Siege of Constantinople (860)
Rus' siege of Constantinople | |||||||
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Part of Rus'–Byzantine Wars | |||||||
The Rus' under the walls of Constantinople. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Byzantine Empire | Rus' | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Michael III | (?) | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Main Roman army of 60,000 men |
Fleet of 200-300 ships 5,000 men |
The siege of Constantinople of 860 was the only major military expedition of the
It is known from Byzantine sources that the Rus' caught Constantinople unprepared; preoccupied by the ongoing Arab–Byzantine wars, the empire was unable, at least initially, to make an effective response to the attack. After pillaging the suburbs of the Byzantine capital, the Rus' retreated for the day and continued their siege in the night after exhausting the Byzantine troops and causing disorganization. The event gave rise to a later Orthodox Christian tradition, which ascribed the deliverance of Constantinople to a miraculous intervention by the Theotokos.
Background
The first mention of the Rus' near the Byzantine Empire comes from Life of St. George of Amastris, a
Siege
On June 18, 860,
The attack took the Byzantines by surprise, "like a thunderbolt from heaven", as it was put by Patriarch Photius in his famous oration written on the occasion.
The invasion continued until August 4, when, in another of his sermons, Photius thanked heaven for miraculously relieving the city from such a dire threat. The writings of Photius provide the earliest example of the name "Rus" (Rhos, Greek: Ῥῶς) being mentioned in a Greek source; previously the dwellers of the lands to the north of the Black Sea were referred to archaically as "Tauroscythians". The patriarch reported that they had no supreme ruler and lived in some distant northern lands. Photius called them ἔθνος ἄγνωστον, "unknown people", although some historians prefer to translate the phrase as "obscure people", pointing out the earlier contacts between Byzantines and the Rus'.[7]
Later traditions
The sermons of Photius offer no clue as to the outcome of the invasion or the reasons why the Rus' withdrew. Later sources attribute their retreat to the Emperor's speedy return. As the story goes, after Michael and Photius put the
In the 9th century, a legend sprang up to the effect that an ancient column at the Forum of Taurus had an inscription predicting that Constantinople would be conquered by the Rus. This legend, well known in Byzantine literature, was revived by the
Criticism
As was demonstrated by Oleg Tvorogov and
On the other hand,
It appears that the victory of Michael III over the Rus' was invented by the Byzantine historians in the mid-9th century or later and became generally accepted in the Slavic chronicles influenced by them.
Notes
- ^ a b Turnbull 48–49
- ^ Vasiliev 188
- Kievanrulers at the time. However, the dating in the early part of the Primary Chronicle is generally faulty. (Vasiliev 145)
- Vikingattack on Constantinople from the south in 861, otherwise not attested by any other source (Vasiliev 25). The Primary Chronicle gives an even more exaggerated number of ships — 2,000. (Logan 188)
- ^ Logan 190
- ^ Vasiliev 188–189
- ^ Vasiliev 187
- Symeon Logothetes674–675
- ^ The number of raids was multiplied in the 16th century Nikon Chronicle, which interpreted the 860 raid (described in Byzantine sources) and the 866 raid (described by the Primary Chronicle) as two distinct events. This obvious blunder led Boris Rybakov to conclude that the Rus' raided Tsargrad in 860, 866, 874. For a critique, see Tvorogov 54–59.
- ^ Nicolai I 479–480. Analyzed in Vasiliev 61–62.
- ^ Iohannes Diaconus 116–117.
- ^ [page needed]This theory is advanced by Zuckerman, among others (see Zuckerman 2000).
References
- Iohannes Diaconus. Chronicon. Rome: Monticolo, Cronache veneziane antichissime
- Leo Grammaticus. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Bonn, 1842.
- Logan, Donald F. The Vikings in History, 2nd ed. Routledge, 1992. ISBN 0-415-08396-6
- Nicolai I. Papae epistolae. Ed. in: Monumenta Germaniae Hictorica. Epistolae VI. (Karolini eavi IV). Berlin, 1925
- Symeon Logothetes. Chronicon. Bonn, 1838.
- Theodose de Melitene . Chronographia. Munich, 1859.
- Harris, Jonathan, Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium. Hambledon/Continuum, London, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84725-179-4
- Sverrir Jakobsson, The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire Archived 2021-04-18 at the ISBN 978-3-030-53797-5
- ISBN 1-84176-759-X
- Tvorogov, Oleg. "Skol'ko raz khodili na Konstantinopol Askold i Dir?" Slavyanovedeniya, 1992. 2
- Vasiliev, Alexander. The Russian Attack on Constantinople in 860. Cambridge Mass., 1925
- Uspensky, Fyodor. The History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 2. Moscow: Mysl, 1997
- Zuckerman, Constantine. Deux étapes de la formation de l’ancien état russe, in Les centres proto-urbains russes entre Scandinavie, Byzance et Orient. Actes du Colloque International tenu au Collège de France en octobre 1997, ed. M. Kazanski, A. Nersessian & C. Zuckerman (Réalités byzantines 7), Paris 2000, pp. 95–120.
See also
External links
- Opera Omnia of Leo Grammaticus by Migne Patrologia Graeca with analytical indexes
- Globetrotting Vikings: The Quest for Constantinople