The eighth century was not only a time of obscurity, but also one of adversity,
when man and nature conspired to bring the empire almost to the
point of extinction. A series of natural catastrophes afflicted Constantinople
and its hinterland in the middle of the century. An earthquake brought
down the walls of the City on 26 October 740. The Justinianic plague
(see above, p. 123; below, pp. 478–9) returned one last time; starting in
Mesopotamia and travelling through Sicily and the Peloponnese, the epidemic
reached the capital in 747, emptying the City of its inhabitants.6
The winter of 763–4 was so harsh that the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara
froze, with huge icebergs on the Bosporus threatening the City’s sea
walls during the thaw. In 766, a drought affected Constantinople’s water
supply.7
As if nature’s depredations were not enough, man brought incessant
warfare to the empire. At the beginning of the eighth century the Arabs
were waging a war of annihilation against the empire. Enormous Arab land
and sea forces encircled Constantinople in 717, attempting unsuccessfully
to seize it, and this operation was repeated atNicaea in 727.8 There followed
almost ritualised warfare in Asia Minor, with annual raids by the caliph’s
armies; although they seldom succeeded in capturing Byzantine cities, they
ravaged the countryside and carried off the population and livestock. The
Arabs could also mount both large-scale invasions – Harun al-Rashid’s
expedition in 782 reached as far as Chrysopolis, opposite Constantinople9 –
and sea raids, such as those launched on the Sicilian coast by ships from
Ifriqya.
The Isaurians managed to save the empire by raising an army which
could go to the aid of besieged cities, but which was also capable of defeating
enemy armies in open country, as it did at the battle of Akroinon in 740 (see
below, p. 386).10 During the upheavals caused by the transition of power
from the Umayyads to the Abbasids, the Byzantines took the offensive.
They raided beyond the Taurus in 751 to Melitene and in either 754 or 755
to Theodosioupolis, transplanting these cities’ populations.11 The offensive
also took place by sea. The fleet of the Kibyrrhaiotai destroyed an Arab fleet
off Cyprus in 748;12 and the organisation of a Sicilian fleet during the 750s
put paid to half a century of incessant Arab raiding on Sicily.13 Even after
the empire had been saved from annihilation and a lasting border between
the two empires had been drawn at the Taurus, warfare continued: but now
it was waged by new enemies.
On the Arab side, the annual raids in Asia Minor continued to ravage
Cappadocia and were particularly dangerous when the empire was weak, or
the caliphate in a strong position. Such was the case under Empress Irene
(797–802) when, in 798, a detachment got as far as Malagina and stole
a saddle from the imperial stables. And during the revolt of Thomas the
Slav in 823, Thomas’ supporters allowed Arab raiders to reach Bithynia.14
Finally, there were two such emergencies under Theophilos: when Caliph
al-Ma‘mun (813–33) led successful raids in person from 830 to 832, capturing
Lulon and Tyana; and again in 838, when Caliph al-Mu’tasim (833–42)
responded to the emperor’s attack on Sozopetra in Syria in the previous
year, defeating him roundly at Dazimon and capturing Amorion, capital
of the theme of the Anatolikoi and cradle of the ruling dynasty.
In the 150 years of conflict, only two major truces were concluded – in
782 and 806; both imposed humiliating terms on the Byzantines, who had
to pay tribute, and altogether they suspended the fighting for fewer than five
years. The chain of signal-towers functioning by the ninth century, possibly
even by the eighth, shows the permanent nature of the conflict with the
caliphate. The towers ran from the northern entrance of the Cilician Gates,
on the border at Lulon (near Ulukis¸la), to the Pharos of the imperial palace
in Constantinople, and signals alerted the emperor to Arab incursions
within the hour.15 But in the ninth century it was attacks by sea, independent
of the caliphate, which did most harm. Euphemios, turmarch of Sicily,
summoned the Aghlabids of Kairouan to help him in his rebellion against
Michael II, and in 827 they landed and besieged Syracuse (see below, p. 462).
Thus began the conquest of Sicily which was to drag on for the rest of the
century. It was probably in this same year that Crete was attacked and soon
taken by exiles from Cordoba; they had captured and subsequently been
driven out of Alexandria by the caliph’s army.16 Crete and Sicily served as
bases for raids on the islands and the Aegean littoral, now under constant
threat; so, too, were the coasts of southern Italy, and Bari was captured
around 842.
On the northern border a new front was opened in 754 against the
Bulgars in Thrace. Constantine V had made Thrace more secure through
repeated campaigning in the last fifteen years of his reign, particularly with
his victory at Anchialos in 763. On Constantine’s death, Thrace enjoyed a
state of peace, with its network of kastra where garrisons were stationed17
and its renovated roads.18 This is illustrated by Empress Irene’s progress in
784 when she went as far as Beroia and Anchialos, which she ‘ordered to
be rebuilt’.19 Relations with the Bulgars were in fact so close that in 776–7
Khan Telerig sought refuge in Constantinople, where he was baptised in the
presence of Leo IV (775–80) and married one of Empress Irene’s relations.20
But under Irene and Constantine VI (780–97) the northern border became
very dangerous once again. The Bulgars crushed the armies sent against
them – as at Markellai in 792 – and their power increased still further
under Khan Krum (c. 803–14). The efforts of Nikephoros I (802–11) to get
the better of them ended in disaster in 811. The Bulgars annihilated the
imperial army after it had seized their capital Pliska; Nikephoros was killed
and his skull was used by Krum as a drinking goblet.21 This disaster was
compounded two years later by the defeat at Bersinikia near Adrianople;
the resulting fall of the Byzantine towns and fortresses of Beroia, Probaton,
Anchialos and Mesembria allowed the Bulgars to devastate Thrace and
Macedonia. The state of emergency which arose after Bersinikia led to
the seizure of the throne by Leo ‘the Armenian’, strat¯egos of the theme
of the Anatolikoi; he organised the defence of Constantinople, while the
people assembled at Constantine V’s tomb, crying: ‘Arise and help the state
which is perishing!’22 The death of Krum and the victory of Leo V in 816
changed the situation once again; a treaty was signed that same year and
brought peace for more than three-quarters of a century, allowing for the
reconstruction of the region.23
One portion of the empire which saw little warfare in this period was
mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, following massive Slavonic immigration
there in the seventh and eighth centuries; occasional Byzantine
military expeditions were sufficient to ensure continued overlordship. Constantine
V subjugated the Sklaviniai of Macedonia around 759;24 and in
783 Staurakios the eunuch, logothete of the Drome under Irene, led an
expedition against the Sklaviniai inMacedonia (or Thessaly25), Greece and
the Peloponnese, returning victorious with booty and captives. Although
previously considered of great importance, this expedition has recently been
re-evaluated so far as the Peloponnese is concerned, with archaeological and
sigillographic records showing the claims of the so-called Chronicle ofMonemvasia
to be exaggerated. According to the Chronicle, the Peloponnese had
been abandoned to the Avaro-Slavs for 218 years – from the sixth year of
the reign ofMaurice (582–602) to the fourth year of Nikephoros I’s reign –
with the exception of the eastern part, from Corinth to CapeMalea, where
the emperor sent a strat¯egos.26 In reality, the Slavs were never completely
beyond imperial control in the eighth century. In Thessaly, the seals of
Slav archontes27 attest imperial recognition, and even in the less politically
organised Peloponnese, the Slavs came into contact with the Greek population,
which was more numerous in the eastern part of the peninsula. This
contact occurred not only at the level of military administration, as shown
by seals of strat¯egoi and droungarioi found around Argos, but also of church
administration, as shown by seals and the presence of bishops at the second
council of Nicaea.28 Two revolts by the Slavs in the Peloponnese had to be
put down by military force in the course of the ninth century. First came
the rebellion of the Slavs of Patras in the reign of Nikephoros I, recounted
by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (945–59); this eventually led to the
appropriation of both them and their property by the archbishopric of
Patras, which was then asserting its independence from Corinth. Secondly,
in 842 the Melingoi and Erizites further to the south rose in revolt and,
once suppressed, were subjected to tribute.29
War was not only caused by enemy attacks on the empire; imperial succession
could also lead to bloody civil war. On the death of Leo III on
18 June 741, his son Constantine V had to put down a revolt led by his
brother-in-law Artabasdos; Constantine was supported by the fleet of the
Kibyrrhaiotai and the armies of the Anatolikoi and the Thrakesioi, while
the Opsikion, Thrace and the Armeniakoi backed Artabasdos. In the summer
of 742 Artabasdos was proclaimed emperor in Constantinople, which
was then besieged and, on 2 November 744, captured by Constantine.30
Some eighty years later, Thomas the Slav, turmarch of the foideratoi in the
Anatolikoi, rebelled againstMichael II on Christmas Eve 820;Michael was
Leo V’s successor and was generally considered to have been responsible
for his murder.31 The rebellion lasted three years and nearly succeeded, for
Michael could only count on Constantinople and its fleet and the themes
of Opsikion and the Armeniakoi, whereas Thomas controlled everything
else, including the tax revenues, and had been crowned emperor at Antioch.
Thomas laid siege to Constantinople in 821–2, but was foiled by a Bulgar
attack andMichael’s destruction of his fleet using Greek fire. In the end he
took refuge in Thrace, where he was captured by Michael at Arkadiopolis
in October 823.32 The battle fought against the army of the Armeniakoi
in 793 by Constantine VI at the head of all the other armies might also
be considered a struggle for the succession. The Armeniakoi did not want
Irene to be co-ruler with her son Constantine, who had been reconciled
with her after a spell of sole rule (790–2). They wanted to remain loyal to
him alone and to their strat¯egos Alexios Musele(m), who had been blinded
for alleged complicity in a plot in favour of the caesar Nikephoros (son of
Constantine V and uncle of the emperor) after the debacle at Markellai at
the hands of the Bulgars in 792. Although this third civil war was apparently
confined to the army, the other two, which both lasted over two years and
involved sieges of the capital, also affected the civilian population.
Thus, war dominated the eighth and early ninth centuries. Under the
Isaurians it was a war of survival which overshadowed society as a whole
and still threatened the empire’s very existence at the beginning of the ninth
century, as can be seen from the Constantinopolitans’ reaction in 813 at the
tomb of Constantine V. After 830, however, war affected mainly the armed
forces in operations on the border with the caliphate, on the islands and in
Italy; and even in these far-flung areas, its impact varied. Thrace, a land of
reconquest and colonisation from 750, was ravaged by the enemy during
the years 811 to 813, but regained its peace and prosperity after 816. Asia
Minor suffered heavy but uneven losses. As the caliphs abandoned hopes
of conquering the empire, a border gradually emerged between the Aegean
and the Black Sea, along a line from Seleukeia to Trebizond; this became
a sort of no-man’s-land, frequently changing hands, and studded with
nineteen fortresses, according to Ibn Khurradadhbih.33 Regions close to the
border were particularly exposed, such as Cappadocia and the Pamphylian
and Lycian coasts; so too were the Anatolikoi, Armeniakoi and Opsikion,
which bore the brunt of the Arab attacks. In contrast, the inhabitants of the
Thrakesioi and the Black Sea coast were largely spared.34 The Kibyrrhaiotai
successfully protected the Aegean islands in the eighth century, but after
the Arab conquest of Crete in the 820s they became front-line targets. At
the same time Sicily, after fifty years of peace following an earlier fifty years
of raids, also came under attack. Finally, Constantinople itself was besieged
four times, twice by foreign armies, in 717–18 and 813.
It is difficult to determine the precise impact of both plague and continuous
warfare on population figures; however, this was already being felt
in the seventh century, and the population level seems to have reached
its nadir in the eighth,35 although the situation was not uniform. Greece
and the islands appear to have been more densely populated than the rest
of the empire in the eighth century, but this changed after a century of
Arab raiding. In Constantinople, the low point was the plague of 747–8;
according to Patriarch Nikephoros, plague emptied the City of its inhabitants,
and although it is difficult to give precise figures for the surviving
population, estimates vary from 40,000 to 70,000.36 Constantinople was
a case apart; while greatly affected by the plague, it also profited from war
in demographic terms, thanks to the influx of refugees into the capital – a
topic rarely studied.
World History
