Re-enactor from First Bulgarian State (theapricity.com)

The Roman campaign against the invading Bulgar tribes ranks as one of the most important in history because the Roman defeat resulted in the creation of a new Bulgarian Empire.  Over the next 675 years the Bulgarians would become either allies or more often deadly enemies of Constantinople.

The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century AD.

The early Bulgars may have been present in the Pontic Steppe from the 2nd century, identified with the Bulensii in certain Latin versions of Ptolemy's Geography, shown as occupying the territory along the northwest coast of Black Sea east of Axiacus River (Southern Bug).

In the early 4th century, the Bulgars would have been caught up in the Hunnic migrations, moving to the fertile lands along the lower valleys of the rivers Donets and Don and the Azov seashore.  Bulgars took part in the Hunnic raids on Central and Western Europe between 377 and 453.

At the end of the 5th century (probably in the years 480, 486, and 488) they fought against the Ostrogoths as allies of the Byzantine Emperor Zeno. From 493 they carried out frequent attacks on the western territories of the Byzantine Empire. Later raids were carried out at the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th century.

Slowly the Bulgar peoples moved from what is modern Ukraine down into the Balkans and increasing came into contact with Roman troops at the Danube River frontier.

Roman Emperor Constantine IV Emperor Constantine IV and his court.  He organized the military and city of Constantinople for a siege of five years while fighting wars on multiple fronts over three continents (Africa, Europe and Asia).  After the defeat of the Arabs the Emperor personally led an army against the invading Bulgars. . (Mosaic in basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe Ravenna, Italy.)

Of Arabs and Bulgars

The Heraclian dynasty Emperors of Rome faced the near extinction of the Empire from multiple enemies on multiple fronts.  Constantine IV (668 – 685) was simultaneously fighting wars in Italy, Africa, the Balkans and Anatolia.

His greatest challenge was withstanding the massive Arab Siege of Constantinople that lasted from  674-678.

The city survived, and finally in 678 the Arabs were forced to raise the siege. The Arabs withdrew and were almost simultaneously defeated on land and sea in Lycia in Anatolia. This unexpected reverse forced the Arabs to seek a truce with Constantine. The terms of the concluded truce required them to evacuate the islands they had seized in the Aegean, and to pay an annual tribute to the Emperor consisting of fifty slaves, fifty horses, and 3,000 pounds of gold.

At the same time a Roman army in the  Exarchate of Carthage North Africa was battling against invading Muslim Arabs.

With the Arab forces totally defeated at Constantinople and Lycia the Emperor could turn his attentions to the invading Bulgars.



The Bulgar Khan Asparuh Founder of the Bulgarian Empire

For centuries Roman Balkans had been either under attack or overrun by and endless stream of Asian tribes.  Now it was the turn of the Bulgars.

The Khan Asparuh parted ways with the tribes to the north in order to seek a secure home on Roman Balkan territory. He was followed by 30,000 to 50,000 Bulgars.

He reached the Danube while the Byzantine capital Constantinople was besieged by Muawiyah I, Caliph of the Arabs.  He and his people settled in the Danube delta, probably on the now disappeared Peuce Island.

After the Arab siege of Constantinople ended,  Constantine IV gathered available troops and marched against the Bulgars and their Slav allies in 680.  His attack forced his opponents to seek shelter in a fortified encampment.

Again the Romans faced another pagan invasion that threatened their security.

Roman Empire military districts and force deployment in 668AD.  The Empire had to defend North Africa, Italy the Balkans and Asia Minor. Click graphic to enlarge.

Opposing Forces

The early Bulgars were a warlike people and war was part of their everyday life, with every adult Bulgar obliged to fight. The early Bulgars were exclusively horsemen: in their culture, the horse was considered a sacred animal and received special care.

The permanent army consisted of the khan's guard of select warriors, while the campaign army consisted practically of the entire nation, assembled by clans. In the field, the army was divided into right and left wings.

During the first decades after the foundation of the country, the army consisted of a Bulgar cavalry and a Slavic infantry. The core of the Bulgarian army was the heavy cavalry, which consisted of 12,000–30,000 heavily armed riders.

The Bulgars were well versed in the use of stratagems. They often held a strong cavalry unit in reserve, which would attack the enemy at an opportune moment. They also sometimes concentrated their free horses behind their battle formation to avoid surprise attacks from the rear.

Eastern Roman Cavalry

They used ambushes and feigned retreats, during which they rode with their backs to the horse, firing clouds of arrows on the enemy. If the enemy pursued disorganized, they would turn back and fiercely attack them. According to contemporary historians, the Bulgars "could see in the dark like bats" and often fought at night.

The army had iron discipline, with the officers vigorously checking if everything was ready before a battle. For a horse that was undernourished or not properly taken care of, the punishment was death. The soldiers were under threat of a death penalty when having a loose bow-string or an unmaintained sword; or even if riding a war horse in peacetime

The infantry of the newly formed state was composed mainly of Slavs, who were generally lightly armed soldiers, although their chieftains usually had small cavalry retinues.

The Slavic footmen were equipped with swords, spears, bows and wooden or leather shields. However, they were less disciplined and less effective than the Bulgar cavalry.

The Romans   A direct descendant of the Roman army, the Byzantine army maintained a similar level of discipline, strategic prowess and organization.  Over time the cavalry arm became more prominent as the legion system disappeared in the early 7th century.

The official language of the army for centuries continued to be Latin but this would eventually give way to Greek as in the rest of the Empire, though Latin military terminology would still be used throughout its history.

Tactics, organization and equipment had been largely modified to deal with the Persians. The Romans adopted elaborate defensive armor from Persia, coats of mail, cuirasses, casques and greaves of steel for tagma of elite heavy cavalrymen called cataphracts, who were armed with bow and arrows as well as sword and lance.

Large numbers of light infantry were equipped with the bow, to support the heavy infantry known as scutarii (shield men) or skutatoi. These wore a steel helmet and a coat of mail, and carried a spear, axe and dagger. They generally held the center of a Roman line of battle. Infantry armed with javelins were used for operations in mountain regions.



The Battle of Ongal was east of Preslavets in the Danube River Delta. Red arrows show the Bulgar attacks to the south and the blue arrows the Byzantine land and sea movement to the Danube.

The Battle of Ongal

The Kahn Asparukh had marched westward and settled with his folk in the Ongal area to the north of the Danube.  From there he launched attacks against the Byzantine fortresses to the south. During that time Byzantium was at war with the Arabs who were besieging the capital Constantinople.

In 680, after the defeat of the Arabs, Constantine IV led a combined land and sea operation against the invaders and besieged their fortified camp in the Danube River Delta.

As usual little information is available on this all important campaign that resulted in the creation of the Bulgarian Empire.

Numbers of the troops involved are basically made up.  One historian claims that Constantine marched north with 85,000 troops to face 40,000 Bulgars. 

The number of Romans is absurd.  The Byzantine historian Treadgold says the entire strength of the Roman Army at this point was 109,000 men under arms.  The Byzantines never fielded forces this large in one place.

Bulgar Warrior (worldhistoria.com)

If you look at the force deployment chart above the Romans had some 40,000 troops stationed in the general Constantinople area and another 20,000 in the Theme of Thrace. 

With the Emperor at the head of the army we can assume a larger than normal force was gathered.  An army of perhaps 30,000 or more might be reasonable.

If 30,000 set out on campaign several thousand would never have made it to the battlefield.  They would have been detached from the main army to protect supply lines back to Constantinople, occupy fortified points in the rear or to protect communications to the Byzantine navy off the coast.

The Bulgarians moved into Roman territory with 30,000 to 50,000 people including women and children.  The male fighting force would be much smaller at perhaps 15,000. 

The Bulgarian leader made an alliance with the Seven Slavic tribes for mutual protection against Byzantine attacks and formed a federation.  So Slavic allies could have added to that total, but no information is available.

A Roman fleet sailed up the coast along side of the Emperor's army.  The Bulgars did not have a navy to fight so we can assume that the ships transported supplies and perhaps reinforcements.  There is no record of the navy participating in the battle in a meaningful way.

The Bulgars knew the Romans were coming for them.  They built wooden ramparts in a swampy area near the Peuce Island in the Danube River Delta.

Emperor Constantine was over confident after his defeat of the Arabs.  He sent his forces to attack the Bulgars on ground of their choosing, not his choosing.

The marshes and river delta would have prevented larger numbers of Romans from gathering in one location in defense or attack. The Byzantines were forced to attack from different places and in smaller groups which reduced the strength of their attack. With sudden strikes from the ramparts, the well-organized defense eventually forced the Byzantines to retreat, and the retreat developed into a stampede.

The Bulgar cavalry came out and charged the enemy who retreated chaotically. Most of the Byzantine soldiers were killed.

According to popular belief, the emperor had leg pain and went to Nessebar down the coast to seek treatment. The troops thought that he fled the battlefield and in turn began fleeing. When the Bulgars realized what was happening, they attacked and defeated their discouraged enemy.  Accounts say that virtually the entire Roman army was destroyed.



The Danube River Delta The Roman Emperor Constantine made a mistake of fighting on ground of the Bulgars choosing.  Wet, slushy conditions, lots of river channels and trees to block your view of enemy forces is not ideal for any attacker.  These conditions prevented different Roman units from easily supporting each other in battle.

Historical Speculation

Again, there is maddeningly little hard information for historians.  But the "official" account of the battle, such as it is, does not ring true.

There should not have been all that many Buglar troops inside a slapped together wooden swap fort.  Sure the Bulgars may have made a few ferocious attacks from the fort at the Byzantines.  But the idea that the limited forces inside the fort would destroy a larger attacking Roman army is not believable.

What is more likely is substantial units of Bulgar cavalry, infantry and Slavic allies were operating outside the fort.  The fort acted as bait to draw the Romans into battle.  The wet delta river system would have made a Roman attack much harder and also split up their forces on to different islands and riverbanks so they were unable to support each other.

Emperor Constantine IV

The Bulgars may have been attacking Roman regiments isolated from each other by the delta.  They may also have been working their way around to attack the flanks and/or the rear of the main Roman army working on the fort.

The Emperor leaves.  The story is the Emperor suddenly decided in the middle of a campaign that he had "leg pain" and needed treatment far away from the battlefield.

This is pure press release political bull if you ask me.

More likely is that Constantine's generals came to him with reports that a number of his units out in the delta were being overrun by Bulgarian forces and that his army was in danger of being flanked or surrounded. 

Political, not military considerations, would have caused the relocation of the head-of-state to prevent his capture or death by an invading enemy.

The Emperor would not have left by himself.  He would have taken with him his staff and a large bodyguard of troops for protection.  Troops that would have been vital to strengthen Roman defenses.

It is reasonable to assume that with the battle already going badly the flight of the Emperor added to the panic of the troops causing a total collapse and the Bulgarian victory.

Battle of Ongal Screen shots of the battle in a Bulgarian language YouTube video.  The movie clip is pretty good showing the wooden defensive walls and the Byzantine attackers.  The wet, delta conditions were not really addresses. Link Battle of Ongal

Aftermath

After the victory, the Bulgars advanced south and seized the lands to the north of Stara Planina. In 681 they invaded Thrace defeating the Byzantines again. Constantine IV found himself in a dead-lock and asked for peace. With the treaty of 681 the Byzantines recognized the creation of the new Bulgarian state and were obliged to pay annual tribute to the Bulgarian rulers.

The Romans were greatly humiliated.  The empire had recently defeated the Sassanid Persians and the Ummayad Arabs.  Now they in turn had been decisively beaten by an invading tribe from Asia.

This battle was a significant moment in European history, as it led to the creation of a powerful state, which was to become a European superpower in the 9th and 10th century along with the Byzantine and Frankish Empires. It became a cultural and spiritual centre of Slavic Europe through most of the Middle Ages.

The foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire. The army of Asparukh is in red. The army of Constantine IV is in blue.

The new Bulgarian Empire after the Battle of Ongal.

(Medieval Bulgarian Army)      (militaryhistoryonline)      (theapricity.com)

(Bulgars)      (Asparuh)     (Ongal)

Resafa, known in Roman times as Sergiopolis and briefly as Anastasiopolis, was a city located in the Roman province of Euphratensis, in modern-day Syria. It is an archaeological site situated south-west of the city of Ar Raqqah and the Euphrates River.

Procopius describes at length the ramparts and buildings erected there by the Emperor Justinian. The walls of Resafa which are still well preserved are over 1600 feet in length and about 1000 feet in width; round or square towers were erected about every hundred feet; there are also ruins of a church with three apses.




Geography

As you look at lonely Resafa in the desert, it is easy to forget that once it stood on one of the world's main roads, with populous towns and cities all around. It was on several great caravan roads, with Palmyra to the south, Dura-Europos southeast, and Aleppo on the west. Hardly a day passed that did not see streams of traffic converging on its walls. Caravans did not follow the edge of the Euphrates close by, as the ravines made travel difficult, and every small village expected their toll. Instead, the large caravans moved parallel to the river but farther inland. This put Resafa on the east-west trail.


History

The site dates to the 9th century BC, when a military camp was built by the Assyrians. During Roman times it was a desert outpost fortified to defend against the Sassanid Persians, and a station on the Strata Diocletiana.

It flourished as its location on the caravan routes linking Aleppo, Dura Europos, and Palmyra was ideal. Resafa had no spring or running water, so it depended on large cisterns to capture the winter and spring rains.

In the 4th century, it became a pilgrimage town for Christians coming to venerate Saint Sergius, a Christian Roman soldier said to have been martyred in Resafa during the Diocletianic Persecution. A church was built to mark his grave, and the city was renamed Sergiopolis. Indeed, it became the "most important pilgrimage center in Byzantine Oriens in [the] proto-Byzantine period", with a special appeal to the local Arabs, especially the Ghassanids.

The Persian Frontier  -  For 700 years there was an endless series of wars between the Empire and Persia in Anatolia and along the Mesopotamian border region of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.  Over the centuries different Roman Emperors built fortified cities like Dara to act as strong points to keep the Persians from raiding too far into imperial territory.

Resafa was planted right in the path of the Roman–Persian wars, and was therefore a well-defended city that had massive walls that surrounded it without a break. It also had a fortress.

The historian Procopius describes a raid by Arabs seeking plunder.  That caused the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century to build more massive fortifications commensurate with the city's status and wealth.  The walls consisted of 29 towers and 21 solid rectangular bastions.  Justinian installed a garrison to protect the city.

The Persian Khusrau I is credited with making an unsuccessful attack on the town.

The 638 AD Roman Syria had been overrun by invading Muslim Arabs.  There is no record of any serious attempt by the Romans to defend the Resafa Fortress.  The fortress was to defend Syria against Persians.  With Persia no longer a threat the troops may have been moved other fronts to face the Arabs.

In the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliph Hischam ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) made the city his favoured residence, and built several palaces around it.

Fortifications at Sergiopolis (Rusafa). Plan of part of the circuit-wall. Above, section of a tower. Below, elevation and section of part of the circuit-wall.

Elevation and plan of a part of the circuit-wall, with stairs and a projecting tower.

Saints Sergius and Bacchus Sergius and Bacchus were very popular throughout Late Antiquity.  In the Byzantine Empire, they were venerated as protectors of the army.  A large monastery church, the Little Hagia Sophia, was dedicated to them in Constantinople by Justinian I, probably in 527.  Sergius was a very popular saint in Syria and Christian Arabia. . The city of Resafa, which became a bishop's see, took the name Sergiopolis and preserved his relics in a fortified basilica. Resafa was improved by Emperor Justinian, and became one of the greatest pilgrimage centers in the East.  . Sergius and Bacchus were Roman citizens and high-ranking officers of the Roman Army, but their covert Christianity was discovered when they attempted to avoid accompanying a Roman official into a pagan temple with the rest of his bodyguard.  After they persisted in refusing to sacrifice to Jupiter in Emperor Galerius' company, they were publicly humiliated by being chained, dressed in female attire and paraded around town. . Galerius then sent them to Barbalissos in Mesopotamia to be tried by Antiochus, the military commander there and an old friend of Sergius.  Antiochus could not convince them to give up their faith, however, and Bacchus was beaten to death.  The next day Bacchus' spirit appeared to Sergius and encouraged him to remain strong so they could be together forever. . Over the next days, Sergius was also brutally tortured and finally executed at Resafa. . Speculation  -  If you read between the lines of history I think you see here two Gay Christians being honored. (Saints Sergius and Bacchus)

Syria Resafa Sergiopolis North Entrance detail. (Questier.com)

North gate of the city of Resafa.

Inside the Basilica of Saint Sergius At one stage the city was known as Sergiopolis as it was named after a Saint. It was a pilgrimage for people visiting the grave of Saint Sergius, a martyred Christian soldier. A church was built to mark his grave and it became an important pilgrimage center in Byzantine period. . From the north gate, the Via Recta formed the main thoroughfare of the city. It is now no more than a pathway overgrown with grass, but lining it on either side there are still blocks of marble, the broken stumps of pillars and chunks of wall from the past. . The street leads to a first building of some size: the martyrium, a church where, at an early date, the bodies of Saint Sergius and his companions Bacchus and Julia were laid to rest. It is a basilican church with an apse. The floor and walls are made of gypsum stone found in Rasafa and the great monolithic columns are of rose-colored marble. The apsidal chapels are well preserved; the capitals and the archway carved like lace.

(al.amidache.free.fr/sergiopolis)      (Books.google.com)      (Aleppo Orthodox)

(Resafa)      (Procopius Buildings 2)



A sea wall dating to the fourth century extends two and a half miles around ancient Bathonea, on a peninsula in Lake Kucukcekmece.

After a drought revealed the seawall of a Byzantine Empire harbor town near Istanbul, archeologists excavated what was a thriving ancient center. But how does it fit into the city's 1,600-year history?


(Scientific American)  -  Hidden for a millennium, it took a 21st-century drought to reveal the ruins of a long-lost port city. Five years after archaeologists discovered its four-kilometer-long seawall on a polluted lake 20 kilometers from Istanbul, they continue to unearth Bathonea, which is yielding a wealth of rare artifacts and architecture spanning a thousand years of the Byzantine era.

Excavations this year have essentially doubled Bathonea's known size, bolstering the idea that it was a well-connected, wealthy, fully outfitted harbor city that thrived from the fourth to 11th century, when a massive earthquake leveled much of it.

Bathonea is a rare and important find because little remains in Byzantium proper (now the modern city of Istanbul) of the first few centuries of the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire. The ancient urban center has been built over too many times in its 1,600-year history to leave much behind.

Located on a long-farmed peninsula on Lake Kucukcekmece, once an inlet on the Marmara Sea, Bathonea reappeared in 2007 after a drought lowered the lake's water table, exposing portions of the seawall. It turned out to be almost half the length of the wall that once surrounded Constantinople (as Byzantium had been renamed for Constantine the Great).
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The wall's substantial size suggested Bathonea was a significant safe harbor for ships on their way to Constantinople beginning in the fourth century, just as the city became the seat of power for the Eastern Roman Empire.

In previous years archaeologists, led by Kocaeli University's Sengül Aydingün, have unearthed some of the seawall, a multistory villa or palace, an enormous cistern, the round foundations of a Greek temple, and the toppled remains of a Byzantine church and cemetery. Nearby, stone roads crisscross each other and 1,500 years of history.

This year they discovered a large multistory building and a series of smaller rooms adjacent to the villa that artifacts indicate was a monastery with workshops for making metal, jewelry and glass that began production in the fourth century. The jewelry molds they discovered may be the first archaeological evidence for jewelry production in Constantinople, a tradition known from historical sources.

Another key find is the exceptionally preserved, two-part network of underground water channels hundreds of meters long that kept Bathonea's cistern and buildings supplied with freshwater. They also found a Hellenistic building hiding in plain sight among 19th-century structures and a road connecting it to a second-century B.C. harbor, providing more evidence of Bathonea's earliest days.

A massive earthquake in the 11th century seems to have largely destroyed Bathonea.
Archaeologists continue to find toppled walls (including one that killed the three men found beneath the rubble) from all the buildings. Yet judging from the pottery found, some residents eked out a life at Bathonea as late as the 12th century.

Many questions remain: What was Bathonea's connection to Constantinople? Who lived there? If it was a major harbor inhabited by the wealthy and powerful—the region was a well-known country retreat for Constantinople's elite for centuries—why doesn't it appear in known historical sources? (Its name is a placeholder, inspired by two references eight centuries apart.) And what was its relationship to Rhegion, an imperial compound located just across the lake on the Marmara Sea?

To try to answer these questions, Aydingün and her team will focus next year's dig on the seaward tip of the peninsula, where ground-penetrating radar has detected underground anomalies that may be structures. They also hope to restart underwater exploration. In 2008 they discovered an edifice that may have been a lighthouse. Local lore holds that it is a magical minaret that rises in warning whenever nearby villagers sin too much.

(Scientific American)

Stamped Konstans Hundreds of bricks stamped Konstans, made in Constantinople starting in the fifth century, were found at Bathonea.

(New York Times)  -  For 1,600 years, this city — Turkey’s largest — has been built and destroyed, erected and erased, as layer upon layer of life has thrived on its seven hills.

Today, Istanbul is a city of 13 million, spread far beyond those hills. And on a long-farmed peninsula jutting into Lake Kucukcekmece, 13 miles west of the city center, archaeologists have made an extraordinary find.
      

The archaeologists know this much: The site was large. It sprawled across at least three square miles, and its sea wall is nearly half the length of the one that surrounded Constantinople itself. It was moderately wealthy; the region was a country retreat for the urban elite, drawn by its fertile hunting grounds and Lake Kucukcekmece itself, the freshwater body closest to the city. They built villas and palaces all around the region.



Cistern As seen in this stitched-together image, the pipes poking through the cistern wall look almost modern and just as ready to pour fresh springwater as they were 1,650 years ago.  At least 80 meters long, the cistern was entirely constructed from bricks stamped with the name of Constantine or his sons Constantine II and Konstans, which have mostly been discovered at imperial sites like Hagia Sophia.

Roman glass and high-end pottery dating as late as the 14th century were found throughout the site. Marble, including a gorgeous milky-blue variety, lined the walls and floors of the church and at least one of the buildings.
      



Hellenistic Building It doesn't look like much, but archaeologists were excited to find this plaster-coated building hiding in plain sight because it provides more evidence of Bathonea's beginnings. Adjoined to crumbling late-Ottoman buildings, obscured by trees and brush, its walls had been slathered in a deceptive layer of plaster. . This summer the plaster was chipped away to reveal wide, rectangular blocks that are typical of Hellenistic buildings from the second century B.C. It's located on a newly unearthed road that leads to the harbor of the same era. They also found Hellenistic pottery shards in the rubble near the wall. The team speculates it may have been a warehouse.



Monastery and Workshops Adjacent to the palace archaeologists unearthed one large building and a series of smaller ones that appear to be parts of a complex dating back to the fourth century, which included the palace, a monastery and a series of workshops for making metal, glass and jewelry. . The finds include smelting waste and rare jewelry molds. "From written sources it's known that Constantinopolis had jewelry workshops since the Roman and Byzantine times," Aydingün says. "Our findings may be the first-ever proof. But it is too early to claim it with some confidence. We are still checking with metalwork historians."



Palace The remains of a well-appointed villa continue to yield evidence of its residents' wealth. The nine-meter walls held statue nooks and ornate wall mosaics; thousands of dirt-encrusted tesserae were found this year. Milky blue marble lined the floors and an extensive water system channeled freshwater throughout. The small graves likely once held children.

Aerial of the Little Harbor This aerial shows about a third of the excavated site—a section archaeologists call the "little harbor" after the second-century B.C. pier shown at left. At right are newly uncovered crisscrossing roads spanning 1,500 years, the round foundations of a Greek temple, a fifth-century Byzantine church and cemetery as well as an Ottoman-era building. Hidden by trees is a newly spotted Hellenistic edifice, positioned just up the road from the harbor.

Knights of the Kingdom of Jerusalem -Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

• The year 1169 saw the last great military offensive of the Eastern Roman Empire.  A huge Byzantine fleet of 230 warships and transports conducted an amphibious landing on the north coast of Egypt.  The aim was to conquer Egypt and divide the nation between the Empire and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

A failed and poorly coordinated joint invasion of Egypt by the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Eastern Roman Empire could have changed history. 

With the proper forces and will power there was the potential to drive out the Muslim rulers of Egypt and restore Christian rule much as was done centuries later in Spain.

Invasions of Egypt

King Amalric of the Kingdom of Jerusalem led his first expedition into Egypt in 1163, claiming that the Fatimids had not paid the yearly tribute that had begun during the reign of Baldwin III. The vizier, Dirgham, had recently overthrown the vizier Shawar, and marched out to meet Amalric at Pelusium, but was defeated and forced to retreat to Bilbeis.

The Egyptians then opened up the Nile dams and let the river flood, hoping to prevent Amalric from invading any further. Amalric returned home but Shawar fled to the court of Nur ad-Din, who sent his general Shirkuh to settle the dispute in 1164.

In response Dirgham sought help from Amalric, but Shirkuh and Shawar arrived before Amalric could intervene and Dirgham was killed. Shawar, however, feared that Shirkuh would seize power for himself, and he too looked to Amalric for assistance. Amalric returned to Egypt in 1164 and besieged Shirkuh in Bilbeis until Shirkuh retreated to Damascus.


King Amalric I of Jerusalem

Amalric could not follow up on his success in Egypt because Nur ad-Din was active in Syria, having taken Bohemund III of Antioch and Raymond III of Tripoli prisoner at the Battle of Harim during Amalric's absence. Amalric rushed to take up the regency of Antioch and Tripoli and secured Bohemund's ransom in 1165 (Raymond remained in captivity until 1173).

The year 1166 was relatively quiet, but Amalric sent envoys to the Byzantine Empire seeking an alliance and a Byzantine wife, and throughout the year had to deal with raids by Nur ad-Din, who captured Banias.


In 1167, Nur ad-Din sent Shirkuh back to Egypt and Amalric once again followed him, establishing a camp near Cairo; Shawar again allied with Amalric and a treaty was signed with the caliph al-Adid himself. Shirkuh encamped on the opposite side of the Nile. After an indecisive battle, Amalric retreated to Cairo and Shirkuh marched north to capture Alexandria; Amalric followed and besieged Shirkuh there, aided by a Pisan fleet from Jerusalem.

Shirkuh negotiated for peace and Alexandria was handed over to Amalric. However, Amalric could not remain there indefinitely, and returned to Jerusalem after exacting an enormous tribute.
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Upper register: Manuel and the envoys of Amalric, an embassy which resulted in the despatch of the Byzantine force under Kontostephanos to invade Egypt. Lower register: arrival of the crusaders in Egypt. (William of Tyre's Historia)

Byzantine Alliance

The ties between Jerusalem and Constantinople grew into a close alliance.

King Baldwin III of Jerusalem (r. 1130 – 1163) had enough prestige to seek a wife from the Byzantine Empire. In 1157 he sent Humphrey of Toron to negotiate with Emperor Manuel, and it was decided that Baldwin should marry Theodora, Manuel's niece. The alliance was more favourable to Byzantium than Jerusalem, as Baldwin was forced to recognize Byzantine suzerainty over Antioch, and if Theodora were to be widowed she would be provided the city of Acre.

Though Theodora personified the Byzantine-Jerusalem alliance, she was not to exercise any authority outside of Acre. The marriage took place in September 1158, when Baldwin was 28 years old and Theodora only 13.

Relations between Jerusalem and Byzantium improved and in 1159 Baldwin met with Manuel in Antioch. The two became friends, with Manuel adopting western clothes and customs and participating in a tournament against Baldwin.


Emperor Manuel I Comnenus

Baldwin died at age 33. Theodora, now queen-dowager, retired to Acre. She was still only 16 years old; their marriage was childless. Baldwin was succeeded by his brother, Amalric I.

During Amalric's reign, Jerusalem became more closely allied with the Byzantine Empire, and the two states launched an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt.

After his return to Jerusalem in 1167, Amalric married Maria Comnena, a great-grandniece of Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus. The negotiations had taken two years, mostly because Amalric insisted that Manuel return Antioch to Jerusalem. Once Amalric gave up on this point he was able to marry Maria in Tyre on August 29, 1167.

During this time the queen dowager, Baldwin III's widow Theodora, eloped with her cousin Andronicus to Damascus, and Acre, which had been in her possession, reverted into the royal domain of Jerusalem.

In 1168 Amalric and Manuel negotiated an alliance against Egypt, and William of Tyre was among the ambassadors sent to Constantinople to finalize the treaty. Although Amalric still had a peace treaty with Shawar, Shawar was accused of attempting to ally with Nur ad-Din, and Amalric invaded. The Knights Hospitaller eagerly supported this invasion, while the Knights Templar refused to have any part in it.

In January 1169 Shirkuh had Shawar assassinated. Shirkuh became vizier, although he himself died in March, and was succeeded by his nephew Saladin. Amalric became alarmed and sent Frederick de la Roche, Archbishop of Tyre, to seek help from the kings and nobles of Europe, but no assistance was forthcoming. Later that year however a Byzantine fleet arrived, and in October Amalric launched yet another invasion and besieged Damietta by sea and by land.



The Eastern Empire sent a large navy and army to invade Egypt including 20 large warships, 150 galleys and 60 transports. , The Byzantine Dromon Literary sources and accounts reveal that there were at least three varieties of Dromon. These were, firstly the Ousiako which took its name from one company or Ousia of one hundred men. This was a two banked galley with the lower rank rowing only, and the upper rank rowing or disengaging to fight when required. Secondly the slightly larger the Pamphylos with a crew of between 120-160. Secondly the Dromon proper, which had a crew of two hundred, fifty on the lower bank, and one hundred on the upper bank in two files, together with fifty marines. . A description of some of the ships is given by Princess Anna Komnene: "The emperor knew that the Pisans were skilled in warfare at sea and was afraid to clash with them. Thus he ordered the construction on all the ships of bronze and iron heads of lions and other wild animals of all types, with open mouths and covered in gold leaf, so that their appearance alone was enough to spread fear. The liquid fire that was to attack the enemy would pass through the mouths of these heads, so that it would appear verily that they were vomiting forth flames..."

The great invasion of Egypt did not happen on a whim or by accident.  There was a long history of an alliance between Byzantium and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  Also, the invasion itself required a huge amount of planning and expense.

Control of Egypt was a decades-old dream of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and king Amalric I of Jerusalem needed all the military and financial support he could get for his policy of military intervention in Egypt. Amalric also realized that if he were to pursue his ambitions in Egypt, he might have to leave Antioch to the hegemony of Manuel who had paid 100,000 dinars for the release of Bohemond III.

In 1165, he sent envoys to the Byzantine court to negotiate a marriage alliance (Manuel had already married Amalric's cousin Maria of Antioch in 1161). After a long interval of two years, Amalric married Manuel's grandniece Maria Komnene in 1167, and "swore all that his brother Baldwin had sworn before."

A formal alliance was negotiated in 1168, whereby the two rulers arranged for a conquest and partition of Egypt, with Manuel taking the coastal area, and Amalric the interior.

In the autumn of 1169 Manuel sent a joint expedition with Amalric to Egypt: a Byzantine army and a naval force of 20 large warships, 150 galleys, and 60 transports, under the command of the megas doux Andronikos Kontostephanos, joined forces with Amalric at Ascalon.

Byzantine Soldier

William of Tyre, who negotiated the alliance, was impressed in particular by the large transport ships that were used to transport the cavalry forces of the army.

Forces Involved

Records of the number of troops involved do not exist.  We must speculate.

Kingdom of Jerusalem  -  At the Battle of Hattin in 1187 the Kingdom fielded and army of 20,000 including 15,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.  That battle was an all out effort by the Kingdom.  The invasion of Egypt with the King at the head of the army and with a Byzantine alliance would have been considered a major campaign requiring a larger army.

Let us say King Amalric marched into Egypt with a force of 40% of that at Hattin.  That would give the King 8,000 troops to add to the force brought by the Romans.

Eastern Roman Empire  -  Records do show a massive Roman fleet of 230 ships that included 60 transports. 

We should look at the navy and marines on each ship.  Each ship could have a crew of at least 100 men.  Larger ships could have 350 men with an additional complement of Marines that could number 50 men.  Multiplying out these numbers over 230 ships shows a staggeringly large number of sailors and Marines that could run well over 10,000 men.

But more importantly, these ships were transporting an army to attack Egypt.  William of Tyre, who negotiated the alliance, was impressed in particular by the large transport ships that were used to transport the cavalry forces of the army.  The cavalry would require a large infantry support force to attack Egyptian cities and armies.

If only 50 extra Roman soldiers were placed on each ship you are looking at an army of at least 11,500 men.  If there was an average of 75 extra men on each ship the army grows to 17,250 men.  Both of these numbers would be in the traditional range for a Byzantine army in the field.

The Egyptians  -  The army of Egypt was mostly on the defensive.  In the case of the city of Damietta, there was a large enough force of Muslims to man the defenses, but little more. 

No doubt there were thousands of Egyptian troops roaming the countryside looking to take advantage of any mistakes the invaders might make, and to prevent foraging expeditions to resupply the Christian army.

Modern Damietta, Egypt The Egyptian port was the target of a joint invasion by the Byzantines and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

A long-range attack on a state far from the center of the Empire may seem extraordinary.  The last time the Empire had attempted anything on this scale was the failed invasion of Sicily over one hundred and twenty years earlier.  The campaign can be explained in terms of Manuel's foreign policy, which was to use the Latins to ensure the survival of the Empire.

This focus on the bigger picture of the eastern Mediterranean and even further afield thus led Manuel to intervene in Egypt: it was believed that in the context of the wider struggle between the crusader states and the Islamic powers of the east, control of Egypt would be the deciding factor. It had become clear that the ailing Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt held the key to the fate of the crusader states.

If Egypt came out of its isolation and joined forces with the Muslims under Nur ad-Din, the crusader cause was in trouble.

As usual with many Byzantine campaigns the historical records are thin.  But we know that the Emperor appointed an important general to command this important invasion force. 

Andronikos Andronikos was the leading Byzantine military figure during the reign of his uncle the emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Like his father he was appointed to the office of megas doux (grand duke), the commander-in-chief of the Byzantine navy and governor of the provinces of Hellas, the Peloponnese and Crete. However, his greatest success was as a general rather than as an admiral. At some point, Andronikos was also appointed commander of the Varangian Guard.

In a war against the Hungarians, bad health prevented Manuel from taking to the field in person, and he entrusted his army to the command of Andronikos. The Byzantine army met the Hungarians in a pitched battle on the 8th of July near the fortified city of Zemun. Andronikos’ skillful dispositions and the discipline of his troops gave the Byzantines a decisive victory at the Battle of Sirmium.

Byzantine Navy

The Hungarians sued for peace on Byzantine terms and recognised the empire’s control over the region around Sirmium, plus all of Bosnia, Dalmatia and the area south of the Krka River. Following the victory Manuel celebrated a triumphal entry into Constantinople with Andronikos Kontostephanos riding by his side.

In 1169, Andronikos was appointed commander of a fleet of 230 ships carrying a Byzantine army to invade Egypt in alliance with the forces of King Amalric.

Events are somewhat confused, but it appears that in October the Byzantines landed in Egypt and began what became a three month siege of the important port of  Damietta.

This is the maddening part.  We have a three month siege going on with zero information on events.  No doubt there were attacks on the city walls, attempts at gathering supplies inland and perhaps clashes with Muslim forces outside the city.  But of these events we know nothing.

The Byzantines prosecuted the siege with vigor, but the siege was unsuccessful due to the failure of the Crusaders and the Byzantines to co-operate fully.  The Byzantine fleet sailed with enough provisions for only three months. 

Amalric appears to have appeared at the city after the siege had been in progress for some time.  The King apparently did not bring any additional supplies with him, and it is very possible that Muslim forces prevented the gathering of new supplies. from the countryside. 

According to Byzantine forces, Amalric, not wanting to share the profits of victory, dragged out the operation until the emperor's men ran short of provisions and were particularly affected by famine; Amalric then launched an assault, which he promptly aborted by negotiating a truce with the defenders.

On the other hand, William of Tyre remarked that the Greeks were not entirely blameless. Whatever the truth of the allegations of both sides, when the rains came, both the Latin army and the Byzantine fleet returned home.

Andronikos, disgusted with Amalric’s double-dealing and with his soldiers in state of starvation, evacuated Egypt. He returned with part of his army by land through the crusader states of Palestine and Syria. Half of the Byzantine fleet was lost in a series of storms on its return journey.

With the collapse of the invasion the last great opportunity to drive back Islam was lost.




Aftermath

Despite the bad feelings generated at Damietta, Amalric still refused to abandon his dream of conquering Egypt, and he continued to seek good relations with the Byzantines in the hopes of another joined attack, which never took place. In 1171 Amalric came to Constantinople in person, after Egypt had fallen to Saladin.

Manuel was thus able to organise a grand ceremonial reception which both honoured Amalric, and underlined his dependence: for the rest of Amalric's reign, Jerusalem was a Byzantine satellite, and Manuel was able to act as a protector of the Holy Places, exerting a growing influence in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

In 1177, a fleet of 150 ships was sent by Manuel I to invade Egypt, but returned home after appearing off Acre due to the refusal of Count Philip of Flanders and many important nobles of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to help.

Now Jerusalem was surrounded by hostile enemies. In 1170 Saladin invaded Jerusalem and took the city of Eilat, severing Jerusalem's connection with the Red Sea. Saladin, who was set up as Vizier of Egypt, was declared Sultan in 1171 upon the death of the last Fatimid caliph. Saladin's rise to Sultan was an unexpected reprieve for Jerusalem, as Nur ad-Din was now preoccupied with reining in his powerful vassal.

Nevertheless, in 1171 Amalric visited Constantinople himself and envoys were sent to the kings of Europe for a second time, but again no help was received. Over the next few years the kingdom was threatened not only by Saladin and Nur ad-Din, but also by the Hashshashin; in one episode, the Knights Templar murdered some Hashshashin envoys, leading to further disputes between Amalric and the Templars.

What If: A Roman-Crusader Victory? A successful invasion of Egypt would have several further advantages for the Byzantine Empire. Egypt was a rich province, and in the days of the Roman Empire it had supplied much of the grain for Constantinople before it was lost to the Arabs in the 7th century. . The revenues that the Empire could have expected to gain from the conquest of Egypt would have been considerable, even if these would have to be shared with the Crusaders. . A major result of a Christian victory would be the knocking out one of the most powerful states in Islam.  The ripple effect on Middle Eastern history of a restored Christian rule in Egypt are interesting to ponder:  no Egyptian Sultan Saladin, the continuation of the Crusader states and a greatly strengthened Roman Empire.

Byzantine Soldiers 12th and 13th Centuries



Crusaders and Muslims

(Manuel I Komnenos)      (Andronikos Kontostephanos)      (Amalric I)

(Crusades)      (Byzantine-Crusader raid)      (Kingdom of Jerusalem)

(Egypt)      (Muslim responses-Crusades)

Reconstruction of a Limes tower in Germany.

A limes was a border defence or delimiting system that marked the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. In Latin, the plural form of limes is limites.

The word limes was utilized by Latin writers to denote a marked or fortified frontier. This sense has been adapted and extended by modern historians concerned with the frontiers of the Roman Empire: e.g. Hadrian's Wall in the north of England is sometimes styled the Limes Britannicus, the frontier of the Roman province of Arabia facing the desert is called the Limes Arabicus, and so forth.

It would be a misunderstanding that there ever was one limes system of defense. There was a difference between the solid limes of Britain ("Hadrian's Wall"), and the more open system of forts in Syria. Still, there are some similarities. 

The most important one is the easiest to ignore: the grand strategy of the empire was, on the whole, defensive. The Sahara, Euphrates, Danube, and Rhine were natural frontiers, and it was exceptional when the Romans launched new campaigns of conquest. If territory was added, it was to shorten the frontier, or to improve a vulnerable part of the frontier. The exception that proves the rule is Trajan's conquest of Dacia.

The basic principle of defense was deterrence: wherever the enemy attacked, he would always find a professional, heavily armed Roman force that often outnumbered him. Except for the desert frontier, the limes usually consisted of a clear line where the enemy had to stay away from (e.g., Hadrian's Wall or the river Danube).

However, sometimes the line was attacked. The soldiers in the watchtowers signaled the invasion to the nearby forts. The watchtowers themselves were lost, but the invaders would immediately have to face with Roman forces from nearby forts.

Almost always, this was sufficient to deal with the situation. If the attackers were able to reach and loot a city, they would be massacred on their way home. The final act of every attempt to attack the empire was Roman retaliation against the native population.

A combination of force and diplomacy was used to control the border. 

Photo: Danube Limes Project

Think of the word "Porous" The Danube Limes was not a solid wall defending the Empire's frontier.  Rather it a was a series of fortified cities, small forts and watchtowers.  The Limes was porous with assorted invading Slavs, Huns or Avars pouring through on raids dedicated to looting or conquest.  In theory the Roman/Byzantine strongpoints would slow down invaders allowing for troops stationed close by to push the enemy back over the border.

The Danube Limes

The frontier of the Roman Empire, from the Danube to the Black Sea, played a crucial role in making and breaking emperors and protecting Roman society along its course.

Along the Danube from Bavaria to the Black Sea there is a frontier system with fortresses and fortlets built by the Roman army such as Carnuntum (Austria), Aquincum (Budapest, Hungary), Viminacium (near Belgrade, Serbia) or Novae (Svistov, Bulgaria). Together with hundreds of watchtowers and large urban settlements they are part of an impressive military machine.

The river itself was the most dominant element of the frontier system, used as a demarcation line against the Barbarian world to the north and as a fortified transport corridor.

The forts, situated mostly on the right side of the river, acted as check-points to control traffic in and out of the empire. Their ruins, above and below ground, visible or non-visible, are often in remarkable shape and well integrated in the landscape.

Some of the early Limes defenses were built in the early Empire period.

• Limes Alutanus, the eastern border of the Roman province of Dacia
• Limes Transalutanus, the frontier in the lower Danube
• Limes Moesiae, the frontier in eastern Romania and Moldavia

The fall of the Western Empire impacted the ability to man the Danube Limes to a degree.  But the Eastern Empire still needed to defend their Balkan borders from invading tribes.

In the east the original Roman Limes system would slowly melt away.  It would be replaced by an Eastern Roman line of fortified towns and strongpoints.

The Byzantines struggled for centuries to maintain anything like a recognizable Balkan border.  Invading tribes from Central Asia were constantly pouring over the Danube River and conquering Roman territory all the way down into Greece and up to the walls of Constantinople itself.

The Byzantines sometimes saw their strongpoints fall almost as fast as they could be built.  A truly permanent Limes system was rare.  But a system of fortifications of one kind or another was used through 1204.

The Limes Fortress of Novae The legionary fortress in Novae (modern Bulgaria) on the Danube River. The fortress, the same as other military bases, was surrounded by the civilian settlement (canabae) which constituted with its camp a specific settlement structure. Topography and planning of settlements of this kind is not well-recognized, since only a few have been excavated so far, mainly in the western part of the Empire.

Fortress of Novae The Roman military fortress at Novae was established in AD 45 (46) by Legio VIII Augusta. The Legio I Italica was stationed there in AD 69 and until the second quarter of the 5th century AD Novae was its main camp. Up until now within the camp have been investigated the headquarters of the legion, one of the residences of the senior officers – the tribunes, the military hospital and the legion’s thermae, upon which the episcopal complex was erected in the second quarter of the 5th century AD. . In the late 5th and 6th centuries Novae was a bishopric. The cathedral and neighbouring buildings were built west of the former legionary headquarters. The last period of prosperity was during the reign of Justinian (527-565) when the defensive walls were rebuilt and reinforced. The town existed until the early 7th century AD, when it was destroyed by the attacks of Avars and Slavs.

By Vladimir Kondić
Former director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.  Below are a few excerpts from the much longer article that apply to the Byzantine period.


Although it is very probable that Valentinian and Valens undertook reconstruction work on a larger scale because of the Gothic threat, the archaeologically most noticeable phase is the period of horrible destruction and fire immediately following the battle of Harianople. But, basic fortification elements like walls, gates, and lowers remained almost unchanged.

In the following period, under new conditions, when units of foederati protected the frontier, all the ruins were filled in and levelled, making a platform where the limitanei built the wattle and daub homes which are so evident at Pontes and Diana. This period in the history of the frontier lasted until the middle of the fifth century. Thanks to the fortunate discovery of five solidi (the latest an issue of 443) of Theodosius II we know the exact termination date of the Iron Gate Roman limes.

The Huns’ invasion from the direction of Niš (Naissus) caused such destruction that Procopius correctly described the situation as disastrous. Fortifications were razed to the ground, and at Diana the south wall with its gate and the fourth-century porticoed building were destroyed. Thick layers of burnt rubble, building debris and ash covered most of the fortress and mark the end of the five centuries of its existence. Other fortresses suffered a similar fate. This period was the terminal phase of the restored, late Roman limes and the northern frontier of the empire. The final renaissance of the Danubian limes occurred under Justinian I.

The significant testimony of Procopius concerning the renovation and reinforcement of the Danubian frontier has been confirmed in its entirety by our recent archaeological research.

Procopius paid considerable attention to construction work on the Iron Gate frontier (limes) and provided at times rather detailed information about the former Roman frontier. The sequence in which he comments on the fortifications in those sectors which have been investigated make it possible to identify the Roman and early Byzantine toponyms for some sites whose ancient names were not known previously (e.g. Kantabaza, Smyrna, Campsa).

Furthermore, excavations in the Iron Gate gorge have demonstrated that Justinian’s builders in the early Byzantine period entirely retained the disposition of fortifications from the former Roman frontier. Some elements of the earlier Roman castella were altered, most likely because of the requirements of a new defensive strategy, and at locations which were in greater danger because of their topographic circumstances completely new fortifications were constructed. Now it is possible with complete certainty to reconstruct the composition of the Justinianic limes on this part of the Danube.

The fortresses can be divided typographically into the following groups:

1. Renovated Roman auxiliary and other minor forts.
2. Renovated late Roman burgus– forts (from the Diocletian and Constantine periods).
3. New early Byzantine forts built around renovated late Roman burgus-forts.
4. Completely new early Byzantine forts.

After the Huns’ invasion in 443 AD damages to the forts were not repaired until the early sixth century, which for this sector of the Danubian limes is the only period devoid of any traces of activity. Then in the early Byzantine period all the auxiliary bases on the limes were renovated. The former Roman forts for the most part were renovated on the basis of their original plans. The most frequent alterations which can be observed are the closing-off of gates. These were either walled up or replaced by large rectangular or circular towers. Usually the corner towers were completely rebuilt.

At the fortress Diana (early Byzantine Zanes) at the southeast corner a new tower was built in a horseshoe-shape with an apsidal termination, and two fortification walls were joined together in a point to form a type of bastion. The southern wall and gate, which had been razed to their foundations by the Huns, were rebuilt in exactly the same plan as before and the gate remained the only one in use. In the interior of the fortress, without any type of regular disposition, buildings of wood, earth and courses of poorly joined stones were erected.

At Novae (early Byzantine Nobas) the former Roman south gate was completely closed-off and new circular towers were built in place of the earlier east and west gates. All the towers in this fortress were built afresh, with circular plans. The situation is similar at other forts. Everywhere fortification walls were significantly reinforced, most often from the inside. At the former Roman quadriburgium Campsa, the alterations were somewhat more radical. The south gate was closed-off and two new U-shaped towers were added there. Additionally, all of the auxiliary bases contained solidly built, single-nave churches.

Reconstruction of a Limes strongpoint.

The second category of renovation was the least complicated. The Diocletian-Constantine period castella received reinforced fortification walls (cc. one meter thick), and new entrances without towers, features not previously present in these complexes, were constructed. Certainly the most interesting form of renovation consisted of the erection of completely new and characteristically early Byzantine fortification walls around the former burgi. In these situations the renovated burgi functioned as watch towers.

Two outstanding fortifications of this type are Glamija and Donje Butorke. The latter has a more complex plan, with piers on two of the towers and one rectangular tower with an apsidal termination. This type of fortification recalls in a certain sense an inaccurate statement of Procopius (De Aedificiis, 4.1) in which he states that Pincum, Cuppae, and Noveae were formerly only Roman towers around which Justinian caused buildings to be erected and to which he granted municipal status after their defenses were strengthened. As mentioned above, during the Roman period civilian settlements of a type which did not exist in Justinian’s time developed around the auxiliary bases. Could it be that Procopius in his exaggeration of credit to the emperor actually had in mind the construction of new fortresses around earlier Roman towers?

Finally, the last group consists of purely Justinianic castella which were completely new constructions. Up to date six of these have been discovered on the Iron Gate section of the limes. Saldum (Kantabaza) in plan is an irregular rectangular with three circular towers and a single elongated one with an apsidal termination. The fort at Bosman is the only complex with a triangular plan on this part of the Danube and is skillfully into the restricted space between the mountain range and the river. The eastern fortification wall, located right on the river, was laid out in a convex line so that high water levels on the river would not be able to damage it seriously.

The fort at Hajdučka Vodenica was constructed on the site of an earlier tower which was not renovated in the sixth century. It is situated high on the river bank, and from each and of its northwest perimeter wall extends a fortification wall with a tower at its end to protect a small river harbour. The forts at Milutinovac and at the mouth of the Slatinska river are very similar in both construction and size (55 x 55 m.). They are defended by circular towers with square foundations on defensive walls which are turned toward the river and form the foundation for an upper-level entrance.

In almost all of the fortresses of Justinian time one layer of ash and destruction debris can be observed which can be dated to 580 AD when a forceful Slavic incursion on this part of the Danube was recorded. However, the fortresses themselves did not experience such significant destruction that they could not be once again renovated after the passage of that crisis. However, even this strong system of fortifications could not withstand a disastrous attack by combined forces of Slavs and Avars in 596 AD, and it was then that the Justinianic limes was definitively destroyed.

Full article

Castra Capidava, Romania During the 2nd and 3rd century AD a Roman fort was built in the area, later overbuilt by a Late Roman fort, which lasted from the 4th to the 6th century AD.  The fort functioned as a guard of the Danube River and ford. At the banks of the Danube a massive harbour wall, 2.50 m thick and 60 m long, was found. . The fortified settlement played an important role in the Roman defensive system belonging to the series of camps and fortifications raised during the reign of Emperor Trajan, in the early 2nd century, as part of the measures to organize the Danubian limes. Capidava being part of the Limes Moesiae.  Destroyed by Goths in the 3rd century, the fortifications were rebuilt in the next century.  . Sources between the 4th to 6th centuries talk about cavalry units.  The fort was abandoned in 559 after the invasion of the Cutriguri.  the city was rebuilt by the Byzantines in the 10th century.  In the spring of 1036, an invasion of the Pechenegs devastated large parts of the region, destroying the forts at Capidava and Dervent and burning the settlement in Dinogeţia.

Fortress of Viminacium Viminacium, in modern Serbia, was a major city and military camp and the capital of Moesia Superior.  The city dates back to the 1st century AD, and at its peak it is believed to have had 40,000 inhabitants, making it one of the biggest cities of that time. It lies on the Roman road Via Militaris. . Viminacium was devastated by Huns in the 5th century, but was later rebuilt by Justinian. It was completely destroyed with the arrival of Slavs in the 6th century. Today, the archaeological site occupies a total of 450 hectares (1,100 acres), and contains remains of temples, streets, squares, amphitheaters, palaces, hippodromes and Roman baths.



Roman Balkans in the 6th century. Click to enlarge.

The Eastern Romans faced invasion by an endless series of tribes pouring in from Central Asia.

(Borders of the Roman Empire)      (livius.org)      (Limes)

(castrumandquonset)      (provinces.uw.edu)      (icpdr.org)

(danube-cooperation.com)      (latvany-terkep.hu)      (danube-limes)

(danubelimesbrand.org)      (bnr.bg/en)      (historyfiles.co.uk)

Mamure Castle is over 1500 years old and ranks among the best-preserved Medieval Castles on the Mediterranean coast. It is an authentic medieval fortification with styles from different conquering armies; the Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, Karamanids and Ottomans.

The castle has perfect location for defense as it is dominating visually the surrounding landscape and the sea.

The original castle was built by the Roman Empire in the third or fourth centuries for the defense of the coastline from pirates.  The Eastern Empire repaired and continued to use the castle up through the era of the Crusades.  The castle would have been used by the Roman military for about 800 years.

During the extensive Byzantine period major wars would have taken place all around the castle.  Over the centuries there would have been land invasions by the Persian Empire, Crusaders as well as multiple land and sea attacks by Arab forces. 

But there is no record of any major military actions against the fort or to what degree the Romans stationed troops at the site.

The current castle was built by the rulers of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia on the foundations of the Roman-Byzantine original structure.  There is no way to tell what the original Roman fort looked like, but it may have looked much like it does now.

 When Alaattin Keykubat I of Seljuk Turks captured the ruins of the castle in 1221, he built a larger castle using elements of the earlier fortifications. Later, it was controlled by the Karamanid dynasty (who ruled a Turkish state in Anatolia).

Although the exact date is uncertain, according to an inscription by İbrahim II of Karaman in 1450, the castle was captured during Mahmut's reign (1300–1311). The castle was renamed as Mamure (prosperous) after repairs by Mahmut. In 1469, the castle was annexed by the Ottoman Empire.

It was subsequently repaired in the 15th, 16th and 18th centuries and a part of the castle was used as a caravanserai.


The Castle

The castle, covering an area of 23.500 m2, is one of the biggest and well-protected castles of Anatolia.

Although the exact construction date of the castle is uncertain, it is believed to have been built by the Romans either in the 3rd or the 4th century, due to the excavations conducted in 1988 by the Directorate of Anamur Museum.

These excavations revealed archaeological remains that have mosaic floor covering which belong to a Late Roman city (3rd-4th c. A.D.) called “Ryg Monai”, a city not prominent in that period. On the other hand, it is also known as the outer protective castle of Anemurium City.  The ancient city itself was abandoned around 650 when Arab attacks made the coast unsafe.

The castle is surrounded by a moat on the land side. The road on the rampart connects the 39 towers (4 of them are bigger than the others) and a lot of battlements to each other. There are 3 main yards within the castle; west, east and the south, which are separated from each other by high walls. In the yard at the west there is an outer castle, a small complex of a single minaret mosque, the ruins of a hamam (Turkish bath), a fountain, warehouses and cisterns.

In the east, there is an inner courtyard which has 7 bastions in different shapes on the high wall constituting its northwest border. The bastions on the north-eastern part of it have been ruined together with the wall. In the yard at the south; there is an inner citadel built over the rocks, the main watch tower which has the best view with 22 meters height inside the biggest bastion, 5 more watch towers and ruins of a light house.

The single minaret mosque which represents the characteristics of the 16th century Ottoman architecture was built by the Karamanids. The historic mosque is still functioning and has been renovated. The hamam which is located on the north of the Castle is also believed to have been built by the Karamanids. The entrance part of the hamam has been demolished but other parts are still intact.

Castle wall and moat. (www.castles.nl)

(whc.unesco.org)      (www.castles.nl)      (Mamure Castle)

Roman Africa

The land acquired for the Roman provinces of North Africa was taken from the Republic of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars.

The third war was a much smaller engagement than the two previous Punic Wars and primarily consisted of a single main action, the Battle of Carthage, but resulted in the complete destruction of the city of Carthage, the annexation of all remaining Carthaginian territory by Rome, and the death or enslavement of thousands of Carthaginians. The Third Punic War ended Carthage's independent existence

The Legio III Augusta was defending North Africa.

The new provinces included the ancient city of Carthage as well as Hadrumetum, capital of Byzacena, Hippo Regius. The province was established by the Roman Republic in 146 BC.

Rome established its first African colony, Africa Proconsularis or Africa Vetus (Old Africa), governed by a proconsul, in the most fertile part of what was formerly Carthaginian territory. Utica was formed as the administrative capital.

It is certain that from 30 BCE on, the Legio III Augusta was permanently in Africa, although it was not always stationed in the same camp. An inscription from 14 CE informs us that the soldiers had to build a road from Tacapsa to their winter quarters, which may at this stage have been at Theveste.
      
Although Africa was usually a tranquil part of the Roman Empire, III Augusta saw action in 17-24, when it fought against Tacfarinas, who had organized several Numidian and Mauretanian tribes in an anti-Roman coalition.

The African provinces were amongst the wealthiest regions in the Empire (rivaled only by Egypt, Syria and Italy itself) and as a consequence people from all over the Empire migrated into the Roman Africa Province, most importantly veterans in early retirement who settled in Africa on farming plots promised for their military service. One historian estimated that under Hadrian nearly 1/3 of the eastern Numidia population was descended from Roman veterans

The region remained a part of the Roman Empire until the Germanic migrations of the 5th century.



Click map to enlarge . The Roman colonization of Northern Africa . Colonization consisted first in a protectorate, then in a direct administration (40-430), divided into four provinces : Africa Proconsularis (Tunisia, East Constantine region, and the Tripolitan region), Numidia (the greater part of the Constantine region), Mauretania Caesariensis (the Algiers and Oran regions) and, from the name of Tingis (Tangier), Mauretania Tingitana.  (crc.org)


The Vandal Kingdom

Roman rule in Africa was interrupted by the invasion of the Vandals from Spain.
The Vandals migrated to Africa in search of safety; they had been attacked by a Roman army in 422 and had failed to seal a treaty with them. Advancing eastwards along the coast, the Vandals laid siege to the walled city of Hippo Regius in 430. 

After 14 months, hunger and the inevitable diseases were ravaging both the city inhabitants and the Vandals outside the city walls, with the city eventually falling to the Vandals, who made it their first capital.

Peace was made between the Romans and the Vandals in 435 through a treaty giving the Vandals control of coastal Numidia and parts of Mauretania. King Geiseric chose to break the treaty in 439 when he invaded the province of Africa Proconsularis and laid siege to Carthage.

The city was captured without a fight; the Vandals entered the city while most of the inhabitants were attending the races at the hippodrome. Genseric made it his capital, and styled himself the King of the Vandals and Alans. Conquering Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta and the Balearic Islands, he built his kingdom into a powerful state.

The Western Empire under Valentinian III secured peace with the Vandals in 442. Under the treaty the Vandals gained Byzacena, Tripolitania, part of Numidia, and confirmed their control of Proconsular Africa.



Eastern Roman Troops

Eastern Roman Africa (533 AD to 709 AD)

Roman rule was restored when the Vandal Kingdom came crashing down in the Invasion of North Africa by Belisarius under the Eastern Emperor Justinian.

After the victories at Ad Decimum and Tricamarum Roman rule in Africa was restored in 533 AD and the Vandal people killed, used as soldiers or enslaved.

The Late Roman administrative system, as established by Diocletian, provided for a clear distinction between civil and military offices, primarily to lessen the possibility of rebellion by over-powerful provincial governors.
Under Justinian I, the process was partially reversed for provinces which were judged to be especially vulnerable or in internal disorder.

Capitalizing upon this precedent and taking it one step further, the emperor Maurice sometime between 585 and 590 created the office of exarch, which combined the supreme civil authority of a praetorian prefect and the military authority of a magister militum, and enjoyed considerable autonomy from Constantinople.

Two exarchates were established, one in Italy, with seat at Ravenna (hence known as the Exarchate of Ravenna), and one in Africa, based at Carthage and including all imperial possessions in the Western Mediterranean. The first African exarch was the patricius Gennadius.

North Africa was an important economic and military addition to the Empire.  The provinces provided grain shipments, tax revenue and soldiers.

During the successful revolt of the exarch of Carthage Heraclius in 608, the Amazigh comprised a large portion of the fleet that transported Heraclius to Constantinople.

Roman rule continued until the final conquest by invading Muslim Arab armies in 709AD.

Byzantine Fortress of Ammaedara

Fortress Ammaedara

The Byzantine fortress was built about 550AD on the orders of the Emperor Justinian.

The fortress was one of many defensive strongpoints built by the Romans looking to protect the more valuable coastal zone, cities and agriculture against raids and armies coming from the Sahara Desert or invasion by the Moors.

Originally the Legio III Augusta was stationed in Africa.  No trace has been found of their camp.  It is suspected that the Fortress Ammaedara may have been built on the site of the legion's camp.  The only evidence of this is circumstantial.  It comes maily from the headstones of the legion discovered in the military cemetery east of the city.

The fortress is said to be the largest of its kind in North Africa. The original measures were 200 metres by 100 metres, and with walls as high as 10 metres. Parts of this still stand.

Inside the fortress are a chapel and a church.


One of the earliest Roman settlements in North Africa, Haidra in Tunisia contains the remains of the Roman city of Ammaedara. Well off the beaten track, Haidra – also called Hydrah – attracts few tourists and even the archaeological excavations have been few and far between.

Founded in the first century AD, Ammaedara was originally a legionary outpost, used by the Third Legion Augusta during their campaign against the rebellious Numidian leader Tacfarinas – a deserter from the Roman auxiliaries who led his people in an uprising against Rome during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius.

After the defeat of the rebellion, Ammaedara was settled by veterans from the campaign and grew into a thriving Roman city. Indeed, remains of the cemetery of the 3rd legion have been identified on outskirts of the site.

It is unclear as to whether a pre-Roman settlement existed at Haidra. Though the foundations of a Punic temple to Ba'al-Hamon were found near the site, there is little additional evidence of a major settlement.

The Romans ruled the region until the Vandal invasions of the 5th century AD and the ruins of Haidra contain evidence of the period of Vandal rule as well as the subsequent Byzantine period which followed after Justinian’s successful re-conquest.

Today Haïdra contains a number of interesting ruins dating from the various periods in the city’s history. The fortress acted as a defensive stronghold for the newly conquered Byzantine lands.

Dating to around the same period is the Church of Melleus which is in a reasonable state of preservation with a number of surviving columns and interesting inscriptions from the 6th and 7th centuries on the paving stones. Evidence of the Vandal period survives in the form of the Vandal Chapel - dating to the reigns of King Thrasamund and King Hilderic in the early 6th century AD.

The Fall of Ammaedara

There is no record of major military actions involving Ammaedara.  This is not surprising considering its purpose was mostly to discourage fairly minor raiding parties coming in from the deserts or the Moorish lands to the west.

But an inland fort looking south and west would have been cut off as Arab armies marched overland from Egypt to invade Carthage in the late 600s.  Any troops stationed there could have either been withdrawn to defend Carthage itself or they would have surrendered to the Muslims having been cut off from help.

The ancient Roman city of Ammaedara was abandoned and the area renamed Haidra in Arabic.  Even today it remains basically a rural crossroads with only 3,000 people.

Remains of the Byzantine Fortress

The south side of the Byzantine Fort. These walls were easily 20-25 feet high.

Underground Baths http://looklex.com/tunisia/haidra06.htm

Underground Baths

The structure called "Vandal chapel" has paving stones with crude inscriptions of 6th century Vandal kings. The chapel by itself is small and uninteresting, but it is one of very few remains from this period.   (looklex.com)

The Basilica of the Martyrs stands alone to the extreme east at Haïdra. Its layout can be made out, and the apse is in fair condition.

This is one of the numerous gravestones inside the church. The majority are in Latin, but there are also several in Ancient Greek.

(Vandal Kingdom)      (Exarchate of Africa)      (Africa - Roman province)

(crc-internet.org)      (isaactunisia)      (looklex.com/tunisia/haidra)     

(looklex.com)      (historvius)      (ammaedarahaidra)     

(Haidra)      (panoramio)      (paris-sorbonne.fr)

Sometimes one has to wonder what the point is of border "fortifications". 

The Romans spent mountains of money to "secure" their borders on the Rhine and Danube Rivers.  But this expensive line of fortifications acted more like a sieve than a wall.  For centuries enemies of every kind appeared to pour through in one long endless parade, often with little to no fear of defending Roman armies.

That brings us to the Gothic invasions and the Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis.  The battlewas fought between a Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels led by Fritigern.

Eastern Emperor Valens

The Goth Invasion

The first incursion of the Roman Empire that can be attributed to Goths is the sack of Histria in 238. Several such raids followed in subsequent decades, in particular the Battle of Abrittus in 251, led by Cniva, in which the Roman Emperor Decius was killed.

At the time, there were at least two groups of Goths: the Thervingi and the Greuthungi. Goths were subsequently heavily recruited into the Roman Army to fight in the Roman-Persian Wars.

Over and over again massive waves of invading peoples pushed into the Empire from beyond the Danube looking for land, wealth and security. . . . usually looking for the wealth of the Romans.

By 376 AD, displaced by the invasions of the Huns, the Goths, led by Alavivus and Fritigern, asked to be allowed to settle in the Roman Empire. Hoping that they would become farmers and soldiers, the Emperor Valens allowed them to establish themselves in the Empire as allies (foederati).

As the Goths undertook the crossing, Valens's mobile forces were tied down in the east, on the Persian frontier and in Isauria. This meant that only limitanei units were present to oversee the Goths' settlement. The small number of imperial troops present prevented the Romans from stopping a Danube crossing by a group of Goths and later by Huns and Alans. What started out as a controlled resettlement mushroomed into a massive influx.

The situation grew worse. The Roman generals present began abusing the Visigoths under their charge, they revolted in early 377 and defeated the Roman units in Thrace outside of Marcianople.

After joining forces with the Ostrogoths and eventually the Huns and Alans, the combined barbarian group marched widely before facing an advance force of imperial soldiers sent from both east and west. In a battle at Ad Salices, the Goths were once again victorious, winning free run of Thrace.

By 378, Valens himself was able to march west from his eastern base in Antioch. He withdrew all but a skeletal force — some of them Goths — from the east and moved west, reaching Constantinople by 30 May, 378.

Meanwhile, Valens' councilors, Comes Richomeres, and his generals Frigerid, Sebastian, and Victor cautioned Valens and tried to persuade him to wait for Gratian's arrival with his victorious legionaries from Gaul, something that Gratian himself strenuously advocated.

What happened next is an example of hubris, the impact of which was to be felt for years to come. Valens, jealous of his nephew Gratian's success, decided he wanted this victory for himself.




Opposing Forces

From ancient times to today all sides have exaggerated the numbers of troops involved.  This makes it tricky at best to get proper battle estimates.

Eastern Romans  -  The once great Legions had at one time numbered about 5,000 men. By this period their full strength was far less, and probably no more than 1,000 or so. Most operations were small in scale, and even emperors often led armies numbering no more than a few thousand men.

The fourth-century Roman army specialized in low-level warfare. Pitched battles were rare. They fought instead mainly as the barbarians fought, using speed, surprise attacks, and ambush. Roman troops proved adept at this type of fighting, aided by their training, discipline, clear command structure, and well-organized logistical support.

Valens' army may have included troops from any of three Roman field armies: the Army of Thrace, based in the eastern Balkans, but which may have sustained heavy losses in 376–377, the 1st Army in the Emperor's Presence, and the 2nd Army in the Emperor's Presence, both based at Constantinople in peacetime but committed to the Persian frontier in 376 and sent west in 377–378.

Valens' army was composed of veterans and men accustomed to war. It comprised seven legions — among which were the Legio I Maximiana and imperial auxiliaries — of 700 to 1000 men each. The cavalry was composed of mounted archers (sagittarii) and Scholae (the imperial guard). However, these did not represent the strong point of the army and would flee on the arrival of the Gothic cavalry.

There were also squadrons of Arab cavalry, but they were more suited to skirmishes than to pitched battle.

The historian Warren Treadgold estimates that, by 395, the Army of Thrace had 24,500 soldiers, while the 1st and 2nd Armies in Emperor's Presence had 21,000 each. However, all three armies include units either formed (several units of Theodosiani among them) or redeployed (various legions in Thrace) after Adrianople. Moreover, troops were needed to protect Marcianopolis and other threatened cities, so it is unlikely that all three armies fought together.

On the low end of estimates Roman troops in the battle might have been 15,000 men, 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.  The high end might be in 30,000 to 40,000 range.

The Gothic invasion was a major priority for both the Western and Eastern Empires as both Emperors were bringing armies to the Balkans to beat down the threat.

Under these circumstances the low end estimate of 15,000 is absurd.  The Emperor himself would not be marching into a major battle with a small force.

In combining units from the eastern front and the field armies in the Balkans and Constantinople an army of 30,000 to 40,000 men would not be an unreasonable number.

These  Scandinavian  warriors  are  almost  identical  with  their  Gothic  relatives  because  of  their  unity  of  culture.  The  weaponry  of  the  Scandinavians/Vikings  was  in  fact  originated  from  the  arms  and  armor  of  their  Germanic  kinsmen  in  the  main  European  continent , especially  from  those  of  the  Eastern  Teutonic  tribes. (Periklis Deligiannis)

The Goths  -  The Gothic armies were mostly infantry with some cavalry, however; in the battle of Adrianople the large force of Gothic cavalry was 5,000 strong. 

The Goths and Vandals were predominantly cavalry-oriented armies although, as the Battle of Adrianople illustrates, they could also field redoubtable infantry.

There is little direct evidence for Gothic military equipment. There is more evidence for Vandal, Roman, and West Germanic military equipment, which provides the base for inferences about Gothic military equipment.

Generally speaking there was little difference between well-armed Germanic and Roman soldiers, furthermore many Germanic soldiers served in the Roman forces. The Roman army was better able to equip its soldiers than the Germanic armies.

Late Roman representational evidence, including propaganda monuments, gravestones, tombs, and the Exodus fresco, often shows Late Roman soldiers with one or two spears; one tombstone shows a soldier with five shorter javelins.Archaeological evidence, from Roman burials and Scandinavian bog-deposits, shows similar spearheads.


Goth warriors 4th Century

Cavalry mainly took the form of heavy, close combat cavalry backed up by light scouts and horse archers. For a Gothic or Vandal nobleman the most common form of armour was a mail shirt, often reaching down to the knees, and an iron or steel helmet, often in a Roman Ridge helm style. Some of the wealthiest warriors may have a worn a lamellar cuirass over mail, and splinted greaves and vambraces on the forearms and forelegs.


Army Size

Numbers are wildly thrown around that range from as low as 12,000 to 100,000 Goth warriors.  Both extreme ends are ridiculous. 

In no way would a small army of 12,000 Goths be so dangerous that both Emperors would drop everything and rush to the Balkans.  The extreme of high numbers of Goths is simply the traditional over counting of an enemy for some domestic political purpose.

There were probably two main Gothic armies south of the Danube. Fritigern led one army, largely recruited from the Therving exiles, while Alatheus and Saphrax led another army, largely recruited from the Greuthung exiles.

Fritigern brought most if not all of his fighters to the battle, and appears to have been the force the Romans first encountered. Alatheus and Saphrax brought most of their cavalry, and possibly some of their infantry, to the battlefield late. These infantry were indicated as being an Alan battalion.

The Barbarian invasions were literally migrations of entire peoples and tribes.  This would result in what I call the de-Latinization of the Balkans as every new wave of invaders replaced the old Roman population.  So it is possible that the entire Gothic and related peoples below the Danube could have run up to 100,000.

In a major campaign the Goths would have gathered all possible males of military age to face down the Romans.  That might have resulted in a field army or armies totaling perhaps 30,000 warriors or more.  Certainly a force of that size would have commanded the attention of both Emperors.





The Battle

The battle took place about 8 miles north of Adrianople in the Roman province of Thracia.  Though fought between the Goths and the Eastern Roman Empire,  the battle is often considered the start of the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.

The Western Emperor Gratian had sent much of his army to Pannonia when the Lentienses attacked across the Rhine. Gratian recalled his army and defeated the Lentienses near Argentaria (in modern France).

After this campaign, Gratian, with part of his field army, went east by boat; the rest of his field army went east overland. The former group arrived at Sirmium in Pannonia and at the Camp of Mars (a fort near the Iron Gates), 400 kilometers from Adrianople, where some Alans attacked them. Gratian's group withdrew to Pannonia shortly thereafter.

Western Emperor Gratian

Valens left Antioch for Constantinople, and arrived on the 30th of May. He appointed Sebastianus, newly arrived from Italy, to reorganize the Roman armies already in Thrace. Sebastianus picked 2,000 of his legionaries and marched towards Adrianople. They ambushed some small Gothic detachments. Fritigern assembled the Gothic forces at Nicopolis and Beroe to deal with this Roman threat

As at Ad Salices, the tribesmen had formed their wagons into a large circle with their families and possessions protected within, and the warriors forming a line outside, facing the approaching enemy.

The Romans began to deploy, the head of the column wheeling to the right and marching to where they would take position as the far right flank of the line. Cavalry and light infantry covered the deployment. The Goths began chanting as they tried to encourage themselves and intimidate their enemy. Others lit bush fires in the dry scrub and grass. The wind took the smoke toward the Romans, which was unpleasant, but more important, made it hard for them to see much of the Gothic position. Fritigern was expecting reinforcements, mainly from the Greuthungi (including a strong force of cavalry), and the smoke would conceal their approach.

The Gothic chieftain needed time to let these men arrive, but that does not mean that he was wholly insincere when he sent a delegation to parley with Valens. Fritigern had little to gain and a lot to lose by fighting the emperor. Negotiation was still his aim, although adding more warriors to his force would strengthen his hand.

Valens refused to receive the first delegation, since the men were of low status. However, when the Goths sent a second proposal and asked for a senior Roman to go over to them as a hostage for the safety of their own party, the emperor's staff got as far as choosing a man for the job. Valens may also have been playing for time, for his army was still moving into position, and yet he too would have been willing to end things with negotiation, especially since the Goths were much more numerous than he had expected. A bloodless victory was as prestigious as a battlefield success, and avoided Roman losses.

Roman Cavalry (Roman Empire.net)

Whatever the intentions of the leaders, some of their followers proved more aggressive. When two armies were formed up so close to each other, things were bound to be tense. Suddenly two Roman cavalry units on the right wing launched an attack, without orders. The Goths soon chased them away, but the fighting quickly provoked the rest of the Roman line to attack, and it drove forward, reaching the laager at some points.

Yet not everyone had been in position. The rear of the column was destined to make up the left of the Roman formation, but these men were only just arriving on the field. The rear of a long column is usually the most aggravating place to be on a long march. Soldiers there wait longest when there is any delay, and then must rush to catch up. Hurried on by their officers, these Roman regiments arrived tired and not yet ready for the general advance.

The account by historian Barry Jacobsen is a good one.  He writes that the Gothic position was upon a low hill, behind a barrier of wagons, defending their camp. The Romans deployed in the plain below them. The Roman foot held the center, the cavalry divided on both wings.

Throughout the hot summer day, the Romans stood deployed under the baking sun; while the Fritigern stretched out peace negotiations. No doubt the Gothic leader hesitated to engage in a trial of arms against the elite “Army in the Presence”. Just as importantly, they were stalling for time to allow their cavalry to return; which were away foraging.

Late in the day, a skirmish broke out between the Roman leftwing cavalry and the Goths opposite them. Losing patience, Valens ordered a general attack.

Standing in ranks all day under a blazing sun, wearing helmet, carrying a 12 pound shield, and in some cases wearing metal body armor will sap the strength of the best conditioned soldiers. Pushing uphill, the already tired Roman forces were sluggish. Even so, progress was being made and the wagonberg was overrun in some places when suddenly, returning to the field, the Gothic cavalry fell upon the flanking Roman horse!

In a cavalry fight, impetus and momentum are of the highest importance. One moment the Roman horse had been mere spectators, holding the flanks and watching their infantry assaulting the wagonberg. The next, they were caught  “flat-footed”, as charging Gothic horsemen smashed into their formations! After a brief and desperate struggle, the Roman squadrons gave way, routing from the field.

Goth Hill Looking south over the battlefield from the hill where the Gothic wagonberg was located. This is the view the Goths would have had from their camp of Valens’ army deployed on the plain; and gives a good impression of how difficult a “slog” up this hill, under fire from Gothic bows and javelins, the tired Roman infantry would have had that hot sumer afternoon.

Deprived of their cavalry and the flank protection it afforded, the Roman attack on the wagonberg faltered. Roman soldiers, looking over their shoulders, could see and hear the furious melee on their flanks. And though clouds of choking dust no doubt obscured the details, it must have been apparent that their cavalry was fleeing the field.

The victorious Gothic cavalry now wheeled inward, attacking the flanks and rear of the Roman infantry. At that moment, the Gothic foot sallied from the camp, attacking the Romans from the front. Valens and his men now found themselves surrounded and assailed from every direction.

Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a soldier, provided a vivid description of what followed:


In the blinding, choking dust that covered the battlefield, all cohesion and tactical control was lost. Attacked from all sides, the Roman lines crumbled inward. Reports tell how soldiers were pressed together so closely that many could not raise their arms from their sides.



Some of the elite units held their ground, making a last stand. Foremost of these were two of the  Palatine Legions (elite legions that served in the Emperor’s own field force), the Lanciarii Seniors and the Matiarii.  The Lanciari were the senior legion of the Roman army, and they showed their quality that day. When all others lost their heads, they kept theirs. Valens took refuge in this island amidst the storm. He ordered the reserves brought up; but though comprised of elite cohorts of Auxilia Palatina,  these too had fled the field. The officers sent to fetch them followed suit, deserting their emperor.

Accounts differ as to Valens fate. One tale has him struck dead amidst these stalwart last defenders.  Another, though, states that he was struck by a Gothic javelin or arrow; and was carried to a nearby farmhouse. There, his bodyguards held the Goths off for a time; till the house was set afire; killing all but one, who jumped free of the blaze and was taken prisoner (later relating the Emperor’s fate). That Valens’ body was never recovered lends credibility to this account.

The battle ended with the coming of darkness, allowing some survivors to fight their way out.  On the battlefield, the Emperor and the cream of the Eastern Roman Army lay dead.






Roman Infantry The blue clothed soldier with the square shields are the Roman legionaries. The less heavily armed soldier with the lighter, green, oval shields in the foreground are non-Roman auxiliary troops; in this case Batavian infantrymen. . The spooky wolf’s head protruding over all at the back of the picture is the animal skin decoration of the vexillarius, the standard bearer of the unit.

Aftermath

Some two-thirds of the Roman army died. Ammianus compared the disaster to the battle of Cannae in August 216 bc, a devastating battle in which Hannibal had slaughtered some 50,000 Roman and Italian soldiers and captured another 20,000. Valens's force was smaller and very different from the citizen volunteers who had marched to battle the Carthaginians. Nonetheless, Adrianople was a dreadful Roman defeat.

Thirty-five Roman tribunes—officers elected by the people who commanded regiments or were staff officers—also died in the battle. It is possible that they suffered a higher rate of loss than the two-thirds casualties suffered by the rest of the army. Since Valens himself apparently died, casualties among his headquarters may well have been extremely high.

According to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a third of the Roman army succeeded in retreating.

The Roman defeat was a great victory for the Goths. Yet strategically, Fritigern and his people had gained very little, for they needed to negotiate with an emperor, not kill one and destroy a Roman army. In victory, the Goths launched an attack on the city of Adrianople, hoping to capture the supplies Valens had brought to support his army, but there were enough soldiers still within the city to easily repulse the Goths.  Also, Ammianus refers to a great number of retreating Roman soldiers who had not been let into the city and who fought the besieging Goths below the walls.

Rome's response to its loss at first verged on panic. Local authorities disarmed and massacred parties of Goths throughout the eastern empire, even some serving loyally in the Roman army. For Gratian, it was more important to ensure a smooth transition of power than to focus on dealing with Fritigern. Early in 379, he appointed a man named Flavius Theodosius as eastern emperor, to replace Valens.

The two men proved able to work together, and the new emperor showed considerable talent as an organizer. He raised new troops, and reinforced the laws against draft dodging. It took time to train the recruits, and so he reverted to the earlier strategy of harassing the Goths whenever possible. After a while, Theodosius grew bolder and attacked a larger concentration. His father had been a distinguished general, but the son proved less talented and the enemy cut up his column.

Still, the Romans won the war slowly and gradually, with no more major battles. Instead, they raided and ambushed isolated groups of Goths, tried to keep control of the important mountain passes and gradually hemmed the migrants into a smaller and smaller area.

They were also keen to accept surrenders. Several groups capitulated to Gratian. He removed them, giving them land in Italy. By the end of 382, all of the Goths within the empire had surrendered.

The Death of the Roman Legion

The long-term implications of the battle of Adrianople have often been debated and re-debated.

One major idea is that the battle represented a turning point in military history, with heavy cavalry triumphing over Roman infantry and ushering in the age of the Medieval knight. This idea is mostly coming from historians who have a Western European knighthood frame of reference, and it is wrong. 

Eastern Roman cavalry did not become knights.  The cavalry arm of the army simply grew (evolved) because of the mobility of the enemies the Empire faced.

Roman cavalry slowly copied their Persian enemies and became cataphracts or armored horse archers.  The 5th-century Notitia Dignitatum mentions a specialist unit of clibanarii known as the Equites Sagittarii Clibanarii - evidently a unit of heavily armored horse archers based on the heavy cavalry of contemporary Persian armies.


The cataphracts were both fearsome and disciplined. Both man and horse were heavily armored, the riders equipped with lances, bows and maces. These troops were slow compared to other cavalry, but their effect on the battlefield, particularly under good generals like Belisarius or the Emperor Nikephoros II, was devastating.

I would say that Adrianople killed the old style Legion as a primary force in the east.  As the older Eastern Legions were destroyed or badly mangled they were not replaced or they merged with new units under new names. 

Units did survive Adrianople.  For example Legio I Maximiana is mentioned as still under Thracian command at the beginning of the 5th century, and was in Philae (Egypt, south of Aswan), under the dux Thebaidos.

What was left of Legion units were used more and more to man strongpoints in wars that increasingly became defensive in nature.

Despite a number of reforms, the Legion system did manage to survive the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and was continued in the Eastern Empire until around 7th century. At that time reforms begun by Emperor Heraclius to counter the increasing need for soldiers around the Empire resulted in the Theme system.

Despite this, the Eastern Roman/Byzantine armies continued to be influenced by the earlier Roman legions, and were maintained with similar level of discipline, strategic prowess, and organization.


(fordham.edu)      (Gothic War)      (Gothic warfare)      (Late Roman army)

(Valens)      (Goths)      (deadliestblogpage)      (militaryhistoryonline)

(historynet)      (roman-empire.net)      (Adrianople)

Tsar Samuel
Enemy of the Roman Empire


(Radio Bulgaria)  -  In 2014, this country marks 1,000 years since the tragic death of Samuel of Bulgaria, who couldn’t bear the sight of his blinded warriors after the Battle of Kleidion and most likely suffered a fatal heart attack as a result.

Radio Bulgaria has already framed the anniversary and the forthcoming commemorating events, but Samuel’s life appears to have been so colorful and full of dramatic turnabouts that a mini-series of articles devoted to it would be more than justifiable.

For instance, on 14 June 987 Samuel ordered the execution of… Aaron, his own brother! However, some prehistory here proves that he had a good reason to do that.

In the late 10^th century, both Bulgaria and Byzantium had entangled themselves in a war with Prince Sviatoslav, the ruler of Kievan Rus’. The relations between the two neighboring empires were tense as well, especially after the death of the Byzantine Princess Maria Lakapina, who had been married to the Bulgarian Tsar Peter I. The latter was forced to send his two sons – Boris and Roman, as honorary hostages to Constantinople, in order to maintain the peace. However, Petar I also died of a heart attack after a defeat by Prince Sviatoslav in 969 /or 970/.

Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes took his chance and invaded the eastern parts of the Bulgarian Empire, kicking the Russians out at the same time. Everyone would say that it was the end of the First Bulgarian Empire, as the two heirs of the throne remained in Constantinople’s golden cage, but there was that Cometopuli dynasty to the West…

The remains of the Basilica of Agios Achillios in Lake Prespa, where Samuil's grave was found.

Samuel was the fourth and youngest son of Comita (count) Nikola - a Bulgarian nobleman from the Cometopuli dynasty, who might have been the count of Sredets (the ancient name of today’s capital Sofia), though other sources say he was a regional count somewhere in the region of what’s today Macedonia. Samuel’s mother was Ripsima of Armenia. His Armenian roots are also suggested by his hooked nose, as examined and reconstructed by contemporary Bulgarian anthropologists. A plaster copy of his skull and mandible were provided by the Greek government as early as 1974-76.

In the period 970 – 971, the four brothers with the biblical names – Samuel, David, Moses and Aaron rebelled against John I Tzimiskes. The chronology of the events that followed is not clear due to contradicting sources, but it is sure that after 971 Samuel and his three brothers were de facto the rulers of the Western Bulgarian lands. Despite being the most distinguished of the four, Samuel would refuse to overthrow the legislative power of Tsar Boris, still held a hostage in Constantinople. This however wouldn’t be an obstacle to his intentions to oppose Byzantium in every possible way and after the death of John I Tzimiskes in 976 the opportunity emerged.

The first two contradictory deaths in the legend of Samuel occurred during the assault, launched along the whole border by the Comitopuli brothers back then. Only within a few weeks after the start of the campaign David was slaughtered by Vlach vagrants near the town of Prespa – the official version, but historical sources claim his death was actually quite mysterious… At the same time Moses was fatally injured by some stone, accidentally thrown from behind the walls of the besieged Serres. There are historians, who would blame Samuel for both fatal endings, due to his lust for power. At the same time no historical source has confirmed that version so far and the fact that Samuel had refused to take the place of the legal tsar through all those years comes only to confirm his innocence…

Basil II defeats Samuel's army (top); The death of Tsar Samuel (bottom)

One way or another, a fateful event that followed would decide his destiny: somewhere around 978 the two heirs of the Bulgarian throne returned from Constantinople within quite vague circumstances. An escape, however, would be a very reliable version, as they were both dressed like Greeks – a fact that would turn into a fatal misfortune. A Bulgarian border police officer mistakenly took Boris for an enemy due to his clothing and killed him. The only thing, which saved Roman’s life, was his frantic screaming in Bulgarian.

Despite being turned into eunuch in Constantinople before that, the new tsar was warmly welcomed and inaugurated by Samuel. At the same time Roman was aware of his weakness and de facto he let his talented top general rule the country.

Unfortunately, the first danger that the new ruler had to cope with was… his own brother. The new Byzantine Emperor Basil II had decided to bribe Aaron, who was at that time in charge of the lands, situated most closely to Thrace, by offering him a marriage with his sister. Aaron wanted to stop the war with Byzantium and to unseat his brother, so he accepted. However, the woman, sent from Constantinople and accompanied by the Sebastian Bishop, had nothing to do with the emperor’s sister.

As Aaron immediately found out about the deceit, he ordered the burning of the bishop, historical sources say… When Basil II heard about the balefire, he gathered a huge army and besieged Sredets in the course of 20 days, but unsuccessfully. Upon his return, he was ambushed in the Gate of Trajan mountain pass on his way back to Philippopolis by the united forces of Aaron and Samuel, who inflicted such a defeat to the Greek army that Basil’s life was hanging by the thread and he escaped miraculously with few of his men.

The fact that Samuel helped his brother for the greater good wouldn’t mean forgiveness for his betrayal. Less than a year after the great victory on 17 August 986 Samuel ordered the slaughtering of the entire Aaron’s family and the execution of the latter… The new Bulgarian Cain had no time to lose, as he was about to continue his 40-year-long battle with the one who would be later remembered as the Bulgar-slayer…

First Bulgarian Empire Samuel was the Tsar (Emperor) of the First Bulgarian Empire from 997 to 6 October 1014. From 977 to 997, he was a general under Roman I of Bulgaria, the second surviving son of Emperor Peter I of Bulgaria, and co-ruled with him, as Roman bestowed upon him the command of the army and the effective royal authority. . As Samuel struggled to preserve his country's independence from the Byzantine Empire, his rule was characterized by constant warfare against the Byzantines and their equally ambitious ruler Basil II. . The Battle of Kleidion. Despite the desperate resistance the Byzantines overwhelmed the Bulgarian army and captured around 14,000 soldiers, according to some sources even 15,000 Basil II immediately sent forces under his favourite commander Theophylactus Botaniates to pursue the surviving Bulgarians, but the Byzantines were defeated in an ambush by Gavril Radomir, who personally killed Botaniates. . After the Battle of Kleidion, on the order of Basil II the captured Bulgarian soldiers were blinded; one of every 100 men was left one-eyed so as to lead the rest home. The blinded soldiers were sent back to Samuel who reportedly had a heart attack upon seeing them. He died two days later, on 15 October 1014. This savagery gave the Byzantine emperor his byname Boulgaroktonos ("Bulgar-slayer"). Some historians theorize it was the death of his favourite commander that infuriated Basil II to blind the captured soldiers.

(Samuel of Bulgaria)

Editor -  Below is a wonderful 1988 article by Professor Eric McGeer on Eastern Roman military tactics.  It is refreshing to read material by true experts on a subject.

Eastern Roman military history had suffered from a near total lack of proper histories written by those who witnessed the events.  We historians have to fill in the lack of detailed information with what we know from similar events. In this case I can say that the Byzantine infantry units have not been given proper credit by historians.

Byzantine infantry have lived in the shadow of the Roman Legions. But the Byzantine Army stood centuries longer than the legions of Rome. They must have been doing something right.

Professor McGeer details how Byzantine units formed and maintained complex infantry squares against attacking Arab cavalry. This required a great deal of training for the officers so they would be able to organize multiple units to act together while under enemy fire. But also the average soldier and his unit would must have had considerable training to firmly hold their assigned position during the madness of battle.

For over 800 years the Byzantines had to face down an seemingly endless stream of fanatical Islamist armies bent on conquest. Simply they held their own and often defeated and drove back their enemies.  Winning is not an accident. The soldiers and their officers were trained well.

Enjoy.

The Byzantines encountered many different nations on the battlefield during their long history. The surveys of foreign peoples in the military manuals amply illustrate the Byzantines' readiness not only to analyze the tactics and characteristics of their enemies, but also even to learn from them when necessary. Their recognition of the need to study and to adapt themselves to the unfamiliar methods of warfare practiced by their enemies pays witness to the intellectual and practical character of the Byzantine approach to war.


The recorded observation of enemy skills and tactics was a feature which the Byzantines added to the long tradition of military science inherited from classical Antiquity. The study of war was energetically renewed in tenth-century Byzantium, as the number of important manuscripts and texts dating from this period clearly demonstrates.

This renewal of military science was largely in response to the increasing danger from the Arabs, whom the Byzantines had come to consider their most formidable enemies. It is always a difficult problem to determine what relation there was between traditional theory and contemporary practice in the Byzantine military texts — to what extent did the tenth-century strategists combine theory with practice to create formations and tactics which would be effective against the Arabs?
The analysis of the battle formation and tactics prescribed for infantry in the Praecepta militaria (ca. 965) sheds interesting light on this question. The choice of this subject will provide the opportunity to examine the underestimated role and importance of infantry in Byzantine armies of the period, as well as to see how the author of the Praecepta relied on earlier sources and his own observations to develop a formation and set of tactics for Byzantine infantry facing Arab cavalry.


Other tenth-century treatises show that the Byzantines also used a square for the same purposes, but the Sylloge is the first text in which a square is prescribed as the standard battle formation for Byzantine infantry. According to this text, one employed the infantry square to act as a mobile base for cavalry, either to follow in support of a successful cavalry attack on the enemy or to offer an immediate place of refuge in case the cavalry met with defeat. The author of the Praecepta followed the Sylloge closely as the blueprint for the basic deployment and tactics for infantry supporting cavalry in battle, occasionally even quoting his main source.

But at the same time, it must be said that he read the Sylloge critically and realistically, leaving aside all of its painstaking calculations of the manpower in the infantry force or of the measurements of the infantry square. In selecting only material which he knew conformed with the types of soldier and equipment at his disposal, the author of the Praecepta sought to give an up-to-date account of the Byzantine army". The real departure from the Sylloge, however, begins with his systematic description of the infantry force and the situations which it might have to confront on the battlefield.


The author informs us that the heavy infantrymen were to be picked out from both Byzantines and Armenians (who formed a particularly ferocious contingent in the armies of Nikephoros Phokas), while the lighter άκοντισταίwere supplied by « Russians » (or by other foreigners).

10th Century Byzantine Varangian Guard

The square offered the Byzantines important advantages as a battle formation in enemy lands. Facing four ways, it could not be outflanked or attacked from behind, always an urgent consideration when dealing with the Arabs. In providing immediate refuge for defeated cavalry, it prevented mass and prolonged flight which was usually the makings of real disaster for an army far from home. 

Furthermore, the author tells us that during battle the wounded and the exhausted could find shelter inside the square, while extra infantrymen could be assigned to bring water to the combatants to relieve their thirst, or stones and arrows to the slingers and archers so as to avoid these soldiers having to leave their places in search of more ammunition. Many of these factors suggest strongly that the author was well aware of the psychological advantages inherent in such a formation, not least the enhanced sense of collective security among men who know that their sides and backs are protected, that they can be saved if wounded and relieved if overcome with thirst or exhaustion. 

It must not be over looked, either, that a square facing four ways prevents easy flight by its very shape. For men about to face an all-out cavalry charge on their position, the lack of alternatives was probably the only reason why many of them decided to stay and fight when they would much rather have run away. Deployed as we have seen them, how were the Byzantine infantry to join battle with the enemy ?

Arab Cavalry in World War I.

Infantry versus infantry encounters are treated very briefly. If the enemy were not very sophisticated and simply attacked in a broad line, the άκοντισταίand the μοναυλάτοι on the two flanks of the square not directly engaged were to pour out round the enemy's flanks in a semi-circular movement and crush their line between them. If the enemy infantry were also deployed in a square (as Leo tells us the Arabs often were), then the άκοντισταίand the μοναυλάτοι inside the Byzantine square were sent to the aid of their comrades on whichever side of the square the enemy had attacked. 

These very sparse directions indicate that the author considered a purely infantry battle to be very unlikely, and, as a result, was far more occupied with infantry versus cavalry confrontations —both how to resist enemy cavalry with his infantry and how to destroy enemy infantry with his own cavalry, spearheaded by the mighty κατάφρακτοι.

It was when the enemy had defeated or scattered the Byzantine cavalry and intended to follow up on their success with an assault on the remaining force that the Byzantine infantry came into their own. 

The Arab cavalry posed two problems which the infantry square was designed to counter The first problem was that of their light skirmishers (to whom our author refers as Άραβϊται), who were mounted on very swift horses and used their great speed to ride round the square in hopes of luring the Byzantines into breaking ranks, whereupon they would suddenly wheel about to catch them off guard. 

But if these skirmishers were left at a distance or ignored, their effectiveness was much reduced, since they would never dare close with a strongly defended infantry formation, nor could they surprise the Byzantines with attacks from the flanks or rear. For their part, the Byzantines had no hopes of coming to grips with the elusive Arab raiders and thus could only remain in formation, undeceived by their enemies' feigned attacks and withdrawals.

The Infantry Square Above is a Turkish attack on an Austrian infantry square in 1788. . The infantry square can be traced to ancient times. The formation was described by Plutarch and used by the Romans, and was developed from an earlier circular formation. In particular, a large infantry square was utilized by the Roman legions at the Battle of Carrhae against Persia, whose armies contained a large proportion of cavalry. . The formation was constituted as a hollow square. It was vital for squares to stand firm in the face of a cavalry charge, but they were not static formations. Astute commanders could, in suitable terrain, manoeuvre squares to mass archer fire on enemy formations. . Attacking cavalry would attempt to "break a square" by causing it to lose its cohesion, either by charging to induce poorly disciplined infantry to flee before making contact, or by causing casualties through close-range combat. . Combined attacks by infantry and cavalry would also have the same effect - the defending infantry unit would be placed in the difficult position of either forming square and being shot to pieces by archers of the attacking infantry, or being ridden down by the cavalry if it decided to remain in line while trading volleys with the attacking infantry.

A Byzantine Infantry Square

The second problem was posed by the more intimidating Arab regular cavalry, or even, as it appears, by their heavy cavalry, to whom the task fell to make a direct attack on the Byzantine infantry. As it became clear which side of the square the enemy planned to attack in strength, the Byzantines bolstered their lines accordingly. The two πεντηκόνταρχοι (one on the left wing of the line, the other on the right) in one of the two rear lines of όπλϊται led their fifty men forward through the intervals into the front lines of their ταξιαρχία, making them three deep in όπλϊται. 

At this point, the one hundred μοναυλάτοι in the ταξιαρχία also came forward through the intervals into the front lines, now four deep. This manoeuvre, taught to the soldiers in training, not only provided for the prompt  reinforcement of the front lines where necessary, but also served to deceive the enemy as to the real depth of the front lines which they were about to attack. As I interpret the Praecepta, it would appear that the όπλϊται and the μοναυλάτοι anchored the butt ends of their spears against the ground and aimed the points at an angle into the chests of the enemy warhorses, creating, in effect, a « chevaux de frise » four men deep. 

The exceptionally thick and solid μοναύλιον was designed to withstand the impact of an enemy armoured cavalry charge, for as the author says, « even if the three-deep spears of the όπλϊται are smashed by the enemy κατάφρακτοι, then the μοναυλάτοι, being firmly set, stand their ground bravely, receiving the charge of the κατάφρακτοι and turn them away »29. Once embroiled with the όπλϊται and μοναυλάτοι in front of them, the enemy cavalrymen were then set upon by the άκοντισταί who circled in from the flanks of the square not under attack. These light and thus more agile soldiers could take advantage of the restricted mobility of the enemy cavalrymen engaged at close quarters and pick them off one by one by striking them from behind 
or from their unprotected right sides. 

The Arab cavalry ran up against this thicket of spears after riding through a hail of arrows launched by the nine hundred archers stationed behind the spearmen on any one side of the square. If indeed the όπλΐται and the μοναυλάτοι were crouched over their fixed spears, the archers would have been able to shoot over their heads all the more easily, even to within very short range as the enemy drew near. 

Most unfortunately, our author does not give any details as to how archers stood, how they were commanded, or what their rate of shot was expected to be in battle. But their close cooperation with spearmen in repulsing enemy cavalry must have been judged indispensable if one takes into account the vast number of arrows the army was instructed to have on hand. Each archer carried one hundred arrows himself and received fifty more from the store of arrows carried by the pack-animals in the army's baggage train. 

This plentiful supply was doubtless intended to guarantee that the archers would not run out of arrows during battle, and we have already seen that extra men were detailed to keep up a steady supply to them during the fighting. It seems clear enough from this evidence that the Byzantine generals wanted a constant and efficient performance from their archers to take a heavy toll on the enemy cavalrymen well before they reached the infantry lines. 

A Cavalry Charge

It took nerves of steel and discipline to stand shoulder to shoulder with your fellow soldiers and face a charge of enemy cavalry looking to chop you into small chunks. Your safety rested on all the other troops in your unit doing their job and holding firm. 

.

This video of a Norman cavalry charge gives you a flavor of what that must 

have been like.

Such, then, was the system developed and presented by the author of the Praecepta in order to satisfy the defensive requirements of Byzantine expeditionary armies. He adapted a simple, symmetrical formation outlined in an earlier source to the types of infantrymen in his army, and gave each type of infantrymen one specific task to perform in this defensive system. The formation and tactics which he developed were intended to solve two main difficulties for Byzantine infantry facing Arab cavalry — the swift attacks and counterattacks of the light skirmishers and the concentrated attacks of the regular or heavy cavalry. 

But as long as the Byzantine infantry could force the Arabs to fight on their terms, by making them attack from directly in front against a concentrated and reinforced defence, then the chances of success were probably very good. 

Later Byzantine strategists were not averse to making what changes were necessary to maintain the shifting balance between infantry and cavalry on the battlefield. Thirty years or so after the Praecepta was written, a second version of this work was written and included in the Tactica of Nikephoros Ouranos. 

Here we find a slight, but telling, adjustment in the system by which the Byzantine infantrymen deepened their lines before receiving the enemy charge. Instead of advancing one of the two rear lines of όπλΐται through the intervals into the front ranks; as we saw in the original Praecepta, the second version of this work by Nikephoros Ouranos (the victor at Spercheios in 996) instructs every second file of men in the ταξιαρχία to step sideways into the file beside it, thus making a file of men seven deep into a file of men fourteen deep. It will be observed from the diagram of this manoeuvre that the width of the ταξιαρχία is reduced by one file only. 

This adjustment was probably intended to secure two further advantages over the earlier system — that the Byzantine infantry could make their formation even deeper than before and that they could do so in less time. It is therefore tempting to conclude from this adjustment that as heavy cavalry came into greater use (as did the Byzantine κατάφρακτοι in the armies of Nikephoros Phokas and John Tzimiskes) the infantry were constantly obliged to find the means to stop them, resorting to deeper and deeper formations and to specialised soldiers such as the μοναυλάτοι, and that these countermeasures were periodically revised to keep pace with fresh developments. 

The close attention to infantry tactics in the military manuals consulted here reminds us that the Byzantines by no means neglected this component of their army in the middle period. The use of infantry was essentially defensive— in battle, on the march and in protecting encampments or fortresses — but was nevertheless indispensable in support of cavalry. In a broader context, the development of infantry tactics from the Sylloge to the Praecepta to the Tactica of Nikephoros Ouranos strengthens the argument that in this period the Byzantines did attempt to combine theory with practice and to pass their conclusions on for further thought. It is no coincidence that by the end of the tenth century their position along the Arab frontiers was much stronger than it had been one hundred years before. 

Eric McGeer 
Université de Montréal (Département d'Histoire) 

(Persee.fr)

Arab cavalry charge in the movie Lawrence of Arabia.

Persian Cavalry  (radpour.com)

The Iberian War was fought from 526 to 532 between the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid Persian Empire over the eastern Georgian kingdom of Iberia.

Tensions between the two powers were further heightened by the defection of the Iberian king Gourgen to the Romans. According to the historian Procopius, Kavadh I tried to force the Christian Iberians to become Zoroastrians, who in 524/525 under the leadership of Gourgen rose in revolt against Persia, following the example of the neighboring Christian kingdom of Lazica. Gourgen received pledges by Justin I that he would defend Iberia; the Romans indeed recruited Huns from the north of the Caucasus to assist the Iberians.

Violence escalated at various points where the power of the two empires met: in 525 a Roman fleet transported an Aksumite army to conquer Himyarite Yemen and in 525/526, Persia's Arab allies, the Lakhmids, raided Roman territories on the edge of the desert. By 526–527, overt fighting between the two empires had broken out in the Transcaucasus region and upper Mesopotamia, and the Persians continued to exert pressure on the Romans to obtain funds from them. Following the emperor Justin I's death in 527, Justinian I succeeded to the imperial throne. 

The early years of war favored the Persians: by 527 the Iberian revolt had been crushed, a Roman offensive against Nisibis and Thebetha in that year was unsuccessful, and forces attempting to fortify Thannuris and Melabasa were prevented from doing so by Persian attacks.

The Roman - Persian Frontier Some 30,000 Persian troops invaded Byzantium's Armenian  provinces resulting is the Battle of Satala.

Background

Satala Fortress East Gate Yes, I said the same thing, "That's a gate? How do they know?" I guess when the Persians destroy a fortress they really destroy a fortress.   From Livius.org

The Fortress of Satala

(From Livius)  When the emperor Vespasian added Commagene to the Roman empire (72 CE), the upper Euphrates became a frontier zone; across the river were the Parthian Empire and the buffer state Armenia. The main road along the Roman border (limes) was from Trapezus on the shores of the Black Sea to Alexandria near Issus, Seleucia, and Antioch near the Mediterranean in the south. The legionary bases along this highway were Satala (for the recently founded Sixteenth legion Flavia Firma), Melitene (XII Fulminata), Samosata (VI Ferrata), and Zeugma (IIII Scythica). 

Satala was chosen because it commanded not only the Euphrates, but also the road from central Anatolia to Armenia (essentially the modern E88/E80).

We would like to know more about the original settlement, but it will be hard to reconstruct it, because the site was destroyed in the mid-third century by troops of the Persian Sasanians (who had replaced the Parthians after 224), and was rebuilt several times. What can be seen today, belongs to the sixth-century reconstruction by the emperor Justinian (527-565). The circuit of the walls is too small to offer accommodation to a first- or second-century legion. The original military settlement is still lost.

Satala, Northern "Wall"

Satala, East "Wall"

Hardly anything is known about Satala's civil settlement, although it is certain that in the fourth century, there was a Christian community.

The city of Satala had been in a precarious state in ancient times. For it is situated not far from the land of the enemy and it also lies in a low-lying plain and is dominated by many hills which tower around it, and for this reason it stood in need of circuit-walls which would defy attack. Nevertheless, even though its surroundings were of such a nature as this, its defenses were in a perilous condition, having been carelessly constructed with bad workmanship in the beginning, and with the long passage of time the masonry had everywhere collapsed. But the Emperor tore all this down and built there a new circuit wall, so high that it seemed to overtop the hills around it, and of a thickness sufficient to ensure the safety of its towering mass. And he set up admirable outworks on all sides and so struck terror into the hearts of the enemy.

This fortress survived for almost a century, but was eventually captured and destroyed in 607/608 by the Persian Sasanian king Khusrau II the Victorious (590-628).

Persian King Kavadh I

Battle of Satala

Possible Route of the Persians It was a 126 mile march for the Persians from the Roman border fortress of Theodosiopolis (modern Erzurum) to Satala (Sadak). . The Persians would have had to detach considerable numbers of troops from the main army to secure their lines of communications and surround the Roman garrison at Theodosiopolis.

Eastern Roman Army Re-enactors

By Procopius of Caesarea
(500 to 560AD)

Editor -  Procopius is wonderful to read.  He gives us huge amounts of detail and first person accounts to events that were not seen by historians again for centuries. In the case of Satala, Procopius was not there.  I have reprinted his account because it does provide a certain amount of information.  But it is obvious by the lack of detail that Procopius is reporting to us events that were told to him by others.

Little remains of Satala. Here is a small portion of their ancient Roman aqueduct.

The "Eternal Peace"

After six years of combat the Iberian war was basically a draw.  The Romans had won the Battles of Dara and Satala, but Persian losses were so high in the Battle of Callinicum it was effectively a Pyrrhic victory.  After Callinicum the Romans captured some forts in Armenia, and effectively repulsed a Persian offensive.

Justinian's envoy, Hermogenes, visited Kavadh immediately after the Battle of Callinicum to re-open negotiations but without success. Justinian therefore took steps to bolster the Roman position, trying, at the same time, to engage Kavadh diplomatically. Kavadh died shortly afterwards, and in spring 532 new negotiations began between the Roman envoys and the new Persian king, Khosrau I, who needed to devote his attention to secure his own position. 

The two sides finally came to an agreement, and the Eternal Peace, which lasted less than eight years, was signed in September 532. Both sides agreed to return all occupied territories and the Romans to make a one-off payment of 110 centenaria (11,000 pounds of gold). 

The Romans recovered the Lazic forts, Iberia remained in Persian hands, but the Iberians who had left their country were allowed to remain in Roman territory or to return to their native land.

The Iberian War had ended.  But in only eight years yet another new Roman-Persian war broke out in Lazica.


(Procopius - History of the Wars Book I XV)      (Sittas)      (Livius.org - Satala)

(Mavors.org)      (Iberian War)      (Satala-530)

The Eastern Roman and Persian Empires

Anatolia remains one of the most important territories of the Byzantine Empire during this period. Eastern Anatolia becomes increasingly militarized in the 600s due to Persian and Arab invasions. The Iconoclastic controversy affects all the empire, including this region, until around 850, when Byzantium restors economic prosperity and military security. 

During this period, the Armenians and Georgians established themselves as relatively independent Christian states on the empire's eastern frontier. In Anatolia, Byzantine art and architecture flourishes, particularly in the sixth-century cities along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts—including Ephesus, Sardis, and Aphrodisias—and in the region of Cappadocia, notable for its medieval, rock-cut structures.





The "Antioch Chalice," first half of 6th century
Byzantine; Made in Antioch or Kaper Koraon (?)
Silver, silver–gilt; 7 1/2 x 5 7/8 in. (19 x 15 cm)
The Cloisters Collection, 1950 (50.4)


When it was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, this "chalice" was claimed to have been found in Antioch, a city so important to the early Christians that it was recognized with Rome and Alexandria as one of the great sees of the church. 

The chalice's plain silver interior bowl was then ambitiously identified as the Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. The elaborate footed shell enclosing it was thought to have been made within a century after the death of Christ to encase and honor the Grail. The fruited grapevine forming the rinceau pattern of the gilded shell is inhabited by birds, including an eagle; animals, including a lamb and a rabbit; and twelve human figures holding scrolls and seated in high-backed chairs. Two of the figures are thought to be images of Christ. 

The other ten figures have been variously identified as ten of the twelve apostles, or philosophers of the classical age, who, like the prophets of the Old Testament, had foretold the coming of Christ. The sixth-century chronicler Malalas of Antioch was among those who sought to make such links between Christianity and classical philosophy.



Pair of Jeweled Bracelets, 500–700
Byzantine; Probably made in Constantinople
Gold, silver, pearl, amethyst, sapphire, glass, quartz, and emerald plasma; Diam. 3 1/4 in. (8.2 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.1670, 1671)

These elaborately decorated bracelets have richly jeweled exteriors and finely detailed opus interassile (openwork) patterns on their interiors. The luminous beauty of pearls was highly prized in the Byzantine world. These bracelets are only two of thirty-four pieces of gold jewelry from Egypt said to have been found near Lycopolis (now Assiut) or Antinoopolis (Antinoe, now Sheik Ibada) in Egypt at the turn of the century. 

Whether discovered together, or later assembled, they represent the standard of luxury common among the elite in Egypt during the period of Byzantine rule and the close connections between the wealthy province and the capital in Constantinople. Multicolored, or polychrome, jewelry was very popular in the Early Byzantine world.




Portrait Bust of a Woman with a Scroll, late 4th–early 5th century
Early Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire)
Marble; H. 20 7/8 in. (53 cm)
The Cloisters Collection, 1966 (66.25)


This superbly carved portrait bust presents a pensive woman with a compelling gaze. She holds a scroll, the symbol of an educated person. 

The delicate, sensitive carving and the highly polished finish suggest that it was carved in Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine empire, perhaps as the funerary monument of a leading member of the imperial aristocracy. Her long fingers draw attention to the scroll in her hand, indicating her pride in being recognized as among the educated elite in an era that prized learning for both men and women.




Icon with the Deesis, mid–900s
Byzantine; Probably made in Constantinople
Ivory; 6 1/8 x 5 1/8 in. (15.6 x 13 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.133)


In the Deesis, Christ appears in glory between the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. Traditionally the first witnesses to Christ's divinity, the Virgin and Saint John came to be seen as intercessors with Christ on behalf of humanity. 

This plaque was probably the central panel of a triptych, a deluxe portable icon for personal devotion. Later, in western Europe, the panel may have been used as a cover for a gospel book.






Solidus of Justinian I (r. 527–565), 538–565
Byzantine; Minted in Constantinople
Gold; Diam. 3/4 in. (1.9 cm)
Bequest of Joseph H. Durkee, 1898 (99.35.7406)



Coins connected an emperor to his subjects. Through inscriptions and images, they conveyed imperial ideals and commemorated auspicious events. The emperor paid the army and received taxes in coins, and he was responsible for maintaining their weight and purity. 

This coin was minted under Justinian, whose preference for a completely frontal portrait—rather than the traditional profile—would set a standard for the rest of Byzantine history.



Caftan, 8th–10th century
Caucasus Mountain regions
Silk, linen, and fur; Coat: H. 56 in. (142.2 cm), W. 60 in. (152.4 cm); Leggings: H. 32 in. (81.3 cm)
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1996 (1996.78.1)

The original linen coat (caftan), preserved in part from the neck to the bottom of the hem, is made of finely woven linen. A decorative strip of large-patterned silk is sewn along the exterior and interior edges of the caftan. A minute fragment of lambskin preserved as the caftan's interior attests to its fur lining. 

The woven patterns on the silk borders of the caftan include motifs such as the rosettes and stylized animal patterns enclosed within beaded roundels, which were widespread in Iranian and Central Asian textiles of the sixth to ninth century. 

The colors used in the textile include a now-faded dark blue, yellow, red, and white on a dark brown ground. The decorated silk fabrics are a compound twill weave (samit in modern classification) and the body of the garment is plain-weave linen. Two slits running up the back of the caftan make it particularly suitable as a riding costume.

See more at
Met Museum.org

Roman Infantry (Roman-Empire.net)

Lajjun reconstruction. Reproduced from: Campbell DB, Roman Roman Legionary fortresses 27 BC - AD 378. Fortress Series 43. Osprey Military Publishing, 2007. P. 63.

Legio - Camp of the 6th Roman Legion

Lajjun was established after the Bar Kochba Revolt—a Jewish uprising against the Romans—had been suppressed in 135 CE. 

The Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered a second Roman legion, Legio VI Ferrata, ("Ironclad"), to be stationed in the north of the country to guard the Wadi Ara region, a crucial line of communication between the coastal plain of Judea and the Jezreel Valley. 

The place where it established its camp was known as Legio. 

Then in the 3rd century CE, when the army was removed, Legio became a city and its name was augmented with the adjectival Maximianopolis.

The site of Legio (el-lajjun) is a vital geographical position making it a strategic crossroads for coastal, valley and hill country trade as well as the movement of troops from Egypt to Mesopotamia.

From the first to the seventh centuries the area was controlled by the Roman Empire.

Historical records show three settlements:  the Jewish village of Kefer Othnay, the Roman Sixth Legion Ferrata and the Roman-Byzantine city of Maximianopolis.

Research has discovered a Roman-Byzantine theater and fragments of Roman aqueducts.

Teams have been excavating Legio. Over the course of only ten full excavation days, with the assistance of American and European students working side-by-side with members of local youth and community service groups, the team dug test trenches measuring approximately 295 feet by 16.5 feet that revealed clear evidence of the camp. 

At the north end of this line, was found that the depressions evident in aerial photography were in fact part of a Roman camp’s typical defensive trenching earthworks, the fosse. Next to this 6.5-foot-deep ditch was the foundation of a great wall nearly 20 feet wide, evidently the main circumvallation rampart of the camp. 

Inside of that wall in the remaining 230 feet of test trenches, the team exposed rooms likely belonging to one of the barracks areas of the camp. Much of the architectural remains had long been stripped away, but within the rooms were numerous ceramic roof tiles with the legion’s mark, coins, fragments of scale armor, lead ingots and a stone table leg sculpted with the three-dimensional visage of a panther. Near the southern extent of our excavation, the putative barracks were bounded by a wide street carved in bedrock and flanked by drainage channels. 

Crossing the camp at about one-third of the length of the north-south walls, as estimated via aerial photography, this important street was probably the camp’s Via Principalis, “Main Street,” a typical feature of such castra. Considering the regular structure of Roman camps, the Porta Principalis Dextra, the main eastern gate of the camp, should lie just outside of our excavation area.

A Reflectance Transformation Image scan (RTI) in the center shows the legion's insignia.

The degree to which the fort was manned in the later period is not known. Palestine was considered a quiet sector with many Roman troops removed and frontier defenses largely given over to the allied Ghassanid Christian Arabs.

Even with the Ghassanids patrolling the frontier there would have been regular army Roman troops stationed in Palestine and units passing through to Egypt or to Mesopotamia.  Lajjun and the other limes fortresses, if not permanently manned, would have been used on and off for temporary shelter or as a local strong point for police actions. 

Information on the Roman legions and other units stationed in the area is also minimal.  

The area was conquered by the Arab Muslims under Caliph Umar in the 7th century: the Legio III Cyrenaica was destroyed defending Bosra in 630, ending the Roman presence in Arabia.

According to some Muslim historians, the site of the 634 AD Battle of Ajnadayn fought between the army of the Rashidun Caliphate under generals Khaled ibn al-Walid and Amr ibn al-'As, and the Byzantine Empire in 634 CE was at Lajjun. 

Following the Muslim Arab victory, Lajjun, along with most of Palestine, and southern Syria were incorporated into the Caliphate. According to 9th-century Persian geographer Estakhri, Lajjun was the northernmost town in Jund Filastin (District of Palestine). Arab geographer Ibn Hawqalsupports this claim in 977.

The Crusades

When the Crusaders invaded and conquered the Levant from the Fatimids in 1099, al-Lajjun's Roman name was restored and the town formed a part of the lordship of Caesarea. During this time, Christian settlement in Legio grew significantly. 

John of Ibelin records that the community "owed the service of 100 sergeants". Bernard, the archbishop of Nazareth granted some of the tithes of Legio to the hospital of the monastery of St. Mary in 1115, then in 1121, he extended the grant to include all of Legio, including its church as well as the nearby village of Ti'inik. 

By 1147, the de Lyon family controlled Legio, but by 1168, the town was held by Payen, the lord of Haifa. Legio had markets, a town oven and held other economic activities during this era. In 1182, the Ayyubids raided Legio, and in 1187, it was captured by them under the leadership of Saladin's nephew Husam ad-Din 'Amr and consequently its Arabic name was restored.

Lajjun Fortress Two hypothetical reconstructions of the legion camp based on ground penetrating radar.  The smaller option appears in white.  The larger option extends out in black. (Jezrel Valley Regional Project)

Map showing the location of Legio in the Jezreel Valley (Israel).  Hilly/mountainous regions in grey.

Aerial photo of Legio/Lajjun

Cut away of a Roman fortress wall.

In AD 106 the Romans under Emperor Trajan achieved control of the region east of the Jordan River, which was previously ruled by the Nabataeans. Until then, the Nabataean kingdom had provided a buffer between the Roman Empire and the threat of enemies to the east. Historians do not know how and why the Romans took direct control. Perhaps the lack of a legitimate successor to the deceased Nabataean king resulted in a power vacuum. The Romans annexed the area and called it Provincia Arabia. It was governed by a senatorial legate appointed by the emperor, and its capital was Bostra (or Bosra) in southern Syria.

(Academia.edu)      (Lajjun)      (Legionary Fortresses)      (Legio III Cyrenaica)

(Biblical Archaeology)      (Romans in Arabia)      (Livius.org)

(xlegio.ru)      (Ancient worlds)      (Limes Arabicus)

Angevin knight, miniature, 15th century.  (Getty)

Eastern Roman Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1259–1282) recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261.  Though the Roman Empire was now restored it faced constant threats of a Latin Crusade to recover the city.

The antagonistic Greek Despotate of Epirus and the Latin states of southern Greece, fearful of the Byzantine resurgence, sought aid from the Kingdom of Sicily, under the ambitious Charles of Anjou (r. 1266–1285).

Charles I King of Sicily, Naples, and Albania; Prince of Achaea

In 1258, the Sicilians took possession of the island of Corfu and the Albanian coast,
from Dyrrhachium to Valona and Buthrotum and as far inland as Berat. This gave Manfred a strategically vital beachhead in the Balkans, controlling the western terminus of the great Via Egnatia, the main overland route to Constantinople.

Michael VIII countered the emerging threat by a diplomatic mission to the Papacy, which in the Second Council of Lyon (1274) agreed to the union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches, estranged after the Great Schism of 1054, and thereby placed Michael and his empire under papal protection. 

Taking advantage of Charles's entanglement in Italian conflicts, in spring 1274 Michael launched an attack against Angevin holdings in Albania. Berat and Buthrotum were taken and Charles's troops were pushed back from the hinterland to the two ports of Valona and Dyrrhachium. Although these were assaulted several times in 1274–1275, they remained in Angevin hands.

By 1279 however, Charles had established his control not only over the Latin states of Greece (after 1278 he was the Prince of Achaea), but also received the submission and vassalage of Nikephoros I, Despot of Epirus. 

In August 1279, in preparation for resuming his offensive against Michael along the Via Egnatia, Charles appointed as his vicar-general in Albania the Burgundian Hugo de Sully. Over the next year, Sully received a steady flow of supplies, siege equipment and reinforcements.

The Angevin Kingdom of Sicily fought with the Byzantines for control of Greece and the Balkans.

Berat Castle After being burned down by the Romans in 200 B.C., the walls were strengthened in the fifth century under Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II, and were rebuilt during the 6th century under the Emperor Justinian I and again in the 13th century under the Despot of Epirus, Michael I Komnenos Doukas, cousin of the Byzantine Emperor.

The forces of the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily faced a tough siege.  Berat Castle is high on a hilltop overlooking the countryside.  Angevin troops would have to attack up hill against well entrenched and protected Byzantine troops while facing an unfriendly population around their positions.

The Siege


Aftermath

The victory at Berat represented Michael VIII's greatest success in battle over the Latins since the Battle of Pelagonia 20 years earlier. 

The many prisoners, including Sully, were taken to Constantinople, where they were publicly paraded in a triumph celebrated by the exultant emperor, who further ordered frescoes depicting scenes from the campaign painted in his palace. 

In the aftermath of their victory at Berat, theimperial troops restored their control over Albania, except the two Angevin strongholds of Dyrrhachium and Valona. The defeat ended Charles's designs of an overland assault on Byzantium, but the Angevin ruler now redoubled his efforts, aiming to launch a seaborne invasion of the Empire with Venetian aid. This he secured with the Treaty of Orvieto in 1281. 

The Papacy also, after the election of the pro-Angevin Martin IV, finally sanctioned his plans, excommunicating Michael Palaiologos and ending the Union of the Churches. Michael VIII countered this with an alliance with Peter III of Aragon (r. 1276–1285), and with his support to various anti-Angevin forces in Italy. Just as Charles was ready to launch his attack, an uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers broke out on March 30, 1282. The subsequent wars, in large part the result of Michael's diplomatic efforts, ended the threat of Charles on Byzantium.


























(Books.google)      (Siege of Berat)      (Cerco de Berat (1280-1281)

(Eupedia)

New Varangian Guard at the Abbey Medieval Festival 2012

(G. Kyvelos translated by S. Skarmintzos)

Varangian's Homecoming by Zorm

Read more at Stefanos Skarmintzos.wordpress.com

2012 Festival Images of the New Varangian Guard. . The Varangian Guard (Greek: Τάγμα των Βαράγγων, Tágma tōn Varángōn) was an elite unit of the Byzantine Army, from the 10th to the 14th centuries, whose members served as personal bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperors. They are known for being primarily composed of Germanic peoples, specifically, Scandinavians (the Guard was formed approximately 200 years into the Viking age) and Anglo-Saxons from England (particularly after the Norman Invasion). . .Composed primarily of Norsemen and Rus for the first 100 years, the guard began to see increased inclusion of Anglo-Saxons after the successful invasion of England by the Normans. By the time of the Emperor Alexios Komnenos in the late 11th century, the Byzantine Varangian Guard was largely recruited from Anglo-Saxons and "others who had suffered at the hands of the Vikings and their cousins the Normans". .  .The Varangian Guard not only provided security for the Byzantine Emperors, but also participated in many wars, often playing a decisive role, since they were usually used at critical moments of a battle. By the late 13th century Varangians were mostly ethnically assimilated by Byzantine Greeks, though the guard operated until at least mid-14th century. In 1400 there were still some people identifying themselves as "Varangians" in Constantinople. . (Varangian Guard)

Kanine Castle is near the Bay of Vlorë, an inlet on the Adriatic Sea.

For the generals and Emperor in Constantinople, just waking up in the morning must have been a nightmare.

Trying to defend the Eastern Roman Empire must have been a frightening job.  The borders were unbelievable long stretching from Morocco and Spain to the Alps to the Danube out to the Crimean Peninsula to the Caucasus Mountains, Mesopotamia down to Egypt and the Sahara.  It was not unusual for the Roman military to be fighting wars on three continents at the same time.

The frontiers of the Empire would have been dotted by an endless series of major and minor fortifications.

The manpower required to staff all of these posts stretched the army to a breaking point.

Kanine Castle

While browsing the net I accidentally ran across Kanine.

There is absolutely no reason to feature this castle.  It is like a joke historical marker that says, "Nothing happened on this spot." But I like a challenge.

The Empire was dotted with endless anonymous outposts.  Officers and troopers were assigned the thankless tasks of keeping order at remote locations far from any real civilization.

Kanine would have been one of those remote posts.  Until the Norman invasions in the 11th and 12th centuries not too much happened in the province.  All the barbarian invasion action would have been further east on the Danube River frontier.

Still, the fort would have been important for keeping order among the local population and defend the coast from any raids by pirates.

The Theme of Dyrrhachium The Castle of Kanine was located in the Theme of Dyrrhachium.  This was a Byzantine military-civilian province (theme) located in modern Albania, covering the Adriatic coast of the country. It was established in the early 9th century and named after its capital, Dyrrhachium.

.
History

The castle is believed to have been erected in the 3rd century B.C. In the 4th century B.C. the castle was transformed into a fortress town.  It would have served as a military post for both a united Roman Empire as well as for the Eastern Empire.

Kanine Castle was built in the village with the same name which is about 6 km from Vlorë. The castle rises on the side of the Shushica Mountain, about 380 meters above the sea level. The castle was built on the site of an ancient settlement, one of the oldest in the Vlorë region. 

Kaninë Castle, Albania

Kanine Castle, Albania

• The Castle of Kanine was one of the many fortifications built or re-built by the Emperor Justinian (r. 527 - 565) to protect the Roman peoples of the Balkans from barbarian invasions.  Below are a few selections by the historian Procopius about the fortification project.

By Procopius of Caesarea
The Buildings of Justinian

For it has as neighbours nations of Huns and of Goths, and the regions of Taurus and of Scythia rise up again it, as well as the haunts of the Sclaveni and of sundry other tribes — whether they are called by the writers of the most ancient history Hamaxibian or Metanastic Sauromatae, and whatever other wild race of men really either roams about or leads a settled life in that region. 

And in his determination to resist these barbarians who were endlessly making war, the Emperor Justinian, who did not take the matter lightly, was obliged to throw innumerable fortresses about the country, to assign to them untold garrisons of troops, and to set up all other possible obstacles to an enemy who attacked without warning and who permitted no intercourse.  

Emperor Justinian I

Indeed it was the custom of these peoples to rise and make war upon their enemies for no particular cause, and to open hostilities without sending an embassy, and they did not bring their struggles to an end through any treaty or cease operations for any specified 
period, but they made their attacks without provocation and reached a decision by the sword alone. 


(Procopius - Buildings)

The Roman Empire in 1340 The civil war of 1341 proved a critical turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire.  After the end of the second civil war, Byzantium was an empire in name only.

(Vlorë, Albania)      (Kanine Castle)      (Principality of Valona)

(Civil war of 1341)      (Dyrrhachium Theme)   

Arab Warrior

The Roman Period

The Island of Cyprus became a Roman province in 58 BCE. This came about, according to Strabo, because Publius Clodius Pulcher held a grudge against Ptolemy of Cyprus. 

The renowned Stoic and strict constitutionalist Cato the Younger was sent to annex Cyprus and organize it under Roman law. Cato was relentless in protecting Cyprus against the rapacious tax farmers that normally plagued the provinces of the Republican period. 

After the civil wars that ended the Roman Republic, Mark Antony gave the island to Cleopatra VII of Egypt and their daughter Cleopatra Selene, but it became a Roman province again after his defeat at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. 

From 22 BCE onwards, Cyprus was a senatorial province "divided into four districts centred around Paphus, Salamis, Amathus and Lapethus. After the reforms of Diocletian it was placed under the Diocese of Oriens.

The Pax Romana was only twice disturbed in Cyprus in three centuries of Roman occupation. The first serious interruption occurred in 115–16, when a revolt by Jews inspired by Messianic hopes broke out.  Turmoil sprang up two centuries later in 333–4, when the magister pecoris camelorum Calocaerus revolted against Constantine I. 

The Eastern Roman Period

The Roman Ruins at Salamis, Cyprus

Byzantine Fortifications Paphos Castle is located on the edge of Paphos harbor.  It was orginally built as a Byzantine fort to protect the harbor.  It was rebuilt in the 13th century after being destroy in the earthquake of 1222.  In 1570 it was dismantled by the Venentians and later restored and strengthened by the Ottomans.  (Paphos Castle).

The Arab Conquest

For 700 years in the east the Romans had fought against the organized conventional armies of the Persian Empire.

The final great contest between Rome and Persian lasted from 602 to 628 AD.  The Romans were victorious but both empires were shattered politically and economically.

Because of the endless warfare in the east, Persians were always on the minds of Rome.  The Arabs, if they were thought of at all, were considered bandits and raiders.

In September of 629 the newly created Muslim armies of Arabia first appeared in battle against Rome just to the east of the Jordan River.

In 632 Saint Maximos the Confessor wrote a contemporary reference to the barbarian ravages on the frontier that must have been about the Arabs:



From 629 to 637 saw the Muslim Arab conquest of Palaestina Prima and Syria.  Egypt fell in the 640s.  In 647 the Muslims started their march across Byzantine North Africa to Carthage.

These were huge changes to the Empire in a short 20 year span of time.

During this time frame in 650 AD the Arabs made the first attack on the island of Cyprus under the leadership of Muawiyah I with a fleet out of Alexandria, Egypt.

The Arabs conquered the capital Salamis - Constantia after a brief siege, but drafted a treaty with the local rulers. In the course of this expedition a relative of the Prophet, Umm-Haram fell from her mule near the Salt Lake at Larnaca and was killed. She was buried in that spot and the Hala Sultan Tekke was built there. 

After apprehending a breach of the treaty, the Arabs re-invaded the island in 654 AD with five hundred ships. This time, however, a garrison of 12,000 men was left in Cyprus, bringing the island under Muslim influence.

In 688, the emperor Justinian II and the caliph Abd al-Malik reached an unprecedented agreement. The Arabs evacuated the island, and for the next 300 years, Cyprus was ruled jointly by both the Caliphate and the Byzantines as a condominium, despite the nearly constant warfare between the two parties on the mainland. The collected taxes were divided among the Arabs and the Emperor.

Under Basil I the Macedonian (r. 867–886) Byzantine troops recaptured Cyprus, which was established as a theme, but after seven years the island reverted to the previous status quo. 

Once again, in 911, the Cypriots helped a Byzantine fleet under admiral Himerios, and in retaliation the Arabs under Damian of Tarsus ravaged the island for four months and carried off many captives. The isolation of Cyprus from the rest of the Greek-speaking world assisted the formation of a separate Cypriot dialect. This period of Arab influence lasted until the 10th century.

AUB Discovers Byzantine Cyprus

Byzantine frescoes in Asinou Church, Nikitari, Cyprus.

Byzantine Fortress of Kyrenia . The Byzantines built the original Cyprus castle in the 7th Century to guard the city against the new Arab maritime threat. The first historical reference to the castle occurs in 1191, when King Richard the Lionheart of England captured it on his way to the Third Crusade.  The current version of Kyrenia is a 16th-century castle built by the Venetians over a previous Crusader fortification.  (Kyrenia Castle)

(cucy.soc.srcf.net)      (Deremilitari.org)      (san.beck.org)

(books.google.com)      (books.google.com)      (academia.edu)

(Cyprus in the Middle Ages)      (Ancient history of Cyprus)      (Muslim conquests)

The charred grape seeds. (Photo: University of Haifa)

Byzantine art - Noah drinking wine among the vines, detail from the Story of Noah.

Byzantine depiction of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.

(Breaking Israel News)

1,500-year-old Byzantine wine press k The Israel Antiquities Authority made the discovery during an excavation at the site, near Kiyrat Gat in southern Israel. Archaeologists believe the owner of the winepress was a Christian because of the rare find of a complete ceramic model of a church. . A Byzantine community about 1,500 years old with a large wine press was discovered a few weeks ago by the Israel Antiquities Authority near Kiryat Gat. Remains of the site, where the 100-square-meter wine press and a miniature ceramic model of a church building have been unearthed, will be displayed at an events hall to be built at the location. . The IAA made the discovery during an excavation at the site, near the Hamei Yoav hot springs, between the Beit Guvrin national park and Ashkelon. Archaeologists believe the owner of the wine press was a Christian because of the rare find of a complete ceramic model of a church, which had an opening through which an oil lamp could be inserted so the model could be used as a lantern. . The finds include the wine press’s mosaic treading floor with a cavity into which a screw was inserted, used to press the grapes. Three collection vats were found to which the juice flows, as well as compartments to hold the grapes while they fermented. . “Ashkelon was a seaside commercial city through which wine was exported from the Land of Israel to the entire Mediterranean basin,” said Sa’ar Ganor, the IAA’s archaeologist for the Ashkelon district, adding that the newly discovered winepress would have served this commerce. . IAA Southern District archaeologist Yigal Israel said: “The finds enrich our knowledge of the material culture of the people of the Byzantine period. This was an industrial wine press on the road to Ashkelon; we have wine presses all along the road to Ashkelon and this shows us how the wine industry flourished in this area.”   (Haaretz.com)

Ceramic model of a church oil lamp found at the site.

Bulgarian Warrior Reenactor

In 629 AD the Eastern Roman Empire has reached perhaps the peak of its power.  The ancient enemy of Rome, the Persian Empire, had been totally crushed and Roman rule was restored from the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates River.

It was not to last.  The year 629 saw the first invasions of militant Jihadist Arab armies that ultimately conquered the Roman Middle East, North Africa and besieged Constantinople itself.

While the Arabs were pressing Roman forces in the south, in 681 AD a new pagan enemy appeared - The Bulgarians.

Though Roman armies managed to win a number of victories, the Bulgarians steadily pressed beyond the Danube River frontier deeper and deeper into Roman territory.

The Bulgarians won a great victory over the Romans at the Battle of Pliska in 811.  The Roman Emperor Nikephoros I led the army into battle.  During Nikephoros' retreat, the Byzantine army was ambushed and destroyed in the mountain passes by Bulgarian Khan Krum. Nikephoros was killed in the battle, the second Eastern Emperor to suffer this fate since Valens in the Battle of Adrianople (August 9, 378). Krum is said to have made a drinking-cup of Nikephoros' skull.

The Bulgarian Kahn Krum is said to have made a drinking cup out of the skull of Roman Emperor Nikephoros.

The Emperor is dead, long live . . . somebody?!?

Controlled anarchy.  That is as good a description as any of the Byzantine system of government.  Rule by thuggery if you will.  If you had enough troops then you too could be Emperor.  Watching your back was a full time occupation.

In the time period we are addressing, Byzantium had four Emperors in three years.  Paranoia in the ruling class would have been on hyperdrive.

• (811 died) Nikephoros I, who became a drinking cup, was killed with almost his entire army a the Battle of Pliska.
• (811) Nikephoros' son, Staurakios, served as Emperor for an entire two months.  Staurakios has been paralyzed by a sword wound near his neck at Pliska and was saved by the Imperial guard which retreated from the battlefield towards the safety of Adrianople.  There was also a popular rumor that Staurakios planned to abolish the Empire and re-establish a republic.  In any case, Staurakios retired to a monastery where he died from the effects of his wound on January 11, 812.
• (811 - 813) Michael I Rangabe survived Nikephoros' disastrous campaign against Krum of Bulgaria, and was considered a more appropriate candidate for the throne than his severely injured brother-in-law Staurakios.  Michael went on to be defeated at the Battle of Versinikia.
• (813) Leo V the Armenian assumed the throne. He ended the decade-long war with the Bulgars.

Emperor Michael I Rhangabe

Bulgarian Warrior Reenactor

The Growing Bulgarian Empire The Eastern Romans did not have enough on their hands with the Muslim Arab invasions of the Middle East, Africa and two massive sieges of Constantinople itself.  Staring in 681 AD the pagan Bulgarian tribes appeared on the norther Danube frontier and aggressively pushed deeper and deeper into Roman territory.

Bulgarian armies were marching up to the gates of Constantinople itself.

Preparations for Battle

The 811 Battle of Pliska was one of the worst defeats in Byzantine history.  An huge army of perhaps 60,000 troops has been gathered for the attack on the Bulgarians.  Based on past Byzantine campaigns I think that the number of troops is too high.  But virtually the entire royal family joined in on the march so maybe the number is not inflated too much.

More important is virtually the entire Byzantine army was slaughtered.  That massive defeat deterred Byzantine rulers from sending their troops north of the Balkans for more than 150 years afterwards, which increased the influence and spread of the Bulgarians to the west and south of the Balkan Peninsula, resulting in a great territorial enlargement of the First Bulgarian Empire.

Despite the loss of land and soldiers to the Bulgars, the Byzantines were unwilling to settle peace. During the winter of 812 - 813 Khan Krum started intense preparations for an attack against Byzantium and Michael I was preparing for defense. In February 813 Bulgarian forces made several investigation raids in Thrace but quickly pulled back after several clashes with the Byzantines. The retreat was considered by the Byzantine Emperor as a victory "according to God's providence" and encouraged him to counter-attack.

The Byzantines again summoned an enormous army gathered from all themes of their Empire including the guards of the Syrian passes.  These kleisourai from Syria were called Lykoanians, Cilicians, Isuarians, Cappadocians and Galatians.

The battle of Versinikia from the 14th century Bulgarian  copy of the Manasses Chronicle.

That the Emperor had to strip troops from the far away Syrian front is not good.  On the plus side, the Arab Caliphate was in the middle of a civil war.  In 812 Baghdad was being besieged by one Arab faction allowing the Emperor to transfer large thematic contingents from Asia Minor to the Balkans.  The levy of troops from the themes included recent recruits.  They were ordered to march into Thrace before spring.  

The Byzantines had some recent successes against the Arabs. It was hoped that the higher morale among the Asian troops would swing the psychological advantage back to the Byzantines.

Whatever morale advantage the Asian troops brought might have been offset by being so far away from home and all the tales being told of the 811 slaughter of the Byzantine army.  Add in that many of these soldiers were part-time.  They would have been worried about missing the spring crop planting season back home.

It was reported that the Armeniacs and the Cappadocians openly expressed their resentments to the Emperor.

The Emperor pulling troops from far away sounds like a thoughtless campaign of revenge or panic or both.  The new Emperor may have felt the political need to prove himself to the ruling class and military or risk being murdered and replaced by someone willing to fight.

As it is there was unrest in the army, and the campaign was delayed. But the troops finally set off from Constantinople in May. The departure was a celebration and the population of the city including the Empress accompanied the troops outside the city wall. They even gave presents to the military commanders and invoked them to guard the Emperor and fight for the Christians.

The fact that "presents" were given to the commanders to do what they were supposed to be doing anyway says a lot about the political situation. 

Byzantine infantry reenactor

The Battle

Bulgarian Cavalry Reenactors

The Aftermath

The defeat sealed the fate of Emperor Michael I Rangabe.

With conspiracy in the air, Michael preempted events by abdicating in favor of the general Leo the Armenian and becoming a monk (under the name Athanasios). His sons were castrated and relegated into monasteries, one of them, Niketas (renamed Ignatios), eventually becoming Patriarch of Constantinople. Michael died peacefully on 11 January 844.

The victory at Versinikia further worsened the grim situation of Byzantium and gave the Bulgarian Khan an opportunity to launch attacks in the vicinity of Constantinople itself.

The way to Constantionople was clear and the Bulgarian army headed straight to the city without facing any resistance. There were still several fortresses in Thrace which remained in Byzantine hands, particularly Adrianople which was besieged by Krum's brother. 

On 17 July 813 Krum himself reached the walls of Constantinople and set his camp without hindrance. Within the sight of the citizens of Constantinople, Krum who was also the high priest made a sacrifice to the Bulgar god Tangra, performed some pagan rituals, then the Bulgarians built trenches along the whole length of the city's walls and then suddenly Krum offered peace.

Leo V agreed to negotiations but he intended to treacherously kill Khan Krum and eliminate the threat over the Byzantine Empire. During the negotiations, the Byzantines fired arrows on the Bulgarian delegation killing some of them, including the kavkhan or other high official, but Krum himself remained intact.

Infuriated by the treachery of the Byzantines, Krum ordered all churches, monasteries and palaces outside Constantinople to be destroyed, the captured Byzantines were slain and the riches from the palaces were sent to Bulgaria on carts. After that all enemy fortresses in the surroundings of Constantinople and Marmara Sea were seized and razed to the ground. The castles and settlements in the interior of Eastern Thrace were looted and the whole region devastated. Then Krum returned to Adrianople and strengthened the besieging forces. With the help of mangonels and battering rams he forced the city to surrender. 

The Bulgarians captured 10,000 people who were resettled in Bulgaria across the Danube. Further 50,000 from other settlements in Thrace were deported there. During the winter Krum returned to Bulgaria and launched serious preparation for the final assault on Constantinople. The siege machines had to be transported to Constantinople by 5,000 iron-covered carts hauled by 10,000 oxen. However, he died during the height of the preparations on 13 April 814.

Bulgarian Warrior Reenactors (Screenshot HunHorda)

(youtube.com)        (Byzantium and Bulgaria, 775-831 By Panos Sophoulis)

(Warfare, State And Society In The Byzantine World 560-1204 By John Haldon)

(THE GRAND STRATEGY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE By Edward Luttwak)

(Battle of Versinikia)        (Battle_of_Versinikia)

Mangup Kale  -  Byzantine Fortress in the Crimea and is  located on a plateau about 9 miles due east of Sevastopol (ancient Chersones).

The Roman Theme System

Crimea in the "Regnum Bosporanum" during Roman Emperor Trajan's conquests (98 to 117 AD).

Greek and Roman Crimea

Greek city-states began establishing colonies along the Black Sea coast of Crimea in the 7th or 6th century BC.  In the 5th century BC, Dorians from Heraclea Pontica founded the sea port of Chersonesos (in modern Sevastopol).

During the AD 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries, Taurica was host to Roman legions and colonists in Charax, Crimea. The Charax colony was founded under Vespasian with the intention of protecting Chersonesos and other Bosporean trade emporiums from the Scythians. 

The Roman colony was protected by a vexillatio of the Legio I Italica; it also hosted a detachment of the Legio XI Claudia at the end of the 2nd century. The camp was abandoned by the Romans in the mid-3rd century. This de facto province would have been controlled by the legatus of one of the Legions stationed in Charax.

Military Theme of Cherson in Crimea In order to implement its policy in the northern Black Sea, Byzantium relied on maintaining control over Cherson and other regions along the southeastern coast of the Crimea, from which it kept an eye on developments and moves by potential enemies in the steppe of south Russia. Therefore, the Crimea was the key in a Byzantine early-warning system on the empire’s northern frontier.

Byzantine Crimea

In the 6th century the Eastern Roman Empire again took control of the region under Justinian I.

In the 6th century, probably at the end of the reign of Justinian I, the status of Roman Crimea changed. Taurica became the Province of Chersonesos, which also included Bosporos and the southern coast of Crimea.

This enlargement of Byzantine Taurica resulted in the elevation of the ranks of its governors. In the second half of the 6th century, the military and civil authorities in the region were entrusted to the military deputy, "doux Chersonos".

The city of Chersonnesos was used by the Romans as a place of banishment: St. Clement of Rome was exiled there and first preached to Gospel. Another exile was Justinian II, who is said to have destroyed the city in revenge.

Most of Roman Crimea fell under Khazar overlordship in the late 7th century.

Emperor Theophilus, in the Chronicle of John Skylitzes. Theophilus reestablished Roman rule in Crimea.

Byzantine authority was re-established by Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842), who displayed interest in the northern littoral of the Black Sea and especially his relations with the Khazars.

Petronas Kamateros is credited as the theme's first governor (strategos) in 840/1. The new province was at first called ta Klimata, "the regions/districts", but due to the prominence of the capital Cherson, by ca. 860 it was known even in official documents as the "Theme of Cherson".

The province played an important role in Byzantine relations with the Khazars and later, after the Khazar Khaganate's collapse, with the Pechenegs and the Rus'. It was a center for Byzantine diplomacy rather than military activity, since the military establishment in the theme seems to have been small and to have chiefly consisted of a locally-raised militia. Its weakness is underlined by the stipulation, in the Byzantine treaties with the Rus' of 945 and 971, of the latter's undertaking to defend it against the Volga Bulgars.

Cherson prospered greatly during the 9th–11th centuries as a centre of Black Sea commerce, despite the city's destruction by Vladimir of Kiev in 988/9. The city recovered quickly: the city's fortifications were restored and extended to the harbour in the early 11th century. At the same time, possibly after the defeat of Georgius Tzul in 1016, the theme was extended over the eastern Crimea as well, as evidenced by the styling of a certain Leo Aliates as "strategos of Cherson and Sougdaia" in 1059. The region however was lost again in the late 11th century to the Cumans. Almost nothing is known of Cherson in the 12th century, pointing to a rather tranquil period. 

Cherson and its province remained under Byzantine control until the dissolution of the Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when they passed under the sovereignty of the breakaway Empire of Trebizond (see Perateia).

Later in 1204, Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade and Cherson passed to the Byzantine successor state of Trebizond. But Cherson was allowed to become more and more distant from Byzantium because of Turkish pirates and the long distance of the sea. The other threat to the rule of Byzantium in the Crimea was the Genoese who rapidly began to take over the Crimea for their own commercial interests. 

By the middle of fourteenth century, almost all the peninsula was in Genoese hands. However Cherson's death blow didn't come from these traders, but from the barbarians the city had always fought against in the form of the armies of the Golden Horde who finally took the city in 1399 and completely destroyed it to the point that it was never again resettled. All that remains of this venerable city is a few ruins in the suburbs of the modern city of Sevastopol.

Theme Administration

The Theme of Cherson appears to have been organized in typical fashion, with the full array of thematic officials, of whom a tourmarches of Gothia is known at the turn of the 11th century, as well as the ubiquitous fiscal and customs officials known as kommerkiarioi. 

The cities of the theme, however, appear to have retained considerable autonomy in their own government, as exemplified by Cherson itself, which was administered by the local magnates (archontes) under a proteuon ("the first"). 

Cherson also retained the right to issue its own coins, having resumed minting under Emperor Michael III (r. 842–867), and was for a long time the only provincial mint outside Constantinople. Its autonomy is also evidenced by the fact that the imperial government paid annual subsidies (pakta) to the city leaders in the fashion of allied rulers, and in the advice of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos (r. 913–959) in his De Administrando Imperio to the local strategos concerning the possibility of a revolt in the city: he was to cease payment of the subsidies and relocate to some other city in the theme. In the late 11th century, the theme was governed by a katepano.

Cherson and its province remained under Byzantine control until the dissolution of the Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when they passed under the sovereignty of the breakaway Empire of Trebizond.

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(Themes)      (Roman provinces)      (History of Crimea)

(Roman Crimea)      (Cherson)      (blacksea.ehw.gr)

(Xenophon-mil.org)      (Roman and Byzantine Crimea)

(Chersonesus)