Vorlage:Infobox Military Conflict The Sack of Amorium by the Abbasids in mid-August 838 represents one of the major events in the long history of the Byzantine–Arab Wars. The exceptionally large Abbasid army was led by the Caliph al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842), who was eager to avenge the almost unopposed expedition launched by the Byzantine emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) into the Caliphate's borderlands the previous year. The Abbasids penetrated deep into Byzantine Asia Minor, defeating the emperor at Anzen, sacking Ancyra and finally reaching Amorium—at the time one of Byzantium's largest cities and the birthplace of its ruling Amorian dynasty. The city fell after a short siege, probably by treason, and a large part of its inhabitants were slaughtered, with the remainder driven off as slaves. Prominent officials were taken to Samarra and executed, becoming known as the 42 Martyrs of Amorium. The brutal sack was not only a major military disaster but also a traumatic event for the Byzantines, reverberating in later literature, as well as a heavy personal blow for Theophilos. The sack did not ultimately alter the balance of power, which was slowly shifting in Byzantium's favour, but it thoroughly discredited Iconoclasm, which relied heavily on military success for its legitimization, leading to its abandonment shortly after Theophilos' death in 842.
Background
In 829, when the young emperor Theophilos ascended the Byzantine throne, the Byzantines and Arabs had been fighting on and off for almost two centuries. An ambitious man and a convinced iconoclast, Theophilos sought to bolster his regime and support his religious policies by military success against the Abbasid Caliphate, the Empire's major antagonist. Arab attacks continued unabated both in the East, where Caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) launched several large-scale raids, and in the West, where the Muslim conquest of Sicily was making headway.[3] Seeking divine favour, and in response to iconophile plots, in June 833 Theophilos reinstated harsh suppression of the iconophiles. God seemed indeed to reward this decision: al-Ma'mun died during the first stages of a new invasion against Byzantium, and his brother and successor al-Mu'tasim had trouble establishing his authority, especially against the ongoing Khurramite rebellion of Babak Khorramdin. This allowed Theophilos to achieve a series of modest victories, as well as to bolster his forces with some 14,000 Khurramite refugees under Nasr, who was baptized a Christian and took the name Theophobos.[4] His successes in these years were not spectacular; nevertheless, they came after two decades of defeats and civil war under iconophile emperors, and Theophilos was able to claim them as vindication for his religious policy and to associate himself with the memory of the iconoclast emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775) and his victories. In this spirit he issued a new follis, minted in huge numbers, portraying him in the traditional Roman manner as a victorious emperor.[1][2]
In 837, Theophilos decided (with the urging of Babak) to take advantage of the Caliphate's preoccupation with the suppression of the Khurramite revolt and lead a major campaign against the frontier emirates. He assembled a huge army, some 70,000 men and 30,000 servants, and invaded Arab territory around the upper Euphrates almost unopposed, in open collusion with the Khurramite rebels. The Byzantines took the towns of Sozopetra and Arsamosata, ravaged and plundered the countryside, extracted ransom from several cities in exchange for not attacking them, and defeated a number of smaller Arab forces.[5] While Theophilos returned home in triumph, Mu'tasim was outraged by the brazenness and brutality of the raids. During the sack of Sozopetra—which some sources claim as Mu'tasim's own birthplaceVorlage:Cref—all male prisoners were executed and the rest sold into slavery, while many women had been raped by some of Theophilos' Khurramites.[6][7]
A vast army was gathered at Tarsus, estimated by Warren Treadgold at some 80,000 men, leaving aside servants and camp followers, while Alexander Vasiliev reports the more traditional numbers of between 200,000 and 500,000 men in total.[8][9] Unlike earlier campaigns, which did not go far beyond attacking the forts of the frontier zone, this expedition was intended to penetrate deep into Asia Minor, with the cities of Ancyra and Amorium as its targets. Amorium in particular was the major prize, and the Caliph reportedly had the city's name written on the shields and banners of his soldiers. The capital of the powerful Anatolic Theme, the city was strategically located at the western edge of the Anatolian plateau and, at the time, one of the largest cities in the Byzantine Empire. It was also the birthplace of Theophilos' father, Michael II the Amorian (r. 820–829), and perhaps of Theophilos himself.[8][7][10][11] Due to its strategic importance, the city had been a frequent target of Arab attacks in the 7th and 8th centuries.[12][13]
Opening stages of the campaign: Anzen and Ancyra
The Caliph divided his force in two: 30,000 men under the capable general Afshin were sent to join forces with the Emir Omar al-Aqta and invade the Armeniac Theme, while the main army under the Caliph himself would invade Cappadocia through the Cilician Gates. A part of the Caliph's army was also detached as an advance guard, under the general Ashinas. The two forces would link up at Ancyra, before marching jointly on Amorium.[14][15] On the Byzantine side, Theophilos was early on aware of the Caliph's intentions, and set out from Constantinople in early June. His army included the men from the Anatolian and possibly also the European themes, the elite tagmata regiments, as well as the Khurramites. The Byzantines expected the Arab army to advance through the Cilician Gates and then to Ancyra, but it was also possible that the Arabs would march directly onto Amorium. While his generals advised evacuation of the city, which would render the Arabs' campaign objective void and keep the Byzantine army undivided, Theophilos preferred to reinforce the city's garrison, under the strategos of the Anatolics Aetios, with the tagmata of the Excubitors and the Vigla.[15][16]
With the rest of his army, Theophilos then marched to interpose himself between the Cilician Gates and Ancyra, camping on the south side of the river Halys. The two Arab armies crossed the border in late June, but Theophilos did not learn of Afshin's northern thrust until mid-July. He immediately left with most of his army to confront the smaller Arab force. The emperor met Afshin's army in battle near the village of Anzen at Dazimon on 22 July, where the Byzantine army broke and scattered, while Theophilos with his guard were encircled and barely managed to break through and escape.[11][17][18] Theophilos quickly began regrouping his forces and sent the general Theodore Krateros to Ancyra. Krateros however found the city completely deserted, and was ordered to reinforce the garrison of Amorium instead. Theophilos himself was soon forced to return to Constantinople, where rumours of his death at Anzen had led to plots to declare a new emperor. At the same time, the Khurramites, gathered around Sinope, revolted and declared their reluctant commander Theophobos emperor. Luckily for the Empire, Theophobos maintained a passive stance and made no move to confront Theophilos or join Mu'tasim.[18][19] The Caliph's vanguard under Ashinas reached Ancyra on 26 July, followed by the other two forces over the next days. After plundering the deserted city, the united Arab army turned south towards Amorium.[18][20]
Siege and fall of Amorium
The Arabs arrived before Amorium and began their siege of the city on August 1. Theophilos, anxious to prevent the city's fall, left Constantinople for Dorylaion, and from there sent an embassy to Mu'tasim. His envoys, who arrived shortly before or during the first days of the siege, offered assurances that the atrocities at Sozopetra had been against the emperor's orders, and further promised to help rebuild the city, to return all Muslim prisoners, and to pay a tribute. The Caliph however not only refused to parley, but detained the envoys in his camp, so that they could observe the siege.[20][21][22] Both besiegers and besieged had many siege engines, and as the city's walls were strong, for several days both sides confined themselves to exchanging missile fire. According to Byzantine accounts however, an Arab prisoner who had converted to Christianity defected back to the Caliph, and informed him about a place in the wall which had been badly damaged as a result of heavy rainfall and only hastily repaired. As a result, the Arabs concentrated most of their engines on this section, and soon managed to breach the wall.[20] The Byzantines defended the breach, but their position became hopeless, and Aetios decided to try and break through the besieging army during the night and link up with Theophilos. His messages to the emperor were intercepted however, and the plan had to be abandoned, while the Arabs intensified their attacks.[20]
After about two weeks of siege (the date is variously interpreted as 12, 13 or 15 August by modern writers), the Byzantine commander Boiditzes, who was in charge of the breach, decided to conduct direct negotiations with the Caliph on his own. He abandoned his post and went to the Abbasid camp, leaving orders for his men to stand down until his return. The Arabs took advantage of this, and broke into the city. Taken by surprise, the Byzantines' resistance was sporadic: some soldiers barricaded themselves in a monastery and were burned to death, while Aetios with his officers sought refuge in a tower before being forced to surrender.[21][23][24] The city was subjected to a brutal sack: the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Continuatus mentions 70,000 dead, while the Arab al-Mas'udi records 30,000. The city was thoroughly plundered, with the spoils and the surviving population divided among the army, except for the city's military and civic leaders, who were reserved for the Caliph. After allowing Theophilos' envoys to return to him with the news of the sack, Mu'tasim burned the city to the ground, only the city walls surviving relatively intact.[25][26]
Aftermath
Immediately after the sack, news reached the Caliph of a rebellion headed by his nephew, al-Abbas ibn al-Ma'mun. Mu'tasim was therefore forced to cut short his campaign and return quickly to his realm, leaving the fortresses around Amorium as well as Theophilos and his army in Dorylaion intact. Taking the direct route from Amorium to the Cilician Gates, both the Caliph's army and its prisoners suffered many casualties in their forced march through the arid regions of central Anatolia. Many of the captives found the opportunity to escape, while some 6,000 were executed on Mu'tasim's orders.[25][27] Theophilos sent a second embassy to the Caliph, headed by the tourmarches Basil, offering to ransom the high-ranking prisoners for 20,000 pounds of gold and the release all his Arab captives. Mu'tasim however demanded in addition the surrender of Theophobos and the Domestic of the Schools, Manuel the Armenian (who, unbeknown to the Caliph, had died of wounds received at Anzen). The Byzantine ambassador refused to comply to this and indeed could not, as Manuel was dead and Theophobos in revolt. Mu'tasim is thought to have executed Aetios in retaliation. The other magnates and officers were, after years of captivity, urged to convert to Islam. When they refused, they were executed at Samarra in 845. They are celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Forty-two Martyrs of Amorium.[28][29]
Impact
The sack of Amorium was one of the most devastating events in living memory. Theophilos reportedly fell ill upon learning of the humiliating disaster, and his death three years later, while not yet thirty years old, was attributed by the Byzantine writers to his sorrow over the city's loss. The military impact in itself was limited: outside the garrison and population of Amorium itself, the Byzantine field army at Anzen had suffered few casualties, and the revolt of the Khurramite corps was suppressed without bloodshed the next year and its soldiers reintegrated into the Byzantine army. Ancyra was quickly rebuilt and reoccupied, as was Amorium itself, although the seat of the Anatolic theme was transferred to Polybotus, and it never recovered its former glory. The Abbasids too failed to follow up their success, and after Mu'tasim's death in 842, their state entered a prolonged period of decline.[11][30][31][32]
The most long-term effect of the fall of Amorium was in the religious rather than in the military sphere. The imperial army's defeats at Anzen and Amorium were to a large degree the result of circumstance rather than actual incapability or inadequacy. In addition, the Byzantine campaign had suffered from Theophilos' overconfidence, both in his willingness to divide his forces in the face of greater Arab numbers and in his over-reliance on the Khurramites.[33] Nevertheless, a disaster of this magnitude, easily comparable with the greatest defeats of previous iconophile emperors like Nikephoros I, thoroughly undermined the notion that iconoclasm brought divine favour and assured military victory. In the words of Warren Treadgold, "the outcome did not exactly prove that Iconoclasm was wrong, [...] but it did rob the iconoclasts for all time of their most persuasive argument to the undecided, that Iconoclasm won battles". A little over a year after Theophilos' death, on 11 March 843, a synod restored the veneration of icons and iconoclasm was declared heretical.[34][35]
Notes
References
Sources
- Eric A. Ivison: Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, Vol. 2: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans. Hrsg.: Joachim Henning. de Gruyter, 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-018358-0, S. 25–59.
- Alexander Kazhdan (Hrsg.): [[Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium]]. Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.
- Eirini-Sofia Kiapidou: Campaign of the Arabs in Asia Minor, 838. Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World, Asia Minor, 28. April 2003, abgerufen am 8. September 2010.
- M. Rekaya: Mise au point sur Théophobe et l'alliance de Babek avec Théophile (833/834-839/840). In: Byzantion. 44. Jahrgang, 1977, S. 43–67 (französisch).
- Vorlage:Citation
- Vorlage:Citation
- Mark Whittow: The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025. University of California Press, 1996, ISBN 0-520-20496-4.
- ↑ a b Treadgold (1988), pp. 283, 287–288
- ↑ a b Whittow (1997), pp. 152–153
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 272–280
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 280–283
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 286, 292–294
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 293–295
- ↑ a b Kiapidou (2003), Chapter 1
- ↑ a b Referenzfehler: Ungültiges
<ref>-Tag; kein Text angegeben für Einzelnachweis mit dem Namen Treadgold297. - ↑ Kiapidou (2003), Note 5
- ↑ Kazhdan (1991), pp. 79, 1428, 2066
- ↑ a b c Whittow (1997), p. 153
- ↑ Ivison (2007), p. 26
- ↑ Kazhdan (1991), p. 79
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 297, 299
- ↑ a b Kiapidou (2003), Chapter 2.1
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), p. 298
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 298–300
- ↑ a b c Kiapidou (2003), Chapter 2.2
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 300–302
- ↑ a b c d Treadgold (1988), p. 302
- ↑ a b Rekaya (1977), p. 64
- ↑ Vasiliev (1968), p. 160
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 302–303
- ↑ Vasiliev (1968), p. 170
- ↑ a b Treadgold (1988), p. 303
- ↑ Ivison (2007), pp. 31, 53
- ↑ Kiapidou (2003), Chapter 2.3
- ↑ Kazhdan (1991), pp. 79, 800–801
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 303–304
- ↑ Kiapidou (2003), Chapter 3
- ↑ Kazhdan (1991), pp. 79–80, 2068
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 304, 313–314
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), pp. 304–305
- ↑ Treadgold (1988), p. 305
- ↑ Whittow (1996), pp. 153–154