Siege of Constantinople (674–678)
First Arab siege of Constantinople | |||||||
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Part of the Arab–Byzantine wars | |||||||
Map of the environs of Constantinople in Byzantine times | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Umayyad Caliphate | Byzantine Empire | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Yazid ibn Mu'awiya Sufyan ibn Awf † Junada ibn Abi Umayya Fadala ibn Ubayd | Constantine IV | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
200,000 | 40,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
100,000 killed |
The first Arab siege of Constantinople in 674–678 was a major conflict of the Arab–Byzantine wars, and the first culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy towards the Byzantine Empire, led by Caliph Mu'awiya I. Mu'awiya, who had emerged in 661 as the ruler of the Muslim Arab empire following a civil war, renewed aggressive warfare against Byzantium after a lapse of some years and hoped to deliver a lethal blow by capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.
As reported by the Byzantine chronicler
The siege left several traces in the legends of the nascent Muslim world, although it is conflated with accounts of another expedition against the city in 669, led by Mu'awiya's son and future ruler(self-imposed), Yazid. As a result, the veracity of Theophanes's account was questioned in 2010 by Oxford scholar James Howard-Johnston, and more recently by Marek Jankowiak. Their analyses have placed more emphasis on the Arabic and Syriac sources, but have drawn different conclusions about the dating and existence of the siege. On the other hand, echoes of a large-scale siege of Constantinople and a subsequent peace treaty reached China, where they were recorded in later histories of the Tang dynasty.
Background
Following the disastrous
The peace lasted until the end of the Muslim civil war in 661, from which Mu'awiya and his clan emerged victorious, establishing the
In spring 669, after receiving additional troops, Fadala entered Asia Minor and advanced as far as Chalcedon, on the Asian shore of the Bosporus across from the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. The Arab attacks on Chalcedon were repelled, and the Arab army was decimated by famine and disease. Mu'awiya dispatched another army, led by his son (and future Caliph) Yazid, to Fadala's aid. Accounts of what followed differ. The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor reports that the Arabs remained before Chalcedon for a while before returning to Syria, and that on their way they captured and garrisoned Amorium. This was the first time the Arabs tried to hold a captured fortress in the interior of Asia Minor beyond the campaigning season, and probably meant that the Arabs intended to return next year and use the town as their base, but Amorium was retaken by the Byzantines during the subsequent winter. Arab sources on the other hand report that the Muslims crossed over into Europe and launched an unsuccessful attack on Constantinople itself, before returning to Syria.[14][15] Given the lack of any mention of such an assault in Byzantine sources, it is most probable that the Arab chroniclers—taking account of Yazid's presence and the fact that Chalcedon is a suburb of Constantinople—"upgraded" the attack on Chalcedon to an attack on the Byzantine capital itself.[16]
Opening moves: the campaigns of 672 and 673
The campaign of 669 clearly demonstrated to the Arabs the possibility of a direct strike at Constantinople, as well as the necessity of having a supply base in the region. This was found in the peninsula of Cyzicus on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, where a raiding fleet under Fadhala ibn 'Ubayd wintered in 670 or 671.[17][15][18] Mu'awiya now began preparing his final assault on the Byzantine capital. In contrast to Yazid's expedition, Mu'awiya intended to take a coastal route to Constantinople.[19] The undertaking followed a careful, phased approach: first the Muslims had to secure strongpoints and bases along the coast, and then, with Cyzicus as a base, Constantinople would be blockaded by land and sea and cut off from the agrarian hinterland that supplied its food.[20][21]
Accordingly, in 672 three great Muslim fleets were dispatched to secure the sea lanes and establish bases between Syria and the Aegean. Muhammad ibn Abdallah's fleet wintered at
In 674, the Arab fleet sailed from its bases in the eastern Aegean and entered the Sea of Marmara. According to the account of Theophanes, they landed on the
The details of the clashes around Constantinople are unclear, as Theophanes condenses the siege in his account of the first year, and the Arab chroniclers do not mention the siege at all but merely provide the names of leaders of unspecified expeditions into Byzantine territory.
At the same time, the preoccupation with the Arab threat had reduced Byzantium's ability to respond to threats elsewhere: in Italy, the
Finally, in autumn 677 or early 678 Constantine IV resolved to confront the Arab besiegers in a head-on engagement. His fleet, equipped with Greek fire, routed the Arab fleet. It is probable that the death of admiral Yazid ibn Shagara, reported by Arab chroniclers for 677/678, is related to this defeat. At about the same time, the Muslim army in Asia Minor, under the command of
The essential outline of Theophanes' account may be corroborated by the only near-contemporary Byzantine reference to the siege, a celebratory poem by the otherwise unknown Theodosius Grammaticus, which was earlier believed to refer to the second Arab siege of 717–718. Theodosius' poem commemorates a decisive naval victory before the walls of the city—with the interesting detail that the Arab fleet too possessed fire-throwing ships—and makes a reference to "the fear of their returning shadows", which may be interpreted as confirming the recurring Arab attacks each spring from their base in Cyzicus.[38]
Importance and aftermath
Constantinople was the nerve centre of the Byzantine state. Had it fallen, the empire's remaining provinces would have been unlikely to hold together and thus become easy prey for the Arabs.[39] At the same time, the failure of the Arab attack on Constantinople was a momentous event in itself. It marked the culmination of Mu'awiya's campaign of attrition, which had been pursued steadily since 661. Immense resources were poured into the undertaking, including the creation of a huge fleet. Its failure had similarly important repercussions and represented a major blow to the Caliph's prestige.[40] Conversely, Byzantine prestige reached new heights, especially in the West. Constantine IV received envoys from the Avars and the Balkan Slavs, who bore gifts and congratulations and acknowledging Byzantine supremacy.[26] The subsequent peace also gave a much-needed respite from constant raiding to Asia Minor and allowed the Byzantine state to recover its balance and consolidate itself after the cataclysmic changes of the previous decades.[41]
The failure of the Arabs before Constantinople coincided with the increased activity of the Mardaites, a Christian group living in the mountains of Syria that resisted Muslim control and raided the lowlands. Faced with the new threat and after the immense losses suffered against the Byzantines, Mu'awiya began negotiations for a truce, with embassies exchanged between the two courts. They were drawn out until 679, which gave the Arabs time for a last raid into Asia Minor under 'Amr ibn Murra, perhaps intended to put pressure on the Byzantines. The peace treaty, of a nominal 30-year duration, provided that Caliph would pay an annual tribute of 300,000 nomismata, 50 horses and 50 slaves. The Arab garrisons were withdrawn from their bases on the Byzantine coastlands, including Rhodes, in 679–680.[26][42][43][44]
Soon after the Arab retreat from his capital, Constantine IV quickly sent an expedition against the Slavs in the area of Thessalonica, curtailed their piracy, relieved the city and restored imperial control over the city's surroundings.[44][45] After the conclusion of peace, he moved against the mounting Bulgar menace in the Balkans, but his huge army, comprising all the available forces of the empire, was decisively beaten, which opened the way for the establishment of a Bulgar state in the northeastern Balkans.[46][47]
In the Muslim world, after the death of Mu'awiya in 680, the various forces of opposition within the Caliphate manifested themselves. The Caliphate's division during the
Cultural impact
Later Arab sources dwell extensively on the events of Yazid's 669 expedition and supposed attack on Constantinople, including various mythical anecdotes, which are taken by modern scholarship to refer to the events of the 674–678 siege. Several important personalities of early Islam are mentioned as taking part, such as
This siege
Modern reassessment of events
The narrative of the siege accepted by modern historians relies largely on Theophanes' account, while the Arab and Syriac sources do not mention any siege but rather individual campaigns, only a few of which reached as far as Constantinople. Thus the capture of an island named Arwad "in the sea of Kustantiniyya" is recorded for 673/674, but it is unclear if it refers to the Sea of Marmara or the Aegean, and Yazid's 676 expedition is also said to have reached Constantinople. The Syriac chroniclers also disagree with Theophanes in placing the decisive battle and destruction of the Arab fleet by Greek fire in 674 during an Arab expedition against the coasts of Lycia and Cilicia, rather than Constantinople. That was followed by the landing of Byzantine forces in Syria in 677/678, which began the Mardaite uprising that threatened the Caliphate's grip on Syria enough to result in the peace agreement of 678/679.[62][63][64]
Based on a re-evaluation of the original sources used by the medieval historians, the Oxford scholar James Howard-Johnston, in his 2010 book Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century, rejects the traditional interpretation of events, based on Theophanes, in favour of the Syriac chroniclers' version. Howard-Johnston asserts that no siege actually took place because of not only its absence in the eastern sources but also the logistical impossibility of such an undertaking for the duration reported. Instead, he believes that the reference to a siege was a later interpolation, influenced by the events of the second Arab siege of 717–718, by an anonymous source that was later used by Theophanes. According to Howard-Johnston, "The blockade of Constantinople in the 670s is a myth which has been allowed to mask the very real success achieved by the Byzantines in the last decade of Mu'awiya’s caliphate, first by sea off Lycia and then on land, through an insurgency which, before long, aroused deep anxiety among the Arabs, conscious as they were that they had merely coated the Middle East with their power".[66]
On the other hand, the historian Marek Jankowiak argues that a major Arab siege occurred but that Theophanes (writing about 140 years after the events, based on an anonymous source, which was itself written about 50 years after the events) misdated and garbled the events and that the proper dating of the siege should be 667–669, with the spring of 668 having the major attack.[67]
References
- ^ Kaegi 2008, pp. 369ff..
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 60–68.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 303–307, 310, 312–313.
- ^ Kaegi 2008, p. 372.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 64–68.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 312–313.
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 68.
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 69.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, p. 318.
- ^ Kaegi 2008, pp. 373, 375.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 69–71.
- ^ a b Treadgold 1997, p. 320.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 71–72.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 72–74, 90.
- ^ a b c d e f Treadgold 1997, p. 325.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 73–74.
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 75.
- ^ Mango & Scott 1997, p. 492.
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 76 (note #61).
- ^ Haldon 1990, p. 63.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 90–91.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 75, 90–91.
- ^ Mango & Scott 1997, p. 493.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 76–77.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 74–76.
- ^ a b c d e Haldon 1990, p. 64.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 77–78.
- ^ Mango & Scott 1997, pp. 493–494.
- ^ a b Mango & Scott 1997, p. 494 (note #3).
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 80 (note #73).
- ^ Brooks 1898, pp. 187–188.
- ^ a b Lilie 1976, pp. 78–79.
- ^ a b Mango & Scott 1997, p. 494.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Mango & Scott 1997, p. 495.
- ^ a b Treadgold 1997, pp. 326–327.
- ^ Stratos 1978, pp. 84–87.
- ^ Olster 1995, pp. 23–28.
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 91.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 80–81, 89–91.
- ^ Haldon 1990, p. 66.
- ^ Kaegi 2008, pp. 381–382.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 81–82.
- ^ a b Treadgold 1997, p. 327.
- ^ Stratos 1978, pp. 87–88.
- ^ Lilie 1976, p. 83.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 328–329.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 99–107.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 330–332.
- ^ Kaegi 2008, pp. 382–385.
- ^ Lilie 1976, pp. 107–132.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 334–349.
- ^ Canard 1926, pp. 70–71.
- ^ El-Cheikh 2004, p. 62.
- ^ Canard 1926, pp. 71–77.
- ^ El-Cheikh 2004, pp. 62–63.
- ^ Turnbull 2004, p. 48.
- ^ a b c d Paul Halsall (2000) [1998]. Jerome S. Arkenberg (ed.). "East Asian History Sourcebook: Chinese Accounts of Rome, Byzantium and the Middle East, c. 91 B.C.E. – 1643 C.E." Fordham.edu. Fordham University. Retrieved 2016-09-10..
- ^ Jenkins 2008, pp. 64–68.
- ^ Foster 1939, p. 3.
- ^ Yule 1915, pp. 48–49 (esp. note #1).
- ^ Brooks 1898, pp. 186–188.
- ^ Howard-Johnston 2010, pp. 302–303, 492–495.
- ^ Stratos 1983, pp. 90–95.
- ^ Zuckerman 1995.
- ^ Howard-Johnston 2010, pp. 303–304.
- ^ Jankowiak 2013, pp. 237–320.
Sources
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- El-Cheikh, Nadia Maria (2004). Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies. ISBN 978-0-932885-30-2.
- Foster, John (1939). The Church of the T'ang Dynasty. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. OCLC 3790642.
- Haldon, John F. (1990). Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture. Revised Edition. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521319171.
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- Jankowiak, Marek (2013). "The First Arab Siege of Constantinople". In Zuckerman, Constantin (ed.). Travaux et mémoires, Vol. 17: Constructing the Seventh Century. Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance. pp. 237–320.
- Jenkins, Philip (2008). The Lost History of Christianity: the Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and How It Died. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-147280-0.
- ISBN 978-0-52-183231-1.
- OCLC 797598069.
- ISBN 978-0-19-822568-3.
- Olster, David (1995). "Theodosius Grammaticus and the Arab Siege of 674-78". Byzantinoslavica. 56 (1): 23–28. ISSN 0007-7712.
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External links
- Radic, Radivoj (2008). "Two Arabian sieges of Constantinople (674–678; 717/718)". Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World, Constantinople. Foundation of the Hellenic World. Retrieved 9 July 2012.