After 915 the main problem for the Byzantine government was disaffection
among their provinces’ inhabitants, combined with the ambitions of
the princes of Capua to extend their rule towards the Adriatic coast. The
strat¯egos of Calabria, John Muzalon, was assassinated in an uprising near
Reggio in 921, and soon afterwards the strat¯egos of Langobardia, Ursoleon,
was killed at Ascoli fighting against the forces of Capua-Benevento, which
went on to occupy much of northern Apulia, apparently with the support
of the local inhabitants. The fiscal pressure of Byzantine rule was undoubtedly
one cause of disaffection, and this was, as the Calabrian revolt shows,
by no means confined to the Latin areas under Byzantine dominion.5 But
the desire of the princes of Capua to recover those parts of Apulia which
had been under the rule of their predecessors at Benevento until the midninth
century, and to secure control of coastal towns like Siponto and Bari
which benefited from trade in the Adriatic, should not be underestimated.
That this was a very real ambition is clear from the attempt of Landulf I
(910–43) after his victory at Ascoli to persuade the Byzantine government
to appoint him as strat¯egos of Langobardia.6 Although details are obscure,
it seems that the Byzantine position in Apulia was restored for a time after
921, but a second Beneventan invasion in 926, this time with the support of
the prince of Salerno – who were apparently not involved in 921 – proved
more serious. For some seven years substantial parts of Apulia were in the
hands of the princes of Capua-Benevento, and parts of Lucania and northern
Calabria were under the rule of the prince of Salerno. The status quo
was only restored when the Byzantine government secured an alliance with
Hugh of Arles, king of Italy (926–47); combined with substantial military
reinforcement from Constantinople, this achieved the withdrawal of the
Lombard princes.7 For more than thirty years from c. 934 onwards, the
frontier between the principality of Benevento and the Byzantine province
of Langobardia remained relatively secure, if not entirely uncontested,
especially in the late 940s.
Despite problems on the province’s northern border, Byzantine rule in
Calabria was largely unaffected by the tense relations with the Lombard
principalities. Indeed for some considerable period Calabria was also free
from Arab raids. Tribute money paid to Sicily from Calabria apparently
ceased after 934, and in the latter part of this decade the island’s Muslims
were in the grip of civil war. It was only after internal peace was restored
in Sicily in 947 that Calabria was once again threatened. Reggio fell in
950 and a further attack took place in 952, but once again the payment of
protection money secured a period of truce.
The Byzantines were therefore able to maintain, albeit with some difficulty,
their dominions in Italy more or less as they had been secured by
the reconquests of the 880s (see above, p. 298). What they were not able
to do, more than very sporadically, was to enforce any recognition of their
rule in the petty duchies of the west coast, still less so in the Lombard
principalities. Only in Naples did documents continue to be dated by the
regnal years of the Byzantine emperors, and such links were of far more
cultural than political significance. Indeed in 956, when the government in
Constantinople was able to release sufficient troops for a major expedition
to Italy, the first target of that offensive was apparently Naples; however,
their aim may quite possibly have been to secureNeapolitan naval assistance
against renewed Arab attacks on Calabria. Furthermore, it would seem that
during this period there was once again disaffection in those areas under
direct Byzantine rule.8 Byzantium was a ‘superpower’, unlike the independent
south Italian states. But for its government southern Italy was of far
less moment than either the frontier in Asia Minor or the defence of its
European provinces against the Bulgarians. For the most part the defence
of its Italian dominions was left to local efforts, and only very occasionally
could imperial troops or ships be spared in any numbers. Even in 956 the
policy was essentially defensive: to secure a commitment by the Lombard
princes not to attack Byzantine territory, to enforce effective government in
that territory, and to prevent further raids on Calabria. The one exception
to this limited policy came with the launching of a large-scale expedition
to Sicily by Nikephoros II Phokas (963–9) in 964, but the disastrous defeat
which resulted cannot have encouraged further such ambitious enterprises,
and renewed military operations in other theatres anyway prevented a fresh
attempt.
Moreover, in 966 the balance of power in southern Italy was to be, for
a time, seriously affected by a new player on the stage, the German ruler
Otto I (962–73), who in reviving Charlemagne’s western Roman empire
also revived Carolingian imperial claims to overlordship over southern Italy.
The means whereby Otto sought to vindicate his claims were both direct
military action and an alliance with the strongest of the local rulers in the
south, the prince of Capua and Benevento, Pandulf I Ironhead (961–81).
What this meant in practice was that the Capuan pressure on the Byzantine
frontier in northern Apulia of the 920s and 930s was once again revived,
but with the formidable military assistance of the German emperor.
The alliance with Pandulf Ironhead served a further purpose for the
German emperor. By conceding the margravate of Camerino and the duchy
of Spoleto to the prince of Capua,Otto secured a vital ally and recognition of
his overlordship in the south; he also created a viceregal power in central Italy
through which he could the more effectively control the Roman nobility,
understandably restive at the prospect of a series of Ottonian clients being
placed on the papal throne. The alliance enabled Pandulf to revive his
ancestors’ ambitions to encroach on Byzantine territory in Apulia, while
also protecting his dominions from incursions from the north, such as had
apparently occurred in the early 960s.9 Otto himself paid a brief visit to
Benevento in February 967, and in the spring of 968 a full-scale attack was
made on Byzantine Apulia which reached as far as Bari before the allies
withdrew. A further attack occurred in the winter of that year which took
the German imperial army as far south as the Calabrian border. But in the
end very little was accomplished. After Otto I had returned to northern
Italy, Pandulf was captured while besieging Bovino on the Apulian frontier
and sent as a prisoner to Constantinople. It was in good measure due to his
intercession, after a further year’s inconclusive warfare, that a peace between
the two empires was eventually patched up, sealed by the marriage of the
young Otto II (973–83) to a Byzantine princess, Theophano (see above,
p. 548).
The overwhelming impression given by this period of conflict, as indeed
by the sporadic border warfare of the earlier part of the century, is of its
essential sterility. Each side was capable of deep penetrations into the other’s
territory – Byzantine troops briefly got as far as Capua in the summer of
969 – but neither was strong enough to make any permanent impression.
While the Byzantines held on to key border fortresses like Ascoli and Bovino
the province of Langobardia was essentially safe. Furthermore the enhancement
of the prince of Capua’s authority was hardly in the interests of the
other local rulers; while they had no wish to be Byzantine clients, they were
equally unwilling to be clients of Capua and the German emperor. The
duke of Naples supported the Byzantine invasion of Capuan territory in
969. Although the prince of Salerno did not, and in fact sent a relieving
force to Capua, he seems to have otherwise tried to keep on good terms
with the Greeks. Significantly the late tenth-century Chronicon Salernitanum
took a favourable view of Nikephoros II Phokas, very different from
the infamous portrayal of the emperor by Otto’s envoy to his court, Liudprand
of Cremona.10 And around 966 the duke of Amalfi was once again,
after a long interval, using a Byzantine title, a sign of renewed contact with
the government at Constantinople.11
World History
