Section Ten - On Egypt, the Levant, and Arabia
Section Ten - On Egypt, the Levant, and Arabia
Ever since the fall of the Thirtieth Dynasty in 343 BCE, Egypt had been under the domination of foreign rulers. First the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans, and then the Greeks again. In 687, the cycle ended. Michael of Syene, a Coptic nobleman began a small protest against tax increases made by the new emperor Michael I. The protest snowballed into a full out rebellion, and with the aid of Sassanid Shahanshah Bahram VII, Michael was acclaimed Pharaoh and King of All Egypt in Alexandria in 690. Egypt remained safe during the subsequent chaos that enveloped both Byzantium and Persia, with the only issue coming in the Battle of Yarmouk in 715, when both Pharaoh Michael and Shahanshah Yazdegered IV fell in battle against Theodosios III. Egypt quickly made peace with the Byzantines, securing the Sinai for themselves, while the Greeks continued to slog with the Persians. Theodosios soon fell in battle against Ardashir IV, who also died a few days later from an injury, in 718, leading their successors Khosrau V and Heraklios II to make peace, thus ending the Egyptian War. That war is notable for the high turnover rate of monarchs, with three Byzantine emperors dying between 687-718, compared to one Egyptian pharaoh and six Sassanid Shahanshahs.
The first few decades of independence were immensely profitable for the House of Syene. Egyptian grain began to feed the great cities of Italy, Hispania, and Greece, causing the Hispanic emperors to launch protective measures to save the Carthaginian grain farmers from the competition. The House of Syene lasted until 812, when civil war between the two sons of Benjamin II, Michael III and Benjamin III, allowed for Isaac of Tanis to seize the throne. The House of Tanis reached their apogee during the reign of Michael V, whose fifty year long reign saw the Fall of Constantinople and the Battle of Galilee, in which Michael utterly destroyed a Qaranid army seeking to subdue Egypt. Jerusalem, under Egyptian rule since 770 when Benjamin I took it from the isolated Byzantine governor, was where Michael celebrated his triumph, taking on the new title of “Protector of Jerusalem”. This began a shift in Michael’s politics - as he was secure from all external foes, he started to focus on religious matters, attempting to place more stringent regulations on the Coptic Church so that he could tap into the vast wealth the Church had acquired. The lasting resentment between the House of Tanis and the Coptic Church directly led to the usurpation of the dynasty with the House of Memphis in 998, which had the clear backing of the Church.
Elsewhere, there was Cyrenaica. The region, on the periphery of Egypt, became basically independent when Egypt broke away, though for a while it did pay lip service to the Byzantine Emperors. When the Empire fell into chaos during the fall of the Achaean Dynasty, Cyrenaica, fell in line with Egypt, mainly out of fear of the encroaching Hispanics and their Phazanian allies. However, Egypt’s concerns laid mostly in the Levant, Nubia, and the Red Sea, limiting the aid they could send to Cyrenaica. For almost two centuries, the people of Cyrenaica allowed this, but following the collapse of the Byzantine Empire they decided to look elsewhere. Appio Licinio, the newly crowned Hispanic Emperor, was more than happy to bring Cyrenaica into Hispania’s orbit. Egypt only half heartedly contested it, with Michael V more worried about his eastern borders, and prefered to fortify Marmarica rather than attempt to reclaim Cyrenaica.
Compared to Egypt, the Levant was fractured. The Qaranids, in their bid for dominance, preferred to let local rulers continue rather than subdue the entirety of the area and be forced to deal with the inevitable rebels. Therefore, the states of the Levant were a hodgepodge mixture of Greek duchies and counties, typically on the coasts, Syriac and Arab states, usually in the interior, and various Assyrian states in the north, in addition to the Armenian states in Cilicia and increasing around Antioch. The dichotomy between the Greeks and the Syriacs was strongest in the north, where the Princes of Antioch frequently dueled with the Kings of Beroea-Halab [F1] for control of the upper Orontes. The Qaranid shahs were content to let this state of affairs last, as it prevented a major enemy from rising and kept the Levantine troops constantly strong. Yet times were changing. Christophoros Ypsilantis, a minor noble from western Anatolia, moved to Berytus [F2] around the year 1000, and began uniting Phoenicia slowly under his banner. The Qaranids, dealing with the upstart Jalayirids, could do nothing to stop him. The anti-Latin policies of Christophoros’s descendents, however, brought about their downfall, for it angered the West at a time that it was ill needed. The subsequent Crusades reshaped Europe and the Near East, and from that firestorm arose the High Principality of Jerusalem, certainly one of the strangest states of the post-antiquity era.
Southwards in Arabia, that land was just as fractured as the Levant was. In the northwest, there was the Banu Ghassan tribe, who switched their allegiance to the Egyptians upon the collapse of Byzantine authority. In the northeast, there was the Banu Lakhm, who maintained their loyalty to the shahs of Persia, be it the Sassanids or the Qaranids. The Banu Tayy headed much farther northwards, settling in the deep interior of the Levant and Anatolia, bringing Arab culture into the mixing pot of the Near East. South of the Lakhmids along the Persian Gulf were Qatar and Mazun, both Nestorian Christian realms who warred over the islands of Awal/Tylos and Jarun/Organa between themselves and the Persian Kingdom of Ormus, a client of the Qaranids. In South Arabia, there was one major state, the Second Himyarite Kingdom, which regained its independence from the Sassanids following the Egyptian War. Himyar grew to control a vast amount of land in South Arabia, taking advantage of the decline of Aksum. Himyar was also Jewish, one of the only Jewish states in the world at this time. Yet all was not well, for Hadhramaut continued to be a hotbed of rebellion, eventually breaking away around the year 950. Hadhramaut repudiated Judaism and instead adopted Rahmanism, a close relative but inclusive of many more Arab polytheistic traits. Rahmanism would remain a Arab concept, rarely leaving the peninsula except for its interactions in East Africa, when Arab traders began to move southwards by the twelfth century. In the sandy interior, only the Kindah thrived, pushed into the interior by expansionst Himyar, yet they were on the decline due to climate change brought on by overgrazing. Arabia showed no sign of uniting in this time, and though Himyar showed the most promise some things are not meant to occur until much later.
[F1]: Aleppo, one of the oldest urban areas in the world still inhabited.
[F2]: Beirut.
Ever since the fall of the Thirtieth Dynasty in 343 BCE, Egypt had been under the domination of foreign rulers. First the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans, and then the Greeks again. In 687, the cycle ended. Michael of Syene, a Coptic nobleman began a small protest against tax increases made by the new emperor Michael I. The protest snowballed into a full out rebellion, and with the aid of Sassanid Shahanshah Bahram VII, Michael was acclaimed Pharaoh and King of All Egypt in Alexandria in 690. Egypt remained safe during the subsequent chaos that enveloped both Byzantium and Persia, with the only issue coming in the Battle of Yarmouk in 715, when both Pharaoh Michael and Shahanshah Yazdegered IV fell in battle against Theodosios III. Egypt quickly made peace with the Byzantines, securing the Sinai for themselves, while the Greeks continued to slog with the Persians. Theodosios soon fell in battle against Ardashir IV, who also died a few days later from an injury, in 718, leading their successors Khosrau V and Heraklios II to make peace, thus ending the Egyptian War. That war is notable for the high turnover rate of monarchs, with three Byzantine emperors dying between 687-718, compared to one Egyptian pharaoh and six Sassanid Shahanshahs.
The first few decades of independence were immensely profitable for the House of Syene. Egyptian grain began to feed the great cities of Italy, Hispania, and Greece, causing the Hispanic emperors to launch protective measures to save the Carthaginian grain farmers from the competition. The House of Syene lasted until 812, when civil war between the two sons of Benjamin II, Michael III and Benjamin III, allowed for Isaac of Tanis to seize the throne. The House of Tanis reached their apogee during the reign of Michael V, whose fifty year long reign saw the Fall of Constantinople and the Battle of Galilee, in which Michael utterly destroyed a Qaranid army seeking to subdue Egypt. Jerusalem, under Egyptian rule since 770 when Benjamin I took it from the isolated Byzantine governor, was where Michael celebrated his triumph, taking on the new title of “Protector of Jerusalem”. This began a shift in Michael’s politics - as he was secure from all external foes, he started to focus on religious matters, attempting to place more stringent regulations on the Coptic Church so that he could tap into the vast wealth the Church had acquired. The lasting resentment between the House of Tanis and the Coptic Church directly led to the usurpation of the dynasty with the House of Memphis in 998, which had the clear backing of the Church.
Elsewhere, there was Cyrenaica. The region, on the periphery of Egypt, became basically independent when Egypt broke away, though for a while it did pay lip service to the Byzantine Emperors. When the Empire fell into chaos during the fall of the Achaean Dynasty, Cyrenaica, fell in line with Egypt, mainly out of fear of the encroaching Hispanics and their Phazanian allies. However, Egypt’s concerns laid mostly in the Levant, Nubia, and the Red Sea, limiting the aid they could send to Cyrenaica. For almost two centuries, the people of Cyrenaica allowed this, but following the collapse of the Byzantine Empire they decided to look elsewhere. Appio Licinio, the newly crowned Hispanic Emperor, was more than happy to bring Cyrenaica into Hispania’s orbit. Egypt only half heartedly contested it, with Michael V more worried about his eastern borders, and prefered to fortify Marmarica rather than attempt to reclaim Cyrenaica.
Compared to Egypt, the Levant was fractured. The Qaranids, in their bid for dominance, preferred to let local rulers continue rather than subdue the entirety of the area and be forced to deal with the inevitable rebels. Therefore, the states of the Levant were a hodgepodge mixture of Greek duchies and counties, typically on the coasts, Syriac and Arab states, usually in the interior, and various Assyrian states in the north, in addition to the Armenian states in Cilicia and increasing around Antioch. The dichotomy between the Greeks and the Syriacs was strongest in the north, where the Princes of Antioch frequently dueled with the Kings of Beroea-Halab [F1] for control of the upper Orontes. The Qaranid shahs were content to let this state of affairs last, as it prevented a major enemy from rising and kept the Levantine troops constantly strong. Yet times were changing. Christophoros Ypsilantis, a minor noble from western Anatolia, moved to Berytus [F2] around the year 1000, and began uniting Phoenicia slowly under his banner. The Qaranids, dealing with the upstart Jalayirids, could do nothing to stop him. The anti-Latin policies of Christophoros’s descendents, however, brought about their downfall, for it angered the West at a time that it was ill needed. The subsequent Crusades reshaped Europe and the Near East, and from that firestorm arose the High Principality of Jerusalem, certainly one of the strangest states of the post-antiquity era.
Southwards in Arabia, that land was just as fractured as the Levant was. In the northwest, there was the Banu Ghassan tribe, who switched their allegiance to the Egyptians upon the collapse of Byzantine authority. In the northeast, there was the Banu Lakhm, who maintained their loyalty to the shahs of Persia, be it the Sassanids or the Qaranids. The Banu Tayy headed much farther northwards, settling in the deep interior of the Levant and Anatolia, bringing Arab culture into the mixing pot of the Near East. South of the Lakhmids along the Persian Gulf were Qatar and Mazun, both Nestorian Christian realms who warred over the islands of Awal/Tylos and Jarun/Organa between themselves and the Persian Kingdom of Ormus, a client of the Qaranids. In South Arabia, there was one major state, the Second Himyarite Kingdom, which regained its independence from the Sassanids following the Egyptian War. Himyar grew to control a vast amount of land in South Arabia, taking advantage of the decline of Aksum. Himyar was also Jewish, one of the only Jewish states in the world at this time. Yet all was not well, for Hadhramaut continued to be a hotbed of rebellion, eventually breaking away around the year 950. Hadhramaut repudiated Judaism and instead adopted Rahmanism, a close relative but inclusive of many more Arab polytheistic traits. Rahmanism would remain a Arab concept, rarely leaving the peninsula except for its interactions in East Africa, when Arab traders began to move southwards by the twelfth century. In the sandy interior, only the Kindah thrived, pushed into the interior by expansionst Himyar, yet they were on the decline due to climate change brought on by overgrazing. Arabia showed no sign of uniting in this time, and though Himyar showed the most promise some things are not meant to occur until much later.
[F1]: Aleppo, one of the oldest urban areas in the world still inhabited.
[F2]: Beirut.
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