International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Georgios Theotokis
Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey; 
[e-mail]
Byzantine-Arab Wars of the Tenth Century: The Strengths and Weaknesses of 
the Primary Sources and the Value of Their Authors as “Military Historians''
Until 912 and the death of Leo VI, the Byzantines had not committed themselves into any 
definite war in a specific part of their frontiers in the East. From the 915 onwards the attention of 
the central government was focused – with intermediate breaks – on Armenia. Zoe’s government 
initiated a series of campaigns led by John Curcuas in Armenia and Mesopotamia in the 920s-40s, a 
policy which, however, did not include a conscious and long-term ambition of territorial expansion.
That would be until the emergence of a new dynasty with two powerful brothers that were to 
establish their Emirates in the region of the Jazira and the Thugur, Nasir and Sayf-ad-Dawla. The 
latter posed a vigorous resistance against the Byzantine raids in Mesopotamia and Armenia, and for a 
number of political, diplomatic, social, cultural and geographical reasons, the Empire was also attracted 
in a protracted conflict in the region of Armenia, Taron, Vaspourakan and northern Mesopotamia.
Armenia was strategically far more important to the Byzantine government than Cilicia and 
Syria, and Constantinople did not contemplate any territorial expansion in the region but rather 
the forging of diplomatic ties with the local 
naxarars.
Since the Byzantines did not pay the required 
attention to the notion of “frontiers” and “frontier affairs” and warfare was seen primarily as a matter 
of subjecting or sacking cities, and breaking the power of troublesome border emirs rather than any 
territorial expansion 
per se
, then how can we explain the extensive gains of territory in Cilicia and 
Syria in the 950s-60s and the massive mobilisation of manpower for a war that lasted for decades and 
reached legendary proportions on both sides of the borders? What led to this escalation of violence 
between Constantine VII and Sayf ad-Dawla of Aleppo? What indications do we have about this 
change of policy by the Empire and when, exactly, can we trace it in time? What were the deeper and 
long-term implications for Byzantium’s strategic thinking, its military and political organization?

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