Byzantium at Lowpoint: AD 718-814

BYZANTIUM AT LOW-POINT:

A DETAILED CHRONOLOGY OF THE EASTERN ROMAN

EMPIRE,

FROM THE LIFTING OF THE LAST ARAB SIEGE (718) TO

THE DEATH OF KHAN KRUM AND CHARLEMAGNE (814)

Compiled by Michael O’Rourke Canberra, Australia

July 2010

List of Roman (‘Byzantine’) Emperors

717-41: Leo III ‘the Syrian’ (mistitled “the Isaurian”) 741-75: Constantine V ‘Copronymus’

741-43: Artavasdus, rival emperor at Constantinople 775-80: Leo IV ‘the Khazar’

780-97: Empress Irene, regent for Constantine VI ‘the Blinded’ 797-802: Empress Irene, ruling in her own name

802-11: Nicephorus I

811-13: Michael I Rhangabe 813-20: Leo V ‘the Armenian’

This paper includes mini-essays on:

‘The Lombard Advance in NW Latium’: placed before the entry for 739. ‘A Ruralised Empire with Few Urban Centres’: after the entry for 775. ‘The Reorganised Armed Forces of 770’: after 775.

‘The Empire in 780: Territorial Review’. ‘Iconoclasm Rejected, 786-87’.

‘Empires and Kingdoms in 799’: after 802. ‘Emperor Nicephorus vs Khan Krum, 811’. ‘The Battle of Versinikia, 813’.

The ‘Christian Roman Empire of the Greeks’ in AD 717

Based on the map in Haldon 1990: 81.

Byzantium’s neighbours and rivals in the 8th _{century were: [1] The Umayyad}

(Arab) Caliphate in the western, southern and eastern Mediterranean Sea. The Empire ruled the key islands, namely Sardinia, Sicily, Crete and Rhodes,

while North Africa was entirely Muslim, or rather, Muslim-ruled: the local populations of course continued to be almost entirely Christian.

In the Levant, the Arab-Greek border was marked by the Taurus Mountains in what is now south-central Turkey, north of Cyprus. Cyprus itself was a sort of condominium or ‘both men’s land’, from which the Emperor and the Caliph both took tribute.

In Europe [2] the so-called ‘Danube Bulgars’ or Bulgarian Khanate ruled the larger part of present-day Bulgaria and Rumania, while [3] many independent Slavic tribes controlled most of the rest of the Balkans: west to what is now Slovenia and south as far as what is now southern Greece. The Empire was still dominant in the Adriatic Sea and along its Balkan coast. In Italy, however, the Byzantines looked to be close to losing their long struggle with [4] the ‘proto-Romance’-speaking Lombards.*

(*) The Lombardic language, a Germanic tongue, was effectively dead by the 8th _{century (except for pockets of speakers in the NW of Italy)}

[NCMH 1995: 8]. Thus ‘Lombards’ becomes little more than a tag for ‘non-Greeks’ or ‘Romance-speaking Italians’, or at least those subject to Romance-speaking kings and dukes bearing Germanic names. It is useful to list also several nations that did not abut the Empire but who were sometimes allied with or against it:





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subjects were speakers of Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages.



Merovingian kings, the actual rulers were the Mayors of the Palace [maior domus] who also took the title dux et princeps Francorum, Duke and Prince of the Franks.

Let us now look in more detail at this picture.

(a). The Lombards were dominant in Italy, although, in the entire region, if we count Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, the Empire nominally held roughly the same extent of territory as the Lombards. (Sardinia and Corsica were lost soon after 717.)

The enclave around imperial Ravenna - Venetia and the Exarchate proper - was separated from a smaller imperial enclave around papal Rome by a large

swathe of Lombard domains under the ‘duchy’ [ducatus, domain of a dux] of Spoleto. The town of Spoleto in Umbria lay at a strategic point SE of Perugia on the eastern branch of the Via Flaminia.

More than half the south of the peninsula, including modern Basilicata to the Gulf of Taranto and nearly all Puglia/Apulia, was now under Lombard (Beneventan) rule. The Romanics held nearly all of Calabria, an imperial duchy, but only the barest tip of the heel around Otranto. The latter was governed from imperial Cephalonia. Others say the Lombards even controlled modern Otranto itself, medieval Hydrus, from about 711 (Brown in NCMH vol 2 p.344; also Stranieri 2007). The Times Atlas 1994: 57 and McEvedy’s New Atlas have the Land of Otranto still in imperial hands in the 730s.

In the West, the only really large and well-populated region controlled by the empire was Sicily.

—For the population of Sardinia, Sicily and peninsular Italy in AD 700, McEvedy & Jones 1978: 107 offer 3.75 million. We may guess that some 1.125 M lived in Sicily and perhaps 750,000 in the Byzantine-administered portions of the peninsula.

(b). Nearly the whole of the Balkans was in “barbarian” hands, with Byzantine rule restricted to parts of the coastal fringe.

Slav tribes controlled all of present-day Croatia except for the seven port-towns of Dalmatia, and all of Albania and Epirus except for a few imperial outposts such as as Dyrrhachion (present-day Durres) and Cephalonia. The Theme [thema: province] of Hellas comprised (probably) the eastern

Peloponnesus and Athens; but the larger part (two-thirds) of the

Peloponnesus was Slavic. That is only to say: the imperial tax-gatherers did not operate there. The majority population of Greeks and the minority population of Slavs in that region either governed themselves or they paid some limited taxes to local Slav chieftains. Likewise all of Thessaly and Macedonia were in the hands of the Slavs, except for a pocket of imperial territory around Thessalonica. Alternatively, if we follow the Times Atlas of 1994, Byzantium held all the littoral from Athens through Thessalonica to Thrace.

(c). Nearly all of Thrace, including the hinterland of Adrianople (modern Edirne), was dominated by the Slavs (western Thrace) and the Bulgars (northern Thrace) – these were the enemies located nearest to the imperial capital.

Following a treaty of 716 with Bulgaria, Byzantium held only the coastal hinterlands along the lower Black Sea coast and the western littoral of Sea of Marmara. (By contrast the Times Atlas has Byzantium still controlling most of Thrace to beyond Philippopolis in 732; McEvedy 1992 limits imperial territory to inner Thrace, i.e. excluding Philippopolis.)

McEvedy & Jones, Population Atlas, put the population of Inner Thrace (modern Turkey in Europe) in this era at 300,000.

(d). There was a Byzantine outpost at Cherson or Chersonesus on the

southern tip of Crimea. The Onogur Bulgars controlled present-day Ukraine. The Khazars ruled the Caucasus.

(e). Nearly all of Asia Minor remained East Roman, but from 712 (see there) the caliphate controlled all of Cilicia as far west as Alanya (Antalya was Byzantine). The Times Atlas, however, has Byzantium still ruling western Cilicia in 732.

The Anti-Taurus Range was a marchland, while Northern Syria (present-day SE Turkey) and upper Mesopotamia were largely in Muslim hands. The

Byzantines held only a short section of the west bank of the far Upper Euphrates in the Divrigi (Tephrice)-Erzincan region.

In short, the size of Byzantine Anatolia was some 2/3 that of modern Turkey-in-Asia. McEvedy & Jones offer a guesstimate of 6,000,000 for the population in 800.

(f). Crete was Byzantine, with Cyprus paying taxes to both the empoer and the caliph.

Above: The Empire in 717.

Not shown is corridor between Ravenna and Rome along the Via Amerina.* 1. Ravenna. 2. Venetia and Istria. 3. Duchy of Rome (nominally subject to Ravenna). 4. Duchy of Naples 5. Thema [province] of Sicily including Calabria. 6. Thema of Hellas. 7. Thema of Thrace. 8. Thema of the Opsikion. 9. Thema of Thrakesion. 10. Thema of Anatolikon. 11. Thema of the Karabisianoi. 12. Thema of Armeniakon.

(*) The Via Amerina was a highway that ran north to Perugia. The better known Via Flaminia - or Viae: the ‘old’ Flaminia Vetus and the ‘new’ Flaminia Nova - diverged at Narni. These roads ran to the east, broadly parallel with the Amerina. Spoleto was located on the eastern-most leg, the Nova.

The southern end of the Amerina broke off from the Via Cassia, the ancient road from Rome via Viterbo to Florence, near Baccanae, SE of modern Sutri. It ran thence NE through Falerii – present-day Civita Castellana: 65 km

directly north of Rome - or in other words NE of Nepi. From Civita Castellana it then continued directly north through Orte on the middle Tiber to Tuder [present-day Todi: west of Spoleto], and on through the valley of the Upper Tiber to Perusia [modern Perugia] and, after crossing the upper Tiber, NNE to Gubbio (Diehl, Etudes byzantines 1905: 69-70, citing the ‘Anonymous of Ravenna’). There were Byzantine garrisons at Nepi, Orte, Fano (where it reached the Adriatic) and elsewhere (Potter 1990: 216).

If one draws a line west-east through Todi to Spoleto, it crosses three south-north roads in succession: the Amerina at Todi, the Flaminia Vetus at Masa Martana and the Flaminia Nova at Spoleto.

As the new military and strategic route, the Via Amerina "became [had become] the communications core of Imperial Italy and the chief support to the claim that imperial Italy was still extant". —Hallenbeck, 1982.

THE WESTERN AND BYZANTINE DARK AGES A Post-Antique World of Wood and Thatch

Before AD 400, it had been quite usual for a peasant in upland central Italy to eat off a fine pottery bowl manufactured in North Africa (Ward-Perkins 2006). Archaeology shows that in the high Roman times people had used many different types of ceramic vessels for cooking, serving and eating: jugs, plates, bowls, serving dishes, mixing and grinding bowls, casseroles, lids, amphorae and others. Already by the 7th _{century, however, the standard}

vessel of northern Italy had become the metal (brass) olla, a simple bulbous cooking pot (Ward-Perkins 1984: 106).

In the West, where in high Roman times even the poorer half of the rural population had had tiles on their roofs, there are virtually no surviving ceramic roof tiles already from the 400s, suggesting the use of wooden

shingles or thatch, which can easily catch fire, leak and harbour insects

(see the discussion in Ward-Perkins 2005: 95 ff).

“The scale and quality of buildings, even of churches, shrank dramatically —so that, for instance, tiled roofs, which were common in Roman times even in a peasant context, became a great rarity and luxury. In the 6th _and

7th-century West the vast majority of people lived in tiny houses with beaten earth floors, drafty wooden walls, and insect-infested thatch roofs; whereas, in Roman times, people from the same level of society might well have enjoyed the comfort of solid brick or stone floors, mortared walls, and tiled roofs” (Ward-Perkins, interview 2006).

In Italy, then, we see, already in the late 500s, a sharp fall in the number of surviving inscriptions and the disappearance of high quality glazed pottery (“African Red Slip Ware”). This appears to confirm the literary evidence for a marked economic decline by 600. In the 600s even low-quality pottery was replaced by wooden dishes, plates and cups. The end of the trade in pottery meant that most household goods were wooden by about 650. Amphorae

gave way to wooden barrels, or rather they gave way entirely to barrels, for wooden casks had long been used for transporting wine in NW Europe (Brown 1984: 7). And so too vintage wines finally disappeared, as barrels were not airtight.

Pottery had been replaced by wood in the 600s. In Italy there was a sharp fall in the number of surviving inscriptions and the disappearance of high quality glazed pottery (“African Red Slip* Ware”). The late 500s had seen the

appearance of wooden dishes, plates and cups. Fired-clay amphorae - giant pitchers commonly of 39 litres - gave way to wooden barrels (Brown 1984: 7; also Hodges & Whitehouse 1983: 25 ff). Or at least this was the case in the West; amphorae contained to be manufactured at Ganos on the

Thracian (western) shore of the Sea of Marmara until the end of the empire (Jeffreys et al. 2008: 434).

(*) ‘Slipped” means colour-coated. ‘Slip’ is the slurry formed when water is mixed with clay; the moulded vessel was immersed in the slip to form its outer coat.

‘African Red Slip Ware’ was a type of decorated tableware produced from the late first century AD until the mid seventh century in the area of modern Tunisia and exported around all of the Mediterranean, reaching even to Scotland in the north and Ethiopia in the south at the peak of its distribution. Other ‘red slips’ were produced at Phocaea on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor and near Paphos in Cyprus (”Cypriot Slip Ware”).

In the East many productions of both amphorae and fine table wares ended in the later seventh century; this was a systemic collapse. For example, it is now definite that “Phocaean RS” (PRS: sophisticated ‘red slip’ ceramics from Phocaea in the west Aegean), once traded across the whole Mediterranean, ceased to be produced in the period 670-700, somewhat later than used to be thought. This is clear from excavations at Emporio on Chios, Gortyn on Crete, and in the Crimea. Trade in PRS had been contracting since the 500s, but the local RS [local types of less sophisticated red slipware] productions did not replace it, for they ceased as well. They were replaced by coarser types of pottery (Wickham 2005: 784 ff).

As we have said, however, amphorae contained to be manufactured at Ganos on the Thracian (western) shore of the Sea of Marmara until the end of the empire (Jeffreys et al. 2008: 434).

The reasons for decline in the West are not hard to find:

“By the later sixth century [in Byzantine Italy], the regular market was both a thing of the past and of the future. Clearly when towns declined the markets declined with them and the rurally based ceramic

production sites became anti-economical for professional potters. Though their position had been based on primary resource location (clay, wood, water, etc.), this was with the guarantee that large markets were readily at hand through an efficient (Roman)

communication network. However, the collapse of many pottery industries in the fifth and sixth centuries is probably not only to be explained by cessation in demand (although demand presumably diminished with diminishing population levels) or by rising marketing costs, but also by internal costs. As population levels dropped and intensive agriculture diminished, agricultural surplus became increasingly restricted and more highly valued as an exchange commodity. It would therefore be used primarily for exchange with money to pay taxes or for exchange with other basic goods. In this context we could expect the emergence of an economic system

directed principally towards fundamental needs. Pottery could, instead, be made by the household or by a household industry for group use and this seems to be a pattern that emerges with the development of the village community.” –Arthur and Patterson 1994.

In the East, the rich continued to use fine ceramics but only the rich. Glazed ‘white ware’ pottery replaced red slipware in the period 650-750 but it was not much traded outside Constantinople. Glazed pottery also began to be produced at Corinth from before 700. Other glazed types have been found at various towns around the Aegean shore, but probably they too were locally produced (Laiou and Morrisson 2007: 75).

Contraction of trade and a transition to exchange in kind

There had been no radical break in trade, but the period 550-700 saw a “relentless contraction” of the economic networks inherited from Antiquity (Loseby in NCMH vol. 1, pp.616, 639).

A feature of the seventh century had been the constant decline in the weight of the standard copper coin called the follis, which decreased from an average 12 gm under emperor Phokas to 3.60 gm* by ca. 660, while its value in carats slid from 1⁄20 to 1⁄40 in 621 and perhaps 1⁄96 by ca. 660.

The lesser copper coinage, used for trade, had virtually

disappeared after 658 in archaeological sites, and copper coins do not

reappear in Anatolian sites until the 800s (Haldon 1984: 226). The gold coinage continued: it was used mainly for paying state taxes and such state salaries as were still being paid.

Morrisson (2002) gives a few examples sum up the well-known and frequently commented-on monetary gap that reveals the process of

decline and impoverishment whereby “towns” were reduced to the role of

places of refuge: at Ankyra, no coins found that were minted between Constans II [d. 668] and a single follis of Leo IV [d. 780]; yet Ankyra was sufficient of a town to be made a provincial capital – the seat of the

Bucellarion theme – in the 760s. At Aphrodisias in inland SW Asia Minor no coins have been found between Constans II and Theophilos [acc. 829]; at Pergamon, none between 715 and 820; at Kenchreai [Corinth], nothing between Constans II and Leo VI [acc. 886]; and in the Albanian finds, no bronze pieces between 668 and 802.

Even in peaceful Carthage, where there had been some new building after the Byzantine conquest (AD 534), the new quarters were filled with rubbish

and huts already by the early seventh century. From the mid 600s the city suffered what has been described as a ‘monumental meltdown’: shacks clustered into the circus and the round harbour was abandoned (Wickham 2005: 641). Such was the ‘city’ that had fallen to the Arabs in 698.

The End of Antiquity: Coins, Pottery and Trade

The nadir of sea-trade and sea-communication between the West and East across the Mediterranean was reached around AD 700. But there was still a certain amount of naval traffic.

Curta (2005) has noted that until about AD 700 coins from Italy had continued to reach the Balkans. Many copper coins of Constantine IV, acc. 668, as well as of his successors Justinian II and Tiberius III, acc. 698, have been found in coastal regions, including the five folles of Constantine IV minted in Sicily and retrieved from excavations in the southern Agora of Corinth. This indicates some naval traffic across the Adriatic at least – into the Gulf of Corinth. Curta has proposed that the presence of small change in Greece indicates that oarsmen or sailors of either commercial or war ships could rely on constant supplies of fresh food in certain ports along the coast. And the coins struck in Carthage, Rome, or Syracuse found in Dobrudja - the Danube delta - must be explained with reference to the navy. —Curta, ‘Dark Age’, 2005b.

Brown in NCMH, vol 2, p.357 (also Wickham 2005 passim), says, citing

archaeological evidence of pottery types, that trade “almost dried up” around 700, partly due to Muslim sea raids, including against Italy from as far as Egypt. A Muslim fleet operated from Tunisia. But the main factor was the long term decline in demand for luxury goods. As Kennedy neatly puts it (2008: 203), western Mediterranean markets had become too poor to import much, while the eastern Mediterranean could survive without African products.

The “final eclipse of the ancient Mediterranean economic system” can be seen, according to Loseby, in two ‘ceramic assemblages’ or sets of excavated amphorae [large pitchers] at Old Rome. The first, from

c.690, is composed 80% of vessels from outside Italy, mainly from

Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, while the latter, from c.720, is mainly locally made, the most distant being sourced from Sicily. None of the amphorae of AD 720 come from Africa or the East. Moreover,

following the loss of Carthage to the Muslims Arabs (698),

Constantinople no longer took imports from the West, but drew its supplies from the Black Sea region and the northern Aegean (Loseby in NCMH vol 1, pp.635, 637; a similar analysis can be found in Wickham 2005: 712-13).

Wickham emphasises that trade in Africa amphorae and fine tableware was already effectively dead before the Arabs took control of northern Tunisia in 698. In the longer-term view we can see trade starting a long downturn from as far back as 450, following the Vandal takeover of Carthage. Trade had continued between Vandal Africa and Gothic Italy, but at a lower level. The Byzantine recapture of Tunisia and Italy in the 500s did not lead to a revival of the commercial networks that had existed before 450. To the contrary, local economies became steadily more self-reliant, which is to say: imports to Italy from Byzantine Africa had become more marginal. In the 600s they were limited mostly to Naples, Rome and Marseilles.

Thus it was entirely coincidental and not causal that, after a

half-millennium of history, the trade in African productions to Italy came its final end just as Carthage fell to the Muslims (Wickham 2005: 712). Thus, although some trade continued into and even through the ‘Dark Ages’, it cannot be denied that it declined both in volume and distance, with even the ‘regional’ networks probably eventually giving way to much more localised exchange. Thus the African imports to Italy do not continue into the eighth century, giving way to very local production, as seen in the amphorae kiln found at Misenum on the Bay of Naples. Similarly at Constantinople ‘ARSW’ [African red slip ware], ‘PRSW’ [Phocaean red slip ware from Phocaea in Asia Minor*] and Cypriot RSW were completely superseded by the local glazed-wares by about 710. – Anon.,‘Trade in the Byzantine Empire’,

www.arthuriana.co.uk/roman/byzantine_trade; accessed 2009.

(*) The Muslims took control in Tunisia for good in 698, but as we have said, the sea trade from the Aegean was already effectively dead. Likewise the trade from Cyprus would have been affected by Muslim sea raids; but the collapse of the trade from Phocaea presumably not. Thus we must imagine a failure in demand during the century 600-700. This seems confirmed by the fact that, putting Italy to one side, in Gaul and Spain African goods were not replaced by local or other foregn goods of the same quality. The fall in demand in the West was global already by 600 (cf Wickham 2005: 713).

717-741: LEO III ‘the Syrian’ or "Isaurian"

Gibbon writes of the “wisdom of his administration and the purity of his manners”. Treadgold 1997: 346, 356 calls him vigorous, with good diplomatic and military skills, and judges his reign as

“successful by recent standards”. Norwich, Early Centuries p.352, calls him “the greatest emperor since Heraclius [d. 641]”.

Birth-name Konon. Formerly general of the Anatolikon theme [province], Leo was aged about 40 or 42 at accession. Dies aged about 66.

He is known, although his initial intentions are unclear, as the

first of the Iconoclast emperors (Gk eikonoklasmos,

"image-breaking").

Founder of the so-called "Isaurian" dynasty, Leo was not of Asia Minor provenance as the erroneous epithet "the Isaurian" suggests, but was born in Germanicia, North Syria, circa 685. According to Theophanes, his family had been removed by Justinian II to Thrace, i.e. Mesembria, on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, where he was raised. (Mesembria lies about half way between the mouth of the Danube and Constantinople).

Wife: Maria. Children: Anna, who married Leo's colleague

Artavasdos, general of the Armenaikon theme; and Constantine, the future emperor Constantine V.

The 'Isaurian' Dynasty so-called, 717-802, was Greek-speaking from the start. In the course of the 700s, "Dominus Noster" [Latin: ‘Our Lord’] disappeared from Imperial coins. The words "Perpetvus Augustus" [Latin: ‘eternal

emperor’] also began to fade in the same era, replaced by "Basileus", Greek for ‘king’ or ‘emperor’.

The style Basileus ton Rhomaiôn ('Emperor of the Romans') briefly appears on seals of Leo III, but its usage remains quite rare until 812, i.e. not until the Franks' claim to a Western imperium was recognised.

713-26:

The Byzantine exarch (governor) of N Italy, based at Ravenna, was Scholasticus.

715-30:

the patrician Justinian, an accomplice in the assassination of Emperor Constans II (668), Germanus had been made a eunuch by order of

Constantine IV (668-685), although he had already passed the age in which the operation was usually performed (Zonaras III 222, cited by Guilland 1943).

717:

1. Constantinople: Leo and Artavasdus, commanders, respectively, of the two most important themata, the Anatolic and the Armeniac, combined forces. Theodosius voluntarily abdicated, and again the throne of Constantine was occupied by a strong ruler, well fitted for his position, Leo of Germanicia (now Marash in old Northern Syria, part of modern Turkey).

After Leo's capture of Theodosius’s son in Nicomedia, Theodosius took the advice of Patriarch Germanus and the ‘senate’ [the magnates] and abdicated in favour of Leo III on 25 March 717. Along with his son, he subsequently entered the clergy and became bishop of Ephesus.

The senate comprised the chief palatine officials, both civil and military. In earlier years it had had a largely Latino-Greek membership. By this time, however, it included many ’non-Greeks’, i.e. Armenians and Caucasians (Haldon 1990: 169).

2. New Rome: The strengthening of the capital’s land and sea walls ordered by Leo in 717 was the first large-scale construction project since the

early ‘dark age’ of the 600s. Cf 767: restoration of the main aqueduct.

“The western walls, those of the great gates, were restored under Leo the Great and Pious (Leo III); on that occasion they also held a religious

procession and chanted the 'Kyrie eleison' [‘praise the Lord’] 40 times, and the demos [faction] of the Greens shouted 'Leo has surpassed Constantine'.” —Thus the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai -

http://homepage.mac.com/paulstephenson/trans/parastaseis.html; accessed 2010.

To keep out ships, the narrow entrance to the Golden Horn was traversed by a chain [Gk: alysis] strung from towers on either side and supported in the water with wooden floats. It is first mentioned in connection with the siege in 717-18 when Leo lowered it in the hope of enticing the Arab fleet into the harbour (Turnbull 2004: 16; Dromon p.31).

Made of giant wooden links that were joined by immense nails and heavy iron shackles, the chain could be deployed in an emergency by means of a ship hauling it across the Golden Horn from the Kentenarion Tower in the south to the Castle of Galata on the north bank. Securely anchored on both ends, with its length guarded by Romaic warships at anchor in the harbour, the great chain was a formidable obstacle and a vital element of the city's defences. —Plummer, ‘Constantinople’, at

http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3025281.html; accessed October 2009.

The Arab Siege of 717-18

3. The formal dates for the Arab siege are 15 August 717 to 15 August 718. Proceeding from Pergamum, as we noted earlier, Maslama crosses the

Hellespont at Abydus (July 717) and arrives at Constantinople (15 August 717), which he besieges by land and sea. His land forces are said to have numbered 80,000 while his fleet numbered “1,800” ships and boats (Theophanes’ figure: Norwich 1988: 352; also Kennedy 2008: 331).

Drawn mainly from Greater Syria, the Arab forces threatening the imperial capital are said, by Mas'udi, to have numbered 80,000 or 120,000 troops and, according to Theophanes, "1,800" war galleys and transporter sailing-ships (TCOT: 88; Treadgold State p.346; Hocker in Gardiner 2004: 91). Presumably the number reached 120,000 men after being reinforced in 718. This was more men than were enrolled in the entire Romanic-Byzantine army.

Caliph Sulayman’s navy, led by a general of the same name, Sulayman*, had occupied Rhodes in 717 while Maslama’s land troops proceeded to capture the (by now) "fortress-villages" of Sardis and Pergamum [mod. Bergama] in eastern Asia Minor. At the same time, part of the Arab land forces crossed into Thrace and besieged the capital from the land side (the west). This was briefly complemented by a sea blockade, Sulayman’s fleet having arrived arrived on 1 September 717. The Arab fleet was divided into two squadrons: one was stationed on the Asiatic coast, in the ports of Eutropius and

Anthimus, the two harbours near Chalcedon, to prevent supplies arriving from the Archipelago; the other occupied the bays in the European shore of the Bosphorus above the point of Galata, in order to cut off all communication with the Black Sea and the cities of Cherson and Trebizond.

(*) The Greek sources confused the caliph Sulayman, brother of

Maslama and son of `Abd al-Aziz, with the general Sulayman who was son of Mu`ad.

Sept: The Arab fleet under Suleiman attempts to blockade the city by sea, but is driven off by the Byzantine fleet with Greek Fire* and fire-ships; the Arab fleet refuses any major engagement with the Byzantines. His fleet was scattered by adverse winds and largely destroyed by the use of Greek

Fire; it is said that only “five” galleys reached their home-port of Alexandria.

(The caliph of the same name, Sulayman, died on 8 October 717, and was succeeded as caliph by Omar: Theoph. AM 6209, pp. 395-396).

(*) This is a Western term: the East Romans called it “liquid fire”, “sea fire” or “wet fire”. There were small hand siphons as well as large fixed noozle-points on war galleys; Greek Fire was also launched from

catapults and in grenades (Tsangadas 1980: 111, 126, 295, citing Theophanes AM 6163, Nicephorus and Const. Porphyr.; cf Partington 1960).

Ibn Asakir, quoting an eyewitness on the Muslim side: “Maslama had drawn up the Muslims in a line (I had never seen one longer) with the many

squadrons. Leo, the autocrat of Rûm, sat on the tower of the gate of Constantinople with its towers. He drew up the foot soldiers in a long line between the wall and the sea opposite the Muslim shore. We showed arms in a thousand [sic] ships, light ships, big ships in which there were stores of Egyptian clothing, etc, and galleys with the fighting men … 'Umar and some

of those from the ships were afraid to advance against the harbour mouth, fearing for their lives. When the Rum saw this, galleys and light ships came out of the harbour mouth [the Golden Horn] against us and one of them went to the nearest Muslim ship, threw on it grapnels with chains and towed it with its crew into Constantinople. We lost heart”. —Text in S. Tritton, D. N.

Mackenzie, J. Duncan, M. Derrett, ‘Siege of Constantinople’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 22, No. 1/3 (1959), pp. 350-358.

* * *

4a. S Italy: The Lombards take Cumae near Naples; but local imperial troops, encouraged by the pope, recover the town.

4b. N Italy: In the 570s, when the incursions of Faroald, the Lombard Duke of Spoleto, first cut the Via Flaminia, the lifeline between Rome and Ravenna, the Via Amerina – a little to the west - was improved and fortified at intervals. Apparently the Byzantines controlled the Amerina until the end.

Brown says that the empire, or in other words: Ravenna, permanently* lost the town of Narni, north of Rome, where the Via Flaminia divides into its ‘old’ and ‘new’ routes, half-way to Perugia and Assisi, to the Lombards of Spoleto in 717-18 (Brown in NCMH vol 2 p.324). Cf below under 717-26: collusion against the tax-gatherers of Ravenna by papal Rome and Lombard Spoleto.

(*) If the Lombards controlled the Flaminian at Narni, one might expect this to prevent the exarch asserting any control over Byzantine Rome; but as will be seen, he did – until about 740. Presumably his troops bypassed Narni, travelling down the Amerina.

5. Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem completed. Note, by the way, that the Dome of the Rock is not itself a mosque.

End of the Siege, July-August 718

The new Caliph ‘Umar II sent reinforcements by sea and land. Sophiam of Sufyan brought 400 grain-ships and dromons [large warships] from Egypt; and Yezid followed with 360 transports from Africa (Tunisia) carrying arms and provisions (Tsangadas 1980: 143; Kennedy p.331).

The caliph’s younger son Yezid was commander of an Arab fleet of “260” merchantmen which brought fresh supplies from Africa to the Arabs during the siege of Constantinople in spring and summer 718 (Nicephorus: Nic. Brev., de Boor edn 54). Through fear of Greek fire, he put in on the Asian side of the Marmara at Satyros (and Bryas and as far as the village of Kartalimen, adds Theophanes), where his fleet was destroyed in an East Roman attack after the desertion of Egyptian sailors: Nic. Brev. de Boor 54, Theoph. AM 6209. “He (Leo III) readied fire-carrying siphons and put them aboard

warships and “two-storied” (bireme) ships, then dispatched them against the two (Arab) fleets” (Theophanes).

Many of the Christian Egyptians and Africans serving in the Muslim navy defected to the Byzantine side. Leo’s forces captured the grain, provisions

and arms they had brought. As a result, the Arab land forces faced starvation and disease. Consequently on 15 August 718 the Caliph ordered withdrawal (Haldon 1990: 83; Kennedy p.331).

This brought the last great Muslim siege of the imperial capital to an end. Cf 739-40 and 806.

Bulgarian alliance: Leo III was aided (July 718) in his defeat of the combined forces of the Arab army, led by Maslama, and the enemy navy led by

Sulayman, by the help of the Bulgarian khan Tervel. Following the example of Patriarch Sergius (610-638), who had carried an icon of Mary around the city walls during the Avar siege of Constantinople in 626, Patriarch Germanus faced the Arab siege with the power of an icon of the Theotokos.

Miraculously, the city was saved, though Leo's role in the affair is played down by iconophile sources.

The Arabs, weary from the long attrition of siege warfare, thinned out by disease and hunger, and demoralized by the lack of success in assaulting the city, were devastated by a Bulgarian attack against their land forces in July 718. Contemporary chroniclers report at least 30,000 - Theophanes says 22,000 - Arabs died in the first Bulgar attack.

717-726:

Italy: (The exact date is obscure:) Opposition to Leo's heavy taxation** - for his wars - emerges in Italy. The patriarch of Rome or ‘pope’, Gregory II, 715-31, is reluctantly drawn in. When Scholasticus, the Byzantine Exarch,

intervened, the local, Rome-based imperial troops and the Lombards of Spoleto opposed him. The Ravennate troops retired. Cf 732.

(**) “The unfortunate colonus [serf] was deprived of about a third of his yield in tax, on top of which he had to pay rent to his landlord” (Mango 1980: 44).

The West: It was at about this time - before 733 - that Sardinia and Corsica

were lost to the empire. Treadgold 1997: 938n4 observes that in 733 (see

there) Leo was able to confiscate the papal estates of Sicily and Calabria but not those of Sardinia and Corsica. Whether the latter two were taken by the Lombards or became effectively independent is unclear.

Significantly, the last coins known to have been minted at the Cagliari mint date from 720. See 720: Arab attack on Sardinia. Also ca. 725: Corsica apparently captured by the Lombards.

718:

1. Thrace: From his exile, the former emperor Anastasius tried to regain the throne, seeking the help the Bulgars and writing to Theoktistos and Niketas at Constantinople for their support; but at Herakleia the Bulgars turned against him and they surrendered him to the emperor Leo III. He was beheaded in the Kynegion amphitheatre (the old arena or theatre near the easternmost point of the city used for animal fight-shows in Antiquity)* and his head paraded in the hippodrome with that of a supporter, the bishop of Thessalonike

(Anonymus 179): Nic. Brev. 55-56, Mango 57, Theoph. AM 6211, Zon. XV 2. 15-18 (cf. Also Niketas).

(*) Where the Topkapi Palace now is. The document called the

Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai reveals that the Kynegion and many other antique buildings to have been in a ruinous condition already at this time (Cameron and Herrin 1984: 201).

2. 15 August: As related earlier, the Arabs break the siege of Constantinople and withdraw; their army marches safely through Anatolia; their fleet is partially destroyed in a storm in the Sea of Marmara and later burnt by ash from the volcano at Thera in the Aegean. Allegedly only “10” ships survived; five were captured by the Byzantine fleet and just five made it back to the caliphate (TCOT: 91).

The patriarch Germanus alludes to Islam in his sermon commemorating the Constantinopolitans' deliverance in 718 from the Arab siege of their city. It is a celebration of the role of the Virgin, who "alone defeated the Saracens and prevented their aim, which was not just to capture the city, but also to

overthrow the royal majesty of Christ".

Throughout the oration the Christians are presented as the Israelites, "who with the eyes of faith see Christ as God and therefore confess that it is truly the Theotokos who bore him". The Muslims, on the other hand, are cast in the role of the impious [monophysite] Egyptians, "who say regarding Christ: 'I do not know the Lord,' and think concerning his mother: 'She is by nature a woman; she can in no way come to the aid of those who glory in her assistance'." The sermon ends on a hopeful note, for like the Egyptians, the Muslims are cast into the sea and the Christians live to fight another day. — Kirby 2003.

2. Opsikion troops are again in revolt. A Bulgarian force took part in the revolt, advancing from around Thessaloniki to Herakleia, on the Sea of Marmara, 80 km from Constantinople, by land and sea, using dug-out sail-boats, presumably built by their Slav allies or subjects (Browning p.139, citing the chronicler Nicephorus).

3. First reference to the Walls regiment [Greek: Teiché], a special infantry unit guarding the Hippodrome area and the walls surrounding the imperial palace.* Its commander was called the archon tou Teichon or tou Teichou. The regiment will become part of the the elite Tagmata in the 760s; its commander rose from archon to komes (‘count’) (see there).

(*) For a good illustration of the section of the city containing the palace, hippodrome and Hagia Sophia, see page 60 of the Time-Life book (1989).

5. b. Constantine, future emperor, son of Leo III.

719: East Francia, our S Germany: Boniface, the English-born monk Winfrith or Wynfrid, is active in Bavaria and Thuringia, christianising pagans. See 730.

720:

1. A new and more lasting return to silver was made in 720. Leo III, formally in association with his infant son Constantine V, 720–741, introduced a coin known as a miliaresion.

2. Arabs under Muhammad b. Aws al-Ansari raid Byzantine Sardinia

(Blankinship p.139). They held parts of the west coast, i.e. Arborea in the SW, for over 100 years. Cf 725: Corsica, and 727: Sicily.

Significantly, the last coins known to have been minted at the Cagliari mint date from 720.

720-24:

Caliph Yazid II.

721:

Leo III orders forced baptism for all Jews and Muslims living within the empire (Theophanes a.m. 6214). Many Jews fled to Syria and other Islamic-ruled lands. Cf 732.

721: Major Christian victory in present-day France: Muslims from Spain under the governor-general Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani enter

Occitania in early spring, 721, and immediately march NW toward Frankish Toulouse. The siege of Toulouse, with its near-impregnable walls, lasted until early summer. The defending Franks, short of

provisions, were close to surrendering when, around 9 June 721, Eudes of Aquitaine returned at the head of a large force, hurled himself at al-Samh's rear, and launched a highly successful encircling movement. So serious was the Muslim defeat that, each year for the following 450 years, those who died at Balat al-Shuhada' (‘Plateau of the Martyrs’) were honoured in a special remembrance ceremony.

722:

Asia Minor: Caria (the SW corner of Asia Minior) would become (after 727: see there) part of the theme [province] of Kibyrrhaiotai or ‘Cibyrrhaeots’; it is mentioned as a distinct province as late as 722, when it appears as belonging to the apotheke (lit. “storehouse”, i.e. supply-district) of ‘Asia, Caria and the Islands and the Hellespont’, organised to collect the trade tax and supply the army. Presumably this kommerkiariate [tax and trading concession*] covered part of the Carabisian and Thracesian themes. See 729-31.

(*) The private entrepreneurs contracted (or, later, public officials employed) to collect the tax on goods - import and circulation taxes - were called kommerkiarioi. It was not sales that were taxed but the movement of goods, including slaves. “The customs system in 7th _and

8th _{C Byzantium allowed the empire not only to control the commercial}

routes . . . but also to preserve something of a monopoly on the

slave trade” that passed through it (Rotman 2009: 70).

Oikonomides notes that each kommerkiarios (government tax collector and supply contractor) seems to have been in charge of an establishment called an apotheke (lit. “storehouse”); there was usually

one of these in each province (or group of provinces) under his control. The word apotheke is thus an abstract term referring to an institution rather than a specific building and it covered a broad geographical area (rather than being confined to cities, harbours, or roads) (in Laiou ed., Economic History of Byzantium 2002; also in Laiou 2008: 985).

723:

Slavic Greece: 723-730: Key sources show the presence of Slavs and Avars in central and southern Greece:

(a) In c. 723 (between 723 and 728) bishop Willibald of Eichstatt (Bavaria) travelled from Syracuse to Constantinople and stopped at Monemvasia, at the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese; he called the place "the Slavic land" or ‘the land of Slavinia’ (MGH SS 15:93: The Life of St Willibald, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Script. xv, i, p. 93);

- Monemvasia was recovred from the pagan Slavs sometime btween the 720s and 780s, as we know that the bishop of Monemvasia attended the Council of Nicaea in 787.

(b) Perhaps in the 730s (the date given by Ekonomou 2007): The Life of St. Pancratius records that a Byzantine warlord from Taormina (Sicily), or else the strategos [military governor], organised an expedition across the sea; he took a number of prisoners from among the pagan “Avars” living in the province of Athens. Others would date the writing of this text to around 710 (Curta 2006: 105).

The standard view is that the Slavic tribes ruled the interior, while the

‘Greeks’ continued to control much of the coastal fringe. Thus the Time Atlas 1994: 56 shows imperial rule along the whole coast of the Balkans except in the southwest (west Peloponnesian coast) and in the far west (part of the coast of Epirus).

Willibald’s Eastern Pilgrimage, c.721-c.728

A good overview of the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean is embedded in the reminiscences of the Bavarian bishop Willibald: Life of St Willibald, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, text in C. H. Talbot 1954, pp 160 ff: “They went on board a ship [galley] and crossed over the sea to Naples, where they left the ship in which they had sailed and stayed for two weeks. These cities [the towns of Campania] belong to the Romans [i.e. Byzantines]: they are in [surrounded by] the territory of Benevento, but owe allegiance to the Romans.” —Byzantine Campania lay between the emerging

semi-independent imperial Duchy of Rome or nascent Papal State and the Lombard duchy of Benevento.

“And at once, as is usual when the mercy of God is at work, their fondest hopes were fulfilled, for [at Naples] they chanced upon a ship that had come from [Muslim-ruled] Egypt, so they embarked on it and set sail [i.e. rowed] for a town called Reggio in [Byzantine] Calabria.”

Adriatic and reached the city [read: port-village] of Monembasia, in the land of Slavinia, and from there they sailed to Chios, leaving Corinth on the port side.” —Byzantium controlled some coastal areas in Greece but most of the Balkans was ruled by Slav chieftains.

“Sailing on from there, they passed [Byzantine] Samos and sped on

towards Asia, to the city of Ephesus, which stands about a mile from the sea.” —This indicates that the silting-up of the River Cayster, the modern Küçük Menderes, was already well-advanced. Ephesus today is about six km from the coast.

“Sailing from there [Miletos], they reached the island of Cyprus, which lies between the Greeks [Byzantines] and the Saracens, and went to the city of Pamphos, where they stayed three weeks.” —Cyprus was a condominium, co-ruled by the Byzantines and Caliphate.

“Once more they set sail and reached the town of Antarados [Tartus on the coast of Syria, south of Latakia] which lies near the sea in the territory of the Saracens.” —The Byzantine-Caliphate border ran through Cilicia.

Palestine: The ‘king of the Saracens’ is named as “Emiral Mummenim”. This was of course his title: Amir al-Mu'minin, ‘Commander of the Faithful’ or Caliph. The incumbent was Yazid bin Abd al-Malik or Yazid II, 720-24,

succeeded by Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, 724-43.

Willibald’s party visited, among many other places, Mar Saba, the

Monastery of St Sabas near Bethlehem. It was, or it became, the home of the great iconodule (“icon-slave”) John of Damascus (aged about 46 in 722), called the “last of the Greek Fathers” of the Church. He wrote his On Holy Images in about 730. It is not known when John retired from the court at Damascus to Mar Saba, but many believe it was before 715 as by that time Arabic had replaced Greek as the language of the Caliph’s chancery. — Griffith 2008.

Later in Syria: “His [Willibald’s] companions, who were in his party, went forward to the King of the Saracens, named Murmumni [recte: Amir al-Mu'minin], to ask him to give them a letter of safe conduct, but they could not meet him because he himself had withdrawn from that region on account of the sickness and pestilence that infested the country.”

After visiting Constantinople and Nicaea, Willibald sailed back to Syracuse. “After two years they set sail from there [Constantinople] with the envoys of the Pope and the Emperor and went to the city of Syracuse in the island of Sicily.” —The envoys were carrying the hostile correspondence conducted between pope Gregory II, 715-31, and Emperor Leo about iconoclasm. Willibald reached central Italy again seven years after leaving it.

fl. Winfrith or Wynfrid, born 680 or 683, the future St Boniface. An English-born monk, he was afterwards known as the 'Apostle of the Germans', i.e. to the pagan East Franks beyond the Rhine.

Pagan Germany: In 723, Boniface felled the holy oak tree dedicated to the god Thornear [Thor] at the present-day town of Fritzlar, near Gottiningen in northern Hesse, NW of Frankfurt. He built a chapel from its wood at the site where today stands the cathedral of Fritzlar, and later established the first bishopric in Germany north of the old Roman limes or fortified frontier at the Frankish fortress of Büraburg, on a

prominent hill facing the town across the Eder river.

The felling Thor's Oak is commonly regarded as the beginning of German christianization.- All of what is now southern and central Germany, then eastern Francia, was quickly Christianised; the only remaining pagan region was in the north, i.e. Saxony. It remained obdurate and had to be converted by the sword: by Charlemagne from 772 (see there).

724-43: Caliph Hisham.

In this reign the main Muslim naval base was moved from Acre in

Palestine to Tyre in Syria, where a large new ‘arsenal’ (ship repair workshop) was built inside a walled harbour. Acre was again reconstituted as the main naval base in 861 (Kennedy 2008: 335. citing al-Baladhuri). Cf 747: major defeat at the hands of the Byzantines.

725: CONVENIENT DATE FOR THE MID-POINT OF THE BYZANTINE ‘DARK AGE’

Coinage

The denominations were as follows from c. 725: one gold solidus or nomisma (4.55 g) = 12 silver miliaresia = 288 bronze folles [singular: follis]. And 1 silver miliaresion = 2 silver siliquae or keratia (an accounting unit) = 24 bronze folles.

Coin portraits, already for a long time far less finely rendered than during the times of Constantine the Great and his successors, become now even cruder or at least ‘further stylised’ - a state that will last for about another 200 years.

Above: Coin depicting emperor Leo III. 725:

1. The East: Arabs raid Cyprus, presumably as punishment for non-payment of taxes or for molesting the local Muslims. The island remained a de facto condominium in line with the treaty of 688; there was no intention to occupy or annex it.

2. The Aegean: The theme of Hellas - “the men of the themes of Hellas and the Cyclades”, presumably iconodules - revolted in 725/6 against the

iconoclastic emperor Leo III, and sent (727) a large fleet under the command of an officer called Agallianos, the turmarch or deputy commander of Hellas. But the imperial fleet destroyed the rebel fleet with “artificial [Greek] fire” near Constantinople (Theophanes: TCOT: 97). See 727.

Kosmas was with them as their candidate for the crown. Theophanes writes thus: “Agallianos (the turmarch of the theme of Hellas) and Stephen led their army. They neared the imperial city on 18 April of the 10th _indiction

[727] and . . . were defeated because their ships were consumed by the artificial fire. Some men went to the bottom of the sea, among them

Agallianos, who drowned himself in his armour, but the survivors went over to the victors. Kosmas and Stephen were beheaded, the impious Leo was

strengthened in his evil ways, and his faction stepped up its persecution of piety.”

3. Italy: The exarch Paul assembled troops from the strongholds around Ravenna and sent them to Rome to depose the patriarch of Rome Gregory II for his boycott of imperial taxes. The local army detachment at Rome sided with the pope and prevented this (Liber Pontificalis, cited in Brown 1984: 91). Italy c. 725: “There were probably few concentrations of Germanic settlers entirely immune to Roman cultural influence. The Lombard language seems to have disappeared by the 8th century, leaving few loanwords in the Italian language. The impression conveyed is of a gradual Romanization of the society and culture of the Lombards within the framework of their continuing political dominance.” – ‘Italy’ (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 24, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service:

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27627.

c. 725:

1. Italy: The Lombards occupy Byzantine Corsica. Or perhaps earlier – by about 700? (cf Noble p.172.) Acting as the protector of the catholic church and its faithful, Liutprand subjected the island to Lombard government (c. 725), though it was nominally under Byzantine authority. Corsica remained with the Lombard kingdom even after the Frankish conquest, by which time Lombard landholders and churches had established a significant presence on the island (Wikipedia, 2009, ‘Luitprand’).

2. Text: the Parastaseis syntomai chronikai. The title of this work may be translated as ‘brief historical notes’ or ‘expositions’, i.e. an antiquarian discussion of the sights of Constantinople, explaining the origin and

significance of the many statues and other “spectacles” found throughout the city. References are made to emperors living as long ago as 500+ years in the past, and to oral history.

It is clear that many of the buildings and monuments of Antiquity had fallen into disrepair or were long since abandoned and that large areas of the city within the walls were deserted.

The document was written in the early eighth century, although the text is preserved in only one 11th-century manuscript. Cameron and Herrin call it "a rare source of knowledge of the late antique and early medieval city ...

[which] offers intriguing insights into the cultural world of an age from which very little other literary evidence has survived". —Averil Cameron & Judith Herrin ed. & tr., Constantinople in the early eighth century (Leiden, 1984), online at http://p083.ezboard.com/fbalkansfrm48.showmessage?

topicid=112.topic; accessed 2010.

726:

1. Cappadocia: Arabs sack Caesarea. This began a period of almost annual raids into Byzantine Asia Minor.

2. DARK AGE: The Ecloga, a revision of the law, was issued in 726 according to the usual dating; others say in 740. It was not superseded until the 870s, after the restoration of 'Iconodule' or pro-icon orthodoxy.

Its date is 741 according to L Burgmann (1983), Ecloga. Das Gesetzbuch Leons III. und Konstantinos' V, Frankfurt am Main: Löwenklau-Gesellschaft. The law codes were distilled into a summary or ‘selection’, Gk Ekloga. So far had standards of literacy fallen, however, that even the most expert officials had trouble understanding some of the older law texts (Treadgold 1997: 398 ff).

Mutilation is formally recognised for the first time in the Ecloga. But, as we have said, the practice had begun about a century earlier. The contemporary view was that blinding and castration (see 813) were less un-Christian than execution. Theft could be punished by the loss of a hand, and lying by the cutting of the tongue.

Likewise the Farmer’s Law [Gk: Nomos Georgikos], not clearly dated but probably from the period c.775-825, also notes punishments that we would see as harsh and barbarous: amputation of hands or tongue, blinding, impalement, and death by fire (Mango 1980: 47). For example: “If a (free) man finds an ox in a wood and kills it, and takes the carcass let his hand be cut off. If a slave kills one ox or ass or ram in a wood, his master shall make it good” [with, we assume, the slave being left to the private mercy of his master!].

Officials and Officers

According to Treadgold, State, p.384, there were some 2,500 officials in the early period; but by the eighth century, say by AD 750, the central

bureaucracy in Constantinople shrank to about 600 men, while the provincial officials, once around 15,000, dwindled to mere hundreds when the strategoi (generals) of the themes and their military subordinates became the real

administrators. If we count 20 senior military men in each of 12 themes and fleets in 773, and guess that they were supported by 10 lesser officials, administrators and clerks in each jurisdiction, then we have a ruling stratum of just 360 men outside the capital.

From 726:

Conventional date for the beginning of ICONOCLASM. The emperor

ordered an icon of Christ to be removed from its display over the Chalke (“bronze") gate to the palace - the entry point into the palace from Hagia Sophia.

It is reported that at the very beginning of the iconoclastic period, when a soldier was dispatched to destroy the image of Christ above the Chalke Gate at the Great Palace, a group of nuns led by St. Theodosia (as she became) pulled down the ladder on which he was standing. These women were the first iconodule (pro-icon) martyrs, as they were all executed by order of Leo III. Theodosia was executed by having a ram's horn hammered through her neck (Alexander Van Millingen, 1912: Byzantine Churches of

Constantinople. London: MacMillan & Co).

It has been proposed that, at first, the banning of religious icons was

enforced only in the Capital; certainly it was not until 754 (see there) that the veneration of icons was declared a heresy. Cf 730.

Scholarly opinion is divided as to whether Leo III fairly deserves to be called "the first Iconoclast emperor" (cf Angold 2001: 72). It is noteworthy that he is not known as an iconoclast in contemporary Muslim and Armenian sources. Leo's actions in Italy in the mid-720s, which antagonised the the pope or archbishop of Rome, seem to have more to do with punishing tax evasion than imposing the destruction of icons. But, whether prompted by iconoclasm or by resentment at Leo's interference in Italian affairs, or both, the pope protested and attacked the idea that the emperor could have authority in making doctrinal pronouncements.

“Together with the territorial losses suffered by the empire during his early reign, the devastating underwater earthquake at Thera and Therasia [north of Crete] in 726 [see there] was interpreted by Leo as a sign of divine

displeasure, and as a warning to turn back to the "real protector of the

empire in its full greatness", i.e. to Christ. It was at around this time, either in 726 or 730 - the sources are divided as to whether the ruling patriarch was Germanus or his successor Anastasius - that he replaced the relief of Christ on the Chalke Gate at the entrance to the imperial palace with a cross bearing the inscription "I drive out the enemies and kill the barbarians." – Bronwen Neill, “Leo III”, at www.roman-emperors.org/leoiii; 2006.

The Beginning and End of Iconoclasm

Sunk in its own even darker Dark Age, 'barbarian' Western Europe remained tied to the developed East by a shared faith in Christianity. The East,

however, fell under an enthusiasm for Iconoclasm - the rejection of religious images - for more than a century (ca. 729-843). According to Herrin 2007: 109, the primary aim (better: its vindication) of iconoclasm was regaining divine favour in battle. Hence the inscription "I drive out the enemies and kill

the barbarians."

It was far from being a widely 'popular' movement, being imposed and then removed by imperial diktat. As Mango puts it, the absolutism of the East Roman state meant that "the will of the government dictated the suppression of Iconoclasm in 787, its reintroduction in 814 and its final liquidation in 843" (1980: 99). Even so, there were popular elements to iconoclasm: the letters of Germanos the patriarch of Constantinople during the mid to late 720s reveal that there was considerable agitation against images in western Asia Minor (Angold 2001: 72). Cf 726.

The Bishop of Rome purported to excommunicate (731) the first of the

iconoclast emperors, Leo III, 717-41, and placed the icons under papal

protection. In response, Leo strengthened the position of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The provinces of south Italy, Greece and parts of the Balkans were transferred from Rome’s religious jurisdiction to that of Constantinople.

* * * To recap.

Militarily strong, the empire remained weak economically. As we have said, it had become "ruralised". Its territories comprised hardly more than Asia Minor, Thrace, parts of lower Greece, Crete and Sicily. In Italy proper, the empire controlled just the toe and heel and several coastal towns around Naples (also in theory Sardinia and Corsica). The empire was hemmed around by enemies: Muslims, Bulgars, Slavs and Lombards. The Muslims dominated the coast of the southern Mediterranean Sea, but the empire still controlled the central and northern sectors: from Sardinia to Sicily, Crete and Asia Minor.

The army consisted of many semi-professional units drawn from the

"Themes" (Greek Themata), the famous Romanic-Byzantine administrative

structure of militarised provinces, each with locally raised troops, and ( — from AD 760) a number of highly trained standing regiments called the Tagmata, based in the capital.

The navy relied on 'Greek Fire': chemical warfare in the shape of war-galleys armed with fire catapults and large flame-throwers. Greek Fire was used both offensively and defensively.

GREEK FIRE was said to have been invented by a Syrian engineer,

Callinicus, a refugee from Maalbek, in the seventh century (673 AD): It was a flammable composition possibly consisting of sulphur, naphtha, and

quicklime; other say oil (petroleum). Rumours about its composition include such chemicals as liquid petroleum, naphtha, burning pitch, sulphur, resin, quicklime and bitumen, along with some other "secret ingredient". The exact composition, however, remains unknown. Although perhaps known in

antiquity, it was first employed on a large scale by the Greek Romanics. Bronze tubes ("siphons") that emitted jets of liquid fire were mounted on the prows of their galleys and on the walls of Constantinople. The Romanics in 678 and again in 717–18 destroyed two Saracen fleets with Greek fire. The "liquid fire", as the Byzantines called it, hurled on to the ships of enemies from siphons, burst into flames on contact. Reputed to be

Its introduction into the warfare of its time has been compared (perhaps extravagantly) in its demoralising influence to the introduction of nuclear weapons in our time. Certainly both Arab and ‘Greek’ [Rhomaioi: Byzantine] sources agree that it surpassed all incendiary weapons in destruction. The secret behind the Greek fire was handed down from one emperor to the next for centuries.

A further important event was the formation of an aggressive Bulgar state on the inner, or southern, side of the lower Danube, 681-685. The pagan Bulgarians were to be, for many centuries, the empire's mortal enemy. They had a fairly sophisticated political system, with a centralised monarchical state, unlike many of the nomadic peoples of the steppe who invaded eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (see Browning 1975).

Originally a Turkic people, the pagan Bulgars were relatively quickly assimilated by the Slavonic population of the sub-Danube region. The ruling caste was subsumed, becoming in effect another group of Slavs. They were to adopt eastern-style Christianity in the late 9th century (from AD 864). The Bulgar Khan had intervened in the Empire's dynastic disputes in 705 and raided to the walls of the City itself in 712. Under a treaty of 716 the Bulgars gained more territory from the empire, extending their rule as far as northern Thrace. Later they extended their control westward, eventually to Belgrade, after the destruction of the Avar state by the Franks (796).

REIGN OF LEO III ‘the Syrian’ (continued) 726:

1. The western Aegean: The volcano of Santorini (Thera) lies SE of Athens. As we have said, its spectacular explosion was taken by Leo III and others as a sign: the veneration of images was to be further attacked, or at least their improper use as magical healing powers was now forbidden (Angold 2001: 73; Herrin 2007: 108). Cf 730: decree against icons.

Theophanes the Confessor, writing at the end of 8th century, and George Kedrinos, 11th century, record that in AD 726 people on Mount Athos in NE Greece—the future “holy mountain” dotted with monasteries—saw the eruption of Santorini (Thera) volcano on Santorini which lies SE of Athens. Santorini is the southernmost island of the Cyclades group (N of Crete). Pumice stone fell as far away as Crete and the shores of western Asia Minor. This proves, as one would expect, that at that time there were inhabitants on the Mt Athos peninsula, although whether there were already monks there is not established.

2. Italy: fl. Liutprand, king of the Lombards, 712-44.

End of 60 years of peace with Byzantium in the north.

Under Liutprand’s rule the Lombard-Italian kingdom reaches its zenith,

Roman (Latin) law and institutions, and centralised power in his kingdom. And by now the Germanic, Lombard, language has been overtaken by Late Latin or early proto-Italian.

Liutprand kept a firm hand on the Lombard dukes, and from 726 moved aggressively against the other powers on the peninsula:

— 726-7 (see there) he invaded the Exarchate of Ravenna as far as Ancona and Ravenna’s port Classis;

— 733 he set his own nephew over Benevento;

— 739 he expelled the Lombard duke of Spoleto and occupied four towns of the 'Roman patrimony' [papal domains] in response to a hostile alliance between Spoleto, Benevento and the papacy; and

— 743 [or 738] he briefly took the city of Ravenna (soon recovered by Byzantium).

The only place where Lombard-Italian art survives in full appearance is at Cividale in Friuli, NW of Trieste, near the Slovenian-Italian border. The Church of S Maria-in-Valle, has six female figures, a series of very high relief

sculptures, which are quite sophisticated and ‘un-barbarian’ (illustrated in Rice 1965: 166).

726-7:

1. Asia: Arabs resume their annual raids on Asia Minor: brief siege of Nicaea, Gk Nikaia, which is modern Iznik (Whittow p.140, Treadgold 1997: 353). Theophanes: “Amr went ahead with 15,000 light armed men to surround the unprepared city, while Mua’wiyah followed with another 85,000 [sic]. Even after a long siege and the partial destruction of the walls, they could not enter Nikaia's sacred precinct of the honoured and holy fathers because of its inhabitants' prayers, which were acceptable to God” (TCOT: 97).

It is near to incredible that a small fortress-town could resist 100,000 besiegers, - unless the latter were short of supplies. If we drop one zero, the numbers become credible: 1,500 light troops and 8,500 in the main force. 2a. Tax revolt in Italy: Sometime between 723 and 726, Leo III had increased taxes in Italy, apparently in an attempt to help pay to defend the Empire from the Arabs. The patriarch or pope, Gregory II, 715-31, was the largest

landowner in Italy. He was therefore the most affected by the tax decree. He refused to pay. Most of the rest of Byzantine Italy followed suit. Some, a few loyal to the Emperor, plotted to kill the pope. Before this plot could be carried through, however, a new Exarch, Paul, gov. 726-27, was sent to Ravenna, supposedly with orders to kill Gregory II.

The new exarch Paulus attempted (727) to arrest Gregory, but was

prevented by the joint action of the Romans and the Lombards, and met his death at the hands of the people of Ravenna during a riot. Thus the entire Exarchate rose in revolt in response to imposition of iconoclasm - and

probably more importantly: higher taxes - in 727; the Lombards, the papacy, and the Italian cities all moved to eliminate Byzantine authority. See next. 2b. Italy: The Roman patriarch Gregory II ordered (726) the people to resist the emperor’s iconoclastic decree. Meanwhile in Naples the Byzantine duke, Exhiliratus, was killed by a mob while trying to carry out the imperial

command to destroy all the icons. The Lombard king Liutprand chose this time of division to strike at the Byzantine possessions in Emilia. In 727, he crossed the Po and took Bologna, inland from Ravenna, and Osimo and Rimini on the coast below Ravenna, and Ancona, along with the other cities of Emilia and the Pentapolis, to the south of Ravenna. He took Classis, the

seaport of Ravenna, but could not take high-walled Ravenna from the exarch Paul (Wikipedia, 2009, under ‘Liutprand’). See 728.

As a result, Byzantium now controlled only a long narrow corridor running north-south from present-day Venice to Ravenna and thence via Perusia [near mod. Perugia] along the Via Amerina to Rome.

2c. Dalmatia: Between 726 and 727 the Exarch Paul’s orders ceased being received in Spalato (Split), and there followed three years in which Ravenna and Dalmatia were virtually independent (Praga, Dalmatia p. 50). See 727: The exarch is killed in a revolt.

2d. Italy: Venice elected its first duke (doge), which some today see as a gesture of revolt against Byzantine iconoclasm. - When the patriarch of Rome resisted the emperor’s iconoclastic edict, the troops of Byzantine Italy

proclaimed their own dukes; in Venice this may have been Orso, third in the traditional (but unreliable) list of doges. Cf 727-29: Venice helps recover Ravenna; and 740.

Malaria in Italy

The gradual spread of malaria in mainland Italy clearly occurred in historical times, as Sallares et al. note (2004). The final step in this process did not happen until the medieval period, by about 600, when endemic malaria emerged in the Po delta region of northeastern Italy, presumably as a result of the arrival of the mosquito Anopheles sacharovi, the dominant vector in recent times in that region. The spread of malaria to northeastern Italy occurred at a time when Ravenna and the emerging commercial centre of Venice were closely associated with the Byzantine Empire, as McCormick has pointed out (cited by Sallares et al.). It is significant that it was the

predominantly an eastern Mediterranean species A. sacharovi, rather than the western Mediterranean A. labranchiae that became dominant in

northeastern Italy.

Modern Italian epidemiology of the genetic blood disorder beta-thalassaemia (a form of sickle-cell anaemia) reveals that its distribution matches the

borders of Byzantine Italy as they were in about 600. This suggests that, on a molecular level, Italo-Byzantines may have enjoyed a superior resistance to malaria, compared with other inhabitants of the peninsula. Those with β -thalassaemia have a 50% decreased chance of getting clinical malaria. McCormick, 1998: 30, speculates that it may have been their resistancne to malaria that allowed the Byzantines to hold the lower the Po Valley for so long.