Part XI: Weathering the Storm
The peace brought on by the Arab Fitna would not last. The Fitna had been brought on by disagreements among the Caliphate’s leaders about who should lead. The main army had been loyal to Mu’awihya, and it had seemed that this would be enough to secure him the position. But the disastrous raid on Egypt had seen the commander killed and most of his command destroyed.
Afterward infighting amongst the various chieftains had led the Arabs to be distracted by internal squabbles for most of the 660s. Raids from Persia also led to Arab attention being turned in that direction. But in 668 Hasan ibn Ali led a successful attack on the Persians, which saw the Shahriyar killed and the Persian army put to flight. Had it not been for an uprising amongst the army back in Syria its possible Hasan would have been able to march to Esfahan and capture the Persian Empire. But the Fitna wasn’t over, and so the Persians managed to avert collapse.
Hasan put down the revolt and in 669 he was recognized as Caliph by the Arab elite. Hasan’s rise however basically spelt the end of the Caliphate, eventually. In order to gain support of local tribes Hasan had to significantly lessen the amount of central control he would exert over them. And more importantly, collect less money in taxes from the territory these individual leaders held. This meant that while Hasan ruled wealthy territories in Syria, the rest of the Empire sent along far less money than might have been expected. Raiding the Romans or Persians thus became a central focus of Hasan’s reign, and of his successors.
Now this was fine as far as it went, so long as the Arabs could successfully plunder neighboring territory the Caliph would have the money, slaves, and prestige to maintain power. But, if the raids ever began to fail regularly, then his position would be very shaky indeed. Those reading ahead know that this is exactly what will happen down the line.
For now however, Hasan waited for the truce with the Romans to expire, and then resumed the raids into Anatolia and Egypt. Previous raids had, at least theoretically been about extending Arab rule into the Roman heartland, but Hasan changed tactics. He was interested in wealth, wealth to keep his reign in place. If he could takes Western Anatolia that would have been one thing, but in the poorer East conquest would do little to expand his power, and would cost much.
Egypt was of course the greater prize, but the Romans had too many soldiers there, and Hasan had too little control over his tribal supporters to overcome them in the long-term. Mostly his raids were successful. Sometimes they were not, but the seemingly endless war between the Caliphate and the Romans dragged on.
So passed Anastasius’s reign. The Emperor campaigned on the frontiers virtually every year, leaving administration to Leo, who by now was effectively equal in rank to his father. In 673 Leo was arranged to be married to a young woman named Helena, a move aimed at securing his family’s legitimacy. You will recall that when the Emperor Theodosius died he had married his second daughter Constantine IV. I neglected to mention at the time, but when Justinian II became Emperor he forced Empress Maria into a convent to get her out of the way.
But Theodosius had three daughters, and after his death the youngest had eventually married, though by that time Justinian was firmly entrenched in power. She and her family had stayed quiet during the civil war, but she had had children, and her oldest son had a single child, Helena. The girl was the last link to the old Justinian dynasty. And more than that, she was the descendent of the by now legendary Theodosius, who was at the time viewed as being similar in stature to Constantine I was viewed. The match was not exactly a marriage founded on love, but the two did get along and it was a political masterstroke.
The Thalassans were no longer just another family of usurpers. They were now the legitimate links to the previous dynasty. Helena herself also proved to be a capable Empress. She was popular and charismatic, and the people of the capital loved her. Far more than they loved Leo, who was rather humorless and disliked public spaces. Helena would eventually bear three children, two sons and a daughter, to her husband. In order they were Maurice, Sophia, and Andronikos.
Anastasius died in 681. He was fifty-four years old, and had been Emperor for fourteen years. Anastasius was a solid Emperor. He was a good commander, a capable administrator, and his set-up of the themes secured the Empire’s frontiers against raids on the interior more thoroughly than the Diocese system had allowed. He’s largely forgotten now, but he was a capable man who left the Empire in good hands.
The largest single thing to note on Anastasius’s death was that nothing really changed. Leo III had already basically been Emperor for most of his father’s reign, and now he simply lacked an Imperial colleague. A few weeks after his ascension however he elevated Maurice to the post of Caesar, though as the boy was still in his mid-teens this meant little.
Leo III was not his father, and did not go out on campaign often. He adopted a more defensive posture than his father’s, focusing entirely on harassing raids rather than every trying to fight them directly. He also increased the tribute paid t the Bulgar khan to five hundred pounds of gold when the khan’s emissaries hinted that raids might resume if the truce was no renegotiated. Leo, an accountant at heart did the math and determined that paying a little more now would be far cheaper than losing a theme army and paying even more later.
He did however have to tighten Imperial finances even more, as the tribute to the Bulgars now took up almost a tenth of Imperial revenues.
Feeling the screws of finance tightenting Leo removed the last of the old Senate’s tax privileges, and levied a tax on trade conducted in Imperial port cities, particularly those in Italy. These monita, the Latin word for notification were specifically placed on trade between the cities of Italy and kingdoms of the Franks and Goths, as well as on good flowing through the Silk Road. Most importantly however, was the monita center in Alexandria. Since Augustus the taxes of Egypt had mostly been collected in the form of grain, which was then given out to the army and population. What grain was sold was heavily controlled, and forced to be sold below a fair value, angering the Egyptians.
Leo however looked around and decided that he didn’t really need that much grain. He needed coins. And so in conjunction with these monitas Leo actually cut the taxes on Egyptian farmers, a welcome change amongst them, while still taking in more cash. Without the Imperial controls the Egyptians sold at what they considered fairer prices, and the Emperors tax collectors were in place to reap the rewards.
The key thing to understand about Leo’s worldview is that he was unique among Emperors of the time period in that he despised payments and trade in kind. He didn’t want to collect goods in lieu of cash, he wanted the gold. And so whenever he could he promoted the collection of gold rather than of crops or livestock. In his mind coins should be used for all exchanges, because those could be more easily tracked, and thus taxed. It might not seem so strange to us today, but for the time it was revolutionary thinking.
It also would not last long beyond the reign of Leo’s children. Additionally, Leo began a policy of exporting silk. Normally silk was reserved for the Roman elite, but the Emperor stared at all of those fine garments and saw nothing but coins where they sat. He was famous for wearing simple cloth rather than silk, and soon was sending merchants for with silk to be sold to the Bulgars, the Franks, and anyone else who was willing to pay the sometimes absurd prices fetched by the material. In one particular amusing story Manuel II describes a situation where Leo’s tribute to the Bulgar khan arrived, and the man immediately sent the entire tribute south in exchange for silks for himself, his son, and all of his leading men.
The story is probably false, as silk would not have fetched such a massive price at any point, but the point of it is clear. The Emperor wanted gold, and he got it.
Imperial revenues actually declined slightly in absolute terms during Leo’s reign, dropping to about 2.7 million nomismata in 695, but of this a larger share was now in the form of coins, and Leo considered the trade-off to be worth the decrease.
If the Church hoped the incoming gold would lead to the return of their golden decorations however they were sorely mistaken. Leo was not one to hoard his gold, and he spent it judiciously, but frequently. In 692 he decided the capital still had too many people in it, and so shipped another fifty thousand off to Italy, and then twenty thousand to North Africa. The population of Constantinople was now down to a more manageable hundred and fifty thousand. Not one to waste space Leo promptly tore down the empty homes between the Theodosian and Constantinian Walls and had farms and gardens put in. These he put into the hands of the poor of his city and set them to work.
But the question remains, what exactly was the Emperor spending all of this money on?
Well a variety of things, with most of the gold going to the army (although it was here the Emperor also sent what payments in kind he was still receiving). In 696 he positioned a large naval squadran at Cyprus when the Arabs began launching ships of their own. In 697 Leo began construction of fortifications across the Balkans, as mentioned last time.
All of this military spending resulted in Leo being very popular with the army, despite the fact he never went out on campaign with them. The soldiers were well fed, well housed, and paid on time and in full. Leo died in 698 when another run of plague swept through the Mediterranean. He was fifty-one years old and had been Emperor for seventeen years.
Leo III was a unique figure among this period of Roman Emperors. So far as I can tell he never served in the army, never led men in combat at all in fact. He didn’t even leave Constantinople at any point in his reign. The Emperor was shy, and avoided public events whenever possible. He had little interest in most Roman virtues at all in fact. What he was however was the most capable administrator in centuries. Perhaps since Hadrian. His singular focus on getting actual money for the treasury is interesting in itself, as is his methods of collecting the money. The land tax had always provided the majority of the Empire’s tax revenue, but Leo was an early believer in the value of trade, and so did much to encourage it, and then to tax it. Manuel famously labels him as the greatest Emperor of the Thalassan or Justinian dynasty, though as he also labels Heraklanos as a figure to emulate does lead to some questions about the future Emperor’s priorities.
Regardless, in 698 Maurice II was crowned Emperor. He then was not Emperor anymore, because the same bout of plague that killed his father killed him under three months later. Maurice II was 23 years old and reigned for just 75 days. He is not known to have done anything.
His brother, Andronikos I was declared Emperor next. He was only twenty, and was very different than his father. Brave and focused on soldering Andronikos went out on campaign against the Arabs in Summer of 699. He then fell off of his horse in Cappadochia and died. He was 21 years old and had been Emperor for one year and six days.
And that could well have been the end of the Thalassan dynasty. But Leo still had one child left. Sophia was 22 and had married an able commander named Marcian, the prefect of the Scholae. Marcian was ten years older than Sophia, but as her husband he was officially declared Augustus on August 9, 699 as Marcian II. That said, Sophia was the real power in the palace. Marcian was a soldier, and his wife took after her father more than either brother had. She was a micromanager and had taken copying her husband’s signature as a personal challenge. And so when we say that Marcian did this, or Marcian did that, what we really mean is Sophia did this, and Sophia did that.
The system worked well however, and Marcian was content to let his wife do most of the work while he got the credit. In 700 the Bulgar khan, again wanting to raise the tribute invaded Dacia. Marcian raised the Tagmata, along with soldiers from Macedon, Pontus, Greece, and Moesia and marched out to meet them, gathering the Dacian army as he went. The khan tried to withdraw, but was caught by the Romans and forced to fight. The Bulgars were heavily outnumbered by the Romans, and were dealt a major defeat. In the subsequent talks the annual tribute was reduced to two-hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and the Bulgars were required to send soldiers to assist the Romans in Anatolia. The Bulgar khan withdrew back across the Danube severely chastened.
The Arabs however were anything but. Hasan had died in the 680s, leaving his son Qasim as Caliph. Qasim was far more aggressive than his father, and in 702 he captured the city of Melitene, and sacked it. Later in 704 he captured Theodosiopolis and did the same. Both times the Theme armies were unable to put up a serious challenge. Marcian would spend the rest of his life in the East, trying to stabilize the Roman position there. He would eventually die in 710 at the age of 44, after an accident. His wife Sophia would reign in her son’s name for the next decade, until that man, Constantine V was old enough to take the throne. She was kept on as an advisor to the Emperor before finally passing on in 735, at the age of 59.
Sophia and Marcian were a successful team. Sophia managed the Empire’s finances with the skill her father had done, and Marcian was an able leader of men. Neither could have functioned long-term without the other. Marcian was Emperor for 12 years. Sophia was Empress for 22.
I know that I largely skated over the events of the last 40 years, but this is largely because no much really happened inside the scope of the narrative. Greater events were taking place in Western Europe and in Persia, but these will be discussed in their own sections later when I need to get the world caught up with the Romans.
Inside the Empire the story would basically just have been explaining that Arab raiders arrived, they raided, they retreated. Sometimes the Empire drove them off, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the Empire recaptured loot, sometimes they didn’t.
But in the background something important was going on inside of the Caliphate. The decline I talked about earlier was happening. And the Caliph saw only one way to reverse the decline in revenues power. Conquest, and not conquest of just anywhere. No, the Arabs were going to have to conquer Egypt if the Caliphate was to survive.
