Politeia tōn Rhōmaiōn: The Restored Roman Republic

Inspired by this thread. There will be some handwaving to reach the desired result, and I apologize as that is not good form. However, given that we are dealing with a particularly anarchic period of the Dark Ages, even for such a cosmopolitan society as Byzantium, I contend that such handwaving is not entirely unreasonable.

The Siege of AD 717 and the Restoration of the Republic
While the restoration of the Roman Republic in AD 717 was, in hindsight, one of the most important events in its history, its details are obscure. The general chaos and disorder of the times contributed no small amount to this obscurity. The fires that raged in Constantinople in the following centuries erased much of the contemporary accounts of the time. Further, there has likely been no small amount of distortion, both deliberate and otherwise, from historians, authors, playwrights, artists, and philosophers, all painting an idealized and anachronistic picture of an outright revolution over monarchy and a triumph for whichever cause the source with which the source felt most aligned. This is particularly anachronistic in light of the likelihood that contemporary Romans saw the institution of Basileus as totally compatible with the notion of Republic, where the duty of the state is to attend to the needs of the population, rather than the modern notion that a Republic is defined by elections and non-hereditary rule.

What can be said in certainty is that the siege was the catalyst of the transformation from a semi-hereditary government, ruled by a Basileus, to an elected government. The last undisputed Basileus claimed the name Leo III, though he was born Konon, and was either Isaurian, Syrian, or Armenian by birth. In the chaos that surrounded the downfall of the Heraclian dynasty and the Arab invasions of the early 8th century, he was but the last of seven usurpers in two decades. In light of the fate of the government, it would seem that the political instability, combined with the territorial losses to the Arabs had fatally undermined support for the government.

Perhaps had Leo survived the siege, he would have had the support necessary to continue on as things had always been, and start his own dynasty. However, the muddled and conflicting sources on the siege all agree that he died during it. There are many accounts of his fate during the siege, ranging from dying in battle in defense of his city, to offering surrender and being double-crossed by the Arabs, to more fanciful defamations. Upon his death, a brief power struggled ensued, with his chief lieutenant and son-in-law, Artabasdos, making a play for control. Though he had the support of many in the military, his attempt somehow resulted in his death before he could consolidate power, resulting in a power vacuum at a time the city could spare it the least.

However, under the moral leadership of Saint Germanos, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the various factions in the city set aside their differences for the time being and focused their energies on withstanding the invaders. Though the military and urban elites almost certainly spent the entire time jockeying and conspiring to place one of their own back on the throne, it was from this temporary truce that the Republic would be renewed.

On the military side, Constantinople would continue to endure, scoring major naval victories that enabled the protection of their supply lines and the severing of the Arabs'. A particularly dramatic turn occurred when many Christian crews in the Arab fleet defected en masse to the defenders. Without a secure line of supply and suffering from Bulgar raids, the Arab invaders under Maslama withered along their siege lines, their numbers decimated by battle, starvation, and disease. The siege was lifted, and the Arabs retreated back to their homes, the expedition an unmitigated disaster.

What followed in Constantinople is the stuff of legends. Supposedly, two new hypatoi (consuls) were elected for the first time in centuries, by the names of Paulos and Anastasios, and they were followed by several other elected leaders. It is likely that some sort of assembly was held in the hippodrome, and popular support was given to whatever the new regime was, and that two men by those names did play a leading role in the government.

It is relatively safe to say that, by AD 730, regular elections were being held for hypatoi, and that they were the chief magistrate within the government. These men would be elected to two year terms, and their terms of office were staggered, so that one was elected each year. Though the early elections were haphazard affairs, an acceptable formula was worked out over a few decades.

The elections themselves were handled by the relatively new organ of the state, the themes. While some sources claim that the themes were an invention of the new government, there are enough solid sources dating form the previous century to safely conclude that they existed in some form prior to that. Their full incarnation would be as civil and military administrative units, though they likely initially simply were a streamlining of the military structure initially. The themes were comprised of all able-bodied men within their given territory, trained as militia in a model inspired by the old republic. A smaller core of fully professional soldiers formed the backbone of each theme and would assist in the training of their civilian counterparts during peacetime. During wartime or in response to Arab raids, the theme would quickly coalesce in response. So long as their military obligations were fulfilled, each citizen had the right to vote in the theme. A slight variation occurred in maritime themes, where the citizenry may be expected to serve as either sailors or marines.

Each theme, collectively, cast one vote for the office of hypatos, to be sworn in at the first day of each year. They also elected an antiprósopos (delegate) to send to the capital to advocate for their theme. They were led by a stratēgos initially, though, as the civil functions of their leadership expanded, the leader of each theme became more commonly referred to as doux. This leader, regardless of title, was appointed by the government in Constantinople. As the scope of the themes' power grew and their ranks swelled with citizen-soldiers, the themes became utterly identical to the regions over which they were assigned.

In this early period, the themes were nine in number: Armeniakōn, Anatolikōn, Opsikion, Thrakēs, Thrakēsiōn, Hellàdos, Kibyrrhaiotōn, Sikelias, and Krētēs. These divisions did not encompass the entirety of Roman territory, but they did account for the overwhelming majority, both geographically and demographically.

No discussion of the government would be complete without mention of the position of Constantinople. As the beating heart of the Republic, the economic, poliical, cultural, and religious center of the territory, it had a key role in the new constitution. The citizenry were soon assembling regularly in the hippodrome to advocate for the issues of the day, much as the plebeians of classical Rome had, centuries prior. They soon took to acclaiming who would be acceptable candidates for the coming year's hypatos, with assemblies typically supporting two to three candidates. While this was not binding, it seems that the themes took their cues from reports from the capital, with such acclaimed candidates almost always being elected.

As would be expected of a government more styled on Republican ideas, the Sygklētos (Senate) became exponentially more powerful. It was pared down in size dramatically from its Imperials days as a mere sign of wealth and nobility, and began to actually govern again. It was with the Senate that the hypatoi and delegates from the themes would govern on a day-to-day basis, and it was from those ranks, as well as the ranks of other magistrates and high ranking clergy, that the Senate would be formed.

This overview, encompassing the scope of the early decades of the restored Republic, should not be taken to indicate that these changes occurred overnight, or that they were set in stone. They were hobbled together through a series of compromise over the years, as the leading men of the day looked to their circumstances and to antiquity for solutions to lead their new government. Indeed, many did not even likely consider what they were doing truly revolutionary. Some simply thought of themselves as participating in an oligarchic interregnum, until the norm of autocratic rule returned. Some were simply trying to increase the power of their given faction. Though there were idealists among them, as in any age, this was largely a work, as so many others are, of ordinary men pursuing their goals to the best of their ability.

Close

Have at it, guys.

The Umayyad Caliphate

As the various political intrigues that resulted in the restoration of the Republic sorted themselves out, both in Constantinople and the hinterlands of Roman territory, the rest of the world was not sitting idly by. The various peoples that bordered Rome were forging their own histories, and, in many cases, those histories are better documented than the contemporary Roman histories were.

The greatest power of the age, excepting perhaps for Tang China in the far east, was the Umayyad Caliphate, which stretched, at the time of the siege of AD 717, from India in the east to Spain in the west. Though the Umayyads had been dealt a critical blow in their failure to take Constantinople, they were still in an entirely different league of power than any of their neighbors. When they faced failure, it was, more often than not, simply due to the sheer limits of empire in such an age.

That is not, however, to say that their exploits ended at Constantinople, and that they were content to live in decadent luxury within the walls of Damascus. Far from it. The raids that had marked Arab-Roman relations for nearly a century continued almost continuously for the entire life of the Umayyad Caliphate. It was these raids, more than any other threat, that necessitated the reformation of the Roman military into the Themes. All of Rome knew all too well that the raiders were opportunistic, and what could start as a simple operation to plunder and pillage could quickly turn into an impromptu occupation. That had been, after all, how so much of the Arab empire had been formed.

With this in mind, the Roman strategy was generally to simply make the raids as unprofitable for the Arabs as possible. Riders and beacons would send the alarm to all the surrounding regions whenever raiders entered into Roman territory. Though the Romans could now boast of large numbers in their military, due to the near universal conscription inherent in the thematic system, most of these troops at this time were little better than the stereotypical feudal peasant levy. What they did excel at, however, was guerrilla warfare. As the raiders plunged deeper into the territory, the Roman strategy was to avoid battle and simply pick off targets of opportunity, while the main armies were gathered up. Nightly sorties by local farmer militias were expected, and intimate knowledge of the terrain was crucial in out-maneuvering the invaders.

As Roman forces coalesced, they would seek to deny the Arabs any useful avenues of attack, and force them onto unfavorable terrain, as would be expected. However, an implicit facet of this entire defense-in-depth strategy was that the Romans almost counted on the sacking and looting of their territory. Drunk raiders with bags full of gold were much easier targets. The field armies would often circle like vultures, waiting for the Arabs to take the bait, and then seek to whittle down their numbers until a decisive battle was as risk-free as possible for the defenders, and the looted treasure could be returned to Roman hands.

This style of warfare was not particularly glorious or honorable, and there were no great histories written of the exploits of the Roman armies in this theater. But it halted the Arab advances into Anatolia, and honed the Themes into veteran forces. Even the conscript farmers who could expect to serve only a fraction of the year became battle hardened veterans by the standards of most empires. While the Roman Empire had built its martial reputation, first on heavy infantry and then on heavy cavalry, these armies would be some of the best skirmishers of the era. It was no long before the Romans could regularly launch counter raids into Umayyad territory. This had the sad effect of turning the border regions into no-man's-lands, though the overall result was that the border was solidified, and the raids gradually decreased, year by year, until the Umayyads' own troubles directed their energies elsewhere.

One of the early such troubles that the Umayyads faced, if it could be called such, was the stemming of their expansion into Gaul. Their conquest of the Visigoths had been largely unopposed, and they began to push beyond the Pyrenees into Aquitaine. There, they faced stiffer resistance, but had little trouble subjugating most of the southern cities. When the most powerful leader in Aquitaine, Odo, sided with the Muslims, much of southern Gaul was delivered directly into their hands. Though the Aquitainian elite would remain in power under Muslim rule, they were still subject to the orders of the Umayyad governor of Al-Andalus. In AD 735, that happened to be a man by the name of Abd al-Malik, who sought to prove himself on the field of battle. He began raiding into Frankish territory, under the protection of the Merovingian dynasty, though the real power in Francia was the Mayor of the Palace, one Charles.

Charles would cement his place in history as Charles Martel at the battle of Paris in that same year. With the forces of Abd al-Malik crossing the Loire border, the Frankish armies quickly responded to the threat to their capital. Well outside the Merovingian capital, the Umayyad forces were crushed by the Frankish heavy infantry, which Charles had deployed specifically to counter the invaders. As would be true throughout so much of history, heavy infantry utilizing shield wall tactics were the bane of cavalry, particularly light cavalry. With the death of their commander and facing serious losses, the invaders retreated back to their territory. However, though the Franks would follow up by keeping pressure on the Umayyads, the Arabs still maintained their hold on most of southern Gaul for the time.

Though halted on the mainland, the Umayyads would continue to put pressure on their neighbors. From their bases in Spain and southern Gaul, raiding fleets began to visit the islands of the Western Mediterranean. The Balearics had capitulated decades earlier, and now it was Corsica and Sardinia that received the brunt of the attention. Corsica would fall in AD 729, while it was being fought over by the Romans and Lombards, and Sardinia would meet a similar fate in AD 738, as the Romans there submitted to Arab suzerainty.

From these island bases, the whole of the west coast of Italy was open for attack, and the peninsula suffered greatly from this. The Lombards, controlling the greater part of Italy between their two realms (the Kingdom of the Lombards in the north, and the Duchy of Benevento in the south), bore the brunt of the raids. This was made all the more acute by their relative lack of naval forces. The Roman strip of land surrounding Rome had a shorter coastline, and their naval forces were stronger, so they were a less appealing target overall. That said, Sicily, being more exposed, and Rome, being a high profile target, did attract more attention from the raiders than the rest of Roman territory in the west.

This constant tension in the Mediterranean would be the rule right up until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate, as the vast empire collapsed under its own massive weight.

End

I figure the best way to counter my Roman fanboyism is to simply overpower their main competitor. It was fun.