Sack of Amorium
Sack of Amorium | |||||||
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Part of the Arab–Byzantine Wars | |||||||
Miniature from the 12th century Madrid Skylitzes depicting the Arab siege of Amorium | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Byzantine Empire | Abbasid Caliphate | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Emperor Theophilos Aetios |
Caliph 'Ujayf ibn 'Anbasa | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
ca. 40,000 in the field army,[1] ca. 30,000 in Amorium[2] | 80,000[3] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
30,000–70,000 military and civilian dead[4][5] | Unknown |
The sack of Amorium by the
Amorium was strongly fortified and garrisoned, but a local inhabitant revealed a weak spot in the wall, where the Abbasids concentrated their attack, effecting a breach. Unable to break through the besieging army, Boiditzes, the commander of the breached section, privately attempted to negotiate with the Caliph without notifying his superiors. He concluded a local truce and left his post, which allowed the Arabs to take advantage, enter the city, and capture it. Amorium was systematically destroyed, never to recover its former prosperity. Many of its inhabitants were slaughtered, and the remainder driven off as slaves. Most of the survivors were released after a truce in 841, but prominent officials were taken to the caliph's capital of Samarra and executed years later after refusing to convert to Islam, becoming known as the 42 Martyrs of Amorium.
The conquest of Amorium was not only a major military disaster and a heavy personal blow for Theophilos, but also a traumatic event for the Byzantines, its impact resonating in later literature. The sack did not ultimately alter the balance of power, which was slowly shifting in Byzantium's favour, but it thoroughly discredited the theological doctrine of Iconoclasm, ardently supported by Theophilos. As Iconoclasm relied heavily on military success for its legitimization, the fall of Amorium contributed decisively to its abandonment shortly after Theophilos's death in 842.
Background
By 829, when the young emperor Theophilos ascended the Byzantine throne, the Byzantines and Arabs had been fighting on and off for almost two centuries. At this time, Arab attacks resumed both in the east, where after almost twenty years of peace due to the Abbasid civil war, Caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) launched several large-scale raids, and in the west, where the gradual Muslim conquest of Sicily was under way since 827. Theophilos was an ambitious man and also a convinced adherent of Byzantine Iconoclasm, which prohibited the depiction of divine figures and the veneration of icons. He sought to bolster his regime and support his religious policies by military success against the Abbasid Caliphate, the Empire's major antagonist.[6]
Seeking divine favour, and responding to
In 837, Theophilos decided—at the urging of the hard-pressed Babak—to take advantage of the Caliphate's preoccupation with the suppression of the Khurramite revolt and lead a major campaign against the
With the Khurramite threat over, the caliph began marshalling his forces for a reprisal campaign against Byzantium.
Opening stages of the campaign: Anzen and Ancyra
The caliph divided his force in two: a detachment of 10,000 horse-archers under Afshin was sent northeast to join forces with the emir of
With the rest of his army, Theophilos then marched to interpose himself between the Cilician Gates and Ancyra, camping on the north bank of the River
Theophilos quickly began regrouping his forces and sent the general
Siege and fall of Amorium
The Arab army marched in three separate corps, with Ashinas once again in front, the caliph in the middle, and Afshin bringing up the rear. Looting the countryside as they advanced, they arrived before Amorium seven days after their departure from Ancyra, and began their siege of the city on 1 August.
The city's fortifications were strong, with a wide moat and a thick wall protected by 44 towers, according to the contemporary geographer Ibn Khordadbeh. The caliph assigned each of his generals to a stretch of the walls. Both besiegers and besieged had many siege engines, and for three days both sides exchanged missile fire while Arab sappers tried to undermine the walls. According to Arab accounts, 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 by heavy rainfall and only hastily and superficially repaired due to the city commander's negligence. As a result, the Arabs concentrated their efforts on this section. The defenders tried to protect the wall by hanging wooden beams to absorb the shock of the siege engines, but they splintered, and after two days a breach was made.[33] Immediately Aetios realized that the defence was compromised, and decided to try and break through the besieging army during the night and link up with Theophilos. He sent two messengers to the emperor, but both were captured by the Arabs and brought before the caliph. Both agreed to convert to Islam, and Mu'tasim, after giving them a rich reward, paraded them around the city walls in full view of Aetios and his troops. To prevent any sortie, the Arabs stepped up their vigilance, maintaining constant cavalry patrols even during the night.[34]
The Arabs now launched repeated attacks on the breach, but the defenders held firm. At first, according to al-Tabari, catapults manned by four men each were placed on wheeled platforms, and mobile towers with ten men each were constructed and advanced to the edge of the moat, which they began to fill with sheep skins (from the animals they had brought along as food) filled with earth. However, the work was uneven due to the soldiers' fear of the Byzantine catapults, and Mu'tasim had to order earth to be thrown over the skins to pave the surface up to the wall itself. A tower was pushed over the filled moat, but became stuck midway and it and the other siege engines had to be abandoned and burned.[35] Another attack on the next day, led by Ashinas, failed due to the narrowness of the breach, and Mu'tasim eventually ordered more catapults brought forward to widen it. The next day Afshin with his troops attacked the breach, and Itakh on the day after.[36] The Byzantine defenders were gradually worn down by the constant assaults, and after about two weeks of siege (the date is variously interpreted as 12, 13, or 15 August by modern writers[37]) Aetios sent an embassy under the city's bishop, offering to surrender Amorium in exchange for safe passage of the inhabitants and garrison, but Mu'tasim refused. The Byzantine commander Boiditzes, however, who was in charge of the breach section, decided to conduct direct negotiations with the caliph on his own, probably intending to betray his own post. He went to the Abbasid camp, leaving orders for his men in the breach to stand down until his return. While Boiditzes parleyed with the caliph, the Arabs came closer to the breach, and at a signal charged and broke into the city.[38] 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.[39]
The city was thoroughly sacked and plundered; according to the Arab accounts, the sale of the spoils went on for five days. The Byzantine chronicler
Aftermath
Immediately after the sack, rumours reached the caliph that Theophilos was advancing to attack him. Mu'tasim set out with his army a day's march along the road in the direction of Dorylaion, but encountered no sign of a Byzantine attack. According to al-Tabari, Mu'tasim now pondered extending his campaign to attack Constantinople, when news reached him of a conspiracy headed by his nephew, al-Abbas ibn al-Ma'mun. Mu'tasim was forced to cut short his campaign and return quickly to his realm, leaving intact the fortresses around Amorium as well as Theophilos and his army in Dorylaion. Taking the direct route from Amorium to the Cilician Gates, both the caliph's army and its prisoners suffered in the march through the arid countryside of central Anatolia. Some captives were so exhausted that they could not move and were executed, whereupon others found the opportunity to escape. In retaliation, Mu'tasim, after separating the most prominent among them, executed the rest, some 6,000 in number.[42][43]
Theophilos now sent a second embassy to the caliph, headed by the
In the aftermath of the sack of Amorium, Theophilos sought the aid of other powers against the Abbasid threat: embassies were sent to both the western emperor
Among the captured Byzantine magnates of Amorium, the strategos Aetios was executed soon after his capture, perhaps, as the historian Warren Treadgold suggests, in retaliation to Theophilos's second letter to the caliph.[47] After years of captivity and no hope of ransom, the rest were urged to convert to Islam. When they refused, they were executed at Samarra on 6 March 845, and are celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the 42 Martyrs of Amorium.[48] Several tales also sprung up around Boiditzes and his betrayal. According to the legend of the 42 Martyrs, he converted to Islam, but was nevertheless executed by the caliph alongside the other captives; unlike the others, however, whose bodies "miraculously" floated in the water of the river Tigris, his sank to the bottom.[49]
Impact
"A victory in honour of which the gates of heaven open and earth comes forth in her new garments.
O day of the battle of 'Ammūriya, (our) hopes have returned from you overflowing with honey-sweet milk;
You have left the fortunes of the sons of Islam in the ascendant, and the polytheists and the abode of polytheism in decline."
Excerpt (lines 12–14) from Abu Tammam's Ode on the Conquest of Amorium.[50]
The sack of Amorium was one of the most devastating events in the long history of Arab raids into Anatolia. Theophilos reportedly fell ill soon after the city's fall, and although he recovered, his health remained in poor state until his death, three years later. Later Byzantine historians attribute his death before the age of thirty to his sorrow over the impact of the city's loss, although this is most likely a legend.[51][52] The fall of Amorium inspired several legends and stories among the Byzantines, and can be traced in surviving literary works such as the Song of Armouris or the ballad Kastro tis Orias ("Castle of the Fair Maiden").[53] Arabs on the other hand celebrated the capture of Amorium, which became the subject of Abu Tammam's famous Ode on the Conquest of Amorium.[54][c] In addition, caliphal propaganda made use of the campaign to legitimize al-Mu'tasim's rule and justify his subsequent murder of his nephew and the rightful heir to al-Ma'mun, al-Abbas.[55]
In reality, the campaign's military impact on Byzantium was limited: outside the garrison and population of Amorium itself, the Byzantine field army at Anzen seems to have 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 it never recovered its former glory and the seat of the Anatolic theme was for a time transferred to Polybotus.[51][56] According to the assessment of Warren Treadgold, 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's overconfidence, both in his willingness to divide his forces in the face of greater Arab numbers and in his over-reliance on the Khurramites.[57] Nevertheless, the defeat prompted Theophilos to undertake a major reorganization of his army, which included the establishment of new frontier commands and the dispersing of the Khurramite troops among the native troops of the themes.[58]
The most long-term and long-lasting result of the fall of Amorium, however, was in the religious rather than in the military sphere. Iconoclasm was supposed to bring divine favour and assure military victory, but neither the army's weaknesses nor the reported treachery of Boiditzes could detract from the fact that this was "a humiliating disaster to match the worst defeats of any iconophile emperor" (Whittow), comparable in recent memory only to the crushing defeat suffered by
Notes
- ^ a b The reported armies for both Theophilos' 837 expedition and Mu'tasim's retaliatory campaign are of unusual size. Some scholars, like Bury and Treadgold, accept the figures of Tabari and Michael the Syrian as more or less accurate,[9] but other modern researchers are sceptical of such numbers, as medieval field armies were rarely more than 10,000 men strong, and both Byzantine and Arab military treatises and accounts suggest that armies usually numbered around 4,000–5,000. Even during the phase of continuous Byzantine military expansion in the late 10th century, Byzantine military manuals mention armies of 25,000 as exceptionally large and fit to be led by the emperor in person. By way of comparison, the total nominal military forces available to Byzantium in the 9th century have been estimated at circa 100,000–120,000. For a detailed survey, see Whittow 1996, pp. 181–193 and Haldon 1999, pp. 101–103.
- ^ The claim that Sozopetra or Arsamosata was Mu'tasim's native city is found only in Byzantine sources. This claim is dismissed by most scholars as a later invention, i.e. as a parallel to Amorium, the likely birthplace of Theophilos, and as a deliberate attempt to balance and lessen the impact of the latter's fall.[11][12]
- ^ For an English translation of Abu Tammam's poem, cf. Arberry 1965, pp. 50–62.
References
- ^ Treadgold 1988, p. 298.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 444–445 (Note #415).
- ^ Treadgold 1988, p. 297.
- ^ Ivison 2007, p. 31.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, p. 303.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 272–280.
- ^ a b Treadgold 1988, pp. 283, 287–288; Whittow 1996, pp. 152–153.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 280–283.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 263 (Note #3); Treadgold 1988, p. 441 (Note #406).
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 259–260; Treadgold 1988, pp. 286, 292–294; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 137–141.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 262 (Note #6); Treadgold 1988, p. 440 (Note #401); Vasiliev 1935, p. 141.
- ^ Kiapidou 2003, Note 1 Archived 30 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 261–262; Treadgold 1988, pp. 293–295; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 141–143.
- ^ Kiapidou 2003, Chapter 1 Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Vasiliev 1935, p. 143.
- ^ Vasiliev 1935, p. 144.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 263 (Note #3); Treadgold 1988, p. 297; Vasiliev 1935, p. 146.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 262–263; Treadgold 1988, p. 297; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 144–146.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 262–263; Kazhdan 1991, pp. 79, 1428, 2066; Whittow 1996, p. 153.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 262; Kazhdan 1991, p. 79; Ivison 2007, p. 26.
- ^ Whittow 1996, p. 215.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 297, 299; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 146, 148.
- ^ a b Kiapidou 2003, Chapter 2.1 Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 263–264; Treadgold 1988, p. 298; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 146–147.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 264; Treadgold 1988, p. 298; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 149–151.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 264–265; Treadgold 1988, pp. 298–300; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 154–157.
- ^ a b c Kiapidou 2003, Chapter 2.2 Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 300–302; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 158–159.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 266.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, p. 302; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 152–154, 158–160.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 267; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 160–161.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 266–267; Rekaya 1977, p. 64; Vasiliev 1935, p. 160.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 267; Treadgold 1988, p. 302; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 161–163.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 268; Treadgold 1988, p. 302; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 163–164.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 268; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 164–165.
- ^ Vasiliev 1935, pp. 165–167.
- ^ Kiapidou 2003, Note 19 Archived 30 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 268–269; Treadgold 1988, pp. 302–303; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 167–168.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 269–270; Treadgold 1988, p. 303; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 169–170.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, p. 303; Rekaya 1977, p. 64; Ivison 2007, pp. 31, 53; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 170–172.
- ^ Meinecke 1995, pp. 411, 412.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 270; Treadgold 1988, p. 303; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 172–173, 175.
- ^ Kiapidou 2003, Chapter 2.3 Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 272; Treadgold 1988, pp. 303–304; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 174–175.
- ^ Bury 1912, p. 273; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 177–187.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 273–274; Vasiliev 1935, pp. 175–176, 192–193, 198–204.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 304, 445 (Note #416).
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 271–272; Kazhdan 1991, pp. 79, 800–801.
- ^ Bury 1912, pp. 270–271.
- ^ Arberry 1965, p. 52.
- ^ a b Kiapidou 2003, Chapter 3 Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 304, 415.
- ^ Christophilopoulou 1993, pp. 248–249.
- ^ Canard 1960, p. 449.
- ^ Kennedy 2003, pp. 23–26.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 304, 313–314; Kazhdan 1991, pp. 79–80; Whittow 1996, p. 153.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 304–305.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, pp. 351–359.
- ^ Treadgold 1988, p. 305; Whittow 1996, pp. 153–154.
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