Thrace: A Bulgarian army led by Symeon descends to the walls of Constantinople and overruns the European bank of the Bosphorus (Runciman 1963: 88). The Bulgarians defeat a Romanian (Greek) counter-attack. See 922. Simeon's forces appeared before Constantinople in 921; they demanded in vain the deposition of Romanos but succeeded in capturing Adrianople (Wikipedia, 2009, Symeon). 2. Italy: Major revolt in East-Roman Apulia. The Lombard-Italians of Capua enter the region, kill the strategos and take control. Constantinople will regain control by 928 or earlier. Cf 925. As Rodriquez relates (also Kreutz p.68), in April 921, Ursileo or Orseolo, the strategos of Longobardia, was killed at Ascoli during a battle with the Lombard princes, Landulf and his brother, who arrived to aid a revolt by the mainly Lombard or Romance-speaking inhabitants of Byzantine Apulia. After taking charge of Ascoli, Landulf of Capua and Benevento and his brother Atenulf extended their rule to all the region in an act of express revolt against imperial authority. Anno 921. Interiit Ursileo Stratigo in proelio de Asculo mense Aprilis et apprehendit Pandulphum Apuleo (Lupus) The strategos Ursileo dies [lit. has died] in battle at Ascoli in April and he seizes/captures Pandulf [sic: Landulf?] in Apulia. It is not clear who this Pandulf was possibly the son of the prince of Benevento - Landulf junior - who became a hostage in Constantinople. A key source is the letters of the patriarch Nicholas Mystikos who in these years maintained an active correspondence with several prominent figures in Italy, including Landulf of Benevento. The insurrectionists hurried to send letters to Constantinople blaming the dead strategos and reaffirming their wish to stay loyal to Byzantium on condition that they were not punished and Landulf was named as the new governor of Longobardia. Knowing of the dangers involved, the Byzantine court responded with caution to these proposals. Although the exact details are not known, the negotiations are documented from 925 in official documents from Capua. The disappearance of the East-Roman titles patrikios and anthypatos that the prince had previously borne was an unequivocal sign of the rupturing of relations. We also know that Landulf finally withdrew from Apulia, because he returned to invade it few years later.
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Romanus planned an Italian expedition: it is recorded that he asked (921) the soldiers of the Peloponnesus Theme to pay five nomismata each, or half that if they were very poor, to be excused from the campaign. This probably indicates that they were not highly thought of as troops (Treadgold 1997: 549). Morocco: Arriving from Tunisia, the Fatimids, a clan of Ismaili Shiites, take control of Fez. 921/22: Revolt by local Slavs in Byzantine Greece: this potentially opens the Peloponnese to invasion by Bulgaria. 922: 1. Further Bulgarian attack on Constantinople. A Byzantine counter-attack is defeated. The Romanian (Greek) force consisted of the Tagmata under Pothus Argyrus, the domestic of the Scholae, and the imperial marines under Alexius Mousele, drungary or admiral of the fleet (Treadgold, State p. 478). The Bulgarians were victorious at Pegae or Pigae, north-west of the capital, and burned much of the Golden Horn and seized Bizye, which is modern Vize in eastern Thrace. Romanos sent troops under the commander Potas (Pothos) Argirus and the admiral of the navy Alexios Musele to face the Bulgarians (Scylitzes, Historia. 2, 356-357). The battle took place at Pigae. The initial Bulgarian blow was irresistible, and the Byzantine commanders were the first to flee. Musele drowned in a desperate attempt to reach a ship. Most of the Byzantine soldiers and sailors were killed, drowned or captured. Runciman, A History of the First Bulgarian Empire, pp. 164-165, citing the Vita S. Mariae Junioris. 2. Calabria: African and Sicilian Arabs resume their raids on Byzantine Calabria. The incursion was launched from Mahdiya (eastern Tunisia) in the summer of 310/922. With a fleet of 20 galleys, the Fatimid officer Masud bin Ghalib al-Wusuli took possession of the fortress of St. Agatha. Runciman p. 189; also http://www.ismaili.net/histoire/history05/history514.html; accessed 2009. 3. Armenia: The caliph recognises Ashot II of Dvin as king of kings (shahanshah), i.e. as the leading prince among the Armenian princes. There was a rival Armenian king with his seat at Vaspurakan, south of Lake Van. Cf 961. The Arabs had been pinned back behind the Taurus and Anti-Taurus, encouraging the Armenians to switch their allegiance from the Caliphate to the Empire, in whose service they entered in increasing numbers (Whittow 1996: 315). 922-30: This period saw many raids on Byzantine south Italy by the Magyars and Arabs. There was scarcely a year that Calabria was not raided (cf 924-25: St Agata and Oria). The Magyars (often allied to Berengar, the Frankish emperor of N Italy) penetrated into southern Italy in 922, 927 and 947. This resulted from the politics of Franko-Lombard-Papal northern Italy, the Magyars being called in to aid one side or other; they then set off on plundering raids. In 927 they even entered Rome, called there by Pope John X (NCMH 2000: 543). From 917-925, the Magyars raided through Basle, Alsace, Burgundy, Saxony, and Provence. In 947, they raided France as far west as Reims and down through Italy as far as Otranto in the south. Cf 934. 923: 1. Eastern frontier: General John Kourkouas attacks rebels in Chaldia, the Trebizond region. As Drungarios tes Viglas, commander of the Tagma of the Watch, the ethnic Armenian John Kourkuas or Curcuas defeated a rebellion in the Chaldian theme, and later the same year was promoted to the office of the domestikos ton scholon: generalissimo or army commander in chief. The
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Domestic of the Scholae (domestikos ton scholon) had by now displaced the Strategos of the Anatolikon theme as the most senior military officer. Norwich 1993: 149 very justly calls Kourkouas one of the most brilliant generals that Byzantium was ever to produce. Johns brother Theophilus became Strategos of the Chaldian theme and therefore general in charge of the northern section of the front. Cf 923, 926.
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2. Thrace: Bulgarian invasion of Thrace along the Maritza River: Symeon briefly re-captures Adrianople by bribery; but, when he departs to deal with a Serbian incursion in the west, leaving a garrison in charge, the East-Romans return and recover the city. Cf 925. 3. NE Aegean: The Muslim fleet of Rasiq al-Wardami or Leo of (Syrian) Tripoli raids into the Aegean but near Lemnos the imperial navy soundly defeats him, destroying his fleet (Treadgold, State p.478). Runciman 1963: 135 calls this a sensational victory, and Pryor & Jeffreys, p.385, list it as as one of the most notable naval victories achieved by the empire. 4. d. al-Tabari, greatest of the Muslim historians. 923-24: 1. Tsar Symeon - finally: after 30 years on the throne of Bulgaria (!) - makes an Arab alliance, with al-Mahdi, the Fatimid Caliph of Ifriqiya [our Morocco-TunisiaLibya], to attack the East Roman capital; but the threat is undercut by Romanic gold, diplomacy and a peace treaty. Byzantine money persuades al-Mahdi to switch sides. Symeon advances (924) against Byzantium not knowing that the Fatimids have decided not to support him. The treaty with Africa meant that Romanian (Greek) Calabria was very briefly left in peace (until 925). 2. The Serbs reject Bulgarian vassalage and declare for Byzantium. Cf 925, 927. 924: 1. The Balkans: With the false expectation of aid from the Fatimids of Africa, a large Bulgarian army ravages Macedonia and Thrace and camps before Constantinople. Soon learning that the Africans will not assist him, Symeon seeks an interview with Romanos. Although weaker militarily, the Byzantine emperor (in the Greek sources) arrogantly lectures the Bulgarian Tsar about Christian piety. A truce is struck. Part of the deal involved Symeon recognizing Romanuss imperial status; Symeon contented himself with the title emperor of the Bulgarians (Jeffreys 2006: 352). The interview took place on a landing stage on the Golden Horn on 9 September 924 (others give 19 September 923). As described by Theophanes, Symeon arrived there . . . bringing with him a host divided into many units, some with golden shields and spears, others with silver shields and spears, equipped with weapons of every hue and all armoured in iron. Bearing Symeon among them they acclaimed him emperor in the language of the Romans [i.e. Greek]. All of the senatorial council were standing on the walls looking down on the proceedings. Romanus is said to spoken thus to Symeon: Embrace peace, love harmony, so that you may live a peaceful, bloodless and untroubled life, and so that Christians may have a break from misfortunes and stop the killing of Christians. For it is not right for them to raise arms against co-religionists. - Symeon Logothete [Georgius Monachus Continuatus], ed. Bekker, pp. 898-901, excerpted by Stephenson: http://homepage.mac.com/paulstephenson/trans/theocont3.html; accessed 2009. 2. Dalmatia: Papal legates call a Council at Spalato (Split) (Fine p.267). The pope
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wrote to condemn the use of the Slavonic liturgy. This brought Slavic Illyricum under Romes influence Constantinople chose not to, or was unable to, intervene. 3. Romanos crowns his younger sons Constantine and Stephen co-emperors. In 924 an army or band of Magyars penetrated west across Italy and through the St Bernard Pass into Provence and southern France, reaching as far as the Pyrenees (Bakay, Hungary in NCMH 2000: 543). At this time there was a Muslim raiding colony long established in Provence at St Tropex (see 931 below). Diplomacy from 924 The style of address recommended in Constantines VIIs De Cer. runs thus: To the God-appointed prince (archon*) of Bulgaria: In the name of Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, our one and sole true God: [from] Constantine and Romanos, Emperors of the Romans, whose faith is in God, to our desired spiritual son (pneumatikon teknon), the God-appointed Prince or Lord (archon) of the most Christian people (ethnos) of the Bulgarians. Later the formulation became: Constantine and Romanos, pious Autocrats, Emperors of the Romans in Christ who is God, to our desired spiritual son, the lord [Name] Emperor (basileus)* of Bulgaria. (*) Tsar Symeon, c. 894-927, was addressed frequently as spiritual brother (pneumatikos adelphos) by Romanos I Lekapenos in letters drafted by the protasekretis Theodore Daphnopates. But it was a long time before the Byzantines were ready to call the Bulgarian Tsar basileus (emperor) rather then archon (ruler). 924: North Italy: The Magyars laid Lombardy waste. They burnt Pavia itself in 924 and only left Italy to pass over the Alps and be exterminated by pestilence in Languedoc. 924-25: Italy: Saracens capture SantAgata in Calabria: east of Reggio (924). Saracen raids continue throughout Calabria and in Apulia (925). The towns in the Terra dOtranto the lower heel - suffer several attacks. On 4 July 925, the inland town of Oria, between Taranto and Brindisi, is attacked by a Saracen force led by Ja'far ibn 'Ubaid who massacres most of the towns Christian and Jewish male population. Jafar bin Ubaid, known as Suluk (the Traveller [to God]), led this expedition, with Palermo as his starting point. He captured Bruzzano [SE of Reggio Calabria] and Oria and returned to Mahdiya with vast riches. The resounding success of this campaign had the effect of inducing the Byzantines to conclude a treaty with the Fatimids. http://www.ismaili.net/histoire/history05/history514.html; accessed 2009 924: [actually 925] Capta est Oria Sarracenis mense Iulij, et interfecerunt cunctas mulieres; reliquos ver deduxerunt in Africam cunctos venundantes. Oria is taken by the Saracens in July, and they kill all the women; the rest, to be sure, they lead away to Africa, all being sold [as slaves] (Lupus). See next. At Oria the Arabs are said to have killed 6,000 able-bodied males and took 10,000 female captives (ibn Adsari). A patrikios, possibly the strategos himself, was captured and later ransomed. One Apulians Fate Italy: Shabbethai Donnolo, 913-82, a noted Jewish physician and astronomer, or astrologer, was born at Oria, in the district of Otranto. In later life he became physician to the catepan or Byzantine governor. When Donnolo was 12 years old (925), an army of Fatimite* Muslims, led by
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Abu Ahmad Ja'far ibn Ubaid, invaded Calabria and Apulia. As related in Donnolo's autobiographic note, the town of Oria, east of Taranto, was sacked. "Ten wise and pious rabbis", whose names are given, and numerous other Jews, were killed, while a multitude of survivors, including himself, were taken captive. Of course the vast majority of dead, captives and survivors were Christians. His relatives were able to ransom Donnolo at Taranto [also] in the country which is under Roman [Byzantine] government [malkhut Romi], which is to say: not under the Lombards - , while the rest of his family was carried away to Palermo and North Africa. Quoted in Shmuel Shepkaru, Jewish Martyrs, Cambridge University Press, 2006. (*) Post-Aghlabid Sicily was governed by a Fatimid-appointed governor, Salim ibn Asad ibn Rashid al-Kutami, from 917 to 937. The Fatimid overlord in Tunisia was Ubaydallah al-Mahdi, ruling from the new city of al-Mahdia from 920. Territory in 925 The empire of New Rome ruled from the boot of Italy, through the southern Balkans and Greece, to Asia Minor. There were 494 bishoprics in the empire in about 925, distributed as follows: 16 (4%) in Byzantine south Italy; 99 (20%) in the Balkans including Thrace and Greece; 18 (4%) in the Aegean Islands; and 371 (75%) in Asia Minor (Browning p.94). Sardinia remained nominally Byzantine but in practice was effectively independent. All of Sicily was ruled by the Arabs, the Fatimids. The Bulgarian Khanate or empire dominated the northern Balkans and was the enemy closest to the imperial capital; but this border became a stable and peaceful one after the death of Symeon in 927. Asia Minor, as always, was the massive heart of the empire, as reflected in the 371 bishops mentioned above. The Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains, in what is now SE Turkey, divided the highlands of Byzantine Asia Minor from the lowlands of Abbasid Cilicia-Syria. 925: 1. The Bulgarian truce fails. Evidently realising that Constantinople is impregnable, Symeon decides on a new strategy of diplomatic-political moves. At around this time, before mid-925 at any rate, he declares himself "Basileus [Tsar] of the Bulgarians and the Romans [Byzantines]". It may be that Symeon had been using the title since the curious coronation of 913 (Fine 1991: 154-55). But 925 is the date of Romanoss reply to a letter from Symeon, rejecting the latters claim to the imperial style.* But the papacy recognised Symeons imperial title in 926 (Runciman, Romanus p.94). Cf 926. (*) Romanus wrote to Symeon sarcastically asking why, in addition to Emperor of the Romans, Symeon does not also call himself Lord of the Whole World or Emir of the Saracens? He adds that he, Romanus, has better claim to the title Emperor of the Bulgarians than Symeon (Obolensky 1971: 151). 2. Serbia revolts against Bulgaria. The Serbs defeat Symeon's generals and send their heads as a gift, a sign of lotalty, to emperor Romanus (Runciman 1963: 206). See 926. 3. With the death of Patriarch Nicholas, the church falls totally under Romanus's power. 4. Romanus demands tribute from the Muslim frontier towns of the Euphrates; but they refuse (see 926). In this year too, a prisoner exchange took place in which the Muslims recovered 3,983 people according to Masudi.
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5. Italy: The Saracens of Sicily and Africa resume their raids on peninsular Italy. A large expedition led by Sabir (Shabir al-Fata) lands near Taranto (alternative date 927: see there) and captures the town. In the Muslim Khalifate: d. al-Razi, Persian author of some 200 treatises on medicine. Head of the hospital at the city of Rayy, now a suburb of modern Teheran. The first to distinguish between measles and smallpox. + 925 = 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF MUSLIM RULE IN CRETE 925-26: 1. The NW Balkans: Tsar Symeons troops severely ravage Serbia and prepare to attack the Croatians*: see 927. If we may believe our sources, Serbia remained a near wilderness for about a decade; at any rate the Bulgarians ruled Serbia for some seven years (Obolensky p.155; Runciman p.206). (*) The first to bear the title King of Croatia, Tomislav of the Trpimirovi dynasty, was crowned in 925. Tomislav, rex Chroatorum, will unite the Pannonian and Dalmatian duchies and create a sizeable state. 3. Death of Patriarch Nicholas. 925-28: Frequent Arab raids on Calabria. Cf 926. The naval strength of the Calabrian Theme in 929 was just seven ships (Heath, Dark Ages 1976: 13). 925-33: Imperial letters: Theodore Daphnopate composed letters on behalf of the emperor, 10 of which, written between 925 and 933, are extant: ed. & French tr. Darrouzs and Westerink, 1978, pp. 30-141, epp. 1-10. One of these 10 letters is to the Pope (ep. 1), one is to the Metropolitan of Herakleia (ep. 2), a third is addressed to all metropolitans (ep. 3), and a fourth is to the Emir of Egypt (ep. 4). Letters five, six and seven are all addressed to Symeon, eksousiats of the Bulgarians and spiritual brother (ep. 5), later archon [lord] of Bulgaria and spiritual brother (epp. 6, 7). -- Stephenson, Daphnopate, at http://homepage.mac.com/paulstephenson/trans/daphnopates.html; accessed 2006. 925-1000: AN ERA OF ADVANCE FOR THE EMPIRE: THERE WILL BE MINOR REVERSES IN THE WEST: IN ALBANIA-EPIRUS; AND A SICILIAN FOOTHOLD WILL BE LOST [962]. BUT THESE SETBACKS WILL BE MORE THAN MADE UP FOR BY THE CONQUEST [from 934] OF, CRETE, CYPRUS, CILICIA AND NEARER SYRIA. EASTERN BULGARIA TOO WILL BE ADDED TOWARDS THE END OF THE 900s. 926: 1. Tsar Symeon obtains recognition of his new imperial title from the pope in Rome (Mladjov 1999*). See below, 926-27: Bulgarian patriarchate. The Balkans: Symeon's troops invade and defeat Serbia. The country was reduced, it is said, to a wilderness. (*) Mladjov, Ian (1999): "Between Byzantium and Rome: Bulgaria and the West in the Aftermath of the Photian Schism", Byzantine Studies/tudes Byzantines: 173181. 2. The Arab Emir of Sicily, Salim ibn Asad ibn Rashid al-Kutami, (917-37), subjects the maritime towns of southern Italy to Muslim tribute. The princes of Capua and Salerno finally dropped their Imperial titles (patricians), signalling a final break with Constantinople (Runciman 1963: 191). See 929 and 951. The Aegean too
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 was insecure, with the Muslims in control of Crete.
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3. War in the East: Curcuas attacks into Mesopotamia. Baghdad declines to send help to the Emir of Melitene. See next. 4. Italy: Anno 926. comprehendit Michael Sclabus Sipontum mense Iulij. (Lupus). In July Michael Sclavus [the Byzantine commander] takes (seizes) Siponto. 926-27: 1. Mesopotamia: The imperial army under Kourkouas forces the emir of Melitene who Baghdad chooses not to aid - to recognise Romanos' suzerainty; Samosata is sacked (Treadgold, State p.479). Cf 933-34. Aided by his brother Theophilos and an Armenian contingent under Mleh (Melias in Greek sources), the strategos of Lykandos, Kourkouas targeted Melitene (modern Malatya), the centre of an emirate which had long been a thorn in Byzantium's side. The Byzantine army successfully stormed the city. Although the citadel held out, Kourkouas concluded a treaty by which the emir accepted tributary status. 2. 926-927: Constantinople recognises and gives independence or autocephaly to the Bulgarian Patriarchate at Ochrid. Thus by 1000 there would be six patriarchs in the East: four orthodox and two Monophysite, namely: 1. orthodox Ochrid in medieval west Bulgaria: modern Albania; 2. the 'Ecumenical' patriarch in Constantinople; 3. Antioch - after that city was liberated from Muslim rule by the Byzantines in 965; and 4. Ani in Monophysite Armenia. In addition there were two patriarchs under Muslim rule in 1000: 5. a monophysite "Coptic" archbishop in Fatimid Alexandria and 6. an orthodox or Melkite archbishop in Fatimid Jerusalem. Cf 986. Commanders* in Italy, as listed in J J Hofmanns Lexicon Universale (1698): Michael Schlavus [sic: Sclavus, the Slav**], AD 926. Imogalaptus [sic: Theognosto Limnogalactos], AD 940. Platopodius or Platypodos [sic! literally flat foot], AD 947-55. (*) Strategoi. Not at this time called catepans (Gk: katepan). That title first appears ca. 970. (**) Sclabus or Schlavus in Lupuss Chronicle and Anon. Baren.. 927: 1a. The north-west: The Croatians under king Tomislav destroy the Bulgarian army; death of tsar Symeon. Symeons son Peter makes peace with Byzantium, an alliance that secured his marriage to princess Maria, grand-daughter of Romanos I (Stephenson p.24) Const. Por. in De Administrando Imperio (DAI) says that the Croatians maintained "60,000" cavalry and "100,000" infantry (sic!). In truth, they probably had more like 6,000 and 10,000. Their navy supposedly had up to 80 galleys and 100 cutters; again a vastly exaggerated figure (Runciman p.208; Fine 1991: 262). 1b. Maria Lecapena was the first Romanic princess for many centuries to marry abroad, although she was not a princess "born in the purple". The treaty of 927 reconfirmed the 904 treaty, that is, it recognised Bulgarias possession of Macedonia (Fine 1991: 161). As part of the settlement, the title of "Tsar" (emperor: Basileus) was supposed to be recognised and Byzantium paid Bulgaria an annual tribute. Also future Bulgarian ambassadors were to be given precedence over all others. But Romanos, d. 944, would only call Peter "archon", ruler or prince; it was not until Constantine succeeded that the term "Basileus" was used to refer to the Bulgarian ruler (Runciman 1963: 100; Norwich p.147).
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This ends what Runciman calls the empire's "greatest ordeal since the days of the Saracen sieges (in the 700s)". Byzantium could now direct its energies to the East. Peace lasted in the Balkans until 965 2. (Or in 928) Italy: Arabs attack Taranto (Runciman p.190). But at Otranto they are laid low by a "pestilence". 927-57 (or 967): Fatimid rule over a deserted Taranto Fuit excidium Tarenti patratum, et perempti sunt omnes viriliter pugnando; reliqui vero deportati sunt in Africam. Id factum est mense Augusti in festivitate Sanctae Mariae (Lupus). Taranto is sacked and all are killed manfully fighting : the rest are taken to Africa; this took place in August on the feast of Holy Mary [15 August or 28 August Julian calendar = feast of the Assumption of Mary]. The Emir of Sicily, Salim ibn Asad ibn Rashid al-Kutami, led the attack, accompanied by admiral Sabir [Shabir al-Fata], a Slavic-born ex-slave and eunuch convert, with a fleet of more than 50 galleys. They proceeded to besiege Taranto. On 15 August 928 (or 927) the fortress-port fell by assault and, according to the Arab sources, more than 6,000 Christians perished and the survivors were deported as slaves to Africa. It is said that Taranto remained uninhabited until the Romanian (Greek) re-conquest in 967 (Jules Gay, L'Italie meridionale, p.207). Between 927 and 930, sailing from Sicily, Sabir undertook various attacks and raids on Puglia, Calabria and Campania in southern Italy, even as far as Adria in the Po delta. He conquered and plundered Grottole [a village near Matera], Taranto and Otranto. He then blockaded the towns of Naples and Salerno until they bought his departure with precious textiles [see 928]. Finally, in the Adriatic Sabir fought a Byzantine squadron and plundered Termoli (on the coast about one-third up). He returned via Sicily to Ifriqiya (Tunisia) with 12-18000 prisoners (German edn of Wikipedia 2010 under Sabir). 3. fl. Constantine of Rhodes, or the Rhodian, poet. He was secretary to the imperial chancellor Samonas in 908, and later served the emperors Leo VI and Constantine VII. In the year 927 he was sent as envoy to the Bulgarian Tsar. Author of the long verse-story, Description of [Constantinoples] Church of the Holy Apostles. Three of his poems were included in the Palatine Anthology, and indeed he may have been its compiler. One of his works comprises wild, sesquipedalian (polysyllabic) verses against the scholar and ambassador Leo Choerosphactes or Choirosphaktes. In addition to three religious epigrams (Anthologia Palatina XV 15-17) and satirical poems on Leo Choirosphaktes (written in about 907) and on Theodore of Paphlagonia (both with insulting words in the style of Aristophanes), he wrote an apparently unfinished description of the seven wonders of Constantinople and the no longer extant Church of the Holy Apostles. This comprises 981 twelve-syllable lines dealing mainly with the architecture of the church, and is dedicated to emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. He was a poet of only moderate gifts. * * * The vacuum in the Balkans after Symeon's death drew in a new set of steppes people, the Magyars or Hungarians, and also the Rus from Kiev, now with a land army and new ambitions (below: 934, 941 and 944). The Magyars regularly raided south of the Danube. Indeed they penetrated sometimes even as far as the walls of the imperial city (AD 934 and 959: see there) and into northern Greece (936). The raids of the Magyars, however, while they did great damage in Bulgaria, hardly affected the empire. Cf Obolensky p.206: [the Magyars] do not seem to have been interested in settling in the Balkans and they were incapable of storming Byzantine cities. This perhaps explains the comparative coolness with which the Byzantines reacted to these raids: there is no sign in their medieval chronicles of the terror the Magyars provoked in Western Christendom.
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927: Britain: The Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex annexes York on the death of its last Norse king. This marks the beginning of what we may now call the kingdom of England. 927-8: 1. Major famine brought on by 120 (!)* days of damaging frost. The famine led to massive mortality (Stahakopoulos 2008: 312). Many poor land-holders sold out to large land-holders, prompting an imperial edict (934) to restore the status quo (Treadgold 1997: 480; Rautman p.76). (*) The present-day average is 25 per year [ www.climatetemp.info/turkey/istanbul.html]. 2. Serious East Roman-Arab conflicts on the eastern borders; the town of Samosata briefly submits to Curcuas. To deflect the pressure, the Caliphate directs a double raid into Asia Minor. John Curcuas proceeds into Armenia, where the power of Greek Fire* alarmed the inhabitants of Dvin (NE of Lake Van). Presumably this refers to pots of Greek fire launched into the town from ballistas or trebuchets, or perhaps hand-siphons large enough to plaster 12 men at one discharge (Toynbee 1973: 331, citing Ibn al-Athir; cf Partington p.15). Curcuas briefly occupied the town before withdrawing. He then (928) campaigned in southern Armenia. Cf 932. (*) Al-Athir says, which seems unlikely, that the liquid fire pump or projector was operated by a single artificer (cited in Haldon 2006b, p.320). Whittow 1996: 317 comments that this incursion, more than 500 kilometres from the nearest imperial territory, was a far cry from the defensive-minded strategy Byzantium had followed during the previous centuries and highlighted the new capabilities of its imperial army. 927-67: Italy: The Saracens captured Taranto in 927 (or 928) and deported its population into slavery; the town was effectively deserted until its recovery by the empire in 967 (Runciman, Lecapenus p.190). 928: 1. Italy: A Sicilian-Muslim fleet sails towards Lombard-Latin Salerno and GrecoNeapolitan Naples; it retires when an appropriate money tribute is paid. By 930, a lasting peace was agreed with the Christians. Cf below: 928-29. 2. Roman Catholicism vs. Constantinopolitan Orthodoxy (if we may use these anacronistic terms*) in Dalmatia: Due to the intebravtion of the Croation king Tomislav, the See of Nin was suppressed in 928, when the See of Split renounced the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople and submitted to Rome. Oddly, Nin lay within Croatian borders whereas Split was a dependency of Constantinople . . . (Cath. Encyc. under Dalmatia; Fine 1991: 269-70). (*) One might equally have written Roman Orthodoxy and Constantinopolitan Catholicism . . . 3. The West: Abu'l Fida'y, an Arabic historian and geographer from the 1300s, states that in 928/9 off the coast of Maghreb and Sicily there appeared a Slavic pirate fleet of 30 ships which, together with the Arabs own ships, pillaged Calabria, Corsica, and Sardinia. After some time, these Slavic pirates decided to permanently settle in a quarter of Arabic Palermo which was named after them. 928-45: Romanos sons were co-emperors with him:
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(1) aged about 31: Stefanos or Stephen Lecapenus, 2nd son of Romanos, junior Emperor of Byzantium, 928-945, born ca 897, died 945; 1m: Anna Galabaina; 2m: Bertha [Theodora] of Lucca, b. ca 916, dau. of Guidone [Guy] of Lucca, Marchese [margrave] di Toscana (Tuscany) [d. 929]. Berthas mother was the power-broker of Rome, Marioza, opponent of the pope. (2) aged about 28: Konstantinos, Emperor of Byzantium, 928-945, born ca 900, +945; 1m: Elena N [other names not known]; 2m: Teofan or Theophano Mamaina. 929 (or earlier): 1. Italy: Pandulphus, et Guaymarius Principes intraverunt in Apuliam (Lupus). The princes Pandulf and Guaimar penetrate into (enter) (Byzantine) Apulia. The 'Lombard'-Italians of Capua and Salerno, having broken with Constantinople since 926, briefly occupy [c.927?] much of the Theme of Langobardia (until 935/36). For all practical purposes the hinterland of Apulia and large tracts of Lucania [inland from the top of the Gulf of Taranto] and Calabria were lost to Byzantium (Runciman 1963: 192). See 935. 2. The East: Curcuas raids into Muslim-ruled southern Armenia. Because of civil war, Baghdad is unable to aid the local Muslim forces. But Curcuas is defeated by the forces of the Muslim emir or governor of Azerbaijan and retreats (Treadgold 1997: 480). From 929: At Cordoba, the self-proclaimed caliph Abd al-Rahman III begins to issue dinars, the first gold coins to be minted in the West since classical times - to compete with the nomisma or solidus of Byzantium. Cf 996, Sicily. fl. Abu'l-Faraj, Arab encyclopaedist, author of the "Book of Songs" [Kitab alAgani], an encyclopaedic history of Arabian poetry. 930: Upper Mesopotamia: The strategos of Lycandus*, the Armenian general Melias [Arm. Mleh] leads a raid to Samosata, but is repulsed. Treadgold 1997: 481 calls him a border baron, meaning that he served his own interests at least as much as the emperors. (*) Formerly Lapara, which is modern Kzlar Kalesi, in far eastern Cappadocia. Lycandus was created in 908 as a cleisura with 800 troops. It was upgraded to a theme thereafter, but still with just 800 men (Treadgold, Army p.81). 12 January 930: In the Caliphate: The Qarmatians [Ar. Qaramita] of present-day Bahrain were (since 899) an anti-Fatimid splinter Ismaili* or proto-Ismaili Shiite movement. They were utopianist egalitarians and vegetarians. Under their leader Abu Tahir Sulayman, they sack Mecca, and take with them the Black Stone of the Kaa'ba. This act was meant to symbolise the end of the Islamic or Arab era and the beginning of a new Persian cycle. Twenty years later they returned the stone under pressure from the (Shiite) Fatimid Caliph al-Mansur. The Qaramatians were finally overthrown by the (Sunni) 'Abbasids in 1077. (*) For whom Ismail ibn Jafar, was the Imam, the last, and either the 6th or 7th, true descendant of Muhammads true heir, Ali. Ja'far ibn Muhammad (Ja'far al-Sadiq), d.765, is the last Imam recognised by both Twelver Shites (the largest branch of Shiism) and Ismaili Shiites. Ja'far al-Sadiqs older son, Ismail, is recognized by Ismailis as the next Imam, while the Twelvers consider the younger son Musa al-Kazim, to be the successor Imam. Historically Ismailis believed that Ismaiils son, Muhammad ibn Ismail (d. or occulted 809), went into Occultation, and were called Seveners to reflect their belief in only seven imams, Muhammad's father Ismail
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being the last until his, Muhammads, return. This line of belief is extinct today Twelvers belief that the line of Imams continued through Musa al-Kazim until Abu'l Qasim Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Ali, born in 869 AD, who is the last. He went into Occultation i.e. has disappeared but is alive and will one day return and fill the world with justice. Present-day Ismails, the Zaidi and Nizari Ismaili, do not believe in the idea of Occultation. They believe the line of Imams continued through and after Muhammad ibn Ismail. Although often the Imams had to hide from persecution in the 800s, they did not go into a long, mystic Occultation. Subsequently Ubayd Allah (Abd Allah) al-Mahdi Billah, r. 909-934, the founder of the Fatimid dynasty, initially in Tunisia, claimed to be the Imam and his successors set up an Ismaili caliphate in Egypt. Later in 1094 there was a dispute over who should be caliph. The Fatimids in Egypt selected one of two brothers. Ismailis in Persia and Syria preferred the other, by the name of Nizar. The Aga Khan descends from Nizar. 931: The East: The imperial army raids southern Armenia. In a riposte, three Muslim armies attack Byzantine territory. The army of the Emir of Tarsus penetrates deep into Anatolia and sacks Amorium [in central Asia Minor: SW of Ankara] (Treadgold 1997: 481). The Caliphate then directed forces into Mesopotamia and the EastRomans were forced to pull back, withdrawing their garrisons from Melitene and Samosata. Armenia is then attacked by the Azerbaijanis. In March 931 the Byzantines were hit by three successive raids in Asia Minor, organized by the Abbasid commander Mu'nis al-Khadim, while in August, a large raid led by Suml, the emir of Tarsus, penetrated as far as Ancyra and Amorium and returned with prisoners worth 136,000 dinars in ransom (Runciman p.141) The subsequent splintering of the Abbasid empire meant that this was the last, or one of the last, occasions on which Arab forces invaded Romanic/Byzantine Anatolia. Cf 942. (It was more than 150 years before new invaders appeared, i.e. the Seljuk Turks.) 2. Serbia: Chaslav, who returned to rule Serbia about 931 under Romanian (Greek) auspices, was of the line of the exiles who had been brought up at the Bulgarian court of Preslav in its great days. Chaslav enlarged the state, incorporating parts of Bosnia and Travunia, the coastal region SE of Ragusa. He carved out a tenuous independence from the Bulgarians, although nominally under their rule (Vlasto 1970). 3. Italy/Provence: A Byzantine fleet pursues a squadron of Saracen ships right into the harbour that serviced the Provencal pirate base (colony) of Frjus or Fraxinet, todays Garde-Freinet. If one draws a straight line from Toulon to Cannes, La Garde Freinet is located almost exactly at midpoint The Muslims called their base Fraxinet - Arabic Farakhshanit - after the local village of Fraxinetum, named in Antiquity for the ash trees, Latin fraxini, then common in surrounding forests. Today, the village survives as La-Garde-Freinet, a picturesque, unspoiled settlement tucked among forests of cork oak and chestnut some 1,300 feet or 400 metres up in the Massif des Maures, between the Argens Plain and the Gulf of St. Tropez. That is: inland, about 15 km NW of St Tropez. The first serious effort to expel the Muslims from Fraxinet in Provence was made in about 931 (and again in 942) by the Frankish (Burgundian) ruler Hugh of Arles, king of N Italy and Provence [r.924-47; in 933 he relinquished Provence to Rudolf of Upper Burgundy]. Provence or Lower Burgundy was the region or sub-kingdom covering Lyons, Grenoble, Arles, Marseilles and Nice. The Italy-Provencal border ran to the sea west of Genoa. Hugh enlisted the aid of Byzantine warships - sailing probably from Sardinia.
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The warships, hurling "Greek fire", attacked and destroyed a Muslim fleet or flotilla in the Gulf of St. Tropez (Lebling 2009; Snac, Zones ctires, p.116). Straicly speoaking the Chronicon Turonense does not mention shsips, saying only that Hugh attacked with Greek Fire sent to him from the Greek emperor, but since the Saracen ships were totally burnt out, we may take in that Greek ships were involved. Meanwhile, in a coordinated land assault, Hugh's army besieged the fortress at Fraxinet and succeeded in breaching its defences. The Muslim defenders were forced to withdraw to neighbouring heights. But just when the end of Muslim power in France seemed inevitable, local politics intervened. The king, desperate for allies, sent the Greek fleet back to Constantinople and formed a hasty alliance with the Muslims he had just sought to expel! (Others says this took place during the 942 attack.) He signed a treaty conceding control of Fraxinet and other areas to the Muslims and stipulating that Arab forces should occupy the Alpine heights - from Mont Genvre Pass in the west: NW of Genoa; inland north from Nice, to the Septimer Pass in the east - the Swiss Alps - and block any attempt by his rival for the crown of Italy, Rudolf II of Burgundy, to cross into Italy. Cf below: 931-42. 2. Forced election of Theophylact or Theophilatos, son of Romanos I, aged just 14 (!), as patriarch, 931-56. Romanus sent envoys to Rome to seek papal blessing and approval for his appointment. 3. Death of Christopher, Romanus' eldest son. 931-42: Sardinia and Provence: In the Annales by Flodoardus of Rheims, writes Cosentino, it is said that in 931 (see above) a Greek [Byzantine] fleet attacked the Muslim outpost of Fraxinetum [in Provence]. Another Greek expedition against Fraxinetum in 942 can be found in the Antapodosis by Liutprand of Cremona. Cosentino proposes that these expeditions were carried out from Sardinia. Cf 939. 932: Civil troubles in Baghdad; few if any clashes with the empire on the borders. fl. Saadyah ben Joseph, the Jewish philosopher, gaon (rector) of the Sura Academy - at Sura on the Euphrates, under Muslim rule. He translated the Jewish Bible into Arabic. 932/33: Upper Mesopotamia: Curcuass troops threaten Abbasid-ruled Melitene, but the Muslims hold them off. In Armenia, the Byzantines take Manzikert, present-day Turkish Malazgirt. From 932: Byzantium had firm control of the towns of south-west Armenia including Manzikert, modern Malazgirt: north of Lake Van (by 933). Erzerum too acknowledged Constantinople's suzerainty. After 932 there will be only two occasions on which Arab raiders will cross the frontier: in 940: Sayf's attack on Koloneia, Colonea; and in 942: the last raid from Tarsus under Suml. Cf 934. Also 956: Sayfs raid into Anzitene, which can be excluded as it was a raid for booty not an invasion as such. 932-935: Italy: Rival Frankish and Lombard-Italian kings of northern Italy, seeking to assert their rule over papal Rome, compete to gain support from Byzantium. The Pope also suddenly turned into a friend of Byzantium Cf 933.
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At sea in the West, the Byzantines were now largely in control again - against the Saracens of Sicily and N Africa. 932-1062: First-ever Shiite dynasty in the Muslim centre: the Buwayids or Buyids of Baghdad, reigning in the name of the Abbasid line. They were ethnic Daylamis, originally highlanders from N Iran, the region S of the Caspian (NW of modern Teheran). A major weakness of Buyid rule was the fact that the Shiite Deylamites or Daylamis remained foot-soldiers, famously armed with axes. Thus from the beginning the Buyids were forced to employ Sunni Turkish horsemen in large numbers to balance their armies. Fighting between the two ethnic-religious elements became endemic under the later Buyids. Or so says the Encyclopaedia Iranica: http://www.iranica.com/articles/v7/v7f4/v7f408.html; accessed 2009. 933: 1. Romanus' teenage son Theophylact is enthroned as patriarch in the presence of papal legates (Runciman p.77). 2. Romanus installs his new daughter-in-law as Augusta or empress. c. 933: S Asia Minor: Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing in about 933, listed the several important towns of the Cibyrrhaeot theme: only one, Mylasa or Milas, NE of modern Bodrum, was an inland site (De Thematibus 14). 933-34: NE Syria: Kourkouas ravages the regions around Melitene and Samosata. The aim was to destroy or depopulate Samosata and to capture Melitene and fully Christianise it by driving out its Muslim minority (Treadgold, State p. 481). See 934. 934: 1. Thrace: First-ever Hungarian incursion into the heartland of the Romaniyan (Greek) empire: A Pecheneg and Magyar invasion crosses Bulgaria and reaches as far as Develtos on the western Black Sea coast or further into Thrace. They killed [ed] off the inhabitants, inflicting severe damage on the countryside and forcing both Byzantium and Bulgaria to pay them tribute (NCMH 2000: 543). The number of their captives, who must have been chiefly Bulgarian, was so great that a woman could be bought for a silk dress (Runciman p.107). Imperial diplomacy and gold dissuaded them from proceeding very far in the direction of Constantinople. Cf 937 and see 943, 958 and 962. One battle in 934 between the combined Pecheneg-Hungarian army and an opposing Bulgarian-Byzantine army was observed by or related to the Arab writer Masudi. The battle began when some of the steppes archers manoeuvered to the flanks, encircled the Byzantine army and showered it continually with arrows, all the while shooting vigorously. The aim was to provoke an ill-timed charge, which, when it came, resulted in the Byzantine army being utterly annihilated by arrows. The centre of the northern army had remained motionless until the Byzantine force was ready to begin a charge. It then divided and moved to the flanks and from there fired volley after volley sideways into the charging southerners (Charles Bowlus, Battle of Lechfeld, London: Ashgate 2006 p.35, citing Rvszs Ancient Hungarians). 2. The caliph is deposed. To gain from this, a combined Byzantine-Armenian army of "50,000" under John Curcuas /Kourkouas/, the Domestic of the Scholae or Army Commander, ravages upper Mesopotamia and besieges a half-deserted Melitene, modern Malatya (Treadgold 1997: 481). Melitene is captured: the first
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important Arab emirate to be annexed. Runciman says that he fall of Melitene profoundly shocked the Muslim world: for the first time, a major Muslim population centre had fallen and been incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. Imperial rule was extended to the line of the Upper Euphrates. (See 939-44: Edessa.) Many of the townspeople decided quickly to convert to Christianity. Shaban p.171 notes that the fall of Malatya to the East-Romans led to the diversion (930s) of trade routes, initially further south to Hamdanid Aleppo and further east to Hamdanid Nisibis and Mosul. But the Byzantines eventually decided (940s) to disallow Muslim traders to enter the empire except at two points: (a) land-traders had to enter via Trebizond in the north, and (b) sea traders had to come to the port of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor. This in turn led to (1) a more thorough collection of taxes by the Byzantine authorities, and (2) the decline of the Muslim trade centres in the Cilicia-Syria frontier region. The prosperity of Aleppo and Nisibis also suffered. 3. The West: A strong army, or a regiment at least, is sent to Byzantine Italy. They were transported in a fleet of 18 ships (11 chelandia and seven Rus karabia) (McCormick 2001: 970). This persuaded the Latin-Italians or Lombards to withdraw from N Apulia (from 935). Pryor & Jeffreys note that the inventory for the Italian expeditions of 934 and 935 mentioned cavalry(men) but not horses; they propose that the journey was too far to take horses, and that probably the cavalrymen received local horses on arrival (Dromon p.324, citing Constantine VIIs De Cer., 600.13-661.6, documents 2 and 3). Romanic-Byzantine northern Apulia was mainly Romance-speaking. But Byzantine Calabria and "the land of Otranto", southern Apulia, were mainly Greekspeaking - and remained so for centuries to come. 4. The Frankish kingdom of Italy: Muslims from Ifiqiya sacked Genoa. The Fatimid ruler al-Qa'im sent (934) a fleet of 20 vessels from Mahdiyya to south and north Italy; this expedition sacked Genoa in the following year (935), returning to Ifriqiya with much booty (Italian Wikipedia 2010 s.v. Storia di Genova). 934: Second Law of Romanos I against the rich, AD 934. We command that, in every region and province which, after God, our authority governs, the inhabitants have their appointed dwelling free and undisturbed. If [the property] remains in his possession in his lifetime, let it be the property by inheritance of the children and relatives, or let the possessor's will be executed. But if, in the course of human life and time's reversals, because of necessity or need, or even desire, he partially or totally allows alienation of his lands, let the right of purchase reside with the inhabitants of the same or neighbouring fields or villagelands. We do not set out these laws through hatred or jealousy of the more powerful, but we command it out of good will and protection for the poor (penetes), and for common salvation. Cf Theophanes Continuatus: He [Romanus] sent devout and fair men to ease the great burdens on the wretched poor (ptochoi), which had been levied regardless of circumstance. To the Anatolikon [theme or province] he sent the magistros Romanos Saronites, to the Opsikion the magistros Romanos Mousele, to the Thrakesion the patrikios Photios, and to the Armeniakon Leo Agelastos. In due course [good men were sent to] the remaining provinces (themata). The men, on the emperor's instruction, gave the poor a small return (mikran anakochen). From: http://homepage.mac.com/paulstephenson/trans/theocont4.html; accessed April 2005. 934-940: Reign of ar-Radi, the last Abbasid caliph with significant political power. Cf 944. The dissolution of the Caliphate into lesser emirates after 940 favoured the aggressive strategy of Byzantium.
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Emirates were subsequently set up at Mosul [see 932], Aleppo [see 944], Diyarbakir [see 983], Azerbaijan, Arran and Shirvan (on the Caspian Sea). They stood between the three great powers: (1) the Byzantine empire; and (2) the governors of Baghdad who now controlled a puppet caliph; the Buyids (an Iranian line) being governors from 945; and (3) the future Fatimid dominions: Palestine, Egypt and N Africa [Egypt was ruled by the Ikhshids until 969; conquered in that year by the Fatimids of the Maghreb]. 935: 1. Peace in the East. Dissolution of the Caliphate. 2. Italy: Further imperial expedition to Longobardia, to eject the Lombard-Italian prince of Capua. This included a regiment of 415 Russian Varangian ('Rhos') mercenaries. When the Byzantines struck an alliance with Hugh of Provence, the Frankish king of [northern] Italy, Regnum Italicum, the Capuans withdrew and (936) restored the former Imperial territories. But they did not begin re-using their old imperial titles, a signal of their real independence. Constantine VIIs De Cer., 600.13-661.6, says that vessels and troops were sent under the prtospatharios Epiphanios to the thema of Lombardy by Romanos I in the 8th year of the indiction (i.e. 935). The maritime cities - Naples, Amalfi etc - remained on good terms with Byzantium through this period (Runciman 1963:194). Since 929 the Saracens had no longer been a menace, and [by 936] the Greeks had largely recovered the mastery of the seas [around Italy] (ibid). 3. Italy: In 935 Genoa was surprised and sacked by a fleet from Sicily and N Africa: 200 (or 20) ships sent by the Fatimid (Tunisian) ruler Ab al Qsim Muhammad. But the Genoese fleet followed up the enemy and defeated them off Sardinia near the island of Asinara. Italian pirates (slavers) had raided the coastal regions of Fatimid Africa, and al-Qasim responded by dispatching a squadron of 20 vessels under the command of an al-Bahr (admiral) named Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Tamimi. They made a successful attack on Italy, the south of France, and the coast of Genoa and Calabria, and a part of Lombardy was also attacked. The Fatimid forces used mangonels (arradas or dabbabas), stone-throwing engines. http://www.ismaili.net/histoire/history05/history525.html; accessd 2009. 936: Mesopotamia: Curcuas marches on Samosata, takes it and razes it (Treadgold 1997: 483). A large body of Arabs, the tribe of the Banu Habib12,000 cavalry defects from Islam to the empire, and a line of five new themes is created to accommodate them: namely Melitene, Charpezicium, Arsamosata, Chozanum and Derzene (Treadgold 1995: 78 and 1997: 483). Treadgold, Army p.113, proposes that the overall total enrolled in the Romanic army was now about 142,000 men, including probably 51,500 cavalry (some 36%). The West: Otto I assumes the German crown at Aachen. Revival of a reimagined western empire. See 951, 955. 937: 1. Pagan Magyars ravage and plunder across western Europe. See 955. In 937, a troop in the service of King Hugh of N Iyaly crossed the Alps from France to Italy. Hugh then sent the Magyars against Capua, Monte Cassino and Naples; they raided as far as Otranto in the far SE of Byzantine Apulia (NCMH 2000: 534). And their troops will gallop under the walls of Constantinople in 942. Anno 936 [sic: 937]: venerunt Ungari] [ad] Capuam: The Hungarians come to Capua. - Lupus.
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In battle, most Magyars will carry two weapons, the halberd [sic: hooked spear?] hung upright on a shoulder, and a bow in hand, using each by turns; however, when taken into pursuit, the bow is the weapon of choice. In addition to the warriors themselves, the horse of the distinguished warrior is also fitted with armour in the front. Great effort and diligent practice is exercised in training mounted archers." (Leo VI, Taktika, quoted in A Short History of Hungarian Archery, at www.kolumbus.fi/rauno.huikari/archeryhistory; accessed 2009). 2. Muslim Sicily: Not far from the port of Balharm or Palermo is the area known as the Kalsa. It dates back to the year 937, when an outer line of defence was built against any attack from the sea. In Arabic it was known as al-Khalisa (pure, real, true: the real Palermo) - hence Kalsa. It was encircled by a high wall with four gates, and formed the administrative centre of Sicily. Inside the walls were a richly decorated mosque, barracks for the troops, the arsenal [i.e. ship storage and repair sheds], and the headquarters of the government ministries. Muslim Sicily, Saudi Aramco World 29, 6 (1978), online at http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197806/muslim.sicily.htm; accessed 2009. Fatimid governor of Sicily: Abu'l-'Abbas Khalil ibn Ishaq ibn Werd, 937944. 3. Asia: fl. Luke or Loukas the Stylite or pillar-dweller. He was born before 900 to noble parents in the theme of Anatolikon, according to the Synaxarion of Constantinople in the village of Attikom[e] (Synax. CP 299.31-32). He embarked upon a military career, but was ordained a priest after an EastRoman defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians [cf above: 896 etc]. He remained in the army for several more years, but eventually retired to the monastery of St. Zacharias on Mt. Olympos. He later moved to Constantinople, and, in pursuit of the sanctity of Christ, spent more than 40 years standing on (living atop) the pillar of Eutropios, in the port-town of that name, near Chalcedon . He died on 11 December, probably in the year 979. Since his death supposedly occurred at the age of 100, the date of his birth is traditionally given as 879. But this may well be a hagiographical topos, and Kazhdan (in BZ 78 [1985] 53) has proposed an alternative birthdate of ca. 900, since Loukas was about 30 during the great famine (of 927/8?). Thus Kazdhan et al. 2005 at www.doaks.org/hagiointro. 937-38: Byzantines conquer Sophene, the region east of the upper Euphrates. The strangulation and capture of Arab Arsamosata [modern Elazig] (937-9) was followed by the conquest of the highlands of Chorzane, north of the Upper Tigris (937-42) (Whittow p.318). Cf 939. 938: 1. The East: Formal peace negotiations opened between Constantinople and Ikhshid Baghdad. Their common foe was the Hamdanid emir of Mosul or Mawsil who controlled all the Muslim frontier provinces from Mosul to Aleppo. A prisoner exchange took place: 6,300 people passed on either side, but the Byzantines held 800 more, so the truce was prolonged for six months to allow the Muslims to progressively buy back these 800 (Toynbee 1973: citing Ibn Said). Cf 939. 2. Romanus sends (937-38) an embassy to the Muslim governor of Egypt. 3. Sicily: Revolt by Muslims and Christians in Muslim-ruled Sicily (until 941). The Byzantines send aid in the form of some troops and many provisions. Many "Greek" refugees fled to Calabria (Runciman p.194). First of the Kalbids: The failed siege of Agrigento [Girgenti] in south-central Sicily in AH 326 / AD 938 saw the death of Ali bin Ali al-Kalbi, son-in-law of Salim bin Abi Rashid [Salim ibn Asad ibn Rashid al-Kutami], the then Fatimid-appointed governor of Sicily, from 305/917 to 325/936. His son Hasan bin Ali al-Kalbi, who
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had distinguished himself in the campaigns waged by Imam al-Qaim and Imam alMansur against Abu Yazid, was (from 948) the first of a succession of Kalbid governors in Sicily, a kind of hereditary emirate under the Fatimids which lasted until the middle of 5th/11th century. 4. Treatise on siegecraft by the anonymous author known (wrongly) as Hero of Byzantium. (See Dennis 2000: Siegecraft, www.dean.usma.edu/departments/ cme/ram/download/Siegecraft; accessed Jan 2005.) 939: 1a. The East, medieval Armenia: The Romanians (Greeks) attack Theodosiopolis, todays Erzurum, an unconquered Muslim outpost. The Arabs held it until 949. 1b. Ali ibn Hamdan - Sayf-al-Dawla, as he was later called: sword of the realm/dynasty was the son of the governor of Mosul and Diyarbakr. Aged 23 years old, he decides to attempt to conquer Armenia. Proceeding north from Nisibis, he led an army across the River Tigris into the Armenian principality of Taron east of Lake Van (Yeor p.49). These attacks forced the Byzantines to withdraw from the region. See 940. Provence: Nasr ibn Ahmad, a leader of the Muslim pirate outpost of Fraxinet, Arabic Farakhshanit, is mentioned in the Muqtabis of Ibn Hayyan of Cordoba, the greatest historian of medieval Spain. According to that 11th-century chronicle, the caliph Abdul Rahman [Abd ar-Rahman] III made peace (*) in 939-40 with a number of Frankish rulers and sent copies of the peace treaty to Nasr ibn Ahmad, described as "commander" of Farakhshanit, as well as to the Arab governors of the Balearic Islands and the seaports of al-Andalus - all of them subject to the Spanish Umayyad caliphate. Nothing else is known about the Fraxinet commander. Cf 944 and 965. (*) The army of Ramiro II of Leon defeated the caliphs troops on several occasions in north-central Spain in 939. 939-44: Further series of Byzantine-Arab conflicts. The East Romans will capture Edessa, the city beyond the Euphrates: modern Urfa, and will transfer (see 944) to Constantinople the holy relic known as the Mandylion, lit. little mantle-veilhandkerchief. It was a towel believed to bear the miraculous imprint or painting of Christ's face. c. 940: SE Asia Minor: With Byzantium now in control of the western Taurus passes, Cicilian Seleucia is raised from a cleisoura or border district to the status of a theme. But Cilicia proper, including Tarsus, remained in Muslim hands. 940: 1. Italy: Anno 940: introierunt Ungari, vel Unni in Italiam mense Aprilis, et factum est proelium in Matera Graecis cum Langobardis cum Stratigo Imogalapto et negavit eum Pao [sic: ?Pope] in mari (Chronicle of Lupus): The Hungarians or Huns [Magyars] reach Italy in April,* and at Matera make battle with the Greeks and Lombards under the [new] strategos Imogalaptus [sic: Theognosto Limnogalaktos], and he refuses or denies them [?halts their entry] to the Papal sea??. Imogalapto also fought a major battle with the Lombard princes; but the outcome is not recorded (Lupus, cited by Rambaud 1870: 448). (*) At Rome they were held off by the local population. 2. Armenia briefly submits to Ali I, called Sayf-ud Dawla [Sayf ad-Dawlah Abu alHasan ibn Hamdan], founder of the splinter Hamdanids of Aleppo. Like his father
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he leaned towards Shiism, specifically Nusayri Ismailism. Sayf recommences his invasion of Armenia; the main Armenian king (briefly) submits. Having captured Mouhs, the capital of Armenian Taron east of Lake Van, Sayf enters Romanic/Byzantine territory, and penetrates to Colonea south-west of Trebizond. But Curcuas proceeded against him, and Sayf retired. 3. d. Eutychius (Said b. al-Batriq), Melkite patriarch of Alexandria and chronicler. 941: 1. Sayf is distracted by the death-throes of the Caliphate; peace in the EastRoman East. 2. The pagan "Russians" [Varangians] obtain permission to pass through Petcheneg territory on their way to Byzantium. The Scandinavian-Russian Prince Ingwarr ("Igor") leads a naval attack on Constantinople with "1,000" canoeships, the number as given by Luitprand, cited in Runciman 1963: 111 and Davidson 1976: 132. The Rus attack of 941 Grand Prince Igor Rurikovich sailed against Tsargrad or the "emperor city", the Slavic name for Constantinople, with a large force of lodyas - dug-out sailing canoes. The Byzantine fleet was not in home waters; thus the emperor decided to recall general Kourkouas from the East, and meanwhile rigged out a small fleet from 15 old galleys, which had to be heavily repaired. In a sea battle fought off the north-east coast of the Bosphorus, the renovated galleys, dromons, decimated the Kievan fleet with "Greek fire". This was a liquid, probably distilled petroleum, fired from flamethrowers (siphon-pumps) carried by the galleys and also catapulted from them as fireballs at the enemy ships. The projector-jets were either fixed in brass figureheads on ships or manipulated to turn in various directions. It is said that the several thousand Russian boats were destroyed by just 15 semifracta chelandria [sic] or half-size galleys. (The Greek is chelandia; Liutprand adds a r.) Normally Byzantine galleys had Greek Fire projectors only at the prow. On this occasion they were equipped with several siphons so that they could throw liquid fire on all sides: from the prow, the stern and the sides, probably because the Byzantines knew their tiny flotilla would quickly be surrounded by the enemy canoes. No doubt the fire had a severe impact, but the main effect seems to have been terror: the Russians dived over-board and drowned (Partington p.18). The Greek and Russian sources describe a massive fleet, while Luitprand reports with less exaggeration that the 'Russians' had a little over 1,000 smallish craft - enough to carry 40,000 men (Runciman 1963: 111; Whittow p.244). Even this figure seems incredibly large. As noted, the Romanian (Greek) navy was absent in the Aegean or Mediterranean, and Romanus could employ only "15" old ships rigged out with Greek fire, but this was enough to divert the Rus to land in Bithynia, which they ravaged. With the return to European side of the fleet under Admiral Theophanes (a patrikios and eunuch), and the approach of the main army under Curcuas, the Russians decided to cross into Thrace. Theophanes fleet then annihilated the Russian boats with Greek Fire. Leo the Deacon says that only 10 Russian boats survived to reach the other side of the Black Sea. See 944. They related that the Greeks had in their possession the lightning from heaven; and had set them on fire by pouring it forth, so that the Rus could not conquer them (Russian Primary Chronicle). A victory celebration was held in Admiral Theophanes' honour. There was a triumphal return, a splendid ceremonial reception and a promotion, with Theophanes elevated to the position of parakoimomenos (first bodyguard or chamberlain: the senior eunuch who supervised the personal safety of the emperor by locking himself within his bedchamber at night).
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Eunuchs: The angels' worldly counterparts
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By the 10th century, many Byzantine eunuchs came from the educated, propertied, freeborn classes within the empire and had been castrated within its boundaries. Unlike their predecessors, these later eunuchs often retained ties to their families and used their positions at court or in the church to promote the status of their relatives. Eunuchs had for centuries been assigned social roles as teachers, doctors, guardians of women and children, personal servants, entertainers, and singers. Now we find that these roles have been expanded. By the 900s several important court offices were reserved for eunuchs, and an important part of their gender construct was centred on their perceived loyalty, trustworthiness, intellectual abilities, unique spiritual capacities, and their ability to transcend social and spiritual boundaries. - Kathryn Ringrose, The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, p.85. 941-42: 1. Mt Athos:* Romanos I Lecapenos granted an annual subsidy of one gold piece for each Athonite monk, as was the custom in other major monastic centres in the Empire, such as Olympus in Bithynia, Mount Cymina and Mount Latros [NW of Mileus in SW Asia Minor]. The monks thus became salaried public servants, praying for the monarch and his army, especially when on campaign (Karakatsanis et al. 1997). Noting the following events, Romanos must have thought it proved a good investment see 942. (*) The Chalkidiki peninsula south-east of Thessalonica has three long finger-like capes or sub-peninsulas. Mt Athos is near the tip of the top finger, i.e. ESE of Thessaloniki. 2. Provence: Byzantine-Frankish (Italo-Frankish) alliance (941) to eliminate the Saracen (Andalusi) outpost or military colony at Frjus-Fraxinet* in Provence. The allied naval forces - mainly Byzantine prevailed. But before the colony could be taken by land, King Hugh of [north] Italy switched (942) his allegiance and made peace with the Muslims. See 942-52 and 944. (*) Frjus on the coast SW of Nice was their naval HQ; Fraxinet was their mountain fortress some 15 km inland. At the request of the Frankish king Hugh, as Liutprand records, help was sent in the form of the imperial warships (chelandia) armed with Greek fire [naves . . . Greco cum igne] seeking to eject the Arab pirates (slavers) established at Frejus. Romanus Lecapenus answered the request for aid affirmatively and asked to be sent a daughter as husband for his three-years old grandson, Romanus, the son of Constantine VII and future emperor [acc. 959]. Hugh hurried to answer that he only had a daughter, illegtimate but very beautiful. After considering the matter, Romanus finally considered the young Bertha acceptable and approved the offer. See 944. 942: New eastern offensive (942-44): Kourkouas campaigns successfully in Armenia, and in Syria raids the area around Aleppo. Arab sources say the Byzantine army numbered 80,000 men; a figure of 40-60,000 men is more likely. Up to 15,000 people were taken captive in the province of Aleppo (Treadgold, State p.484; Norwich, Apogee 1993: 153). Rotman p.49 underlines that abducting the civilian population was a major aim of the campaign; evidently in order to swap them in ransom for captured Byzantines. To counter Kourkouas, the Muslims raided into Asia Minor from Tarsus: the last ever Arab attack on Byzantium. But Curcuas was not distracted and proceeded against Edessa, which he besieged (943-44). With the permission of the caliph, the Muslim emir of Edessa agreed to surrender the famous Christian
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 relic called the 'Mandylion', reputedly the towel on which Christ had dried His face, leaving - so the pious believed - an authentic portrait (see below: 944).
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942-52: S Francia: Muslim pirate settlement at Nice; Muslim occupation of Grenoble until 965; Muslim fortresses in Pidmont: Fressineto and Fenestrelle, SW of Turin, until 970 (Lebling 2009; Reinaud 1964). 943: The Balkans: A large Magyar force threatens Thrace; but a treaty is struck, and the Magyars left Byzantium alone for some decades (Curta 2006: xix). Runciman 1963: 108 remarks that, while western Europe was greatly alarmed by the Hungarians, the Byzantines, because better used to invasions, treated them quite calmly. 943-44: 1. The East: Kourkouass army campaigns successfully across upper Mesopotamia (943). The East-Romans took the cities of Amida, which is present-day Diyarbakir on the Upper Tigris; Daras or Dara; and (briefly) Nisibis, modern Nusaybin, on the far eastern border of todays Syria and Turkey: SE of Amida, NW of Mosul. As Runciman remarks, 1963: 147, these towns had never in 300 years seen Christian armies. After acquiring Nisibis in 941/42, the Hamdanids had so severely taxed it that effectively the entire population of the region, the Banu Habib clans, switched sides. They decamped to East Roman territory, taking with them their slaves, partisans, cattle and movable property. The Banu Habib were able to deploy 10,000 or 12,000 horsemen, so this must have represented a population transfer of the order of (say) 60,000 people. They converted to Christianity and received good land and extra livestock from the Romanian (Greek) government. The Banu Habib now became raiders against their former countrymen (Toynbee p. 84 and Shaban p.172, citing Ibn Hawqal of Nisibis). 2. Mesopotamia: The Mandylion relic - Christs towel - was surrendered (944) and brought from Edessa to Constantinople (ODB II: 1282-83). Mandylion means napkin or little mantle-veil-handkerchief. It was a towel believed to bear the miraculous imprint or painting of Christ's face. In 943, the Romanic-Byzantine general John Curcuas laid siege to Arab-ruled Edessa, modern Urfa, W Turkey. To avoid the towns destruction, Archbishop Abramius of Samosata arranged for the Edessans to hand over the Mandylion or Image of Edessa (944). In exchange, the town received the release of 200 captives, perpetual immunity from attack and 12,000 silver crowns. The Image of Edessa was then forcibly removed (944) - despite violent protests from the local (majority) Christian faithful - to Constantinople, to join the Emperor's huge collection of relics in the Pharos Chapel. The entry into New Rome (Constantinople) took the form of a triumphant reception, choreographed in grand style, with a fine sense of dramatic detail. On the evening of the sacred feast day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 15 August 944, the Mandylion arrived at the church of Our Lady at Blachernae (Whittow p.321). The entire court, with the exception of the ageing Emperor Romanus, absent because of illness, was present to admire the blessed relic. 944: 1a. Provence: Sailing from Constantinople via Italy, a Byzantine squadron successfully attacked the Muslim pirate harbour of Fraxinetum from the sea while their Lombard (N Italian) allies attacked from the land (McCormick 2001: 970). 1b. Italo-Frankish alliance: The young prince Romanus II (aged 6) marries Eudocia, born Berta or Bertha (also aged 6), illegitimate daughter of Hugh, the Frankish king of (north) Italy. Hugh was a contender for the title of Western emperor, but it is curious that Constantinople should agree to the young Romanos marrying Hughs daughter by a low-born mistress. Treadgold, 1997: 485, calls the match
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humiliating, implying a misjudgement by the boys grandfather, the senior emperor Romanus I. In any event she died in 949 before the marriage could be consummated. 2. As we have said, the Edessans surrendered the Mandylion or Holy Towel, a miraculous portrait of Jesus, to Byzantium; highpoint of Curcuas prestige. 3. Constantine and Stephen Lekapenos revolt against their father; they deport Romanos I into exile, where he becomes a monk; and he dies [948, aged 78]. Curcuas is replaced as domestic of the Scholae or commanding general of the army. See next. 4. Syria: Sayf al-Dawla defeats the new Domestic, Photeinos Sclerus called Pantherius [Tzimiskes father in law and father of Bardas Skleros], and captures ex-Abbasid Aleppo and Antioch, which Nicephorus Phocas will later describe as the third city of the world (in Leo Diac. 73.12-15; Runciman p.146). Cf 969: Byzantium takes Antioch. The Hamdanids - Sayf and the other sons of the emir of Mosul or Mawsil - will create independent emirates in Mosul and Aleppo. See 953. The Hamdanids sack Samosata - to revenge an earlier surrender to the Byzantines by its inhabitants. 5. Russian-Petcheneg alliance, seeking revenge for 941. But the threat of a further Varangian (Kievan Rus, 'Russian') attack on the East Roman capital was defused by diplomatic action, payment of "tribute" to the Russians and a commercial treaty (945). This led to peace with the Varangians for 25 years. Cf 957. Already some among the Russians had converted to Christianity. 944-959: Revival of Mediterranean trade: Sicilian (Muslim) gold coins (tari) are known to have been used at Amalfi in S Italy from 922. And by 944 a colony of Latin merchants from Amalfi had settled in Constantinople. Amalfi was forced into long distance trade in part because it lacked a productive hinterland. The Roum (Greek/foreign Christian) market recorded as being in Fustat (Cairo) in 959 was probably in fact Amalfitan (Fossier p.175). Cf Venice under 968. Cf Runciman 1963:194: Since 929 the Saracens had no longer been a menace, and [by 936] the Greeks had largely recovered the mastery of the seas [around Italy]. But in travelling from Amalfi to the East, Italian (and Greek) ships had to go through the Straits of Messina whose western side was held by the Muslims of Sicily. It has been claimed that Amalfis population reached 70,000 in about AD 1000 (Wikipedia, 2007, under Amalfi). This is highly unlikely. A more credible figure might be . . . 7,000. THE RETURN OF PROSPERITY Cyril Mango notes that by about 900 the empire was recovering from its earlier nadir. Or, as Browning puts it, p.104, "the ninth century [800s] seems to have been a period of rapid growth ... after a century of and a half of stagnation ", i.e. in 650-800. In about 925 there were 494 bishoprics in the empire, distributed as follows: 371 (75%) in Asia Minor; 18 in the Aegean Islands; 99 in the Balkans including Thrace and Greece; and 16 (4%) in Byzantine south Italy (Browning p.94). The empire's population was about nine million; thus the average bishopric took in about 18,000 people. Some of the fortress-villages and lesser townships that were the seats of the bishoprics would grow into large towns or small cities by about 975. It is important to observe, however, that the new settlements [for example at Corinth and Athens] had none of the monumental character of Late Antiquity ". Thus Cyril Mango, 1980: 72 ff and 81. They were, to the contrary, cramped medieval-style
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towns, much like those in the 'barbarian' West. Compare the remarks of the Muslim traveller Ibn Hawkal, concerning the period around c. 960: Rich cities are few in their [the Byzantines] kingdom and country, despite its situation, size and the length of their rule. This is because most of it [presumably he means Anatolia] consists of mountains, castles [qila, qala, kala], fortresses [husun, khusun], cave dwellings and villages dug out of rock or buried under the earth (quoted in Haldon 1990: 112 n57). Hawkal left Baghdad on his first journey in 943; he visited Armenia in 955 and Sicily in 973. Coinage After an absence from the Balkan interior for over 300 years following the collapse of the Danube frontier before Slav and Avar incursions, monetary circulation starts to pick up again around the time of Romanos [acc. 920]. For instance, excavations in the Belgrade fortress (ancient Singidunum) an area contested by the Bulgarians, Serbs* and Hungarians after 927 - have revealed a total of 67 Byzantine pieces, and Romanos' issues are the first to appear there after the late 6th c. coins of Maurice. Similar results are reflected in the finds around the eastern Serbian town of Pozarevac (ancient Viminacium). -Serbian Unity Congress, Byzantine Coins at http://www.serbianunity.net/culture/history/Byzantine_Coinage/present/Romanos_I .html; accessed 2009. (*) The Serbian prince Chaslav, fl. 943, was an ally of Romanus.
THE NEW ARMY
OF KOURKOUAS AD 944-971
AND
PHOKAS,
For more on this topic, see ORourke 2010. The Infantry Square, Heavy Pikes and Super-Heavy Cavalry John Kourkouas, General of the Army 922-44, introduced new tactics, building upon his experience fighting the Muslims in Mesopotamia. He gave greater importance to lightly armoured foot soldiers. The new style of fighting is described in a manual written after 954 by the general and future emperor Nikephoros Phokas. For the most part, arms and armour remained as they had been in 900, except for the greater importance attached to the use of the mace by Phokas' superheavy cavalry and the use of a heavy pike by the heavy infantry pikemen. The main change was tactical: the defensive infantry square, the three-line cavalry formation, and the offensive "smashing-through" role of the super-heavy cavalry. Three Lines of Cavalry Field armies in the late 10th century sometimes exceeded 40,000 men, of whom about one-third were cavalry, a similar proportion as in Justinians field armies in the 6th century. In an expeditionary army of about 20,000 the various types of troops would be represented as set out below: see several pages on under Soldiers of the Line. As will be seen, missile troops - horse archers, foot archers and slinger-javelinists - numbered 9,800 or nearly half the total, a higher proportion than under Justinian in the 6th century. The basic cavalry unit was the new bandon of 50 men, who formed up five ranks deep. In battle formation 10 banda formed one formation or regiment (parataxis): this created a 100-horse front (500 = 100 x 5). Lancers were placed in the first two and also the back rows; horse-archers made up the 3rd and 4th rows, i.e. 40%
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were bowmen (McGeer, Dragons Teeth p.284; also Toynbee 1973: 313). For a cavalry engagement, the Rhomaioi drew up in a three-line formation: the regiment of cataphracts, introduced c.950, formed a wedge in the centre of the first line, flanked by ordinary cavalry units. The commander stationed himself in the middle of the second or reserve line (pp.281 ff). The third line, a rearguard, was an innovation of the early 10th century. The third line could also be tasked with conducting a flanking movement to surround the enemy. Super-Heavy Cavalry There was just a single unit of up to 500 super-heavy cataphracts* (one parataxis of 10 banda) armed with maces and riding fully-armoured horses: 250 armoured mace-men or sword-men and 150 armoured archers. They fought in a single large blunt wedge or trapezium 12 rows deep. (*) Kataphraktoi. Called iron-clad (Gk pansideros) by Leo Diac. Illustration: http://www.levantia.com.au/ - see under Armour.
Training was rigorous. Phokas and Tzimiskes, and no doubt Kourkouas before them, required their troops to undertake daily drills. Part of the objective was to increase physical fitness and dexterity with the shield (Leo the Deacon: Talbot & Sullivan pp.38-39).
Soldiers of the Line: Numbers, Troop Types and Equipment An ideal army of about 20,000 men would have been made up of the following troop types. Cavalry were outnumbered 2:1 by infantry (McGeer p.202; also Treadgold 1997: 548). CAVALRY: Note that ideally all the cavalry wore some kind of metal-based armour. 3,600: Ordinary cavalry These were lancers with plain, one-piece low-conical iron helmets. The lances or light pikes, Greek: kontos, were used for poking, stabbing and thrusting, not for the couched charge as in later Western armies of the 12th century. The couched charge did not come into use until the period 1100-1150 (see France p.71). Their body armour was a waist-length lorikion or mail corselet and/or a klivanion or klibanion, the iron lamellar corselet or torso cuirass covered with an epilorikon or thick padded surcoat of cotton or coarse silk. At this time shields were of various shapes: round, oval and kite-shaped. Phokas gives the size of (round?) cavalry shields as about 110 cm across: four or five spithamai, i.e. 94-127 cm (McGeer pp.41, 212). 2,400: Mounted archers: 40% of the cavalry (McGeer pp. 68, 213) The smaller cavalry bow could shoot arrows as far as 130 metres, with a killing range of perhaps 80 metres or 260 feet (McGeer p.68 citing Bivar). The archers carried on their belt a single large rounded-box quiver with 40-50 arrows. The arrows were inserted point upwards (opposite to the infantry quiver). Many horse-archers were native Romanics, but under Nicephoros perhaps the large majority of this type in the imperial army were "barbarians", i.e. Patzinak Turks, Magyars and others.
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Up to 500: "True" cataphracts These 500 made up Phokas new-style super-heavy cavalry regiment with fully armoured horses (McGeer p.217). The horse-armour was a full klibadion made of hardened ox-hide platelets covering the whole horse to its knees. The soldier too was covered from head to toe in armour: helmet; several layers of mail to cover the face; full-body lamellar klibadion to the elbows and knees; and full metal split-guards protecting the lower arm and lower legs. Their main weapon was the large mace, Greek bardoukon, sledge-hammer, used for smashing through the centre of the enemy line; but they also carried lance and sword. 300-500: Light skirmishers (Mc Geer p.211). Dawson, citing PM II.3, explains that the prokoursatores were a medium-cavalry arm whose job was to harass small groups of the enemy and pursue fugitives. They could be equipped in a simple klibanion like the horse archer, or they could wear mail. Their standard armament was a sword, mace and round shield. We might call them sword-chasers, as they lacked the lance. Sub-total say 6,000 cavalry (12 banda of 500). If the Tagmata (*) supplied say 3,000 horsemen, then 3,000 would have come from the Themes. (*) There were four cavalry regiments in the Tagmata: the Scholai, Exkoubitores, Vigla and Hikanatoi. John Tzimiskes was to create a fifth, the Athanatoi or Immortals in 970 (Leo Diac. VIII:4; McGeer p.199). Leo the Deacon describes the Athanatoi as sheathed in armour: trans. Talbot & Sullivan p.38. INFANTRY: By no means all the the infantry wore metallic armour. 6-10,000 basic pike infantry There is a monograph on this topic: Byzantine Infantryman: Eastern Roman Empire c.900-1204, by Timothy Dawson & Angus McBride; Osprey Books 2007. According to the manuals, the common infantryman wore quilt armour and a turban-like pseudo-helmet of felt (McGeer pp.203-4; illustrations by McBride in Dawson 2007b). This may be what Leo the Deacon is referring to when he uses kune, a Greek word that otherwise means a cap or helmet of leather (Leo Diac., trans. Talbot and Sullivan 2005: 40). Heath (1979) notes that, although the manuals state that ordinary infantry do not wear iron helmets, the contemporary illustrations do show infantry typically with iron helmets and also lamellar iron or mail body armour - often to the waist but sometimes to the knees (illustration in Dawson, Infantryman 2007b: 21). Conceivably such illustrations represent elite infantry guardsmen in the capital rather then the ordinary foot-soldiers of the Themes. It seems that ordinary troops commonly wore thick (5 cm) padded and quilted cotton, leather, wool and felt body-armour or arming coats (Dawson, Infantryman p. 22). Their footwear was high boots, at least to the calf and preferably higher (ibid, 18). Their shields were sometimes quite large: up 140 cm (4 ft 7 in) high, according to McGeer, Dragons Teeth p.205, i.e. covering from above the shoulder to below the knee. Dawson 2007b: 23 offers the smaller figure of 95 cm (3 ft) as normal. Parani Images p. 125 list the great round infantry shield as having a diameter of 82 cm Their primary weapon was a very long spear or thin pike of about four metres or 13 feet, Greek "kontarion", called doru or spear in Leo the Deacon. They also
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carried belt-hung swords, i.e. not hung on a baldric from the shoulder as was common (McGeer p.206; Dawson 2007: 25). Also Dawson at http://www.levantia.com.au/military/infantry.html; accessed 2009. 4,800 Foot archers About a quarter of the infantry force. No armour. They used heavier bows capable of sending an arrow over 300 metres, with a killing distance of perhaps 200 metres (McGeer pp.68, 207). Nikephoros specifies that his archers are to have a small shield, two bows and two quivers: one of 60 arrows, the other of 40 arrows. As we noted earlier, foot archers stored their arrows point-down in their quivers. 2,400 Light infantry Armed with javelins or slings. Javeliners carried two or three casting spears (akontia, javelins or doration, throwing spear) up to 2.75 m or nine ft long. The Syllog Taktikn says that infantry javelins must be no longer than 2.35 m or 7ft 9in, which is surisingly long; they must have been quite light in their shaft and heads (Dawson 2007b: 24). Their shields were smaller than those of the pike infantry (McGeer p.208). According to Parani, p.126, they were oblong (possibly oval) and 94 cm high. 1,200 Heavy infantry pikemen called Menavlatoi or menavliatoi This type defended the infantry square against cavalry charges (McGeer pp.209, 268). They were armed with thick pikes or heavy poles, used to stab the enemy horses. The pikes were three to four metres or 10-12 ft in length with a long 20inch or 50 cm blade (McGeers figures; Dawson 2007b: 61 says just 2.5 metres long). The infantry square was symmetrical and seven deep, with spearmen in the front ranks, foot-archers behind them and the menavliatoi at the rear (Dawson 2007b: 52, 62). Subtotal 12-16,000 infantry in 12-16 taxiarchies of 1,000: the ideal for Phokas was 12,000 infantry (McGeer p.51; also p.207).
944-959: CONSTANTINE VII Porphyrogenitos or "Purple-born", meaning born to a reigning emperor. The contemporary Arab poet Mutanabbi refers to him as Ibn Lwun, son of Leon [Leo VI]. Age 39 in 944. The grandson of Basil I. Born illegitimate, before his father Leon's (uncanonical) fourth marriage to Zoe Karbonopsina, Constantine had been co-emperor since 913. After 30 years of being ruled by others, Constantine was emperor in his own name. Wife: Helena, daughter of Romanus I Lecapenus. Constantine was a man of letters, who wrote and commissioned many important literary and technical works, both before and after becoming senior emperor. He also re-founded or re-organised the university. i. He replaced many of the officials who had been supporters of the Lekapenoi, but generally followed the course set by Romanos. a. Constantine favoured the family of the Phokas. b. Yet, he continued the policy of seeking to limit the amount of land the great aristocracy so as to protect the peasantry.
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ii. Constantine VII was the most impressive of several "scholar-emperors". a. He encouraged the development of art and literature. b. He personally wrote, or supervised the writing of: -- de Administrando imperio ["DAI"], a book of instructions on foreign policy and diplomacy; -- the Book of Ceremonies (de Ceremoniis), a book providing the details of imperial ceremony; and -- the de Thematibus, a book on the administration of the themes. c. He encouraged and sponsored writing of history, philosophy, and culture in general. d. Much of this cultural activity was a conscious attempt to revive classical models. Nevertheless, most of it had practical purposes as well, especially the glorification of the state and the maintenance of the dynasty. 944/945: 1. The sons of Romanos Lecapenus depose their father (Dec 944). The Phokas family then (Jan 945) deposes the Lekapenos brothers and installs Constantine VII as sole emperor (Treadgold 1997: 486). The elder Phokas (Bardas), aged 65, receives the post of Domestic of the East or generalissimo. His sons were made generals, including the future emperor Nikephoros, who was appointed strategos of the Anatolikon theme. Cf 953-54. A coronation portrait of Constantine, being crowned by Christ, survives in the form of an 8-inch or 20 cm ivory carving (Moscow: Pushkin Museum). 2. Constantine commissioned the scholar-official Joseph Genesius to write a history of the period from the accession of Leo V to the time of Basil I (it was completed in 959). Genesiuss history covers the period 813-14 to 886. 944946: Fatimid governor of Sicily: Ibn 'Attaf al-Azdi. 944-67: Syria: Ali I, called 'Sayf al-Dawla', Hamdanid ruler of Aleppo and northern Syria. For most of this period he also held Antioch, which Nicephorus Phocas would describe as the third city of the world (in Leo Diac. 73.12-15). See 946, 950. We noted earlier that the East-Romans decided (around 945) to disallow Muslim traders to enter the empire except at two points: land-traders had to enter via Trebizond in the north and sea traders had to come to the port of Antaliya on the Meditterranean coast of Asia Minor. This in turn led to (1) a more thorough collection of taxes by the Byzantine authorities, and (2) the decline of the Muslim trade centres in the Cilicia-Syria frontier region. The prosperity of Hamdanid Aleppo and Nisibis also suffered. 945: Arab pirates of Provence: After seizing the Great St. Bernard and other key Alpine passes, the Andalusi forces spread out into the surrounding valleys. They captured Grenoble* and the lush valley of the Graisivaudun to the NE of Grenoble in about 945 (until 965). (*) Lyons, Mt Blanc and Grenoble form the tips of an equilateral triangle. 945-67: Lower Mesopotamia: Ahmad b. Buya, first Buyid or Buwayid ruler of Iraq. Ethnic Persian Shiites. Ahmad took charge of the administration of the Caliphate by taking the position of amir al-umara, amir of amirs or commander in chief. The (Sunni) Caliph AlMustakfi also gave him the honorific title of "Mu'izz al-Daula", honourer of the dynasty or realm. 946: Emissaries of Sayf ad-Dawlah of Aleppo and the Emir of Tarsus visit Constantinople (May 946) to swap prisoners and make peace. The emperor
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receives them in person. The Muslims recovered 2,482 men and women but the Byzantines held a further 230. These were ransomed with money (Toynbee 1973: 393). 946-56: fl. the Muslim writer al-Masudi. He was in Damascus in 946 when the Byzantine imperial secretary and ambassador, the monk John Mysticus*, arrived at the court of Muhammad b. Tugh al-Ikshid, the ruler of Syria and Egypt. The purpose was to negotiate a prisoner exchange. John had been chosen as envoy in part because of his learning, and he impressed Masudi by talking about the Greek and Roman classical past and philosophy. In 956 Masudi wrote his Tanbih, which included the most intelligent discussion up to that time of the Rhomaioi empire and of Constantinople in particular. He recognises that in the last 50 years or so the military pendulum has swung in favour of the Byzantines, the Muslims now being the slightly weaker side, on both land and sea (Shboul 1979, chap 6). (*) Not a name but rather a dignity awarded to the imperial secretary. From 946/947: The Abbasid caliphs ceased to exercise independent political power. In Baghdad, the Buyids seized control under the title Amir al-Umara or 'Supreme Commander' and the first Shi'ite state was established, or rather: the first in the Middle East. Elsewhere various local amirs or generals now became dominant, eg in the Hamdanid Emirates at Mosul or Mawsil, in what is now northern Iraq, and Aleppo (also both Shiite). Cf 960. Gutas p.152 remarks that under the Buyids the interest in translations and the translated sciences (derived from the ancient Greeks) probably exceeded that during Abbasid times. The Most Noble Emir The style of address prescribed in De Administrando Imperio (DAI) reads thus: To the First Counsellor (protosymboulon) of the Emir of the Faithful (Amermoumnes):* a four-solidus gold bull. To the most magnificent (megaloprepestatos) and most noble (eugenestatos) and distinguished (peribleptos) [Name] First Counsellor and Guide of the Agarenes [ = Muslims], from [Name] and [Name] faithful Autocrats, Augusti (autokratores augoustoi) and Great Emperors (basileis) of the Romans. [Name] and [Name] whose faith is in Christ the Lord, to the most magnificent, most noble and distinguished [Name] First Counsellor and Guide of the Agarenes." (*) The Arabic title for the caliph: Amir al-Mu'minin, commander of the faithful. 947 (or 945?): Imperial embassy sent to the court of the Spanish Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III. See 948. Al Maqqari says that when the Byzantine Emperors legates came to Cordoba in 334/945, the caliph went from the az-Zahra palace to the Cordoban palace to meet them. c.947: [issued sometime between 945 and 959] A novel or decree by Constantine sets the value of military land grants. For thematic cavalry, the land is to be worth 288 nomismata or four pounds of gold; and for marines, 144 nomismata - two pounds of gold (Heath, p.5; McGeer p.200). Constantine VII in his law of March 947 recommended that thematic cavalry generally and marines in the Cibyrrhaeot, Aegean, and Samos themes have property assessed at 288 and 144 nomismata respectively (although rates of 360 and 216 nomismata were soon after recommended; cf. De Caerim. 695). Thus the
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land of a stratiotes (thematic cavalryman) corresponded roughly to two zeugaria, the area that could be cultivated properly with two manned pairs of oxen. If a full-revenue soldier had an average property worth 288 nomismata, one can postulate that a poor one, contributing half that amount, would have, as an average, half the above property and be supported by one zeugarion. Oikonomides says that it is hard to imagine a cavalry soldier poorer than that, as we know that those who became completely destitute, were removed from the regular cavalry and became irregulars ('rustlers', apelatai) or were assigned to garrisons as footsoldier (citing Lemerles Agrarian History, 135). Oikonomides, Social Structure of the Byzantine Countryside, at (2009) www.byzsym.org/index.php/bz/article/viewPDFInterstitial/808/705, Many, probably most, peasants owned property assessed far below that of theme soldiers. In the Novel of 947, Constantine VII exempted poorer peasants from repaying the purchase price of their land if their means was below 50 nomismata, i.e. less than 17.5% of the minimum property qualification of a thematic cavalryman. 947: 1. Byzantine Durres (modern Albania): The Dalmatian communes maintained squadrons of warships to protect traffic at sea. The squadron based at the Byzantine port of Durres (Dyrrhachium) in 947 was made up of seven chelandia (combat-transporter galleys). Praga, Dalmatia p. 66. 2a. Italy: Anno 947. Introierunt Ungari in Italiam, et perrexerunt usque Hydruntum (Lupus): The Hungarians [Magyars] arrive in Italy and proceed all the way to Otranto. This took them in turn through the (Frankish) kingdom of (north) Italy, the papal state, the principality of Capua-Benevento and the Byzantine province of Apulia (Longobardia). The leader of the raid was Taksony, son of the Grand Prince Zoltan. 2b. Italy: Lupus also mentions the Greek commander Platypodus or Platopodius besieging Cupersanum [modern Conversano near Bari] in 947 (Lupus, cited by A N Rambaud, Empire Grec au Dixieme Siecle Paris, 1870: 448). The text reads: Et Platopidi [sic] sedit in Civitate Cupersani, et fuit eo anno bonus introitus per omnem terram. - And Platypodos encamps at (settles in) Conversano, and from that same year (it) has been (was) well invaded across the whole region ( terram). Presumably the town had rebelled against Greek rule 947-86: Abbott Alignerus, Benedictine monk in Italy. He rebuilt the abbey of Monte Cassino. From 948: The Levant: The Hamdanids of Aleppo launch a series of military campaigns, vainly trying to re-establish the dominance of Muslims in the borderlands of Cilicia-Syria-Mesopotamia. See 950. Some local Byzantines magnates supported the Aleppine Hamdanids, no doubt because they could see that this would re-establish trade and prosperity and their own influence. On the other hand, the imperial authorities in Constantinople were better disposed towards the other Hamdanids at Mosul, presumably seeking to keep them from allying with Aleppo (cf Shaban p.172). 948/49: (Or 946-47): Ambassadors from Umayyad Andalusia visit Constantinople. Then in 949 a Byzantine embassy went the other way (Fletcher, Moorish Spain, p.69). See 949. c.948/952: The famous text On the Administration of the Empire: Latin abbreviation DAI: De Admin. Imper., written for, or by, Constantine. Cf 949 (Crete). 948-53: Revolt in Muslim Palermo: Hasan b. Ali al-Kalbi, is sent as the first
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 of a line of 'Kalbid' governors of Muslim Sicily. They will become semiindependent of Ifriqiya.
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948-56 or 57: Syria: It was in Sayf ad-Dawlah's honour that the eminent Arabic poet alMutanabbi* (aged 30 in 945; d. 965), he wrote 22 major panegyrics during his stay at the Hamdanid court in Aleppo between AH 337 / AD 948 and 345 / AD 956. He is suitably contemptuous of the Byzantine commander, Bardas Phocas (El Cheikh 2004: 167). See 950, 953. For some he is the greatest of the Arab poets, certainly the greatest of the Abbasid period. (*) A sobriquet meaning Would-be Prophet. I am he, whom the blind read his literature And his words where heard by the deaf. The horse and the night and the desert know me And the sword and the spear, the scroll and the pen. Or: "The desert knows me well, the night and the mounted men, the battle and the sword, the paper and the pen".
Effects of the Arab control of the Cyclades-Crete sector of the southern Aegean The ambassador of Leo VI, d. 912, en route for Muslim Crete stopped at Ios and Paros in the Cyclades: dead-centre within the triangle Smyrna-Crete-Athens; but in 960 Nikephoros Phocas and his war-fleet would find no pilot to guide them south to Crete itself: the route had been forgotten during the course of the 900s (after 912).* Avramea, 2002, citing Malamut, Les Iles, 545. Navigation in the Aegean during the period of Arab rule in Crete is discussed in V. Christides, The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca. 824): A Turning Point in the Struggle between Byzantium and Islam, Athens, 1984, 15772. (*) Crete of course lies directly south of the central Cyclades, and to that extent could be reached without fine navigational work. Perhaps what was meant was that no Greek knew any longer the precise route to a suitable landing-point on the wide northern coast of Crete. Assimilation of the Slavs The assimilation of barbarian enclaves, writes Mango, was a very slow process. In the Peloponnese the presence of pagan Slavs a short distance south of Sparta is attested in the latter part of the tenth century, that is: nearly 200 years after the first attempts to bring about their conversion. Equally telling is the case of the Slavs in Bithynia. We have seen that these were transplanted in very considerable numbers at the end of the seventh century and towards the middle of the eighth. Some 200 years later, the Byzantine armament assembled in an effort to conquer Crete in 949 included a contingent of 'Slavonians who are established in Opsikion' (this being the administrative name of a part of Bithynia [NW Asia Minor]), placed under their own commanders. Clearly, these Slavonians still formed a distinct group. Mango 1980, chap 1. One imagines the Bithynian Slavs as Christians and bilingual in Slavic and Greek, their distinctiveness being their Slavic speech. 949: 1. Large expedition to conquer Crete; it fails. It was led by the patrikios Constantine Gongyles, an inexperienced eunuch civilian; he had hitherto held the post of Servant of the Bedchamber.
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Various trebuchets (manganika) were shipped across. The De cerimoniis, which provides details of the provisioning of expedition, indicates that block-and-tackle equipment (troclia, trochilia) was required. But it is uncertain whether the blockand-tackle equipment was used for the assembly of the machines or for the hauling down of the throwing arm to prepare the artillery for launch. Probably the former, as trebuchets of his period seem to have been traction powered, i.e. pulled down by hand using ropes, rather than set by a counter-weight arm (Chevedden 2000). The Expedition to Crete, 949 Major ships in the expedition numbered up to 150; that would have represented most but not all of the whole navy. Treadgold, Army p.190, offers the following figures: 6,268 troops and 38,640 rowers, making a grand total of 44,908 men (sic!). In his later work, however, Treadgold says just 4,100 troops went from the themes and the Tagmata (State, p.489). Haldon, in Byzantium at War 1997, suggests there were just over 10,000 [fighting men, i.e. non-oarsmen], although the complete tally of soldiers for the 949 expedition is not given: citing Constantines De Cer., 651.14-656.18; 664.7669.14. Cf below: Whittrow offers 10,097 troops. Among the equipment Gongyles took were manganika, i.e. large catapults or trebuchets: Const. De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae, ed. J. J. Reiske, CSHB, 2 vols. (Bonn, 182930), 1:670: Constantine VII's "Ceremony Book". Gongyles neglected to construct a secure camp and to post sentinels to warn of enemy attacks, with the result that the Arabs bided their time before launching a sudden assault. They overran the Byzantine camp and easily destroyed the expedition. McGeer p.359 calls this the most glaring waste of an army. The invasion army included some elements of four of the cavalry Tagmata: 493 men from the Scholarii, 869 Vigla or Bigla: the Watch, 700 Excubitores and 456 Ikanatoi, sub-total 2,518. There was also one mercenary or allied battalion of Rus or Varangians with 629 men or 600 Russians in nine boats [sic]: 584 warriors and with them 45 others, boys and servants, i.e. 70 per vessel. This was the standard complement of marines on a large dromon. Thus Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Cerem., II, 45; Heath 1979: 13. Counting only fighting men, this gives us a subtotal of 3,102. So, using Treadgolds figures, the breakdown would be: 2,518 men (all cavalry) from the tagmata, 1,582 from the themes (perhaps all infantry) [subtotal 4,100] and 584 Russians as extra: total 4,684. To reach his total of 6,268 troops, we have to add 1,584 marines. Cf Whottows figures, below: he says 5,400 land troops and 4,697 marines. Compare also Constantines statement (Pryor & Jeffreys p.557): The dromon should have 300 men; of these 230 men of the ship [should be] oarsmen and marines, and the other 70 men marines [?temporary marines] from the cavalry themata [sic] and the barbarians. This seems to imply, first, that at least some of the rowers were also fighters. This is attested too in other sources. If we allocate Treadgolds 4,100 Tagmatic and thematic troops in lots of 70, then we have enough to man only about 59 ships. Adding the nine boats each with about 65-70 Russian soldiers, we have a total of just 68 vessels, which seems too few. But we must allow for horse-transport-ships. As noted, the expedition included 2,518 Tagmata soldiers, all of whom appear to be cavalry (the number of thematic cavalrymen is unknown). At 12 horses per vessel, 210 horse-transports would have been required for 2,518 horses. This seems too many. So one would guess that many of the cavalry went without horses, either expecting to obtain their mounts locally, after they arrived on Crete, or to fight as dismounted cavalry. The De Cer. of Constantine says that the number of arrows provided was 200,000. At one quiver (40 arrows) per man, that would be enough for 5,000 men. Or better, if we allow two quivers-worth: 2,500 archers. Let us imagine that
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there were 1,000 horse-archers and 1,500 foot-archers (total archers 2,500). Horse-archers tended to make up 40% of the cavalry, so that gives us 3,750 cavalry in all. Let us further imagine there are twice as many non-archers as archers among the infantry: that gives us 4,500 foot-soldiers. Notionally possible total: 8,250 fighting men (soldiers, marines and oarsmen-marines). Let us use this figure of 8,250. An educated guess, although it is purely a guess, might be as follows: 2,518 elite cavalry Tagmata: say 400 horse-archers and 2,118 lancers. 1,232 Thematic cavalry: say 600 horse-archers and 632 lancers. ----3,750 cavalry: 584 1,500 2,416 ---4,500 Rus axemen. Byzantine marines and/or foot-archers from the themes. Byzantine marines and/or spear-infantry and javelinists from the themes. infantry
TOTAL: 8,250 Mark Whittow, 1996: 189, reads the sources thus: Tagmata: 1000: Armenians from the eastern tagmata 869: Scholai in the west 700: Excubitors 456: Hikanatoi Thematic troops 950: Thrakesion Theme 705: Charpezikion Theme [upper Euphrates] 600: Armenians from the Thrakesion 120: Slavs from the Opsikion subtotal 5,400 Marines and other ship-based troops: 3,000: Mardates 700: prisoners 629: Russians [Varangians] (infantry) 368: Toulmatzoi (Dalmatian archers)
GRAND TOTAL:
10,097.
Applying 150 as the number of major ships, we have 67 fighters per ship. This is close enough to the known complement of 70 marines per large dromon. 2. The East: The East-Romans capture Theodosiopolis in western Armenia modern Erzerum in eastern Turkey, halfway between Trebizond and Manzikert. It was for long a Muslim outpost surrounded by Rhomaike and Armenian territory; it is now incorporated in the empire. A new theme of Theodosiopolis was created. Holmes 2005: 314 notes that the first signs of commanders with broader authority than that of a mere strategos begin to emerge in 949 when the victorious commander, Theophilos Kourkouas, John Kourkouass brother and granduncle of the future emperor John Tzimiskes, is described as monostrategos [sole or senior
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commander] of Chaldia. Towards the end of the century, after 970, we will also meet the titles doux (duke) and katepan, lit. the over-all, foremost, i.e. supreme regional commander. 3a. Automata with organ music etc: Gold figures of birds that moved and sang in a tree of gilded bronze: Constantine grandly receives ambassadors from Umayyad Spain in the Magnaura hall of the Great Palace - as described by Liutprand, legate of a German-Italian prince. See next and under 949-50. 3b. Latins vs Greeks: First diplomatic mission to Constantinople on behalf of the N Italian king by the Latin cleric Luitprand: jewelled organs; a mechanical throne; and a tree of gold with singing metal birds . . . Luitprand, aged about 27, was deacon of the cathedral of Pavia, and stood in high favour with Berenger II of Ivrea and his consort, Willa. Berenger made him chancellor, and in 949 sent him as ambassador to the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. On this first embassy to Constantinople in 949, as described in the sixth book of his Antapodosis, Luitprand was charmed by everything he saw and had nothing but praise for his Greek hosts. Golden robots: Before the emperor's [Constantine's] seat stood a tree, made of bronze gilded over, whose branches were filled with birds, also made of gilded bronze, which uttered different cries, each according to its varying species. The throne itself was so marvellously fashioned that at one moment it seemed a low structure, and at another it rose high into the air. It was of immense size and was guarded by lions, made either of bronze or of wood covered with gold, who beat the ground with their tails and gave a dreadful roar with open mouth and quivering tongue. Leaning upon the shoulders of two eunuchs I was brought into the emperor's presence. At my approach the lions began to roar and the birds to cry out. . . . but I was neither terrified nor surprised, for I had previously made enquiry about all these things from people who were well acquainted with them . . .. Liutprand, Antapodosis. - As reproduced in Sources in Western Civilization: The Early Middle Ages, 500-1000, trans. Frederick Adam Wright, ed. Robert Brentano. New York: The Free Press, 1964, 286-288. 4. Romanic/Byzantine embassy to Crdoba, as described by al-Maqqari. At the request of the Spanish caliph, the emperor sent a text of Dioscorides, the ancient pharmacologist. This illustrates the intellectual vitality of 10th century Cordoba. Although Dioscorides had already been translated into Arabic in the East, evidently the translation had not reached al-Andalus, so a bilingual Greek-Arabic scholar had to be found to expound on the work (Fletcher 2003: 59). Crdoba of the Umayyads The Arab traveller Ibn Hawkal or Hawqal visits al-Andalus, Muslim Spain. He noted the wide use of gold coinage, and irrigation. From other sources we know that Malaga exported figs as far as Baghdad. Ibn Hawkal says Corboba was half the size of Baghdad. The latter, at over 200,000, was probably the world's largest city west of India. Thus Cordoba probably had some 100,000 people - putting it on a level with Constantinople [but see below], Muslim Palermo and Cairo. - Thus Richard Fletcher in The Quest for El Cid, London: Hutchinson, 1989. For a skeptical view, see Ann Christys, Christians in Al-Andalus, 711-1000, Routledge 2002 p.15. Constantinople had perhaps 200,000 in 950 (Treadgold 1997: 572, citing Charanis). For Baghdad, a conservative estimate is 250,000 to 500,000 (Lassner, cited in Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the renaissance of
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Islam:the cultural revival during the Buyid age Brill, 1992, p.47). Others argue that Cordoba surpassed the one million mark in the later 900s. This figure may seem incredible but it is deduced from a census allegedly taken towards the end of the 10th century, according to which the city had 1,600 mosques, 213,077 houses occupied by the lower and middle classes, another 60,300 inhabited by the higher bureaucracy and the aristocracy, and 80,455 stores. Manuel Ocaa Jimnez, Crdoba musulmana, in: Juan Bernier Luque et al., eds. Crdoba: colonia romana, corte de los califas, luz de occidente. Madrid: Editorial Everest, 1975. The original figures are those of al-Maqqari, d. 1632. Using the same data, Tor Eigeland has proposed that Cordoba had perhaps 500,000 people around 950: The Golden Caliphate, Aramco World, online at: www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197605/the.golden.caliphate; accessed 2008. If the city had (Eigelands figure) 700 mosques and some 900 public baths, this figure may be correct. But equally, if we allow only 100 people per mosque or bath, we obtain only about 80,000 people . . . or if 1,600 mosques 160,000. Thus the estimate by L T Balbas, writing in Al-Andalus 21 (1956) 33952, seems more likely: that Cordoba had 24,500 Muslim males around AD 975 (cited by D. Fairchild Ruggles, 2003, Gardens, landscape, and vision in the palaces of Islamic Spain p.226). One may perhaps multiply by four to get the total Muslim population (98,000) and add half as much again for the non-Muslim population overall total 147,000. 949-50: 1. fl. Symeon Magister, historian, author of a chronicle dealing with SlavonicByzantine relations. 2. The Magyar leader Bulscu is baptised in Constantinople (Obolensky, Byz & the Slavs p.72). See 955. 3. Dalmatia: The Venetians send a fleet against the pagan Slav pirates of Pagania (Narentines). Doge Pietro III Candiano led a fleet of 33 galleys against them in 948/49, attacking twice; in two waves. For a brief period the Narentines had to pay tribute money to Venice, 4. Syria: The Arab poet al-Mutanabbi joins the court of Sayf al-Dawlah. Cf 953. 950: 1. Asia Minor: 30,000 Muslim troops: Syrians and Cilicians under Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo invade the Charsianum theme east of Ankara. Sayf defeats the domestic Bardas Phocas in the eastern Armeniac. But as Sayf returns, apparently successful, Leo Phocas ambushes and defeats his force near Germanicia; Sayf barely escapes with his life (Treadgold, State p.489). Ambushes were a standard tactic of the East-Romans when outnumbered; Leo the Deacon mentions this in several places (trans. Talbot & Sullivan p.41). 2. Constantinople: Liutprand, the ambassador for the de facto King of N Italy, Berengar II, attended the distribution of the roga or salaries of officials and military men on Palm Sunday in 950. Liutprand tells us that their pay consisted of gold pieces and skaramangia (silk cloth), and that the most senior officials collected such large sums that they found them almost too heavy to carry. The domestikos of the scholae and the droungarios of the ploimon - the commanders, that is, of the army and the fleet - had to be helped* to drag away the bags containing their salaries (40 litrai or Roman pounds in each case:
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Treadgold, Army p.135, citing Luitprands Antapodosis).
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(*) One litra (plural litrai) was 72 nomismata. So 40 = 2,880 coins. In grams: 2,880 x 4.48 = 12,902 grams or 12.9 kg: 28 modern-day poundsweight. That is only the weight of a large turkey or a two or three years old child. One imagines it was simply the generals servant who carried away his masters bag . . . Cf DAI: At the coronation of an emperor: All arrive with robes, and the whole senate and the officers of the Schools [skholai] and the other regiments [the Tagmata] change and assume in advance the insignia for escorting the sovereigns . . . and the dignitaries enter, prostrating themselves and kissing both his [the emperors] knees. Entrance one: the magisters; entrance two: the patricians and generals; third entrance: the first sword bearers (protospatharioi); fourth entrance: [the commanders] of the army, of the Exkubitores, of the Hikanatoi and of the Noumeroi ; the senatorial sword bearers (spatharioi) and consuls (hypatoi ); fifth: the sword bearers (spatharioi); sixth: stratores; seventh: counts of the Schools . . . Some of these ranks were high dignitaries or court titles, e.g. protospatharios, while others were military offices, e.g. counts of the Schools, who commanded 200 men in the central regiment of that name, equivalent to our army Captain or Major (Treadgold, Army p.103). 3. Italy: Lupus mentions the Greeks besieging and taking Ascoli in 947/950: Anno 950. obsederunt Graeci Asculum, et obtinuerunt : online (2009) at http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/protospatarius.shtml; also cited by Rambaud 1870: 448. This was presumably part of the perennial struggle with the Lombards of Benevento. 4. Muslim Sicilians under Hasan invade the mainland of Italy (Ahmad p.30). c. 950: 1. Education remained still underdeveloped compared to AD 450 or AD 1450. "The total number of boys and young men receiving grammatical training at Constantinople - hence in the whole Empire - was [wait for it] no more than 200300" (Mango 1980: 147, citing Lemerle). 2. fl. John Kyriotes Geometres, poet, courtier (protospatharios) and later archbishop of Melitene. - One of the most sympathetic of Byzantine poets, according to Dudley & Lang, p.196. Geometres can be considered a forerunner of the 11th century prerenaissance, a period during which authors would again, - after centuries of merely collecting and preserving ancient traditions that would otherwise have been lost, - express their own experiences in their works. By 950: 1. Constantinople: By the mid-tenth century, the first of the Italian trading colonies had appearedthat of the Amalfitans, followed by the Venetians, the Pisans, and the Genoeseand the Germans. These groups were restricted to the Golden Horn, the northern shore of the city, while Jews were assigned to Pera, on the other side of the Horn, perhaps from 1044. 2. Silk production had spread to Thessalonica, Thebes, Corinth, Sparta and some other towns. The production of silk, a luxury good designed mainly for export, seems to have previously been confined to the capital. Gold flowed from all over Europe to the treasuries of Constantinople, as payment for the export of luxury manufactured goods (Browning pp.105, 110; Fossier p.222). Cf 967-68 and 1147.
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950-57: Period in which the poet-warrior al-Mutanabbi, d. 965, went on raids with Sayf against the Byzantines. Of his 300 poems, some 20 deal with the wars between Aleppo and Constantinople (ODB ii:1425). See 953. 951: Calabria: Saracen (Sicilian) victory over the Byzantines in southern Italy. See 955. As related by Rodriquez, a fleet under the command of Macroioannes, carrying an army led by the patrikios Malacheno or Malakenos, disembarked at Otranto in 951 to join forces with the local troops of Apulia and Calabria under the strategos Pascal (Paschalios). Malakenos was the new appointment as strategos of Longobardia while Pascal was strategos of Calabria. They marched to Calabria. Later (7 or 8 May 952) near Gerace: Malachianus [Malakenos*] fecit proelium in Calabria cum Sarracenis, et cecidit (Lupus): Malachianus makes battle with the Saracens and he is slain (falls). (*) Or Malaceno. Variously rendered Melkianos, Melgihanus and Malasenos. Correctly: Melissenus. Emir Hassan [Hasan b. Ali al-Kalbi], after receiving reinforcements of 7,000 cavalry and 3,500 infantry from Africa, next laid siege to Rhegium or Reggio [Arabic Rayyu] in July. The town soon surrendered and its inhabitants fled to the mountains (Metcalfe 2009: 53). Proceeding into the toe of the peninsula, Hasan then attacked the fortresstown of Gerace [Ar. Jaraja], NE of Reggio. The news of the imminent arrival of a Rhomaioi army encouraged the defenders, and the emir agreed to a truce with the townsmen in exchange for the collection of a tribute. Hasan next led to his army in search of the supposedly approaching enemy. In this advance his force swept aside the weak resistance of various imperial outposts; the Muslims crossed the Crati River in northern Calabria without opposition and laid siege to Cassano Cassano allo Ionio, in N Calabria, inland from the western side of the Gulf of Taranto, - where they again received tribute. After confirming that the rival army was not in fact approaching, Hasan returned to Messina and went into winter quarters. See 952. Fortified Hilltop Settlements During the 10th century, [small] castles were built everywhere in southern Italy, just as in the Po plain; in the south, however (including the papal territories and the march of Spoleto), their social effect was in many areas more considerable than in the north, because all the scattered population living in the territory of a castle tended to move, or be moved, inside its walls. This process, called in Italian incastellamento, created a network of fortified hilltop settlements that often still survive. It could be directed and controlled by the state, as in the Byzantine lands, but in Lombard areas it was effected by private landowners, which greatly extended their local control. Italy (2006): In Encyclopdia Britannica. Retrieved May 28, 2006, from Encyclopdia Britannica Premium Service: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27634. Emphasis added. After about 950 the Byzantines stopped trying to distinguish between so-called cities (small towns) and fortified villages: the term kastron begin to be used indifferently for either in the Greek sources for Italy. By about 1050 virtually the whole of Italy south of Tuscany seems to have been dominated by castelli. This was not a response to Arab raids, except perhaps in Calabria [cf 952 below]. The Saracens were by now unimportant. Rather, at least in the Lombard or Romancespeaking regions, it represented, says Wickham, a retreat of the state. In other words, villages and local magnates took defencemainly against other magnates into their own hands (Wickham pp.105, 149). G A Loud considers incastellamento one of the chief reasons for the decline in
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princely influence in Benevento and Capua, especially the former, during the late tenth century. And Barbara Kreutz notes that the encastellation of the monastic estates, which dominated south Italian politics, contributed to the constant confiscation and invasion of monastic estates as lay barons sought to increase their power against their local foes during the war-filled 11th and 12th centuries. The arrival of the Normans, adept castle-builders, in the early 11th century only accelerated (i.e. it did not begin) the tendency toward fortification of almost every hilltop. G A Loud in The American Historical Review, vol. 98, No. 2. (Apr., 1993), pp 480-481; and B M Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. 952: Calabria: The Arabs returned, led by al-Hasan al-Kalbi, and their army met the forces of Malakinos or Malaceno and Pascual near Gerace on 7 May. Malaceno was killed and Pascual only just escaped. Gerace held out but Petracucca [a village near Brancaleone*] was taken and plundered. In the truce signed later that year, Constantinople was forced to accept the building of a mosque at Reggio until 956. Kreutz p. 101; Halm & Bonner, Empire of the Mahdi p.335; and Sicilia bizantina-La Amenaza Arabe [in Italian: Byzantine Sicily, the Arab Threat]: online (2009) at www.scribd.com/doc/6816299/sicilia-bizantinala-amenaza-arabe. (*) On the eastern under-toe of Calabria. 952-57: Upper Mesopotamia: In 952 and 953 the forces of Saif-ad-Daulah [Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo] defeated the Greeks (Byzantines) not far from Mar'ash and took the son of the Domestic prisoner. In 954 (see there) Saif-ad-Daulah gained a fresh victory over the Domestic Bardas Phocas near Hadath (Adata), and in 956 the future Emperor John Tzimisces was defeated by him in the province of the Upper Euphrates near the fortress of Tall-Batriq. Only in 957 did success turn to the side of the Greeks. In this year Hadath surrendered to them. Bury, Camb. Med. Hist. IV, 1923: 143. 952-977: r. the Armenian king Ashot III. He will transfer his capital to Ani, located now on todays Turkish-Armenia border, and begin to develop it as one of the architectural gems of Christendom. (There were other princes in Armenia who called themselves kings.) Cf 970. Arabic numerals: The Muslim mathematician Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Uqlidisi ("the Euclidian") altered, to suit the use of ink and paper, the Indian scheme of calculation in his mathematical treatise, composed at Damascus in 952-953. 953: 1. Egypt: A minor exchange of prisoners took place at Alexandria: Makrizi says the Muslims recovered 60 people from the Byzantines (Toynbee 1973: 393). Cf 954. 2. N Syria: Sayfite" war on the eastern front: Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo, aged 37, campaigns successfully against the East-Romans. Wounded at the battle of Marash, Bardas Phocas withdraws, leaving his son Constantine in Sayfs hands. See 954. In one battle, a corps of elite Daylami or North Iranian highlanders infantry axemen on the Muslim side fought to the death against the East-Romans own infantry elite, a regiment of Armenians. 954: 1. Syria: An East Roman embassy goes to Sayf to negotiate a prisoner exchange.
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2. Northern Syria: The Romanics under Bardas Phocas are routed by Sayf at Hadat (Adata). The great Arab poet Mutanabbi wrote a panegyric to Sayf for this victory. Phocas senior was dismissed; his son Nikephoros Phokas, the future emperor, replaces him as general of the army (955). The new Byzantine kataphraktoi, or super-heavy cavalry with fully-armoured horses, are recorded for the first time at Hadat (McGeer, p.313). And among the auxiliary troops there were some Rus (Varangians). At this time also, detachments from the imperial Tagmata were shifted to the frontiers (McGeer, p.201). Or in c. 959? Ibn al-Athir in his al-Kamil, an Arab source, mentions the the Rus participating in Rhomaioi military operations for the first time in the year AH 343 (AD 954-55), when "al-Dumustaq", meaning the domestic Bardas Phocas, led a punitive campaign against the Hamdanid amir of Aleppo, Saif al-Dawla. Ibn al-Athir enumerates the various groups who served the Byzantine emperor as mercenaries in the resulting battle of Hadath (Adata). Al-Mutanabbi on the battle of Hadath: The enemy [Byzantines] came at you [Sayf], hauling their weapons as if they travelled on legless horses.- When their ranks caught the light, their swords remained unseen, since their shirts and turbans [helmets] were also made from steel. 955: 1. Emperor Constantine aged 50. 2. The West: Marianus Argyrus*, formerly komes (count) of the imperial stables, now the new strategos of Bari (955-59), leads a large expedition to Italy from Constantinople (Theophanes Continuatus; Runciman p.193). The news of his arrival at Otranto with detachments from the Thrakesioi theme [or Thrace] and Macedonia caused the Arabs to decamp from Reggio. Marinanos chose to move (956) into Campania against the Lombard-Italian princes and Naples, to recall them to their ancient Byzantine allegiance. See more under 956. Theophanes Continuatus names "Marianus patricius Argyrus", recording that he led an army for Emperor Konstantinos VII to Naples "cum Romano", i.e. with his brother Romanus Argyrus. Later Marianus defeated the Arabs at sea and struck (957) a peace treaty with the Kalbid emir of Sicily, Ahmad I. (*) Cf J J Hofmanns Lexicon Universale (1698): Marianus Patricius, seu Marianus Anthypatus Imperialis Patricius et Stratigos, h. e. Dux Calabriae ac Longobardiae. Marianos the patrikios, or Marianus the imperial proconsul, patrikios and strategos: doux of Calabria and Longobardia. 3. Naval war between Umayyad Spain and Fatimid North Africa. 955-56: Further defeats in the East. And midpoint in the the long reign of Ali I, called 'Sayf al-Dawla', emir of Aleppo and the leading military opponent of Byzantium in the East. 955-972: The Germans defeat (955) the pagan Magyars at Lechfeld in Bavaria: S of Augsburg, NW of Munich; and from 985, along with the Byzantines, proceeded to Christianise Hungary.* Austria (Ost-reich, the 'eastern march') is re-colonised thereafter by the Germans. Cf 958, 962. It is disputed whether Lechfeld simply coincided with the end of raiding by the Hungarians or brought it about. The contemporary sources quote massive numbers at the battle of Lechfeld that are not credible. Modern writers prefer more modest figures.
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Cowley p.257 has just 3,000 Germans beating a mere 5,000 Magyars at Lechfeld in 955. But there were eight German "legions" involved; and given that the full complement of each legion was 1,000, the total German force was probably larger than that. Both sides apparently were supported by Slavic auxiliaries. The leaders Bulcs and Lel or Lehel were captured and executed in Regensburg. (*) The Conversion of the Magyars: The ruling prince of Hungary, Geza, was still a pagan when he became ruler, but the alliance concluded between the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium in 972 will force him to convert to Christianity in order to secure a lasting peace for Hungary. He approached the German Emperor Otto I, who ordained a Benedictine monk, Bruno of St Gallen, as bishop and sent him to Hungary to baptise Gza (this occurred in 985 according to some sources). Departing from Ingelheim on the Rhine, Bruno went with German and Slovenian missionaries to preach to the Hungarians. Gza invited other missionaries to Hungary, mostly German and Czech priests. This may indicate that he wanted to introduce Western Christianity, but he also welcomed Greek or Rhomaike missionaries in his court. However, although Gza was mainly accepted as a Christian ruler it is doubtful that he was a Christian at heart. Besides the worship of the Christian God, he gave richly to the idols as well. His son Stephen was the first definite Christian ruler. Prince Stephen married the deeply religious Gizella, daughter of Henry, Prince of Bavaria, in AD 996. Illustration: GO HERE for drawings of East-Roman generals, including Tzimiskes, mounted on horses, by H. J. Vinkhuijzen (1843-1910): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/image:johannes_tsimisces_vinkhuijzen.jpg. By name: Nicolas Alonsianos [sic: Alousianos?], Johannes (John) Tsimisces, Leon Ballantes [Leo Balantes], and Michael Bourtzes [cf 976]. Vinkhuijzen has Tzimiskes wearing what appears to be lamellar armour while two of his companions wear what seems to be scale armour. Tzimiskess sword looks too short for a spathion but it is (correctly) carried on a baldric. All are bearded except for Leon Ballantes; presumably he is a eunuch he helped Tzimiskes to murder Phocas in 969 (Leo Diac. V.7); and was probably the protovestiary [deputy chamberlain], mentioned in Cedrenus and Zonaras, who led Basil IIs forces against the rebel Bardas Sclerus. Commanders in Italy, from J J Hofmanns Lexicon Universale (1698): Melissenus seu Malachianus, AD 955. Marianus [Argyros] Patricius, seu Marianus Anthypatus Imperialis Patricius et Stratigos, h. e. Dux Calabriae ac Longobardiae, A. C. 955. Nicephorus Magister AD 966-73 [sic]. Hic primus Magistri dignitate insignis, Strategus seu Catapanus Italiae fuit. - Here the first master [commander] in outstanding (senior) rank has become strategos or catepan of Italy. The first text that mentions a katepno* of Italy is a diploma dated to the the spring of 970 in favour of the church and monastery of St Peter of Taranto by the anthypatos or consul and patrician Michael. The diploma mentions his predecessor in the position, the Catepan Michael Abidelas (Bloch 1988: 350). Thus the office was almost certainly created in 969 or 970. Holmes 2005: 432 says the first katepano of Byzantine Italy was probably the patrikios Eugenios in 968 or 969. (*) Gk ho Kat epano, the one above (the others): supreme governor or commander-in-chief. Ho, who, he, the + kata, from + epano, above. 956: 1a. Byzantine Upper Mesopotamia: Sayf conducts a three-week raid (described as
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follows by Haldon, 2001: 91). It was a booty-collecting expedition, also designed to cause the Byzantines to pull back their own raiders who were operating east of Sayfs seat of Aleppo. Its object was the district of Anzitene, old southern Armenia, recently incorporated into the imperial theme of Mesopotamia. In April 956 Sayf led a force of cavalry and mounted infantrymen NE to Harran (Carrhae: SE of Urfa/Edessa, north of todays Syrian-Turkish border) and thence NNE into the marches of Anzitene around Hisn Arqanin (modern Ergani, NW of Amida or Diyabakir). Learning of this, the local Byzantine commander departed Amida, where he was on campaign, and began a march back to Anzitene. The nearest major imperial base to where Sayf was camped was quite distant, at Arsamosata* (Arabic Shamshat, modern Haraba, just east of Elazig), held by the Byzantines since 939. So Sayf was able to ravage and plunder safely around Ergani. At one stage Sayf himself led a detachment further NW, via the sources of the Tigris, to the provincial capital of Harput or Kharput itself (the hill is called Harput, the fortress was known as Ziata or Ziyad). The absent Byzantine governors residence was burned. (*) In far upper Mesopotamia where the Euphrates runs past (around) the sources of the Tigris. Arsamosata is not to be confused with Samosata, a different town. Historically distinct sites, Harput, modern Elazig itself and, a little to the east, Arsamosata are today part of the same town. Next the Muslims raiders turned south to the East-Roman fortress of Dadima [Gk Dadimon, modern Tadim, 15 km from Harput], to which they briefly laid siege. At this point Sayf learnt that the Byzantines had occupied the passes in his SE that he was expected to retire through, i.e. around the lake of Hazar Golu. So on 23 May, to deceive the enemy, he instead travelled south from Arsamosata and crossed through the pass of Baqsaya to the west of Ergani. A small Rhomaike force that blocked his way was driven off. And by 25 May he was back at Amida to a heros welcome. 1b. First mention of John Tzimisces Kourkouas, aged about 31, the general and future emperor, grand-nephew of John Kourkouas and nephew of Nikephoros. Tzimisces led the Imperial forces (unsuccessfully) in Mesopotamia against the Hamdanid emir Sayf. See 958, 960. A vivid portrait of Tzimiskes is supplied by Leo Diac., VI: 3: short in stature but athletic, with blond hair, a red moustache but darker beard, a master horseman and archer. In a battle near Tall Bitriq (modern Pertek, NE of Elazig: on the northern bank of the Murat or eastern Euphrates River),Tzimiskes survived only because his armour - his long coat of mail - resisted the many blows rained upon him (McGeer p.312, citing al-Mutanabbi). Probably he wore a lamellar corselet over the mail. 2. Asia Minor: A fleet under the strategos of the Cibyrrhaeots Basil Hexamilites defeats the navy of Tarsus off Lycia. There were 1,800 Muslims killed. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list it as as one of the most notable naval victories achieved by the empire. It was celebrated by a triumphal parade in the Hippodrome (McCormick, Triumphal p.165). 3. The Aegean: It was probably in 956 that the emperor created a new naval theme of the Cyclades. The size of the navy was being increased as part of preparations for another attempt to reconquer Crete (Tradgold 1997: 993). 4a. Italy: Naples continued to ignore Byzantium, but as late as 956 Constantinople managed to seize the town by force and hold it for a while. Constantine sent (955) a large force under Marianos Argyros to overawe rebels in Calabria and Apulia, reduce Naples to submission and possibly to attack the Saracen raiders in their Sicilian base. Argyros captured Naples and Salerno in 956. As well as his own
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Italy-based troops, Argyros commanded contingents from Thrace and Macedonia (Theophanes Cont. ss 453, 454; Rambaud p.448; NCMH pp.611, 628). 4b. Calabria: Recovery of Reggio. After the Saracen capture of Reggio in 951, the metropolitan church was transformed (952) into a mosque and the Muslim religion was imposed on the Christians; but after some years (in 956 or 957) Constantine VII sent a sailor named Basil who defeats the Saracens and retakes the town; the mosque is destroyed and the metropolitan church rebuilt (Brett, Rise of the Fatimids, 2001 p. 241; Italian Wikipedia, 2008, under Ducato di Calabria). Un chef byzantin, simple commandant de navire ou protocarebos [protokarabos] du nom de Basile, ayant dbarqu a Reggio, dtruit la mosque musulmane: puis, prenant audacieusement l'offensive le long des ctes de Sicile, il s'empare de Termini. Jules Gay, LItalie Meridionale, p.217: A Byzantine leader, a simple ships master or protokarabos* named Bail, landed at Reggio, destroyed the Muslim mosque: then daringly taking the offensive along the coast of Sicily, he captures [the port-town of] Termini [east of Palermo]. (*) Each galley was co-commanded by two ships captains or pilots called protokaraboi (Treadgold, Army p.101). This Basil presumably commanded the local flotilla of Byzantine Italy. 5. d. the Arab historian and geographer al-Masudi; born in Baghdad, died in Cairo. Reflecting on the origins of Arabic science, and the translations of Greek texts, beginning before 800, Masudi argued that it was Christianity that had made the later Greek-speaking Romans (Rum: Byzantines) culturally inferior to the Hellenes (ancient Greeks) and inferior also to the Muslims who had restored the ancient sciences. Cf discussion in Gutas 1998; also Shboul. In his Tanbih he nevertheless wrote: For the two kingdoms of the al-Yunan [Ionians: ancient Greeks] and Rum [Byzantines] came next to the Persians in greatness and glory; moreover they [the Greek cultures] are gifted in various branches of philosophy and sciences as well as in remarkable art and admirable craftsmanship. 6. Midpoint in the travels of the Muslim traveller Muhammad Abul-Kassem ibn Hawqal. We know from him the locations of the stations on the road from Kamacha (on the far upper Euphrates) west to Constantinople via Charsianon (east-central Anatolia), Nikomedeia, and Chalcedon, and he also describes the road from Constantinople to Melitene. Muslim trading and raiding colony in p.d. France: Provence, near our St Tropez: Ibn Hawqal recorded that the area of Fraxinet (La Garde-Freinet) [established ca. 889] was richly cultivated by its Muslim inhabitants, and they have been credited with a number of agricultural and fishing innovations for the region. There is a fine production [he writes] of agricultural produce, ample irrigation, and land for farming. The Muslims made the area habitable as soon as they settled there (Wikipedia 2010 Ibn Hawqal). At its peak it was a colony that extended for 600 sq km south, west and NW of St Tropez (Snac, Zones ctires, p.115). Liutprand (d. 972), the bishop of Cremona, and Flodoard, a monk in Rheims, wrote about the Saracens. According to their chronicles, the Saracens of Fraxinet ravaged the villages and towns - Frjus, Antibes [east of Cannes], Nice, Villefranche [immediately east of Nice]*, pillaged the monasteries, such as the monastery of Saint-Gall, and hindered trade between France and Italy. (*) Tracking west-east along the coast, the towns (villages) were/are: St Tropez, Frejus, Cannes, Antibes, Nice and Villefranche. = A distance as the crow flies of about 75 km. 957:
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1. N Syria: Nicephorus Phocas takes Adata near Marash-Germaniceia and with it gains control of one of the principal passes through the Taurus Mountains (Treadgold 1997: 492). 2. The capital: The emperor receives Igor's widow, the 'Russian' princess-regent Helga - Slavic form Olga - in Constantinople. She is baptised, or re-baptised, as a Christian in a grand ceremony in Hagia Sophia presided over by the emperor and the patriarch. But she fails to convert her subjects. Cf 969, 989. Helga-Olgas own ancestry was half-Slav, half-Varangian; she had converted personally and privately, probably in 955; this was her official public conversion. She was received with much ceremonial and entertained by the choirs of the two main churches of the city accompanied by organ music, as well as by dramatic performances. She was not required even to adopt the half-kneeling position, let alone prostrate herself to - kneel and touch her head to the floor - to the emperor; presumably this was in recognition of her near equality with the Basileus (Davidson pp.249 ff). 3. Macedonia: St Athanasius goes to Mount Athos and there builds the monastery that will later become the Great Lavra, the first coenobium or communalist monastery in the area. The work will be financed by the plunder from the Cretan campaign (see 961) and donations from Emperor Nicephorus Phocas. Soon after this, a major change was initiated by St Athanasios the Athonite. A native of Trebizond who became a teacher in Constantinople, Athanasios went to Mount Athos as a hermit, probably in 957. He accompanied his friend general Nikephoros Phocas on the Cretan campaign of 960/61, and after the capture of Candia used some of the spoils to found a new lavra, or small community of anchorites. A lavra was (is) a group of cells for individual monks. When Nikephoros Phocas became Emperor, however, this lavra was transformed into a lavishly endowed royal foundation for approximately 80 monks, with annual revenues in cash and kind and with lands and property exempt from taxation. This Great Lavra, as it was known from the outset, was quite unlike the other Athonite foundations, and at first provoked hostile reactions from the traditional eremitic or individualist (hermit) communities [see http://orthodoxwiki.org/Great_Lavra_(Athos); accessed 2009 ]. 958: 1. Mesopotamia: Nicephorus Phocass army takes Samosata, which brings the imperial border to the Upper Euphrates (Shepard, Byzantium Expanding in NCMH p.591). The future emperor John Tzimiskes, aged about 33, participated in this campaign. The victory was celebrated with a triumph in late 958 or early 959, described in section 2:20 of Constantine VII's "Ceremony Book", the De Ceremoniis. The book was compiled, it seems, with the express purpose of restoring neglected traditions and to transmit them to the emperor's successors. The triumph was a largely secular ceremony held in the Hippodrome. As in ancient times, it began with a parade of captured arms, booty, flags, prisoners, horses and camels. They were led around the track and lined up facing the emperor. As the soldiers intoned acclamations, the Arab prisoners fell on their faces (McCormick pp.166, 175). 2. Magyar invasion of the northern Balkans. See 960. c. 958: The first mention of the name "Bosnia" occurs in the manual De Administrando Imperio (DAI) of emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, written in about 958. Section 32 of the DAI describes the territories under Serbian control, including the "small region" (Gk chorion) of "Bosona", in which lay the two towns of Kotor and Desnik. The location of Desnik is unknown, but Kotor is to the south of present-day Sarajevo, i.e. east of Dubrovnik on the coast of modern-day
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Montenegro. (Today, coastal Croatia, inland Bosnia and coastal-inland Montenegro meet at a point between Dubrovnik and Kotor.) (Wikipedia, 2009). Prices Postan in the Cambridge Medieval Hist. notes that a pair of oxen cost eight nomismata in Constantinople in the mid-900s, about six times cheaper than in Greece in the early 20th century; and horses were about 4.5 times cheaper. (For comparison, the annual salary of an ordinary Byzantine soldier was 9-10 nomismata.) Wheat cost about the same as in Greece in 1914, while other foodstuffs were five or six times less expensive than in 1914. The purchase of a book was a major item of expenditure, as can be seen if we compare the price of a book in the tenth century (2126 gold nomismata) with that of a cow, a warhorse, and a mule at the same period (3, 12, and 15 gold nomismata, respectively), or with the annual salary (rga) of a protospatharios a court title that automatically gave him membership in the senate, which was 72 gold pieces (Bouras, Writing Materials, in Laiou, ed., 2002). 959: Death of Constantine VII, aged 54. Accession of his son Romanus II. 959-63: ROMANUS II Son of Constantine VII, Romanus was aged 20 or 21 when he took the throne. First wife: Bertha-Eudocia, d. 949, dau. of the Frankish king of N Italy. Second wife, marr. ca 955: AnastasiaTheophano, aged 17 in 959: possibly a Peloponnesian innkeepers daughter; but in any case certainly beautiful (Norwich 1993: 174 here follows the hostile Skylitzes). Children, all by Theophano: Helena, Basil, Constantine (both future emperors) and Anna. An ivory plaque survives showing Christ crowning Romanus and his first wife Eudoxia but as older than they really were. The clusters of pearls called pendilia, hanging from their crowns to their shoulders from each side, are prominent [Paris: Cabinet des Medailles; picture in Rice p.81]. The Armed Forces Changes in the army 959-64: The Tagmata were enlarged and the Scholae were divided (before 960: in 959 or c. 954?) into eastern and western commands, headed by a Domestic of the East, first incumbent Nicephorus Phocas, and a Domestic of the West, first incumbent his brother Leo Phocas. And, with the creation of further themes, the army and marines rose to about 180,000 men overall, including some 150,000 in the themes (Treadgold Army pp.79, 162; McGeer p.201). Notwithstanding the overall increase, some themes would have had - after 965 at least - fewer men than in earlier centuries. A Byzantine source of about 970 rates the full cavalry strength of each theme as no more than 3,000; and the Hudud-al-Alam, a Persian source written c.982, states that each of the eastern themes could raise only 3,000 to 6,000 men (Heath 1979: 21). See entry for 982. Treadgold suggests there were some 34,200 oarsmen in the navy. At 110 men per smaller dromon and 200 per large dromon, that was enough to man 228 smaller galleys and 57 large galleys, for a total of 285 war-ships. Cf 960-61 recapture of Crete.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Military Saints
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The Harbaville Triptych is a mid-10th C carved ivory work, 24 cm high, regarded as the finest and best-preserved of the "Romanos group" of ivories from a workshop in Constantinople, probably closely connected with the Imperial Court. Several of the panels show East-Roman soldiers in the form of military saints. Image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/file:triptych_harbaville_louvre_oa3247_n1.jpg; accessed 2008. Lamellar armour upward overlapping platelets - is very clearly depicted on the figures of the military saints, St George and St Eustace. They appear to be wearing knee-high boots. Their straight swords are represented as about 40-45% of their height, which would translate as about 70 cm (28 inches) long from pommel to blade-tip. In truth, swords were nearer 90 cm. Below the waist they wear several layers of clothing. Dawson suggests that, over a plain woollen tunic, they are wearing the padded and quilted protective skirt called a kremasmata. Dawson 1988. ca. 960: SW Italy: At the age of 33, the future St Fantinus became a hermit in the region of Mount Mercurion the valley of the Lao River: in todays Pollino National park in the north of Calabria. There, many monasteries and hermitages had been established under the Basilian rule (Wikipedia, 2009, Fantinus). Cf 960 Nilus. 960: 1. The NW: In 958 or a little later, a large body of Magyars had crossed the Danube and was ravaging the Balkans as far as Thrace. Leo Phocas, Domestic of the West, leading a small army ambushes and crushes them (probably in 960*). Having divided his forces into three divisions, he made a successful night attack on their camp (Leo Diac. II:2). (*) Various dates from 958 to 961 have been proposed by various scholars. 2. The East: Learning that the Byzantines had sent a expedition under Leos brother Nicephorus to Crete (July 960: see below), Sayf ad-Dawla of Aleppo takes advantage by raiding from his outposts in Cilicia into imperial territory. For several months the Muslims achieved daily victories. According to Leo Diac. II:2, a small and weak army under Leo Phocas was sent against him. Leos men occupied the mountain pass that the Arabs would choose to use on their return home. This was somewhere on the Cappadocian-Cilician border. There on 8 November 960 an ambush was sprung in which the Arab force was utterly destroyed. Large numbers were taken captives; Sayf himself was almost captured (Leo Diac. II:5). As part of the triumph allowed to Leo, there was a parade in the Hippodrome. The quantity of slaves and plunder on display alleged astounded the spectators (Leo Diac. 24.3). 3. Italy: fl. Niles or Nilus [Gk: Neilos] of Rossano, c. 910-1005, the most famous of the hermits of Byzantine Calabria. Rossano overlooks the west coast of the Gulf of Taranto. The St. Mark Oratory: 10th century, originally dedicated to St. Anastasia, is today the most ancient monument of the town and one of the best preserved Rhomaioi churches in Italy. It was built by St. Niles the Younger in the 10 th century for the ascetic retreat of monks living in the tufa (calcite) grottos underneath. 4. Prohibition on Venetian ships transporting Jewish slave merchants (who operated in Prague and elsewhere) (Rotman p.64). See the discussion under 846 and 902. 960-61:
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1. RECOVERY OF CRETE: Nicephorus Phocas, Domestic of the East (his brother Leo was Domestic of the West), sails from Phygela, modern Kusadasi, the mainland port opposite Samos, leading (July 960) a massive attack on Crete. This is a distance of some 370 km as the crow flies but in practice over 400 (Kusadasi-Mykonos-Heraklion = 413 km or 222 nautical miles).* The landing took place probably at Almyros, a little to the west of the capital city of Chandax or Candia (notes to Leo Diac., trans. Talbot & Sullivan, 2005: 61). The Arabs did not quickly fold; the fighting was interrupted by the winter of 96061. The island was eventually captured in 961: Candia held out for eight months, until 7 March 961. The emir Kouroupas [Abd al-Aziz ibn Shuayb] and his son Anemas [Al-Numan] were captured. The new super-heavy cavalry (clibanophoroi) played a key role in this campaign. (*) At 3-4 knots (nautical miles per hour), a war-galley would take 55-74 hours to travel 222 nautical miles. If rowing for eight hours, that translates to 7-9 days. Dromons could carry only 3-4 days water supply (Jeffreys et al., Handbook p.489), so probably as many as three stops were made. Sailors liked to sail in sight of the shore, and a shore-hugging route through the Dodecanese islands would have exposed the fleet to the open sea the least. In fact the fleet went west to Samos and then past (below) Samos via the Foumi islands to the Cyclades. At Naxos, it turned south to Ios and Thera before making the long run on to Crete (Vassilios Christides, The conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca. 824): a turning point in the struggle between Byzantium and Islam, Akademia Athenon, 1984, p.224) Some of the ships had ramps called klimakes, gangways, that opened out to allow the troops and horses to land. Since this startled the Arabs, it was possibly a new invention, or re-invention (Leo the Deacon 7.20-21, notes by Talbot and Sullivan pp.40, 61; Dromon p.308). The sources claim, most improbably, that "3,308" or 3,360 (sic!) vessels of all sizes were involved (whcu Treadgold treast as 307 major vessels: 1997: 495]; but the posited figure of 24,000 (fighting) men is credible [just 17% of the enrolled army]. Leo Diaconus, I.3, says that Nicephorus embarked the army of Asia, perhaps implying that no troops from the European provinces took part. One source says the number of oarsmen (both navy men and civilians), marines and soldiers together was a quite credible 77,000 men (Treadgold, State p.495). This was equivalent to about 40% the entire armed forces of the empire, but, as explained below, many of the seamen must have been civilians rowing requisitioned civilian vessels. In the chronicles of Symeon Magister and the anonymous Continuer of Theophanes, we are told that in 961, to take part in the reconquest of Crete by Nikephoros Phokas, the fleet gathered at Phygela - modern Kusadasi on the Ionian coast east of Samos. It consisted of 1,000 dromons and 2,000 fire-throwing chelandia or war-galleys; but in truth, as noted above, probably most were requisitioned civilian galleys or transport sail-boats. Although originally in the 9th century the [wider] chelandion was a different type of ship from the [narrower] dromon, both terms came to be used later for the same vessel, as Basileios Parakoimomenos [Basil the Lord Chamberlain] attests in his On Naval Warfare (2nd half of the 10th century). Thus http://neobyzantine.agrino.org/byzantium/army/navy4.htm. In naval engagements the battle began when the boats were still at a distance. Apart from the Greek fire, the ships would catapult each other with clay pots full of flammable material or snakes and scorpions. If the ships remained undamaged, they approached each other firing arrows and hurling spears.
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On this occasion the ships supposedly comprised 2,000 [sic!] siphonophores siphon-armed galleys equipped with Greek Fire, which Leo calls Median fire, many of which were no doubt small; 1,000 heavy transports and troopships; and 308 supply ships, more than twice as many as in 949 or 911 (Heath 1976: 13). Or as Pryor and Jeffreys have it: 2,000 chelandia (fighting-transports) equipped with Greek Fire; 1,000 dromons, i.e. pure combat vessels; and 360 karabia or transports: total 3,360 (Dromon p.408). Many of lesser craft would have been requisitioned private vessels. Now we know that the total number of oarsmen enrolled in the navy at this time was 34,200 (Treadgold, Army p.197). There were of course warships of differing sizes, but if we use an average of 100 rowers per vessel, this was only enough men to man only 342 ships. The remaining 2,966 to 3,018 vessels had to have been rowed by civilian sailors. Cf the Sicilian expedition of 964-65: most or all of the soldiers and their weapons on that occasion were transported in what Leo Diac. IV:7 calls large merchantmen. Pryor & Jeffreys, p.408, have proposed, no doubt rightly, that 3,000+ vessels is an inflated figure. Indeed Treadgold 1997: 495 says that the number of warships was 307 and there were only hundreds of small craft. The total personnel, oarsmen and troops, totalled 77,000.* Let us imagine there were 53,000 rowers (77,000 less 24,000 fighters = 53,000 rowers). If the 307 warships required an average of 150 rowers per ship ( = 22,500 navy men: fully 66% of the navy), then there may have been as many as 1,220 small civilian-manned craft (30,500 / 25 = 1,220) in the expedition. No doubt some of the latter were pure sail-boats. (*) For comparison, Belisariuss expedition to Africa in AD 533 comprised 500 transport ships and boats of various sizes and, escorting them, 92 very small and light war-galleys or dromons. Of the approximately 49,000 men on that expedition, up to 32,000 or 67% were oarsmen and sailors (Procopiuss figures: Bellum Vandalicum, i XI 2-21; Treadgold Army p.90; also State p.183). Phokas sailed (his oarsmen rowed) in full force for Crete, disembarking at the Bay of Halmyros or Almyros [Mirampelou Bay] in the north-east, where he gave battle at once. He drew the army up in three divisions (left, centre and right) and they attacked the Arabs who faced them in a shield-wall (Leo Diac. 1:3). The Arabs were defeated and almost at once shut themselves behind the walls of Fort Handakas (Chandax, Candia: todays Iraklion on the central-northern coast). According to Leo Diac. I:7, at one point presumably late in 960 - Phokas defeated an Arab army of 40,000 men, a number that is not credible. After an excruciating eight month blockade - during a severe winter and famine, Phokas broke through (undermined) the fort's walls in March 961. Trebuchets and a battering ram were deployed, but it was undermining by sappers that allowed the walls to be breached (Leo Diac. II:7). Again there was a victory celebration. Nicephorus was received by Romanus II in a celebration evidently modelled on Procopius's 6th century description of Belisarius' triumphal progress (McCormick 1990: 168; Leo Diac. II:8). 2. Asia Minor: As we have related, Leo Phocas defeats a major Muslim-Syrian incursion under the emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla. See 962-63. Sayf sent a major expedition, supposedly 30,000 men, into East-Roman lands, at the same time as most Neo-Roman forces were in Crete. Leo allowed the Amir's forces to advance and take prisoners and plunder in East-Roman lands, where they sacked the town of Charsianon. Meanwhile the Byzantines set up their forces
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at the key passes through the Taurus mountains that Sayf would need to return through. On 8 November 960, Leo and Sayf's forces met, the latter being pulled into a well-planned Greek ambush. Sayf's forces were routed, and the Byzantine eastern frontier were restored (Jenkins p.275). Again there was a victory celebration. Leo was granted a triumphal entry to the capital; he was received in great splendour by the emperor; and allowed to stage a parade of booty and captives in the Hippodrome (McCormick 1990: 167). 961: 1. Or earlier: Major change in command structure: Nikephoross brother, Leo Phokas, was appointed domestikos or supreme commander of the West while Nikephoros was still in Crete, or perhaps more likely in 960. When the latter became emperor (963) he appointed John Tzimiskes domestikos of the East. The latter post had a slight superiority of dignity. Source: Leo the Deacon, ed. Talbot and Sullivan, p.37. 2. Armenia: Ashot III selects Ani, NW of Mt Ararat, as his new capital. - Other Armenian dynasties ruled at Vaspurakan and Kars - now located within the borders of modern Turkey. Cf 968. 961/62: 1. Otto of Germany annexes northern Italy, creating the first reich or German empire [cf 967]. 962: Otto is crowned emperor in Rome. Cf 996. Otto I annexes the kingdom of Italy in the north (961) and the next year receives the imperial title from Pope John XII. Otto spends 10 of the next 12 years in Italy, much to the annoyance of the pope. Otto seems to prefer Italian artists, particularly in Milan, for a number of his commissions. They included the ivory plaques meant for the Cathedral of Magdeburg in Germany, which he founded. Italy: Ottos second Italian campaign was waged at the behest of Pope John XII, who was being attacked by Berengar II, king of N Italy. Otto successfully defeated Berengar and was crowned emperor by the grateful John in 962. By a treaty called the Ottonian Privilege, Otto guaranteed the pope's secular claim to most of central Italy. In exchange, the pope agreed that all future papal candidates would swear loyalty to the emperor. The style Otto assumed was imperator augustus (he will briefly use imperator augustus Romanorum ac Francorum in 966). The relative simplicity of the style, and, again, the usual absence of any mention of "Romans" in 962, may have been in deference to Byzantium, which would soon reach the medieval apex of its power. 2. Theophanes Continuatus is the name conventionally applied to a collection of texts preserved in a single eleventh-century manuscript (Vat. gr. 167). It comprises four separate sections covering the period AD 813-961. 961-63: 1. The chamberlain or prime minister Joseph Bringas had reluctantly consented (960) to entrust the command of the great expedition to Crete to Nicephorus Phocas, whose military glory offended him. As soon as the island was conquered (961), Bringas obtained the removal of Nicephorus Phocas (Cedrenus II 34). However, due to the intervention of the young Empress-Regent Theophano, Nicephorus Phocas received the honours of a triumph despite the opposition of Bringas (Cedr. II 345). By skill, Nicephorus Phocas succeeded in putting to rest the suspicions of the prime minister and he was able to rejoin his army (Cedr. id. 345-347). Bringas soon understood that he had been deceived, and he tried by all means to get rid of Nicephorus Phocas, but events overtook him and Nicephorus Phocas was proclaimed (963) emperor by his troops (Cedr. II 347 f.; De Cer. 96, 434). 2. Nicephorus campaigns against the Hamdanids in Cilicia and Syria. See 962-63. 962:
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1. Sicily: The Muslims retake Christian Taormina (Ar. Tabarmin) after a siege of seven months (Halm & Bonner, Empire of the Mahdi Brill 1996 p. 405). It was renamed Muizziyya, from the name of the Fatimid caliph. Cf 964/965. When the emir Ahmed - the Kalbid governor Ahmad I (954-69) - tries to break the rebellious resistance of the Christians in the east of the island, a Rhomaioi fleet is sent (964: see there) to their help by the emperor Nicephorus Phocas. It was commanded by Manuel Phocas, the bastard son of his brother Leo. The troops included Armenians, Rus and Paulicians as well as Greek-Greeks. The Greek troops were defeated on land and the fleet was destroyed in the strait of Messina, and the capture of Rametta, inland from Messina, definitively concludes the Muslim conquest. See more under 964-65. 2. Further Magyar invasion of the northern Balkans. 3. Kievan Rus: The first (Latin) bishop of Kiev, a German, departs. Helga had turned to the Latin church after 957, no doubt as a counterpoint to Byzantium; but the forces of paganism, led by her son, proved too strong, and the German bishop was forced out (Davidson p.254). Prosperity Restored Branko Milanovic (2006) has done some interesting work in which he calculates that the Byzantine average income around 1000 AD was about 20 percent lower than in Antiquity - at the time of the Principate - which we may think is pretty good. He proposes that the level of inequality was somewhat higher in the Byzantine empire than in todays United States or Russia but less than in todays South Africa or Brazil. Morrisson and Cheynet, in Laiou 2002: 865, provide evidence regarding various wages. In the 10th century, a protoasekretes - a medium-level government official - was paid more than 30 nomismata (=30 N) per year, a notary more than 20 N, a doctor about 9 N, and a servant 7.3 N. They also quote, 2002: 861, the annual rogai or emoluments of sailors and soldiers in the year 949. Their cash compensations ranged from the minimum of three nomismata (3 N) for ordinary sailors and soldiers (with no seniority) to 30 N for a tourmarch, a rank equivalent to our brigadier or senior colonel. But since in addition soldiers were receiving in-kind rations which are estimated to be worth about 6.5 N per year, this yields the minimum compensation for ordinary sailors and soldiers of 9.5 N. Treadgold 1992, cited in Morrisson and Cheynet p. 861, similarly gives money compensation of from 9 N for ordinary soldiers to 144 N for senior commanders. This was not simply a salary: commanders had to pay their immediate staff out of this amount. For comparison, the price for an adult Greek male slave in the year 962 was 30 N and the ransom-price of an adult Muslim prisoner before the year 1000 was 331/3 N . . . But the use of slaves was rare in Byzantium by this time: see the note below, before 964/65. 962-63: 1. End of the Muslim conquest of NE Sicily: The Kalbites under Ahmad b. Hasan undertook the definitive subjugation of the mountainous region south of Messina, i.e. north of Taormina, where several Christian towns had survived in semiindependence. They were now made to pay tax and Muslim colonies were planted in their midst. In the course of these operations Ahmad turned aside to lay siege to the fortified port of Taormina which had shaken off Saracen rule. After nearly eight months, in December 962 the citadel surrendered. The Christians were allowed to live but lost all their property and many were taken into slavery (Ahmad p.30). See 964-65: Nicetas expedition. 2. Syria: With a very large army, generals Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimisces campaign in Cilicia and Syria. The imperial forces besiege Sayfs seat of Aleppo.*
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Sayf flees (Shepard, Byzantium expanding, in NCMH 2000: 592). The lower town was taken (23 December 962) but its citadel held out: it was manned by elite Daylami axe-infantrymen. It is said that the Byzantines left 10,000 defenders dead. This is widely regarded as Sayfs worst defeat. The scorched-earth policy of the Neo-Romans created a wasteland that cut Cilicia off from Syria, contributing to the conquest of 965, below. Nicephoros is returning to Constantinople when he learns that emperor Romanus has died in a hunting accident or as others say from poison (15 March 963) (Leo Diac. II:10). (*) The captives taken at Manbij [10 km NE of Aleppo] included the towns governor, the young poet, Abu Firas al-Hamdani, Sayfs cousin. He was to stay captive at Constantinople for four years until being ransomed by Sayf (Ashtiany p.317): How is it now, with Caesars lands [i.e. Asia Minor] between us, and I am encompassed by the surging frothy sea? Why, when I have sacrificed myself for your sake [Sayfs], is the only reward I get bitter reproach? (ibid, p.322). He attacked Nicephorus with this poem: How dare you claim! Oh you huge-throated rogue, That we lions of war 21121 12112112112112112112112112112112112112112112112112 11211 211211211211211211211211211211211211211211211211Are ignorant of wars! How dare you threaten us with wars? 21121121121121121121121121121121121121121121121121 1211211211211211211211211211211211211211211 .... 21121 12112112112112112112112112112112112112112112112112 11211211211211211211211211211211211211211 every time, we were lions, Whereas you proved a dog! 211A211s211 211m211a211n211y211 211 211m211e211d211i211e211v211a211l211 211A211r211a211b211i211c211 211s211o211u211r211c211e211s211 211m211e211n211t211i211o211n211,211 211A211b211u211 211F211i211r211a211s211 211w211r211o211t211e211 t211h211i211s211 211h211i211j211a [lampoon, invective] o211f211 211N211i211c211e211p211h211o211r211u211s211 211m211o211s211t211 211p211r211o211b211a211b211l211y211 211a211s211 211a211 211l211a211t211e211r211 211r211e211s211p211o211n211s211e211 211t211o211 211t211h211e211 211l211a211t211t211e211r211s211 211d211e211r211i211s211i211v211e211 211r211e211m211a211r211k211 211w211h211i211l211e211 211v211i211s211i211t211i211n211g211 211A211b211u211 211F211i211r211a211s211 211i211n211 211h211i211s211 211c211a211p211t211i211v211i211t211y.211 211Nicephorus211 211s211a211i211d211 211t211o211 211t211h211e211 211c211a211p211t211i211v211e211 211t211h211a211t211 211c211o211n211t211r211a211r211y211 211211t211o211 211t211h211e211 211B211y211z211a211n211t211i211n211e211s, t211h211e211 211A211r211a211b211s211 211a211r211e211 211b211o211r211n211 211f211o211r211 211p211e211n211s211 211a211n211d211 211n211o211t211
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212f212o212r212 212s212w212o212r212d212s. N F Hermes, The Byzantines in medieval Arabic Poetry, 212B212Y212Z212A212N212T212I212N212A Symmeikta212 21212129212 212(2122212021202129212)212 2123212521221262121, at p.50: online 2010 at www.byzsym.org. The army deployed against Aleppo - about 70,000 men - was exceptionally large for this period (and indeed any other) and so a tribute to Byzantine logistics. The number of cavalry (30,000) was not much smaller than the infantry (40,000), whereas in most field armies the proportion of cavalry tended to be more like one quarter (Treadgold, Army pp.113, 212 and State p.548).
Above: Nicephorus Phocas
963-969: NIKEPHOROS II Phokas. Or as transliterated from modern Greek: Nikiforos Focas. Arabic: Niqfur b. al-Fuqas. Called the Pale Death of the Saracens. General of the army, Nicephorus was aged about 51 at accession. (The five years old Basil II was co-emperor.) First wife: name not recorded. Second wife: empress Anastasia-Theophano, aged 19 in 963, widow of Romanus II. No children. Nicephorus was the first emperor since Basil I, d. 886, to personally lead his armies on Eastern campaigns. He died after a dozen years of military triumphs, begun when he was general and pressed home when he was emperor (Treadgold 1997: 505). Gibbon: Nicephorus Phocas united, in the popular opinion, the double merit of a hero and a saint. Norwich, Apogee 1993: 213, perhaps unfairly calls him ugly, uncouth and puritanical. Certainly he was not frivolous or handsome. The following portrait, shorn of its prejudices, indicates that Nicephorus wore his hair and his thick greying beard trimmed, was short-necked, darker than average in complexion, not tall, and perhaps pot-bellied. Leo the Deacon (III.8) agrees with Liutprand about Phocass swarthy complexion and greying beard [A] monstrosity of a man, a pygmy, fat-headed and like a mole as
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 to the smallness of his eyes; disgusting with his short, broad, thick, and half hoary beard; disgraced by a neck an inch long; very bristly through the length and thickness of his hair; in colour an Ethiopian; one whom it would not be pleasant to meet in the middle of the night; with extensive belly, lean of loin, very long of hip considering his short stature, small of shank, proportionate as to his heels and feet; clad in a garment costly but too old, and foul-smelling and faded through age; shod with Sicyonian [i.e. delicate, soft or effeminate*] shoes; bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury, and a lying Ulysses." Luitprand of Cremona, Relatio (969). (*) In ancient times the people of Sicyonia in the Peloponnesus were considered dissolute and fond of luxury. Plato, Cicero and Lucretius mention such shoes. Clement of Alexandria, d. AD 216, mentions Sicyonian half-boots.
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Nikephoros Phokas was a general from an aristocratic Anatolian family who rose to the throne in 963 AD and married the widowed young empress Theophano. A successful general, known as the "Pale Death of the Saracens", he launched a campaign of reconquest that lead to the reoccupation of Cilicia, Crete (961 AD), Aleppo (962), and as emperor Cyprus (965) and Antioch (969) along with most of Syria. He also financed a successful campaign by the Kievan Rus' (Varangians) against the Bulgarians. Although an extremely pious Christian, he angered the church and peasantry by restricting the growth of church estates while relaxing restrictions on the growth of aristocratic land ownings. His rule became increasingly arrogant and arbitrary, until he was assassinated in 969 AD by a group of army officers led by his wife's lover John (Ioannes) Tzimiskes (who was raised to emperor and then dispatched Theophano to a nunnery). 963: 1a. Death of Romanus II, aged 25, probably of natural causes (15 March 963). Nicephorus Phocas takes the throne as co-emperor. The army having proclaimed him as an Emperor in Caesarea, Nikephoros entered Constantinople on 15 August, broke the resistance of the parakoimomenos* or chamberlain Joseph Bringas - a eunuch palace official who had become Romanos' chief counsellor - in bloody street fights, and on 16 August was crowned in Hagia Sophia. After that he married Theophano, thereby legitimising his reign by marrying into the Macedonian dynasty. (*) Lit. sleeping at the side [of the emperor]. 1b. Nicephorus was in Asia preparing an expedition against the emirs of Tarsus and Aleppo. He had travelled to Cappadocia, where he assembled and drilled an army (April 963). When Romanos II dies, Joseph Bringas conspires (March 963) with general Marianos Argyros (the former strategos of Bari) to remove Nicephorus; they try to use Nicephoruss nephew John Tzimiskes, but John instead goes over to his uncles side. Nicephorus and John brought (July 963) the army to Caesarea. There Nicephorus was proclaimed emperor, and he offers Tzimiskes the post of domestikos of the East. Then he headed for Constantinople to deal with Bringas and Argyros. Learning that Argyros has been killed by an aggrieved woman, Basil Lecapenus the Nothos (Bastard: illegitimate son of the elder Romanos I, d. 944) arms 3,000 of his householders and retinue to resist Bringas on behalf of Nicephorus. As related in Leo Diac. Book III, Nicephorus takes ship from the Asian side and assumes the throne (16 August 963). 2. Greece, Mt Athos: Foundation of the monastery that would become the 'Great Lavra'. Financed by the emperor, Athanasios started the building of the Great Lavra, and this date marks the beginning of a new era in Mount Athos monasticism. Prior to that time, there were monks, but no monasteries on Mount
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Athos (Fine 1991: 180; Curta 2006: 408). Decline of Slavery?
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Slavery became more and more marginal in the Empire after 800. Leo VI decided before 893 to suppress it on imperial lands and in imperial workshops and to encourage private persons to do the same. For all that, however, slavery did not disappear entirely. It still constituted the labour force on monastic properties in 964 when Nicephorus Phocas regretted that people were giving lands to pious foundations without the slaves to exploit them. Yet from the 10th century they are practically absent from the archives of the monasteries of Mt Athos. Or so says Kaplan 2000: 1360. Rotman 2009 does not deal with the scale and prevalence of slavery but the impression one gets from reading his book is that slavery continued little changed during the period AD 800-1,000. He emphasises that slaves peformed many different roles and they were not defined by the work they did: some were well educated and lived comfortably while others were poor and illiterate It should be noted (see next) that the Byzantines were able to deploy two large armies in 964-65, one in the East, one in the West. 964/65: 1. All of Cyprus is brought under East-Roman control, as a prelude to the conquest of Muslim-ruled Cilicia. Then (964) the Byzantines invade Cilicia in force, with probably 40,000 men (deleting one zero from the 400,000 cited by Leo Diac. IV:1); but they fail to take any major towns except Adana (Whittow p.326). Nicephorus assembled (spring 964) a large field army in Cappadocia and marched against Tarsus which he put under siege. But it could not be quickly taken, so he proceeded to capture Adana and Anazarbos - east and NE of Tarsus respectively - along with 20 other fortresses. Mopsuestia, south of Anazarbos and east of Adana, was next. Byzantine sappers undermined its walls and it fell in the summer of 965: wrongly dated to 964 by Leo Diac. III:11. The barbarians who survived were taken into slavery. Nicephorus then retired to winter in Cappadocia, leaving Tarsus for 965: see there. Total war Near Adana in 964, a Rhomaioi army led by Nicephorus and the generalissimo or Domestic of the Schools of the East, John Tzimiskes, met a combined TarsiotCilician force, whose main body they destroyed. But a cavalry detachment from the defeated Arab army, numbering 5,000, a lareg brigade in modern terms, retreated to a hill. There they dismounted and initially held out against Tzimiskes cavalry. Tzimiskes ordered his men too to dismount, and their numbers soon overwhelmed the Arabs, who were all remorselessly killed. They were not offered a chance to surrender, in order to weaken Cilicia for a further assault the next year (Skylitzes: McGeer p.324). The East-Romans also burnt the crops in successive years, inducing famine and starvation in the frontier districts of Syria and Mesopotamia (Yahya of Antioch, cited in McGeer p.325). Defeat in Sicily, 964-65 2. Muslim-ruled Sicily: Nikephoros II Phokas sent to Sicily an army of supposedly 40,000 Greeks, Armenians, Thracians (some of whom were Paulicians) and Slavs (Rus) under the elderly eunuch patrician Nicetas and Nikephoross young nephew Manuel. This included some super-heavy cavalry (Shepard, Byzantium and the west, in NCMH 2000: 891). Nicetas held the post of droungarios of the
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Fleet, while Leo Diac. IV:7 calls Manuel commander of the cavalry. They captured Messina in October 964.
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Nicephorus II Phocas sent the Byzantine fleet to Sicily under the command of the navarchos or drungaire (admiral) of the fleet, the eunuch patrician Nicetas, who was defeated on land and at sea (off Calabria), taken prisoner and imprisoned in what is now Tunisia (Leo the Deacon 65-67; Cedr. II 360). Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the imperial navy. Cf 965: victory off Cyprus. Responding to an appeal from the people of Rametta in the NE corner, the last Christian stronghold on the island, the emperor sent (964 or 965: October 964 is probably the best dating) a huge East Roman force, including a few superheavy cavalry, to Sicily. This included troops from Thrace, Armenia and Russia (Slavs and Viking Rus). Most or all of the soldiers and their weapons were transported in what Leo Diac. IV.7 calls large merchantmen. Siege machines too were taken in specialised transports. The expedition lands near Messina [soon after 11 Oct 964] and captures it but is soon crushed (24-25 Oct 964) in an ambush by the Kalbites (Muslims) at nearby Rametta (NCMH 2000: 611). Leo D. says that meanwhile the towns of Syracuse, Taormina, Lentini and Termini surrendered to the Byzantines, but this is qitelu unlikely. Arab reinforcements quickly arrived from Africa. Then on 25 October a fierce battle fought near Rametta between the Byzantines and the Kalbids resulted in a defeat for the former. Manuel himself was killed in the fray (or rather: captured and beheaded), along with 10,000 of his men. The Muslims then take the town of Rametta by storm (Ahmad p.31; Loud in NCMH vol 3 p.611; Rodriquez dates this to 963-64). The Arabs took most of the Byzantine ships while they were still at anchor; some of the fleet managed to take flight only to be defeated off Calabria (Leo D, IV.8) . The emperor had great affection for Nicetas, the brother of Michael his protovestiary or Master of the Wardrobe, the patrician praepositus and vestes, and he ransomed Nicetas. --- The Kalbidi dynasty, also called Kalbids, ruled Sicily from 947 to 1040. Cf 968. - Ruler in 964: Hassan al-Kalbi, r. 948-964; he dies during the siege of Rametta. Luitprand [see 968] writes thus: [the galleys of] the Saracens engaged in battle near Scylla and Charybdis in the Sicilian waters [i.e. near the northern end of the Strait of Messina] with the patrician Manuel, the nephew of Nicephorus. And when they had laid low his immense forces - they took his own self and beheaded him and hung up his corpse. And when they had captured his companion and colleague [admiral Nicetas], who was of neither gender [a eunuch], they scorned to kill him; but having bound him and kept him to pine in long imprisonment, they sold him [to the emperors agents] for a price at which no mortals who were sound in their heads would have bought him. And with no less spirit, encouraged by this same prophecy, they shortly after met the general Exachontes [sic].* And when they had put him to flight, they destroyed his army in every way. (*) In Greek exarchontes means leaders. It was perhaps a title; it is mentioned as such in Constantines De Cerem.. Roads We can perhaps deduce the state of the antique Roman roads that ran from Thessalonica to Belgrade from the report in Constantine VIIs DAI. He records that a dispatch rider could travel this route in just eight days (cited by John Haldon, 1999: 52 and 2006: 136). Such a courier would have ridden at a maximum sustainable long-distance speed and used frequent changes of horses. Now cavalry, by themselves, riding normally in a steady trot*, can cover
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distances of up to 60-80 km per day, provided the horses are regularly rested and well nourished and watered (see discussion in Haldon 1997). The distance here is some 1,100 km: Thessaloniki to Edirne (Adrianople) 355 km and 705 km Edirne to Belgrade.** So in eight days the rider is travelling mostly at a steady canter - as much as 138 km per day (or around 20 km/h).* We deduce that the main roads were probably quite well maintained in Bulgaria as well as in the Empire. See more generally, Haldon 1999: 52-54. (*) A slow trot is about 8 km/h; a steady canter is 15 km/h or more (up to 25 km/h). The gallop, which of course cannot be sustained: 40+ km/h. In modern-day endurance riding, over sometimes very rough terrain, winning riders complete 100-mile (160 km) rides in 10-12 hours, i.e. averaging up to 16 km/h (Wikipedia, 2009, Endurance Riding). The horses health is scrupulously protected; this would not always have been the case in medieval times. (**) Or was the route along the line Thessalonica-Skopje-Nish-Belgrade? (cf map in Haldon 1999: 55). By modern land routes, it is 235 km Thessalonica-Skopje and 430 km Skopje to Belgarde total 665; or from another source: 635 km (data from www.balkantravellers.com and www.travelnotes.com). For calculation purposes, I will use 650 km. Dividing by eight days, we have 81 km per day. Assuming the rider rides seven hours per day, we have a speed of just 12 km/h a fast trot or slow canter. 965: 1. End of the long peace with Bulgaria: Nicephorus refuses the annual tribute required by the treaty of 927. Then he sent troops to attack - probably in 966 some Bulgarian border fortresses (Fine 1991: 181). Cf 968. 2. East Mediterranean: The imperial navy defeats an Egyptian squadron off Cyprus and occupies the island. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more notable naval victories achieved by the empire. Plainly the navy had not been totally debilitated by the Sicilian debacle of 964. Cyprus was then incorporated into the empire as a new theme (Treadgold 1997: 501). 3. CONQUEST OF CILICIA: Further invasion of Cilicia and Syria. The elite striking force was the emperors new regiment of super-heavy cavalry ('kataphraktoi') whose horses were clad in full armour. Following a grand assault, Nicephorus Phocas, known to the Arabs as Naqfur b. al-Fuqas, takes by surrender the impregnable double-walled Tarsus, capital of Cilicia. Combined-arms were well deployed at Tarsus: The emperor himself led out from the camp the bravest and most robust soldiers, and arranged the divisions on the battlefield, deploying the ironclad horsemen [clibanarii or heavy cataphracts] in the van, and ordering the archers and slingers to shoot at the enemy from behind. He himself took his position on the right wing, bringing with him a vast squadron of [ordinary] cavalrymen, while John, who had the sobriquet Tzimiskes, and was honoured with the rank of doux, fought on the left (Leo the Deacon, trans. Talbot and Sulliavn, p.107). The Tarsans took flight and retreated behind the walls of their fortress-town. 4. d. al-Mutanabbi, Arab poet. Principal figure of the so-called "modern" or posttraditional school. Born in northern Mesoptamia at Kufa (Edessa), he studied in Abbasid Syria. After success at Damascus he was received at the courts of the rulers of Aleppo [the Hamdanid emir Sayf: cf earlier], then Egypt [Abbasid governors] and Shiraz [Buyids]. - The most honoured poet of medieval Arabic literature , he was most renowned for his panegyrics and masterful manipulation of language. He spent a good part eight years - of his career at the court of the Syrian ruler Sayf alDawla, d. 967, whose exploits he immortalised in his poetry.
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Mutanabbi wrote 22 major panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla during his stay at the Hamdanid court in Aleppo between AH 337 / AD 948 and 345 / AD 956. 5. Bohemia: Ibn Yaqub visited, or may have visited, Prague [Arabic Fraga] in 965 (Curta 2006: 20); he says that Muslim, Jewish and Magyar traders took goods and gold there, which they traded for slaves, tin and various kinds of fur. Masudi, d.956, says the Magyars achieved a great wealth by selling Slav slaves to Byzantium (Rum). Provence: By 965, the Muslim Andalusi brigands had evacuated Grenoble and the valley of the Graisivaudun (first occupied aroun 945) under continuing Frankish pressure. The fertile farmlands and prosperous villages they relinquished were divided up among the Frankish troops who replaced them, in proportion to each soldier's valour and service. But as late as 972 (see there), the Muslims still controlled the Great St. Bernard Pass . + see 975. 965-67: Present-day Ukraine: The still pagan Slavo-Scandanavian Rus or Rhos, Varangian "Russians", under Sviatoslav* campaign eastwards and south against the (Jewish) Khazar kingdom on the north-east side of the Caspian, and the Volga Bulgars (Muslims) and Danubian Bulgars (Christians) in present-day Rumania. Cf below, 969-71. Sviatoslav finally succeeded in destroying Khazar imperial power in the 960s. The Khazar fortresses of Sarkel and Tamatarkha fell to the Rus in 965, and the capital city of Atil in about 967 or 969. (*) Sviatoslav was the first ruler of Kievan Rus' whose name is indisputably Slavic in origin as opposed to his predecessors, whose names are ultimately derived from Old Norse. A vivid portrait of him is supplied by Leo Diac. IX:11 average height, snub nose, long bushy moustache but otherwise clean-shaven, a shaven head except for a lock that hung down to one side, and wearing a large earring on one ear. In 971, at a meeting with the emperor John Tzimiskes, he wore the plain dress of an average Rus. Presumably this was an implied criticism of the luxuriousness of Neo-Roman dress; John and his retinue came clad in gilded armour. After 965: SE Asia Minor: Cilicia was divided into six new, but small Themes, garrisoned, probably, with mainly Armenian troops. The period 965-1015 saw the first Armenians emigrate from Old Armenia to Cilicia, many of them as garrison troops in Romaic service. This was the origin of the future Lesser Armenia. Cf 967, 1080. 965- or 966-67: Transcaucasia, east of the Caspian Sea: As we have said, the Russians under Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev attack and nearly destroy the (Jewish) Khazar state, taking the capital Atil; they then turn on Bulgaria. Davidson says in 968. See 967, 969. The campaign of Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev effectively broke the back of the Khazarian empire in 965 AD, although a portion of the kingdom continued until at least 1030 AD, and references to the Khazars appear as late as the 12th century, as they migrated westward. It is said that it was Nicephorus who summoned (probably in 967) the Russians to plunder Bulgaria. If he did, it was probably less to punish Bulgaria (see earlier: 965) than to draw them away from Cherson (in the Crimea), which was an important East-Roman commercial and intelligence centre (thus FIne 1991: 180 ff). c. 966: Nicephorus, suspicious of his nephews loyalty, removes John Tzimiskes from the
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post of Domestikos of the East and places him under house arrest. See 969 John assassinates Nicephorus. 966: 1. Europe: Nicephorus refuses tribute to Bulgaria, and wages a brief campaign against them in the Balkans (Treadgold, State p.502). Cf 967: subsidy to the Russians to attack Bulgaria. 2. The East: The East-Romans raid northern Mesopotamia (Samosata) and Syria (Aleppo). Nicephorus demands half of Syria from Sayf as the price of peace. The patriarch of Jerusalem - under Ikhshid Egyptian rule - calls on the emperor to proceed immediately to the conquest of Jerusalem; the patriarch is seized and burnt at the stake by outraged Muslims and Jews. The Byzantines captured the fortified monastic complex of Qalat Seman near Aleppo in October 966. This cut the links between Aleppo and Antioch and offered the opportunity to exert pressure on both (Mitchell 1983: 294). According to Yahya of Antioch, Nicephorus laid siege, unsuccessfully, to Antioch, withdrawing after eight days (cited in notes to Leo the Deacon, 2005:119). See 969 capture of Antioch. An exchange of prisoners was arranged at Samosata, in which Sayfs cousin, the celebrated poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani, 932-968, was released after several years [962-66] in captivity. This time there was an excess of 3,000 prisoners in Rhomaioi hands. Sayf had to ransom these at the price of 270 gold pieces per head (Toynbee 1973: 393). Al-Hamdani had been governor of Harran. His most famous poems are the alRumiyyat or 'Roumiyat' or Byzantiniad, which he wrote or composed during the period of his imprisonment. The Polish prince Mieszko converts to (Latin) Christianity. His son will be crowned as first Christian king in 1025: King Boleslav I. Arab galleys vs Norse long-boats: Danish Vikings, sailing in a fleet of 28 ships, made a raid on the Atlantic coast of Muslim Spain, at Lisbon and at Qasr Abi Danis farther to the south, in AH 355/AD 966. The invaders were attacked and defeated off Silves (in present-day Portugal) by the Umayyad (Spanish) fleet. Another Danish expedition in AH 360/AD 971 was even less successful. 967: 1. d. Sayf al-Dawlah, Hamdanid emir of Aleppo. Also d. Muizz al-Dawlah, Buyid emir of Baghdad. 2. Armenia: The prince of Taron, the Armenian statelet west of Lake Van, wills his principality to Nikephoros, who joins it (968) to the empire by annexing parts of western Armenia. These parts became new themes. Treadgold (Army 1995) argues that each of these "new eastern-type small themes" was garrisoned by a battalion or drungary of 800 soldiers. 3. Francia/Germany: Otto I raises his son, aged 12, to the status of co-emperor of the West. Cf 4b. 4a. Ifriqiya/Italy: Peace treaty between the Fatimids and Byzantines; partly this reflected the Fatimid preference to look east, where Ikhshid Egypt was a tempting target (Bury 1911, Kreutz p.101). 4b. Italy: Having established suzerainty over the Latin Italians (Lombards) of Capua and Benevento, the Germans under Otto I invade Byzantine Apulia (967 or 968). Anno 967. descendit Otho Rex, et senex, pater Othonis Regis, qui pugnavit cum Bulcassimo [Abu al-Qasim] Sarracenorum Rege, et interfecit eum (Lupus). King Otto arrived, and the older one, father of the king Otto, who fought with
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 Abu al-Qasim, king of the Saracens, and he killed them. To negotiate with Byzantium, Otto sends Liutprand on a second embassy to Constantinople (see 967-68 below).
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5. The Balkans: Emperor Nicephorus offers money to the Rus or Russians to raid Bulgaria: Svjatoslav leads 16,000 Rus across the Danube into Bulgaria and ravages it (967 or 968). Sviatoslav I was supposedly paid 1,500 pounds of gold by Nicephorus II to invade Bulgaria in AD 967 or 968 (Leo Diac. IV:6; Curta 2006: 238). The Bulgarian army retreats to Dristra; the Bulgarian ruler Peter responds by calling in (968) the Pechenegs, who attack Kiev, and the Rus retire. 967-68: The Western emperor Otto I enters into diplomatic negotiations with Nicephorus, seeking a marriage alliance. Meanwhile in 967, Otto gave the duchy of Spoleto to Pandulf Ironhead, prince of Benevento and Capua, a powerful ally in the Mezzogiorno (if an anachronism may be allowed). In the next year (968) Otto left the siege of Bari in the charge of Pandulf, but the allied duke was captured (969) in the battle of Bovino by the Byzantines. Emperors and Kings: Latin Embassy to Constantinople, 968 Liutprand, Bishop of Cremona (N Italy), aged about 46, undertook a second mission to Constantinople by order of the Western Emperor Otto I in the summer of 968, to ask the Eastern Emperor to bestow his daughter in marriage on Otto's son, the future Otto II. This is described in Liutprands Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana ad Nicephorum Phocam : I was brought before the emperors brother Leo . . . we wore ourselves out [Luitprand spoke good Greek] in a fierce argument over your [Ottos] title. He called you not Emperor, which is basileus in his tongue, but most insultingly rex, which is King in ours. Other excerpts: (a) This was at a time when the famine in Constantinople was so great that for three gold pieces I was not able to provide a meal for my 25 companions and the four Greek guards. (b) The king of the Greeks wears long hair*, a tunic, long sleeves, a hood (? turban); lives on garlic, onions, and leeks . The king of the Franks, on the contrary, is beautifully shorn [cut short in another translation]; wears a garment not at all like a woman's garment, and a hat . Plainly both East-Romans and Germans wore beards, for Luitprand does not mention shaving. Indeed contemporary German illustrations mostly show bearded men (a contrast with the shaven Franks of Charlemagnes time).* His meal, [a stuffed suckling goat] which smelt strongly of garlic and onions, . . . was filthy with oil and fish-juice. Or "one of his most delicate dishes, a fat kid of which he had himself partaken proudly stuffed with garlic, onions, leeks, swimming in fish sauce", i.e. Gk garos, Lat. garum, the age-old Greco-Roman sauce of fermented fish innards. (*) This is puzzling to a degree. Contemporary artworks show Otto I, d. 973, with apparently short hair (but possibly long) and a trimmed beard when he was young: in the Magdeburg Cathedral sculpture; bearded: Corson 2001. Evidently his beard was long in later life: The chronicler Widukind writes of his white hair over his shoulders and his beard of extraordinary length. And: his beard after the Saxon manner, flowed long and mighty over his chest, which was very hairy like a lion's mane. -Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres of Widukind of Corvey, d.973. Otto II, d. 983, appears very short haired but with a substantial beard in
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an ivory panel of ca. 980 (Castello Sforzesco, Milan). In contrast he is clean shaven in the illumination in the Registrum Gregorii, Trier, ca. AD 983: Chantilly, Muse Cond, Ms. 14 bis (cf illustrations in Norwich 1993). (c) "How unworthy, how shameful it is, that these soft, effeminate, long-sleeved, hooded, veiled, lying, neutral-gendered, idle creatures [the eunuchs and other Byzantines] should go clad in purple, while you heroes [i.e., the German kings, Otto senior and junior] - strong men, namely, skilled in war, full of faith and love, reverencing God, full of virtues - may not!" (The East-Romans forbade Liutprand to take with him the supplies of purple silk that he had purchased.) (d) Procession chant quoted by Liutprand: "The singers cried out in adulation: Behold the Morning Star approaches, Eos [the dawn] rises; he reflects in his glances the rays of the sun - the pale death of the Saracens, Nicephorus the ruler". (e) As we noted earlier, Nicephoros harangued Luitprand, saying "I alone have really stout sailors; and I will attack him [Otto] with my fleets, destroy his maritime cities [i.e. in N Italy and Provence] and reduce to ashes those which have a river near them" (Brand p.124). Another translation runs thus: "Thou liest," he [Nicephorus] said, "the soldiers of thy master [the German emperor Otto] do not know how to ride, nor do they know how to fight on foot. . . . Nor has thy master a number of fleets on the sea. I alone have a force of navigators; I will attack him with my ships . . . . And how, I ask, can he even on land resist me with his scanty forces? . . ." - Liutprand, "Report of Bishop Liutprand, Ambassador . . . to the Court of Constantinople". As reproduced in Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, trans. Ernest F. Henderson, London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1925, 441-448. Emphasis added. (f) An official said: "We surpass all other nations in wealth and wisdom and with our money, which gives us power, we will rouse the whole world against [Otto] and break him in pieces like a potter's vessels." Or as elsewhere translated: With our money, which gives us our power, we will arouse all the nations against him; and we will break him in pieces like a potter's vessel,* which, when broken cannot be brought into shape again. (*) A quotation from Psalm 2, line 9: I [God] will give you [David] the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots. (g) [Nicephorus] ordered Grimizo, Adalbert's* messenger, to come to him and bade him return [to Italy] with the imperial fleet. This consisted of 24 Chelandian Byzantine war-galleys], two Russian, and two Gallic ships - I do not know if he sent others which I did not see. (*) King of (North) Italy until 963, Adalbert was Ottos rival and sometime vassal. Otto had been King of the Germans since 936; in 962 he assumed the dormant title of (Western) emperor, causing great resentment among the Byzantines. Interestedly, Adalbert briefly took refuge at the Saracen colony of Fraxinet in Provence (around St Tropez, east of Toulon). Cf 972-73. (h) Adalbert [Frankish king of N Italy] has sent word to Nicephorus that he has 8,000 knights [read: cavalry] in armour, and says that, if the Greek army helps him, he can, with them, put to flight or annihilate you [Otto]. And he asks your rival [Nicephorus] to send him money, that he may the more readily induce his troops to fight. While on excursion with the emperor, Liutprand describes the emperors effeminate garments, or so they appeared to the Italian. As noted, Nicephoruss
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hair was long and covered by a scarf or hood (turban?), while his tunic was loosefitting and long sleeved. Speaking of Rhomaioi envoys sent to the West, L. writes thus: For with long sleeves, swathed, spangled, with long hair, clad in tunics down to their ankles, they ride, walk and sit at table with us . Latins, on the other hand, had more elegant hairstyles (or so L. saw it) and did not wear scarves like women, but hats instead. It seems implied that the Latins wore their hair short and their tunics were short and short-sleeved. Certainly there are contemporary German illustrations showing courtiers with short hair wearing knee-length tunics. Otto II is depicted with hair that extends no lower than a line level with the tip of his ears. One image of Nicephorus Phocas shows him with mid-length hair to about the half-way point between ears and shoulders. This negative representation of Byzantine clothing can in part be explained by the tantrum that was caused when Liutprand insisted on wearing a hat on the expedition, which was prohibited in the emperors presence, and was invited to wear a scarf (turban?) instead. In fact, Liutprands whole stay in Constantinople in 968 was marked by tense relations with the Byzantines, which explains his harsh attitude towards them. 968: 1. The Balkans: The emperor leads a brief foray into Bulgaria. The Russian prince Svjatoslav announces that he intends to move his capital from Kiev to Perejaslavets on the far lower Danube, at the western end of the delta. Nicephorus decides to realign with the Bulgarians. See 969. 2. Beginnings of the Neo-Roman reduction of Armenia: An army led by the chamberlain Basil the Nothos or the Bastard, the late Romanus IIs illegitimate son, annexes the province of Taron. Cf 1000. 3. Corfu: Liutprand (above) mentions that the Byzantines have a customs post in Corfu (Rotman p.64).
4. Italy: Having rebuffed Otto's embassy, emperor Nicephorus unites (968 or 970) the themes of Longobardia and Calabria under a new position of governor-general or Catapan [Gk: katepanos] of Italy, initially in the late 960s a naval command. That is to say, the local strategoi continued to control the land troops under his general supervision. Katepanos means the over-all or most senior amongst governors; in other words, supreme commander of several provinces. The first text that mentions a katepnos of Italy is a diploma dated to the the spring of 970 in favour of the church and monastery of St Peter of Taranto by the anthypatos or consul and patrician Michael. The diploma mentions his predecessor in the position, the Catepan Michael Abidelas. Thus the office was almost certainly created in 970 (Bloch 1988). Holmes 2005: 432 says the first katepano was probably the patrikios Eugenios in 968 or 969. Others think Abidelas was the first, being raised from mere strategos to katepanos in 970. Cf belwo 969-70: new theme of Lucania. The Romaic-Imperial shipping trade was now being displaced by locally-built ships - from the "Greek" cities of Amalfi, Bari and Venice: see 969 (Lucania) and 992. After the Saxon emperors had made [see next] a formidable attempt to drive the Byzantines from the peninsula, the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas and the Patriarch Polyeuctos made it obligatory on the southern Italian bishops, in 968 [or 969], to adopt the Greek Rite. This order aroused lively opposition in some towns, as at Bari, under Bishop Giovanni. Nor was it executed in other places immediately and universally. Cassano and Taranto, for instance, are said to have always maintained the Latin Rite (says the Catholic Encyc.). See next.
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 The Population and Army of Byzantine Italy At the end of the first millennium, Italy was divided between (a) the German empire: the northern half of the peninsula, including the papal realm; (b) the Lombards of Capua-Benevento; (c) Byzantium; and (d) Muslim (Fatimid) Sicily.
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To estimate population, a starting point is the proto-industrial 1871 census of Sicily and Italy which counted around 30 million people. Puglia had 1.4 M people and Calabria 1.2 M for a total of 2.6 M in the late 19th century, after 500 years of stagnation in the South. Farming methods were not fundamentally different in the 1800s from those of the Middle Ages (we assume here that either the Western heavy mouldboard plough was used throughout Italy including the Byzantine sector, rather than the Antique light sole-ard or scratch plough used elsewhere in the Eastern Empire; or that the mouldbard plough was not superior).* Tractors and mechanical harvesters (etc) lay well ahead in the 20th century. But trade, the clearing of forests, modern sanitation and medicine and so on would have allowed the population to increase since the Middle Ages. Let us therefore guess that the figures for AD 950 were only half those of 1871. If so, then Puglia would have had over 700,000 people and Calabria 600,000, with presumably fewer, say 300,000, in Basilicata, for a total of over 1.5 M in 950. (*) The productive advantage of the mouldboard plough is downplayed by Alan Harvey; he argues that the sole-ard was better suited to Mediterranean soils: Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 9001200, Cambridge UP 2003: 122-23; also Peregrine Horden & Nicholas Purcell, The corrupting sea: a study of Mediterranean history, WileyBlackwell, 2000: 232 ff; and again Bryer, Means of Agricultural Production in Laiou ed. 2002, p.108. Alternatively, if McEvedy and Jones, in their Population History (1978), are right in estimating that all of Italy-Sicily contained only about 5 M people in AD 950, then probably under one million people were ruled by officials appointed from Constantinople: say 450,000 in Puglia, 200,000 in Basilicata, and 350,000 in Calabria. Finally we can use Stathakopouloss (2008) more conservative figures for population density during the Byzantine millenium, namely nine people per km 2 in tough times, rising to 15 per km2 in fair to good times. The result (using 15 per km2) is up to 290,000 for Puglia, 150,000 in Basilicata and 225,000 in Calabria; and a regional total of 665,000. Let us also do a thought experiment for towns and villages, using this total of 665,000. We will imagine that there were 10 towns averaging 5,000 [=50,000 people] in the Catepanate; 20 towns of the order of 2,500 [=50,000]; and 40 of 1,000 [40,000]. The rest (525,000 people) would have lived in village communities (Gk chorion, fiscal commune), large farm or ranch estates, monastic complexes, etc, averaging, say, 300. This gives us in all 70 towns and 1,750 lesser settlements. Treadgold, Army p. 162, has calculated or estimated that, over a millennium or more, the empire was able to support regular soldiers to a proportion of 1.2% to 2.4% of the overall population. Applying 1.2% to a conservative base of just 750,000 inhabitants, we deduce that in 950 the resources of the Catepanate were possibly enough for it to have enrolled around 9,000 semi-professional soldiers. If anything, however, the contemporary sources suggest there were fewer than this: ones impression is that in Italy 5,000 men constituted a large field army. 968-969: 1. The East: Nikephoros campaigns in Syria. The Arab historian Yahya of Antioch records that the Byzantine army arrived in front of Muslim Antioch in October 968.* Nicephorus raided through Lebanon and Syria in November, at one point
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reaching as far south at Tripoli (notes to Leo the Deacon, trans 2005: 119, 122). He was still in Syria at the time of the eclipse of the sun that science tells us took place on 22 December 968*; but then returned to Constantinople. He left behind 500 cavalry (one parataxis) and 1,000 infantry (one taxiarchy) with orders to attack Antioch every day. They were stationed at a fort called Baghras, about 26 km north of the city. - Notes to Leo the Deacon, trans. Talbot & Sullivan p.125. See 969 below. (*) The events of the late 960s are often (not always) misdated in Leo Diaconus and Skylitzes. The eclipses was cdentred on the western side of the Black Sea. 2. The West: Byzantine-German war in Italy. Otto I and his Italian vassal Pandolf Ironhead of Capua wage a campaign to take Rhomaioi lands in southern Italy. In 968 Otto left the siege of Bari (begun March 968) in the charge of duke Pandulf, but the later was captured by the East-Romans in the Battle of Bovino (969). He was released later (970) in the deal in which John Tzimisces, the East-Roman emperor, gave Theophano, his niece by marriage, in marriage to Otto's son Otto II. A Byzantine fleet sent to Italy in 968 consisted of 24 siphonophores (siphonbearers: galleys armed with Greek Fire), two Rus ships and two Galatian ships (Heath 1976: 13). This seems a modest expedition. Otto won over Capua and Beneventum by diplomatic means, and then laid siege early in 968 (or more probably 969) to Bari, the capital of Apulia and the chief Byzantine stronghold on the Adriatic coast, which he thought would easily fall into his hands. But he misjudged the strength and determination of the Byzantines, and was forced to retreat. Although Nicephorus did not personally land in Italy, in 969 Rhomaioi troops did make an attack on Capua, taking Pandulf back to Constantinople as a captive temporarily, until the Emperor John Tzimiskes established himself in 970. Vlastos, Survey; Loud, S Italy in the 10 th C., in NCMH p.630. The Byzantine bishop of Taranto (itself recovered from the Fatimids in 967) was now raised to the rank of metropolitan. See below: 968-83 imposition of the Greek rite. Otto and Pandolf marched from Benevento in the winter of 968 into Calabria again, the solar eclipse provides an exact date: 22 December 968and by March 969 had Bari under siege. Bovino in N Apulia was also besieged in May (Kreutz pp.104-05). Anno 969, introivit Otho Rex in Apuliam [King Otto enters Apulia] mense Martij, et obsedit [besieges] Civitatem Bari irrito conatu [in a useless struggle], et in alio anno intravit in Calabriam mense Octobris (Lupus): King Otto enters Apulia in March and unsuccessfully besieges the town of Bari, and a year later in October he enters Calabria . . . -- The Italo-German campaign not only fails to take new lands but also leads to the loss to Byzantium of existing lands, such as Avellino, inland from Salerno. As we have said, Pandulf Ironhead is captured and held prisoner in Constantinople. When Nicephorus is assassinated in 969, Pandolf is released. 3. Greece: The Great Lavra* (Great Monastery) was established on Mount Athos in this period. See 1000. (*) Lavra: a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the centre. The key figure was St Athanasios the Athonite. A native of Trebizond who became a teacher in Constantinople, Athanasios went to Mount Athos as a hermit, probably in 957. He accompanied his friend the generalissimo Nikephoros Phocas on the Cretan campaign of 960/61, and after the capture of Candia, used some of the spoils to found a new lavra, or small community of anchorites [one who has withdrawn into a cell; walled-up hermits]. When Phocas became Emperor, this
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lavra was transformed into a lavishly endowed royal foundation for approximately 80 monks, with annual revenues in cash and kind and with lands and property exempt from taxation (Karakatsanis et al. 1997). 968-70: Italy: In 968, as we have seen, Otto left the siege of Bari in charge of Pandulf, but the allied duke was captured by the Byzantines under the patrikios Eugenius in a battle at Bovino [between Benevento and Foggia]. He was released (970: see there) in a deal in which John Tzimisces, Byzantine emperor, gave Theophano in marriage to Otto's son Otto II. 968-83: Re-Byzantin-isation of the churches of Calabria and Apulia: Eight bishopric were created in Calabria under the archbishop of Santa Severina and in 968 five sees were established in Apulia under a new metropolitan see of Otranto (Leighton Pullan, From Justinian to Luther: A.D. 518-1517, 1930). After the Saxon emperors had made a formidable attempt to drive the Greeks from the peninsula, Emperor Nicephorus Phocas and the Patriarch Polyeuctos made it obligatory on the bishops [of S Italy], in 968, to adopt the Greek Rite.* This order aroused lively opposition in some quarters, as at Bari, under Bishop Giovanni [but mostly did not MOR]. Nor was it executed in other places immediately and universally. Cassano and Taranto, for instance, are said to have always maintained the Latin Rite. At Trani, in 983, Bishop Rodostamo was allowed to retain the Latin Rite, as a reward for aiding in the surrender of the city to the Greeks. Online Cath. Encyc., under Italo-Greeks. (*) In the narrow sense a rite is a certain uniform arrangement of formulas and ceremonies used for the Holy Eucharist, the Canonical Hours, the administration of other sacraments and sacramentals. More widely, it means language, i.e. the Greek language in this case, along with the Eastern style of using leavened bread for the Eucharist (azymes), a married priesthood in the parishes, a prominent role for the deacon in the services, and a continuing emphasis on monasticism. Fasting laws are stricter than in the West. On fast days, the faithful give up not only meat, but also dairy products, and on many fast days they also give up fish, wine and the use of oil in cooking. 969: 1. The East: After a blockade of nearly a year, on 28 October 969 the Neo-Romans under Michael Burtzes, the strategos of the Black Mountain [i.e. the Amanus range, including the Syrian Gates pass], and Peter the eunuch Stratopedarch capture Antioch, the great military and commercial hub of Syria, which had a double wall. The Byzantines made a night assault and managed to get over the walls using ladders (Leo Diac. trans. Talbot and Sullivan pp.132-33) The historian Leo the Deacon states that the city of Antioch was the third in the world, i.e. after Baghdad and Constantinople (or perhaps third in the Byzantine world, after Constantinople and Thessalonica: cf Treadgold 1997: 954). 2. Bulgaria: The Viking-Russians under Svjatoslav, with their Pecheneg and Magyar allies, cross the Danube River and sweep aside the Bulgarians. Expecting that they will eventually reach Constantinople by land and sea, Nicephorus strengthens the citys fortifications. He positioned artillery on the walls and secured the entrance to the Golden Horn with an an iron chain between two towers (Leo Diac. V:2). See more below. 3. Following a major Russian invasion under Svjatoslav [see below], Tzimiskes assassinates Nikephoros, 10 December 969, and takes the throne. A servant had managed to call for the palace guard, a unit of Viking Russians (Varangians), while the Emperor was being attacked but when they arrived he
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was plainly dead. So they immediately knelt before John Tzimisces, Nicephorus' murderer, and hailed him as Emperor. "Alive they would have defended him to the last breath: dead there was no point in avenging him. They had a new master now. Thus Norwich 1993: 209.
969-976: Ioannes (JOHN) I Kourkouas, called Tzimiskes. John's nickname Tzimiskes was apparently derived from the Armenian tshemshkik, meaning "red shoes or slippers". Formerly general of the army, he was aged 44 or 45 (45 according to Leo Diac. VI:2) when he seized the throne, initially posing as regent for the two young emperors Basil and Christopher. First wife: Maria Scleraina. Second wife, marr. 971: Theodora, daughter of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and elder sister of Romanus II. In six years he [would] show a genius and enthusiasm for conquest unmatched by any other Byzantine emperor, even Nicephorus II (Treadgold 1997: 512). See 975 Palestine. 969: 1. Constantinople: Theophano was to be disappointed in her plans for marrying the new emperor. The Patriarch Polyeuctes demanded John commit penance, punish his cohorts, and expel Theophano from the palace. Only when he had submitted to all the Patriarch's demands was he admitted to enter a church and crowned (on 25 December 969). John made a political marriage, taking as his wife Theodora, the daughter of Constantine VII, and aunt of the young emperors Basil and Constantine. 2. Syria: The East-Romans take Antioch. Sayfs successor at Aleppo officially becomes an Imperial vassal but rules independently (970). Western Syria, from Antioch north to Cilicia, is incorporated into the empire. 3. 969-70: As noted earlier, the Viking-Russians under Svjatoslav, with their Pecheneg and Magyar allies, crossed the Danube River and swept aside the Bulgarians. Svjatoslav takes Perejaslavec (969: in the delta) and then Preslav (970). The latter was probably surrendered by the Bulgarian tsar Boris who now allied himself with Svjatoslav. It seems that their combined forces proceeded unopposed across Bulgaria and into Byzantine Thrace. No resistance was met until they reached Philippopolis [Plovdiv in modern S Bulgaria]. See below: 970. Having entered Thrace and captured the major Romanic city of Philippopolis, Svjatoslav arrogantly and unwisely orders the new emperor Tzimiskes to withdraw from Europe. This he will regret . . . . See 970. According to Leo the Deacon VI:10, the Russians and their allies impaled "20,000" people at Philippopolis. Or at least they were empaled: Leo says they were affixed to [strung up on; tied and raised on] stakes, i.e. on a forked stake called a phourca; death was subsequently induced by strangulation (notes to Leo, in the translation by Talbot & Sullivan 2005: 155 note 93). A more plausible figure would be 2,000 - which of course is still a very . . . arresting figure! Although his mother had converted to Christianity, S. himself was a militant pagan. Cf 988. 4. The Shiite Fatimids take control in Egypt. The city of Cairo and the al-Azhar mosque are founded. Cf 971, 973. 969-70: 1a. Italy: Formation of a new theme of Lucania, which in modern terms represents the central third of Basilicata, reaching the top of the Gulf of Taranto.
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Lucanias capital was probably at inland Tursikon, the modern village of Tursi, south of Matera, where there was (is) a castle built in the Ostrogothic period, before AD 500 (Burman p.117; Loud, Southern Italy in NCMH p.631). To locate Tursi, first go to the midpoint of the top coast of the Gulf of Taranto, and then inland about 20 km. A few years later, ca.975, Lucania became a constituent part of the Catepanate of Longbardia along with Calabria and Apulia. 1b. The German emperor Otto left the siege of Bari in the charge of Pandulf Ironhead of Benevento-Capua, but Pandulf was captured by the Byzantines in the Battle of Bovino (969) and taken away to Constantinople. 1c. Meanwhile the patrikios Eugenios, strategus at Bari, who seems to have been very unpopular because of his harsh levying of taxes, had been sent in chains to Constantinople. He was replaced by the patrikios and (perhaps first-ever) catepan [regional overlord]* Michael Abidelas. Michael was immediately challenged by the Lombard and German army of Romuald, brother of Pandulf, the latter still a captive in Constantinople. A bloody combat took place under the walls of Ascoli. The Byzantines were defeated completely and lost the town, hitherto occupied by the German count Conon. But Sico attacked the auxiliary troops commanded by Romuald and took him prisoner. Abidelas was able to flee with the rest from his army, leaving Apulia to the depredations of the Lombards who dedicated themselves in the following months to obtaining tribute from the towns of the region (thus Rodriquez). See next. (*) Gk ho Kat epano, the one above (the others), thus supreme governor or commander-in-chief. Holmes 2005: 432 says the first katepano was probably the patrikios Eugenios in 968 or 969. Others think Abidelas was the first, being raised from mere strategos to katepanos in 970. The first text that mentions a katepnos of Italy is a diploma dated to the the spring of 970 in favour of the church and monastery of St Peter of Taranto by the anthypatos or consul and patrikios Michael. The diploma mentions his predecessor in the position, the Catepan Michael Abidelas. Thus the office was almost certainly created in 969 or 970 (Bloch 1988: 350). From 969 or from 974: Italy: All of Langobardia Minor, the non-Byzantine sector of the south, was briefly unified one last time. Pandulf of Capua, called Ironhead, Pandolfo Testa di Ferro, usurped his brother's share (Benevento) from his nephew on Landulf's death in 969, and then became Prince of Salerno in 978. He ruled the sector from Ancona on the Adriatic to the fringes of Calabria. Before his death (March 981), he had gained from Emperor Otto I the title of Duke of Spoleto also. Cf 970: coins. Every one of the Campanian powers [i.e. Amalfi, Benevento, Capua, Naples, Salerno] had its moment of glory; each was equally ephemeral (Wickham p.156). 969-75: Italy: The East-Roman patrikios and Catapanus Italiae at Bari was Abdila, i.e. Michael Abidelas. His charter of 975 in favour of the monastery of Monte Cassino, confirming a previous decision of 970, is the earliest or one of the earliest extant documents of a catapanus [Gk Katepnos]. Bloch 1988: I, 350. See 970 below. c.970: Italy: The Fatimid quarter-dinar or gold tar [first coined around 913] was the principal currency in much of mainland southern Italy for most of the 10th century, at least for larger purchases and for inter-regional and international trade (Fossier p.175). For smaller transactions, copper coinage was used, either Byzantine folles or locally struck follari, based on Byzantine models. At some time after 969, southern Italian mints at Amalfi and Salerno began to issue their own imitation tar modelled after the quarter-dinar of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz but with blundered pseudo-cufic legends, no doubt because the coins had been
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 produced with dies cut by engravers who were unfamiliar with Arabic.
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970: 1. The Balkans: A Rus-Bulgarian-Pecheneg army under Rus command invaded Thrace. Or as others say, it was a large combined force of Bulgarians, Pechenegs and Hungarians (30,000) allied to the 'Russian' (Viking) prince. The northerners, after sacking Philippopolis, were possibly defeated or briefly halted near Arcadiopolis. Most of the empires effective field units were engaged in the East, so only a few troops were available to deal with this invasion. According to the Byzantine sources, Bardas Skleros marched out with an East Roman army of 12,000 (Skylitzes) or 10,000 men (Leo Diac. VI:12) - all elite troops. They were welltrained, and in the battle that followed they showed good discipline and cohesion. McGeer, Teeth p.298, shows that Skleros faithfully followed the tactics outlined in the military manuals of the time. When the enemy was within striking range, Skleros divided his force into three divisions, two being concealed on either side of the track leading to the enemy position. He rode on to the attack with his main division - probably fewer than 6,000 men. They charged furiously at the Pechenegs who constituted the forward section of the northern army. This drew out the Pechenegs in a counter-charge, and Skleros successfully engineered a feigned gradual withdrawal. The fortunes of battle swung back and forth for some time until Skleros ordered his division into a real withdrawal. The Pechenegs followed up but were ambushed from both sides by Skleross other two divisions. The Pechenegs quickly retired, and their panic alarmed their allies behind them, the Rus and Bulgarians. The rout became general. One source says the East-Romans lost only 550 men, which sounds plausible. The northerners lost many thousands (Haldon 2001: 97-98). Or such is Haldons account. Leo the Deacon claims it was an imperial victory, but the Russian Primary Chronicle actually says it was a Rus victory. Svjatoslav continued on further into Thrace, so the clash was probably only a tactical victory for the East-Romans (Fine 1991: 186). See 971. According to Leo Diac. VI:13, Bardas himself killed a Scythian (Russian), driving his sword through the enemys helmet and breastplate and cutting him in two. See next: use of the mace. 2. (970-71:) Asia: Revolt by the Phocas family, led by Bardas Phocas*, nephew of the late emperor. (*) Bardas held the post of doux of Chaldia and Koloneia, i.e. he commanded two themes, with presumably two strategoi under him. Holmes 2005: 315, 338 notes that this is the first mention of the position of doux or overlord commander in a frontier context. But (except in Italy) there was as yet no wider or essential change in the command structure. The first mention of a doux commanding in Syria does not come until 976. Bardas Phocas revolted against Tzimisces in 970-71, with the help of his brother Leo and their father. He was proclaimed emperor at Caesarea. While proceeding there, Phocass forces were trailed by troops loyal to the emperor. One pursuer, Constantine Charon, came too close and Phocas personally dispatched him by crushing his helmet and skull with a mace (Leo Diac. VII:8; Skylitzes 293.61). The rebellion was put down by by Bardas Sclerus, Tzimiskes newly appointed stratelates (supreme commander). He assembled an army at Dorylaion and subjected it to daily training drills. He then marched towards Cappadocia; this induced nearly all of Phocass allies to desert. Bardas's father Leo and brother were captured and partly blinded. Bardas Phocas himself, surrounded in a fortress at Antigous (modern Altunhisar) in Cappadocia, surrendered on the promise that he would not be harmed. He was forced to become a monk and banished. The whole family was sent into exile on the island of Chios. Leo the younger attempted a second revolt the next year and again the effort proved unsuccessful. The Phocas family had the active support of the Nicephorus party and of some
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clergy, and Basil the Nothos no doubt believed that his own position would never be secure until the whole faction was wiped out. 3. Marriage negotiations between the emperors Otto I and John/Ioannes. See 972. 4. Italy: When the German emperor Otto learnt of the arrival of his allies, he hurried to write to the catepan Michael Abidelas to show his good disposition to beginning negotiations, on condition that his former vassal Pandulf was set free. Abidelas accepted, and Pandulf was led to the camp of Otto under the walls of the still unconquered fortress-town of Bovino (summer of 970). Otto decided then to raise the siege and to leave Apulia for the north, a decision that no doubt combined his commitment to the Byzantine authorities with the opportunity of retiring decently from a fruitless war (thus Rodriquez). 970: Fatimids from Egypt invade Palestine Endemic warfare between the various Muslim powers continued there until 983. Cf 97071: Antioch. al-Andalus: d. Haday b. Shaprut or Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Jewish scholar and diplomat, adviser to the Spanish ruler Abd al-Rahman III. A translator from Greek into Arabic. In 949 an embassy had been sent to Crdoba.by Constantine VII. Among the presents brought by the embassy was a magnificent codex of Dioscorides' work on botany, which the Arabic physicians and naturalists valued highly. Hasdai, with the aid of a learned Greek (Byzantine) monk named Nicholas, sent (951) by the emperor, translated it into Arabic, or rather: re-translated it into better Arabic, making it thereby the common property of the Arabs and of medieval Europe. Syed, Islam and Science, New Delhi: Anmol, 2003, p.233. 970-71: Winter: The Fatimids subject Neo-Roman Antioch to a five-month siege. Once a Byzantine relief force arrived (971), the siege was swiftly disbanded (Holmes 2005: 307) 971: 1. Venice: Following a formal request from Constantinople, the doge issues an edict against Venetian weapons trade (arms, iron and ship timber) with the Arabs. The doges claim that the emperor was planning to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims would be a simplification (Nicol 1992: 37; Rotman p.64). Cf 972, 2. Spring offensive by the emperor John Tzimiskes and Bardas Skleros: Triumph over the Viking-Russians and ANNEXATION OF MUCH OF BULGARIA. East-Roman counter-attack against Svjatoslav: the Rhos/Russians are ejected from the Bulgarian capital Preslav [Gk: Ioannoupolis] , and Svjatoslavs army is crushed at Silistria on the Danube (971). North Thrace/Eastern Bulgaria is annexed as a Byzantine province - but the Bulgarians will recover the western sector in 976. - In the 970s a Bulgarian state will re-group in the west, in what is now Albania and FYROM. Six new themes were then created (972) under a duke/doux of Adrianople and a duke of Thessaloniki. The Northern Campaign of John Tzimiskes, 971 A new and ambitious Viking-Russian prince, SVJATOSLAV, began his foreign career as an ally of emperor Nikephoros Phokas, who he helped against the Bulgarians (967). Unwisely, however, Svjatoslav conceived the idea of seizing Bulgaria. He demanded moreover that the Rhomaioi should withdraw from Europe and retire to Asia Minor. This was a silly proposition, because under Nikephoros the Rhomaioi had recovered their confidence and then some. The new Basileus or emperor, Ioannes (John) Tzimiskes, r. 969-76, answered Svjatoslav with a powerful fleet and a large
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army of lancers and bowmen. As we relate in detail below, the emperor marched out with 30-40,000 men, supported by a fleet of 300 ships in the Black Sea. In 971 (or 972) he drove the Viking-Russians from the Bulgarian capital and engaged them and their allies (Bulgarians, Magyars and the Turkish Pechenegs) in a pitched battle at Silistria, modern Dristra, on the lower Danube. On this campaign, Tzimiskes led probably about 40,000 men in all: probably 4,000 of the new tagma of the Immortals or Athanatoi created in 970 - who were kataphraktoi or extra-heavy cavalry; 13,000 other cavalry; 15,000 heavy-armed infantry; and several thousand support troops. Or 30,000 land troops if we follow Haldon, 2001: 99. They were backed-up by a fleet of "over 300" boats and shipsgrain transports as well as combat vesselsthat sailed up the Danube (Leo Diac. VIII:1). The Byzantine war manuals prescribed that when marching in enemy territory, the infantry, marching in three lines or columns, should be surrounded on all sides by cavalry. Further out were small numbers of cavalry outriders or flank scouts. In open country this meant that the main body comprised three lines of infantry flanked on either side by one line of cavalry. The emperor or commander rode with a second line of cavalry, behind the cavalry vanguard and immediately ahead of the infantry. The baggage train [Greek touldon] (*) was in the very middle with the infantry (Haldon, Byzantium at War p.53). (*) A 10th-century treatise (an appendix to the De Cerem.) says there could be as many as 600 or 1,086 pack-animals (mules and horses) for the imperial household baggage. (600 mules in Haldon, At War p.58 vs 1,086 pack-animals in Haldons Warfare State and Society p.169 citing Three Treatises, ss. 392-394 - Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions. Introduction, text, translation, commentary; Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, vol. 28, Vienna 1990; also discussed by Hendy pp.304-05. A relatively light load per mule would be 60 kg; so 600 mules could easily carry 36 metric tons. This would include tents and even a portable hot bath and books for the emperor. First, Tzimiskes ordered supply boats to take grain, fodder and weapons by river to Adrianople (Leo Diac.VII:9). Browning comments, explaining the achievements of Tzimiskes and Basil II: "this [= imperial troops landed by ship in the enemy's rear] more than anything else contributed to the collapse of Bulgarian power and the establishment of East Roman rule in Moesia and Thrace after a gap of three centuries" (p.139). But it cannt be so simple: Cosnatiane V, 741-77, had used similar tactics regularly but without finally defeating the Bulgarians. Next Tzimiskes advanced (April 971) through the Balkan mountains and caught Svyatoslav by surprise. While the latter rested in Dristria (Silistria), the Byzantines assaulted Preslav, the Bulgarian capital, now a Russian-held garrison-town. The Immortals were prominent in a battle fought as the Romaics approached the town. Ordered to attack the enemys left wing, they held their spears before them as they charged. It is said that 8,500 Rus died in this clash but some escaped to join Svyatoslav at Silistria (Leo Diac. VIII:4; Haldon 2001: 99). Catapults, i.e. rope-pulled trebuchets, were used against the walls, or at least against the men (*) defending the walls; and then flame-throwers (Greek Fire, called Median fire by Leo the Deacon) against the tower to which the defenders retreated. The East-Romans got inside the city, but there more than 7,000 enemy soldiers made a last stand; imperial troops presumably archers - led by Bardas Skeleros shot them all down (Leo Diac. VIII:7). Among those captured was the Russian-allied Bulgarian tsar Boris. (*) It is thought that early trebuchets were an anti-personnel weapon, not being powerful enough to batter through walls (see McGeer, Siege 1995b) .
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Tzimiskes then marched on Dristria or Silistria, Gk Dorystolon, on the lower Danube north of Preslav. The imperial forces established a base camp where the baggage and siege trains were drawn up in a defensive position with a small detachment to guard them. Svyatoslav drew up his large infantry army outside the town walls. Tzimiskes' Rhomaioi faced a mainly infantry army of some 60,000 Viking-Rus, Slavs, Pechenegs and Magyars (numbers obviously over-stated). While 60,000 is not credible, plainly it was a large force. We may imagine the two armies as being about equal in size (Talbot and Sullivans translation of Leo, pp.40, 179; also Skylitzes, cited by McGeer p.343; Treadgold Army p.114 and State p.509; Haldon 2001: 99). Leo the Deacon, the future historian, was present during this campaign as secretary to the Emperor. He records that the Rus or Russians carried long shields the height of a man (they reached to their feet) and many wore mail coats. His reference to chain mail breastplates may indicate that many wore a fairly basic kind of armour. Almost all were infantry, and, having drawn up in close order, they advanced with levelled spears. Bows, javelins and swords were also used (Leo, cited in Davidson 1976: 115; trans. Talbot & Sullivan p.40). As we shall see, the shield-wall of the northerners was weakened and disorganised by Byzantine infantry archers, but according to Heath it still managed to repulse 12 (!) successive charges by the imperial cavalry. A rainstorm then blew up a cloud of dust and the Rus and their allies were ridden down in a final 13th charge led by the emperor in person (Heath, citing Brehier 1977). Eastern Bulgaria was annexed to the empire. In the account given by the Russian Primary Chronicle, after some desperate fighting the Neo-Roman cavalry broke the Russian line and the Rus retreated into the town. The imperial cavalry deployed their iron maces to good effect.The EastRoman ships meanwhile had arrived in the Danube; they blockaded both banks, preventing an escape by the besieged northerners. Several sallies by the Russians were defeated by the superior Byzantine cavalry, and Svyatoslav decided to die fighting (although in fact he survived). Leos account is somewhat different, but must be preferred, as he was an eyewitness. He says that the Romaic super-heavy cavalry (iron-clad horsemen) were placed on, or rather behind (*) both wings, while other Byzantines formed the centre of the line. Foot archers and slingers were placed behind and ordered to maintain steady fire (Leo Diac. VIII: 9-10). (*) That is to say, Tzimiskes held back two large regiments of super-heavy cavalry (Talbot & Sullivan: appendix to their translation of Leo the Deacons History, and their map 5: 2005, p.229, which draws on Haldons map at 2001: 102). The front line comprised most of the infantry (perhaps 10,000 men) in the centre with all the ordinary cavalry on either flank (say 6,500 left and 6,500 right). There was a second line made up of a smaller body of infantry archers and slingers (say 5,000) with the two heavy cavalry regiments (presumably 2,000 left and 2,000 right) hidden from view behind the ordinary cavalry in front. The decisive moment came when Tzimiskes ordered the heavy cavalry to ride out and around to attack the northerners flanks. In the first phase, says Leo, the Russian attack or attacks involved the use of javelins and arrows against the Byzantines horses, followed by a general advance leading to hand-to-hand combat. The battle seemed to be going in the favour of the barbarians. But the Neo-Romans rallied and after several hours of fighting, neither side was prepared to give way. A cavalry assault, or several assaults, described by Leo as an encircling movement, led to an imperial victory. As we have said, Tzimiskes ordered the
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heavy cavalry to ride out and around to attack the northerners flanks. At the same time the East-Roman heavy infantry in the centre made a renewed push. The northerners then broke and retreated into the fortress town behind them. The day after the first battle, the imperial fleet arrived up the Danube on the other side of Silitria, sealing the fate of the northerners. But the barbarians were ready to fight on to the death, and, as Haldon presents it, they sallied out on several occasions over the next few days to fight further pitched battles with the imperials, each ending with victory for the Byzantines (2001: 103-04). It has been proposed (by Heath 1979 following Brehier) that the shield-wall of the northerners was gradually weakened and disorganised by Byzantine infantry archers, but still managed to repulse 12 (!) successive charges by the imperial cavalry. (One is reminded here of the battle of Hastings.) For Haldon these many charges were incidents in a series of battles rather than just episodes in the one battle. In the final battle, fought according to Leo on 24 July 971, the Romaics came near to defeat until the intervention of a rainstorm (divinely sent of course) allowed them to prevail. A storm broke, producing clouds of rising dust and blinding rain: the Byzantines rallied and in a 13th charge the Rus gave way. The heavy cavalry of the newly created tagma of the Athanatoi was prominent in this last charge, possibly led by emperor John himself. The wounded Svyatoslav barely managed to escape alive (Leo Diac. VIII:9-10; Davidson 1976: 144 ff; McGeer; Haldon 2001: 104). Leo claimed that 15,000 Russians died in this battle but only 350 Byzantines; and 20,000 barbarian shields were collected. Altogether in the campaign 38,000 northerners died, leaving 22,000 survivors to be fed - as part of the treaty of surrender - by the East-Roman grain-ships (IX:10-11). The emperor agreed after the battle to a meeting with Svyatoslav on the Danube. Svyatoslav and a handful of other blond men, naked to the waist, (*) arrived in canoes, i.e. boats with oars and a sail built from a single large tree-trunk (Greek monoxyla, Slavic lodya). (**) Leo describes the pagan Rus king as clean shaven except for a broad moustache on his upper lip; his head was bald - shaven in Slav style - except for a lock of hair on one side, a token of his noble birth. (Returning thence towards Kiev, the Rus king was ambushed and killed at the cataracts of the Dneiper by Pecheneg Turks who made his skull into a drinking cup ). (*) Cf Vladimir Putin AD 2005-10! (**) Layers of planking were secured to the hull to increase its height, and oars were affixed to the planking. A single mast with a square sail made the lodya seaworthy, and it was light enough, when the need arose, for overland portage. Although it seldom exceeded 20 metres in length, a lodya often held a crew of 40. 2. At the same time the partly blinded Leo Phocas led a further coup attempt. He was captured and now completely blinded. Tzimiskes had put the droungarios of the Fleet in charge of the capital while he was away in Bulgaria; the admiral foiled Leos attempted rebellion (Leo the Deacon, trans. Talbot & Sullivan p.37). Tzimiskes Triumph As described by Leo Diac. (IX:12), the middle of the city was everywhere decorated with purple cloths and, like a bridal chamber, was thickly bedecked with laurel branches and with fabric interwoven with gold. 971: Fatimids from Egypt invade Syria and attack Romanic-Imperial Antioch. See 972, 973, 975. Cf the recorded style of address in DAI: To the Emir of Egypt, a foursolidus gold bull. A bull of 18 exagia was attached to the letter sent by the
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porphyrogennetoi [purple-born] Constantine and Romanos: "Constantine and Romanos, in Christ Holy Autocrats, great and high Augusti, Emperors of the Romans, to our beloved friend, the most noble (eugenestatos) Emir of Egypt." The Fatimids, however, took the view that they were caliphs rather than emirs . . . 971-76: Fortresses on the lower Danube are strengthened by the Byzantines as a precaution against future Rus invasions. See 972: new themes. McGeer (p.317) notes that, after the expedition of 971, the kataphraktoi or super-heavy cavalry (with armoured horses) are not mentioned again in the historical sources, except for small numbers in Syria. Evidently, being expensive, and the offensive phase of this period having ended, they passed out of use by about 1025. 972: 1. Central and eastern Bulgaria: To consolidate their rule, the East-Romans create a number of themes: those of Mesopotamia of the West (the Danube delta), Dristra (lower Danube), Beroe (central Bulgaria: modern Stara Zagora) and Ioannoupolis (Preslav) (Holmes 2005: 399, citing the Escorial Taktikon, written ca. 975). All of these except Beroe were to be lost again by the empire in 976. 2. Far Eastern front: Tzimiskes leads an expedition which captures and burns Nisibis. First campaign against the Arabs in Mesopotamia, against Abu Taghlib. Another triumphal entry was staged, centred not at the Hippodrome but in the Forum and the last leg of the Mese, the main city thoroughfare.* It featured a spectacular display of booty. Skylitzes Chronicle contains an illustration of Tzimiskes riding in a triumph, or rather he rides behind an icon of the Virgin carried aloft in a two-horse chariot. The chronicle dates from the later 12th C, so it may not be accurate about the details of late 10th C ritual. This was the last triumph for some time: until 989, as Basil II (below) was not overly attached to the splendours incumbent on the imperial office (thus McCormick, Triumphal pp.175, 177; others would date this triumph to 974). (*) The two major city throughfares met at the Anastasian Forum. 3. Byzantine embassy to Cordoba, capital of al-Andalus, Umayyad Spain (Fletcher p.69). 4. Mt Athos: The Emperor granted Athos its first Charter or Typikon: this was the famous Tragos (parchment), drawn up by Euthymios, recognising the special needs of the Great Lavra and legislating a regime prescribing the co-existence of both traditional eremitic or individualist, 'hermit' monasticism and the new cenobite or communal system. 5a. Italy: Pugnavit Asto filius Transamundi Marchisij cum 40. mil. Sarracenorum. Caytus eorum Bucobolus vocabatur, et vicit Asto cum 60. suis prosequens Agarenos usque Tarentum (Lupus): Asto son of the [late] margrave Transamundus [III of Spoleto, d. 967] fights with 4,000 (?) Saracens. Their caytus ( = Arabic qaid or cad, chief, governor), is called Bucobolus [perhaps Abu Kabail*], and Asto defeats the Agarenes (Arabs), pursuing (them) with 60 of his (men) as far as Taranto. This or another Asto is mentioned as fighting Arabs at Taranto again in 991, when he is a comes (count, i.e. colonel). (*) Amaris suggestion (in his Storia dei Musulmani, II: 256). In Arabic, kabail or qabail means tribes, typically an allusion to the Berbers.
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5b. At Rome: The Eastern emperors niece by marriage*, Theophano or Theophanu, aged 12, marries Otto, aged 15, heir to the German throne. She travels thence into Germany. See 974 and 981. (*) Evidently Tzimiskes first wife, Maria Skleraina, was her aunt. Her father was Constantine Sclerus, brother of Bardas; her mother was Sophia Phokaina, niece of Nicephoros II Phokas. Otto had sent Gero, the archbishop of Cologne, to Constantinople to ask for the hand of Anna, the daughter of the Emperor John I Tzimisces. John declined to give a purple-born princess to a German prince, but Gero returned with a cousin of hers, Johns niece, princess Theophano. Theophanu is identified in the marriage contract as the neptis (female descendant) of Emperor John I Tzimisces. However since John Tzimisces had married Theodora, the sister of Romanus II, she still may actually have been a daughter of Romanus. Alternatively she may have been the daughter of Konstantinos Skleros and his wife Sophia, who was probably the sister of Tzimiskes first wife. Davids, A. (1995) The Empress Theophano, citing Wolf, F. (1991) Die Kaiserin Theophanu. Theophano duly arrived in 972, proceeding in grand style with a magnificent escort and bearing great treasure. However, according to the chronicler Thietmar, she was not the virgo desiderata (desired maiden), the Imperial princess, that was expected (Wikipedia 2010 s.v Theophanu). She married Otto (II) on 14 April 972 in Rome. In Germany Theophanu was to be criticised for her decadence, manifested in her bathing once a day and introducing luxurious garments and jewelry into Germany. She is credited with introducing the fork to Western Europe - chronographers mention the astonishment she caused when she "used a golden double prong to bring food to her mouth" instead of using her hands as was the norm (Herrin 2008: 209, 211). Illustration: GO HERE for a picture of a Byzantine ivory stele showing Christ crowning Otto and Theophano: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/image:otton_ii_et_thophano.jpg Italy/Provence: As late as 972, Muslim (Andalusi, Spanish) bandits still controlled the Great St. Bernard Pass which forms the modern Italian-Swiss border, west of Mt Blanc.* In that year, they captured and held for ransom the prominent French cleric St. Maiolus [Mayeul], abbot of Cluny, who was travelling through the pass on his return from Rome. The ransom for Maiolus and his large entourage was set at 1,000 pounds of silver: one pound for each Andalusi soldier involved in the operation. - Robert W. Lebling, The Pirates of St. Tropez. See next. (*) The point where the French, Swiss and Italian borders meet lies a little NW of the pass. 972-73: Shortly after 972, the Muslim bandits were driven from the heights around the Great St. Bernard pass. One of the leaders of the opposing forces in this hard-fought battle was the Archdeacon of Aosta, Bernard of Menthon, for whom the mountain pass was later named. Others place Bernard in the next century. See 975. Then the young Count of Provence (William son of Soso II) and the Count of Turin extirpate the Saracen outpost on the coast of what is now southern France. This effectively marks the end of the Viking and Arab threat to Latin Europe. The French Wikipedia (2010 Mayeul de Cluny) says that the Saracens went north to attack the approaching Christian forces. There was a series
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 of battles in the Alps of Provence, at Embrun, Gap, Riez, Ampus and Cabasse. The sixth and last took place at Tourtour, 30+ km NW of Fraxinet/LaGarde-Freint, before Fraxinet itself was attacked (973).
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[This account follows the Vita of St Mayeul] - Guillaume of Provence [William of Arles], the counts Roubaud de Forcalquier and Ardouin of Turin, the Viscount of Marseilles, Pons de Fos, and Conrad, king of Burgundy, combined their forces. As earlier, they were supported from the sea by a Greek fleet of the Byzantine emperor. They initially attacked the Saracen column bringing back the ransom [1,000 pounds of silver] paid for Mayeul [Majolus, the abbot of Cluny, taken captive in July 972], then [in 973] they laid siege to the fortress above the village. Legend has it that the treason of a Muslim was necessary to bring about its fall. The traitor went towards La Mourre, more exactly the hill of Peygros, where the besiegers them had their headquarters. He proposed to guide by night a handful of armed soldiers to the weak point of the fort. He explained his offer was prompted by the great impression that Mayeul had made on him while under his guard. During a short captivity, the words of the saintly man had been enough to convert him. Another version claims that it was neither a traitor, nor of Moor, but Aymond, an escaped captive Christian, who showed the way in order to rescue his fiancee Madeleine, a native of Frejus. Thus http://www.lagardefreinet.com/freinet-histoire.html#djabal; my translation from the French (MOR). 972-75: The Levant: Tzimiskes campaigns from N Mesopotamia south into Syria, Lebanon and perhaps as far as Fatimid-ruled Palestine: he takes Emesa or Homs [973], Baalbek, Damascus, Beirut [975], and perhaps Acre, Sidon, Tiberias, Nazareth and Caesarea-in-Palestine (says Browning 1992: 113; this is disputed: see further discussion later under 975). Cf 975. Caesarea on the coast and Nazareth and Tiberias further inland on the Sea of Galilee lie on a line SW to NE; thus Caesarea was the southern-most point reached, at least in Brownings reading of these events. THIS MARKED THE FARTHEST LIMIT (i.e. after the seventh century) THAT BYZANTINE ARMS WOULD EVER ATTAIN 973: Fatimids move their capital from Tunisia to Cairo. 973-74: Mesopotamia: John campaigns against the emir of Mosul, who submits and pays tribute. Second campaign against the Arabs at the eastern border and in Taron (Armenia: west of Lake Van). - The Byzantines captured and briefly held Diyarbakir (old Roman Amida) (Treadgold 1997: 511). Catepans of Italy (after the Chronicle of Lupus, and Hofmanns Lexicon): Passarus Protospatha [protospatharios], died in AD 973. Zacharias fl. AD 975. Porphyrius Protospatha AD 979-82. 973-83: r. Otto II of Germany. 974 (restored 984-85): Old Rome: Pope Boniface VII, installed by an anti-German faction of the Roman nobles. He was backed by Byzantium, as the Eastern Empire wished to discomfort the
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Ottonians on account of the Germans usurpation of the true Roman emperors dignity But when the Germans reasserted their power at Rome, Boniface fled to Constantinople. He briefly returned to the papal throne in 984-85. After an exile of nine years at Byzantium, on the death of Otto II, 7 December, 983, he quickly returned to Rome, and overpowered John XIV (Cath. Encyc.). c. 975: 1. Approximate date of the Suda, the great literary encyclopaedia of the middle Byzantine period. Its 30,000 alphabetical entries preserve much unique material on classical Greek literature and other topics. 2. Ivory carving called the 'Harbeville Triptych', very finely carved, showing Christ enthroned and military saints in army uniform, etc. Rice p.77 calls it "the finest of all the later 10th century ivories". Saint as Soldier The equipment of a soldier is well depicted in an icon of the soldier-saint Demetrios, second half of the 10th century: rectangular ivory 20 cm high in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, New York. The saint is shown in a waist-length lamellar corselet made of small plates of iron or horn either laced together or fastened (rivetted) to a leather backing. From this protective vest are suspended strips or scales (pteruges) of metal or leather (more probably leather) that form a short skirt. His tunic protrudes from under this skirt. A mantle or short cloak is slung over his left shoulder and fastened on his right. He wears guards on his arms which look to be made of scale armour and greaves on his legs [cross-hatched; so perhaps just cloth leggings?]. Greaves, if they are greaves, were generally made of iron splints cushioned with wool or cotton padding. He carries a spear or pike in his right hand; with his left he steadies his ornamented circular, convex shield, which is suspended from a strap over his arm. The sword that protrudes from behind his torso is suspended from a baldric (catalogue of the MMA 1997 exhibition: online at www.metmuseum.org/explore/Byzantium/byzim_12; accessed 2007). Seclusion of Women Social developments in the tenth century led to women's confinement within the narrow circle of the family. The change in the hagiographic image of the woman reflected these social shifts. As E. Patlagean has shown, the type of holy woman who, for the sake of salvation, donned masculine garb and broke the rules governing female behaviour, had [already] disappeared by the ninth century. Ann Wharton Epstein, Popular and Aristocratic Cultural Trends in Byzance , University of California Press, excerpt at http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/epstein_trends.html2. 975: 1. Syria: The imperial navy is defeated off Tripoli. Pryor & Jeffreys p.385 list this as one of the more disastrous defeats suffered by the navy. 2. Spring-summer of 975: From Syria, the emperor leads an army briefly into northern Palestine, reaching Galilee and (some say) Caesarea. This was to be the high-water mark of the East-Roman reconquest. A second campaign, in 975, was aimed at Syria, where John's forces briefly took or entered Tripoli, Damascus* and perhaps Caesarea, but failed to take Jerusalem, which he claims was his aim (letter to Ashot III). More likely, he did not attempt to take any Palestinian towns. Note that Caesarea is on the coast, NW of Jerusalem. (*) While Syria was mostly under Fatimaid rule, Damascus was a rebel city
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 ruled by a Turkish advenatuer, Alp Tikin or Takin. The latter peruaude Tzimiskes to let him keep the city for 60,000 dinars and received the emperor into the city (Treadgold 1997: 511).
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Exactly how far Tzimiskes took his army has been much debated. Leo Diaconus* has him leading an army from Damascus to Beirut on the central coast of Lebanon and (back to) Tripoli on the N coast of Lebanon before taking the coastal towns farther south. Tzimiskes himself in a letter to his ally Ashot III of Armenia claimed to have taken several towns in Palestine, but some scholars have proposed that the farthest south he actually reached was coastal town of Sidon in south Lebanon on the same latitude as inland Damascus (notes to the trans. of Leo Diac. by Talbot & Sullivan, 2005: 210). (*) The eye-witness History of Leo the Deacon or Leo Diaconus covers the period 959-976. He also wrote a panegyric of Basil II. His History represented a revival or restoration of the ancient art of interpretive history that had died in the 7th century. Treadgold says that from Damascus, John paid a brief visit to Galilee, where he climbed Mount Tabor - SW of the Sea of Galilee, near Nazareth - to see the place of Christs Transfiguration. From Damascus to the Sea of Galilee, the route is to the south-west via the Golan Heights. While he was there, several Muslim-ruled towns sent him tribute, including nearby Tiberias which was on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee, NE of Mt Tabor; Acre which was directly west on the Palestine coast; and Caesarea, further down on the Palestine coast. Discouraged from further advances by Fatimid troops stationed along the coast, says Treadgold, he turned north [strictly: NNW] to Berytus (Beirut), which surrendered to him. After receiving more tribute from Sidon [on the coast below Beirut], he attacked Byblus [on the N coast of Lebanon] and raided around the Fatimid stronghold of Tripoli (State, p.512). In other words, if we follow Treadgold, Tzimskes merely made a passing visit to the interior of N Palestine; and, aside from Damascus, the southern-most town that he actually captured was Beirut in Lebanon. And no attempt was made to garrison and annex Damascus or Beirut. 3. Earthquake: the western semi-dome and arch of Hagia Sophia were severely damaged; the repairs would take six years (Hearsey p.69). Provence: Muslim evacuation of Fraxinet (Frejus): Along the Riviera, the local Frankish lords gradually overcame their differences. In about 975, they united under Count William of Arles, later marquis of Provence, in a bid to drive the Hispanic Muslim bandits(*) out of lower Burgundy/Provence for good. The Andalusis consolidated their forces at Fraxinet and "came down from their mountainous resort in serried ranks", as the 19th century historian Reinaud imagines it, to encounter the Christian forces at Tourtour, near Draguignan, west of Cannes or about 35 kilometres (20 miles) northwest of Fraxinet. The Muslims were driven back to their mountain stronghold, and the Franks laid siege to the fortress. The Andalusis, realising their fate was sealed, abandoned the castle. (*) The term bandits is too narrow - Ibn Hawqal recorded that the area of Fraxinet La Garde-Freinet was richly cultivated by its Muslim inhabitants, and they have been credited with a number of agricultural and fishing innovations for the region. 970s: Hungary: German and Byzantine missionaries compete to secure the conversion
ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976 of the pagan Magyars to Christianity. Cf 1000.
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975-1014: King Bagrat III of Iberia. He will unite all the principalities of eastern and western Georgia into one state. But Tbilisi will remain under Muslim control. See 1122. To recap. From 947 to 967 the arch-enemy of the Rhomaioi in the east was Ali ibn Hamdan of Aleppo, known as Sayf Al-Dawla or Sword of the Realm, the son of the Emir of Mosul. At first the Rhomaioi were on the back foot against Sayf. After 955, however, they began to succeed against the Hamdanids. Nikephoros Phokas, as general and then as emperor, took the major towns of Cilicia and proceeded thence to conquer Syria and Antioch. Basil I had already taken the town that controlled the important pass of the Cilician gates in the south, a first step to effective measures preventing the annual Muslim raids from their mountain strongholds (Hussey p.37). Then in 96365 the centuries-old Taurus barrier in south-east Asia Minor was broken permanently. The emperor-generals Nikephoros Phokas and John Tzimiskes took armies into Syria, upper Mesopotamia and even briefly into Palestine (975). Basil II, 976-1025, will reassert this power and also dominate Armenia. 977: We know from Ibn Hawqal, writing in 977, the locations of the stations on the road from Kamacha (on the far upper Euphrates) west to Constantinople via Charsianon (central Anatolia), Nikomedeia, and Chalcedon, and he also describes the road from Constantinople to Melitene.
Above: Conquests 850-1050. The Roman (Byzantine) Empire between AD 800 and 1000 In the West, Sicily was lost permanently during the 800s, and Arabs ruled Puglia for several decades. In the later 800s, however, Byzantium recovered the whole of Puglia and consolidated its position in Calabria. Likewise in the Balkans, gains and losses were about equal: Byzantium expanded a little in Thrace but was pushed back in Albania and Macedonia by the Bulgarians. Crete was in Greek hands in 800 and again in 1000 but for most of this period (825-961) it was ruled by Arab pirates (slavers). The most dramatic gains by the empire were achieved against the Arabs in the
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east, where the Abbasid caliphate broke into a number of lesser states an effect as well as a cause of the Byzantine advance. The empire captured all of Cilicia and the western parts of Syria and Armenia. The Largest Cities of Western Eurasia and North Africa at the End of the 900s Source: McEvedys New Atlas, p.57. A key point is that all of the largest urban settlements, except for two, were in Muslim lands. All of Christendomfrom northern Russia to the borders of modern Portugal, and from Ireland to Syriacontained just two true cities: Constantinople and Antioch. There were no cities at all of any great size in western Europe. Wickham p.736 proposes that Old Rome had up to 25,000 people already by about 825, but this seems too generous. The next largest towns were probably Venice and Milan. Venice may have had 8-9,000 people; Milan 5,000 (McEvedy p.56; cf Joachim Henning, ed. Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium: Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2007, vol 2, pp.49-50). 1. Population up to 125,000: a. BAGHDAD, probably still the largest city the world in AD 1000. Seat of the Sunni Caliph and the Buyid Emir of Iraq [covering modern Iraq-western Iran]. In the year 1000 the Buyid ruler of Iraq also ruled Fars [southern Iran] and Kerman [westcentral Iran]. McEvedys figure looks far too low. Setting aside all the wild claims of one million and more, a conservative estimate is 250,000 to 500,000 for the 900s (Lassner, cited in Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the renaissance of Islam: the cultural revival during the Buyid Age, Brill, 1992, p.47). Its urban area was 90 sq km, according to Maurice Lombard, The Golden Age of Islam [Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2004], 124-26, which is to say: 3.75 times the area of Constantinople. So probably nearer 500,000 people, at least in the early 900s (with some decline by 1000). Some writers have proposed that Baghdad was overtaken by Kaifeng (China) or Cordoba (Iberia: the Ummayad anti-Caliphate) as the worlds largest city by AD 1,000. The claim for Cordoba is hard to accept (Note 1 below). b. CONSTANTINOPLE, capital of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Urban area: 24 sq km. Constantinople had perhaps 200,000 people in 950 (Treadgold 1997: 572, citing Charanis) or a little more: 275,000 if we follow Johanek (in NCMH: New Cambridge Medieval History, p.72). 2. 23-49,000 people (McEvedy): Listed from west to east: - CRDOBA, in the Umayyad Caliphate or anti-caliphate. Ibn Hawkal, who visited Corboba in the 940s, said it was half the size of Baghdad. If so, it must have had more people than McEvedy would allow. See also Note 1 below. - ALEXANDRIA and CAIRO (Note 2), in the Fatimid Caliphate. - ANTIOCH, held by the Byzantines since 969. Its conqueror Nicephorus Phocas described it as the third city of the world; but this may simply have meant third after Constantinople and Thessalonica (Note 3) in the Byzantine world (in Leo Diac. 73.12-15; Runciman p.146). - BASRA, under the Buyid Emirate of Fars from the 990s. 3. At least 15,000: Again, west to east: - FEZ, SEVILLE and TOLEDO, in the Umayyad Caliphate. - KAIROUAN [Tunisia], PALERMO [Sicily] (Note 4), and DAMASCUS: all Fatimid Caliphate.
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- (Iraqi:) MOSUL, an Arab emirate ruled by the Hamdanids. - (Iraqi:) WASIT, HAMADAN, (Persian:) RAYY (or Rey: today part of greater Teheran, Note 5), ISFAHAN (Note 6) and SHIRAZ, all in the Iranian-ruled Buyid Emirates. The Buyid confederation was split between and governed by multiple members of the dynasty. In the year 1000 the Buyid ruler of Iraq also ruled Fars [southern Iran] and Kerman [west-central Iran]. Rayy was the seat of a different Buyid Emir, while Shiraz was part of the Emirate of Fars. In this period Hamadan was a separate Emirate. - NISHAPUR in Khurasan [todays NE Iran] was ruled by the Samanids, an Iranian dynasty. Notes: Note 1: Cordoba: Moores figure of 450,000 is not in any way credible [Robert Moore, The first European revolution, c. 970-1215, Blackwell, Oxford, 2000]. The estimate by L T Balbas, writing in Al-Andalus 21 (1956) 339-52, seems more likely: that Cordoba had 24,500 Muslim males around AD 975 (cited by D. Fairchild Ruggles, 2003, Gardens, landscape, and vision in the palaces of Islamic Spain p.226). One may perhaps multiply by four to get the total Muslim population (98,000) and add half perhaps as much again for the non-Muslim population overall total 147,000. Note 2: It is hard to accept Cortese & Calderinis claim that Cairo was the largest city in the Mediterranean basin, ahead of Constantinople. Delia Cortese, Simonetta Calderini, Women and the Fatimids in the world of Islam, Edinburgh University Press, 2006: Page 71. Note 3: Thessalonica is omitted by McEvedy. Presumably he believes it had not recovered very much after being thoroughly sacked in 904 (see above in chronology). Johanek (in NCMH p.72) gives its urban area as 3.5 sq km, or less than one-seventh that of Constantinople. Note 4: Moores claim that Palermo had 350,000 people around AD 1,000 is not credible; as noted above, McEvedy puts its population at under 35,000. Robert Ian Moore, The first European revolution, c. 970-1215, Blackwell, Oxford. 2000, Page 33. Note 5: Marcinkowski says Rayy was the largest city in Iran under the Buyids Christoph Marcinkowski, Shi'ite Identities: Community and Culture in Changing Social Contexts Freiburg Studies in Social Anthropology. Lit Verlag 2010, Page 76. Cf Note 6. Note 6: Isfahan was reported (AD 1052) as the largest city in the Persian-speaking realm (greater Iran) by the traveller Nasir-i-Khuraw. Guy Le Strange, The lands of the eastern caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and and Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur, Cambridge geographical series. General editor: F. H. H. Guillemard. reprint Publisher CUP Archive, 1930. Originally published 1905. 1930, Page 204.
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Richard CORSON, 2001: fashions in hair: the first five thousand years. London : Peter Owen. Salvatore COSENTINO, 2004: Byzantine Sardinia between West and East. Features of a Regional Culture, (in) Millennium Jahrbuch (2004). Berlin, New York (Walter de Gruyter) 2004. Simon COUPLAN, 1990: Carolingian Arms and Armour in the Ninth Century, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies v.21. Francis Marion CRAWFORD, 1900: The Rulers of the South. MacMillan & Co. Ltd. New York and London. Florin CURTA, 2006: Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250 Cambridge University Press. DAI: De administrando imperio by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Emperor of the East), trans. Gyula Moravcsik, Romilly Jenkins, 1962. Raffaele DAMATO, 2007: Gli Athanatoi, guardia del corpo dellimperatore Giovanni Tzimisks [in Italian: The Athanatoi, bodyguard of the emperor John Tzimisces], Porphyra, Anno IV, numero IX. Online 2010 at http://www.porphyra.it/Porphyra9.pdf. Contains close-up details from contemporary illustrations; and the authors own illustrated reconstruction of Byzantine armour. See page 75 for DAmatos drawing of a cataphract, the horse in full barding of scale armour. Raffaele DAMATO, 2008: The Mace, at http://www.worldmuseumofman.org/byzantinemaces1.htm; accessed 2008. H R E DAVIDSON,1976: The Viking Road to Byzantium. London: Allen & Unwin. Tim DAWSON, 1998: Kremasmata, Kabadion, Klibanion: Some aspects of middle Byzantine military equipment reconsidered, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies number 22, 1998, pp. 38-50. Tim DAWSON, 2003: One thousand years of lamellar construction in the Roman world. Levantia Historical Guide. Armidale NSW. Tim DAWSON, 2007: Infantry of the Eastern Roman Empire, c.9001204, Warrior Series, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2007. Tim DAWSON, 2007b: Fit for the Task: Equipment Sizes and the Transmission of Military Lore, sixth to tenth centuries, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 31 (2007). DE CEREM.: Constantine VII. De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae, ed. J. J. Reiske, CSHB, 2 vols. (Translated into Latin from the Greek: Bonn, 182930). Also Vogt, Le Livre des Crmonies (Paris 1939) (translated into French). Commentary: Cameron, A. M. (1987) 'The construction of court ritual: the Byzantine Book of Ceremonies', in D. Cannadine & S. Price, eds, Rituals of Royalty. Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, 106-36. Cambridge. Dromon: Pryor, J H, and Jeffreys, E L, 2006: The Age of the Dromon: The Byzantine Navy, ca 500-1204. Leiden: Brill. Wladyslaw DUCZKO 2004: Viking Rus: studies on the presence of Scandinavians
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ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976

BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL, AD 815-976

ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976

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820-829: MICHAEL II the Amorian, 'the Lisper or Stammerer [Gk: Traulos]

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Above: Emperor Theophilus, from the Madrid Skylitzes.

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Source: Treadgold 1995: 198.

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Source: Treadgold, Army p.122.

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ORourke BYZANTIUM: THE LONG REVIVAL 814-976