27

The Mardaites

James Howard-Johnston1

After their initial conquest of the Roman Levant (634-43), the Arabs were initially preoccupied with completing the destruction of the Sasanian empire (achieved in 652 with the flight and death of the last shahanshah, Yazdgerd III). For the rest of the century, they concentrated their efforts on the war against what remained of the east Roman empire, except when distracted by two bloody and ideologically charged civil wars (656-61 and 682-92).

On the central maritime front, operations began before the bulk of Arab forces returned from the east in 652-3. Merchant ships were commandeered and adapted for combat in the ports of Syria and Egypt. Specialist naval vessels were also constructed in what was probably an emergency programme, in response to a demonstration of Roman naval power in 646, when an expeditionary force sailed to Alexandria, took control of the city (only evacuated three years earlier) and hoped (in vain) to trigger a general rising in Egypt against the new Arab regime. Three distinct naval offensives were then launched: the first, beginning with an attack on Cyprus in 649, culminated in a grand assault on Constantinople in 654 by two fleets and two armies attacking across Asia Minor; the second, analysed below, took place in the 670s; the third was well prepared and well executed, ending with a full-scale siege, by land and sea, of Constantinople, which was sustained through the winter of 717-18.

As well as the capital, naval action targeted the rich western and north-western maritime faades of Asia Minor, which constituted one of two large landmasses retained by the rump Roman state, and the islands of the Aegean. Attacks on the interior of Asia Minor involved military action on a second, eastern front, initially running along the Amanus and Armenian Taurus ranges to the west and north of Antioch, Antioch having been transformed from a great Roman metropolis into a forward redoubt protecting the territories lightly controlled by the Arabs in Syria and Palestine. Operations on land were undertaken both to support action by sea and to soften up the Roman defences beforehand in the case of the second and third naval offensives. By the beginning of the eighth century, the front had moved forward, Cilicia and south-eastern Asian Minor becoming the main foci of the fighting.

Outside the Romans inner sea, the Aegean, and their homelands in Asia Minor, Greece and Thrace, they still controlled territories in the north-east (Crimea, Lazica and some of the western Caucasus) and in the west (a diagonal belt across central Italy from Ravenna to Rome, Apulia, Calabria, Sicily, the islands of the west Mediterranean and, last, North Africa, the second large land mass in Roman possession). The most fertile part of North Africa, comprising the provinces of Zeugitana (around Carthage) and Byzacena to the south, together with the more mountainous province of Numidia immediately to the west, constituted both a valuable Roman resource (second only to Asia Minor) and a convenient base for launching counterattacks by land on Egypt. The new Arab regime knew this. It was plain that Egyptian security could only be assured by a policy of aggression, aimed at destabilising and weakening Roman rule in the west. North Africa thus saw a series of Arab

1 Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Email: james.howard-johnston@ccc.ox.ac.uk.

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offensive thrusts from the Pentapolis, seized early as an outer bastion for Egypt. The weight of the attacks grew markedly with time as increasing numbers of Berbers were converted to Islam and were co-opted into what became a joint Arab-Berber venture to overrun the whole Maghreb. There were three distinct phases to the fighting, as on the central maritime front: after the Roman attack on Alexandria in 646, an initial push into Byzacena in 647, in the course of which a Roman army was defeated at Sufutela (Sbeitla) and raiding forays caused considerable damage in Byzacena; a second attack in greater force in 669 of which more below; and, finally, the successful full-scale invasion which netted Carthage in the 690s and opened the way into the Maghreb.2

The Mardaites were involved in the Roman riposte to the second major Arab attack on Roman North Africa and the second naval offensive into Roman home waters in the 670s. In this paper I summarise what is known of the Mardaite episode, in itself of considerable historical significance, and place it in context, by presenting a chronologically ordered narrative of the events which immediately preceded and followed it. I then turn to the question of what impact, if any, the episode had on the numismatic record.

Sources First, though, something should be said about the sources used in the reconstruction of international relations in the eastern Mediterranean between the late 660s and early 690s. The recent publication of Robert Hoylands book on the lost history of Theophilus of Edessa, the most important of the sources, which includes translations of material taken over from Theophilus by four later historians, greatly aids this brief overview.3 The key passages are to be found in (1) the annalistic chronicle (in Greek) of Theophanes (d.818), a well-connected and assuredly well-educated abbot, who continued the world history of his historical mentor, George Syncellus, from 284 to his own time (813), (2) the world history of Agapius of Manbij written in the 940s (in Arabic), (3) a tripartite work (divided into secular, ecclesiastical and environmental history) written in Syriac by Michael, Patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) church (d.1199), and (4) an anonymous bipartite history (a shorter ecclesiastical section follows the main body of secular material), also written in Syriac, which comes down to the year 1234. The first two, Theophanes and Agapius, draw on Theophilus directly, the two later Syrian writers indirectly via a history written in the first half of the ninth century by Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, a predecessor of Michaels as Patriarch (818-45).4

Each of these later historians treated Theophilus text in his own way. The two Syrians made fullest use of his material, in the form in which it reached them (i.e. as edited and fleshed out by Dionysius of Tel-Mahre). Agapius was more selective and more wayward in what he chose to include and in the extent to which he abridged it. The great value of his version, however, is that it is almost entirely dependent on Theophilus.5 Although Theophilus was Theophanes main source for international relations from the initial Arabs conquests in the 630s to the 740s, Theophanes included a considerable amount of extraneous material. For the period from 669 to 720, he made extensive

2 J. Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century

(Oxford, 2010), 436-516. 3 R.G. Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessas Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and

Early Islam, TTH 57 (Liverpool, 2011). In what follows, I cite Theophilus eastern derivatives (Agapius, Michael the Syrian and the anonymous Chronicle to 1234) in Hoylands translation. Since Theophanes, his Byzantine derivative, includes additional material not taken from Theophilus, I cite the critical edition of C. de Boor, Theophanis chronographia (Leipzig, 1883), with the translation of C. Mango & R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284-813 (Oxford, 1997). 4 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 192-236, 268-74. The passages dealing with the Mardaites are translated by Hoyland,

Theophilus, 169-70, 180-2. 5 Hoyland, Theophilus, 11-15.

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use of another lost source, written in Greek, which should be classified as a personal memoir (hence the intemperate tone of the account of Justinian IIs two reigns [685-95, 705-11]) rather than a history. It seems to have been written in the 720s by an author with direct experience of government at the highest level, with a good grasp of the recent past but only vague and scanty knowledge about the reign of Constantine IV (669-85). He may well have been the Patrician Trajan, whose work is mentioned in a tenth-century antiquarian encyclopaedia. The extent of Theophanes debt to this second source can be determined without difficulty, since his contemporary, the Patriarch Nicephorus (d.828), in a work of his youth, his Short History, relied on it exclusively for his account of the period 669-720.6

Theophanes had difficulty in combining the material from his two sources. This was not his fault as regards the first instance of serious confusion, concerning naval warfare in the 670s. For Trajan was ill-informed and had somehow convinced himself that Constantinople was under attack from Arab naval forces for seven years, whereas Theophilus limits it to two sailing seasons and goes on to describe a war at sea fought in the Aegean, so well away from the capital, which ended badly for the Arabs and was followed by the insertion of the Mardaites into Lebanon. Theophanes solution was simple - he placed extracts from his two sources end to end and distributed them across individual year-entries. The result is a narrative which does not make sense.7 The second muddle was entirely of his own making. He knew, from Theophilus, that Justinian II extracted massive concessions from Abd al-Malik in a treaty made early in his reign, in return for agreeing to remove the Mardaites from the Levant. He also knew, from Trajan, that Justinian invaded Transcaucasia early in his reign, extracting large sums of money from Armenia, Iberia, Albania and Media. For some reason (he cannot have been thinking at all at the time), he misplaced the treaty before the military action which forced the concessions out of Abd al-Malik. Again the resulting narrative makes no sense. For Justinians aggression does not in the least disturb the peace which he has just made.8

Robert Hoyland suggests that Theophanes faced a second difficulty, caused by a scarcity of dating indications in Theophilus text. Theophilus, he notes, had a taste for anecdotal matter - where narrative matters more than chronological exactitude - and was included in a list of earlier historians criticised by Dionysius of Tel-Mahre for not paying strict enough heed to chronology. He infers that Theophilus only took chronological bearings occasionally and that Theophanes often had to guess under what year to place individual notices.9 But it may well be that the accusation was not directed specifically at Theophilus. If it had been, it would be hard to explain why Dionysius picked out his history and used it as his prime source for the seventh and the first half of the eighth century. It would also be hard to explain how Theophilus, a product of a west Syrian milieu where the chronicle proper, with its annalistic format, was well established, and familiar with a developing Muslim historical culture, which likewise framed events in annual year-entries, should have reverted to a sloppy dating system.10

Roman-Arab relations, 669-692 Now for a summary history of events from 669 to 692, grouped into numbered episodes. Where there are historiographical or chronological problems to be faced, they will be discussed

6 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 256-60, 299-307. Cf. W. Treadgold, Trajan the Patrician, Nicephorus, and

Theophanes, in D. Bumazhnov et al., eds., Bibel, Byzanz und christlicher Orient: Festschrift fr Stephen Ger zum 65. Geburtstag, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 187 (Leuven, 2011), 589-621, at 590-4. 7 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 302-4.

8 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 304-5.

9 Hoyland, Theophilus, 21-3.

10 C. Mango, The Tradition of Byzantine Chronography, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12-13 (1988-9), 363-9; C.F.

Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 2003), 46-50, 74-9.

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immediately after the presentation of the summary narrative, together with other points of historical interest.

1. On the 15th of July 669, a senior courtier, Andrew, went with Constans II into the bath-house attached to his palace in Syracuse. He was charged with carrying out the first vital act of a conspiracy which had been hatched in Constantinople two years or so earlier and which was subsequently worked up into a detailed plan, with the backing of the Caliph Muawiya, in Damascus in the course of 668 (according to the lost History to 682, which can be disinterred from the tenth-century History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movses Daskhurantsi).11 He began to wash Constans hair, working up a lather. Constans naturally shut his eyes, at which Andrew struck him hard with a silver bucket, fracturing his skull. Andrew then slipped away unseen. Constans died two days later.12 The date of Constans assassination is contested. The conventional dating to 15th July 668 is hard to accept, given the testimony of the Liber Pontificalis (which is followed by Paul the Deacon). It would be hard to explain how any contemporary or near-contemporary in Rome would mistake the year of so dramatic an event as the murder of the emperor who had come west, had visited Rome and then had settled in Syracuse. Corroboration is to hand in the letter which Constans son and successor, Constantine IV, wrote to the synod of Rome, on 23rd December 681 after the conclusion of the Trullan church council, and which is dated to the thirteenth year since his accession as senior emperor (his thirteenth postconsulship) - this puts his accession in 669.13

2. At the news of Constans death, Roman forces based in the central Mediterranean declared their support for Me, an Armenian of patrician rank.14 He was, it may be inferred, the candidate who had been judged most likely to command wide support in Transcaucasia, by the conspirators who included a senior Transcausian ruler (Juansher of Caucasian Albania).15 So far so good for the conspirators.

3. But Muawiya now revealed his hand. Instead of opening talks with Me, he sent Muslim forces into action in east and west, by land and sea. The main action was conducted by sea: naval raids, presumably into the Aegean, were launched from Syria and Egypt, while, in the west, an expeditionary force commanded by Fadala b. Ubayd al-Ansari, seized the island of Djerba, in a

11 Movses Daskhurantsi, ed. V. Arakeljan, Movses Kaankatuatsi: Patmutiwn Auanits (Erevan, 1983), 196.15-

197.12, tr. C.J.F. Dowsett, Moses Dasxurancis History of the Caucasian Albanians (London, 1961), 127. Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 105-113 for postulated History to 682. 12

Assassination and date: Liber Pontificalis, no.78 (Vitalianus), ed. L. Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis: Texte, introduction et commentaire, I [Paris, 1955], 344, tr. R.Davis, The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Bishops to AD 715, TTH, Lat.Ser. 5 (Liverpool, 1989), 72; Pauli historia Langobardorum, v.11, ed. L. Bethmann & G. Waitz, MGH, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI-IX (Hanover, 1878), 12-187, tr. W.D Foulke, Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards (Philadelphia, 1907), tr. F. Bougard, Paul Diacre, Histoire des Lombards (Turnhout, 1994); Nicephorus, Breviarium, c.33. ed. & tr. C. Mango, Nikephoros Patriarch of Constantinople, Short History, CFHB 13 (Washington, D.C., 1990); Theoph., 351.14-352.2; Hoyland, Theophilus, 162-4 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234). 13

Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, ser.2, II: Concilium universale Constantinopolitanum tertium, ed. R. Riedinger, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1990-2), 867.10-12. I am grateful to Marek Jankowiak for debating the issue with me. He ascribes more importance to the dating protocols in the Latin version of the acts of the Trullan council, which extend the thirteenth postconsulship back from the seventeenth and last session in September 681 (705.18-23) to the first session in November 680 (15.8-13), thereby making it straddle the 15th July divide between postconsulships - M. Jankowiak, Essai dhistoire politique du monothlisme, partir de la correspondance entre les empereurs byzantins, les patriarches de Constantinople et les papes de Rome (Ph.D., Paris-Warsaw, 2009), 342-3, 407-9, 429-39, 491-5. 14

Theoph., 352.2-4; Hoyland, Theophilus, 163-4 (Agap., Mich.Syr., and Chron.1234); Lib.Pont., no.79 (Adeodatus), I, 346 (tr. 72); Paulus Diaconus, Hist.Lang., v.12-13. 15

References in note 11 above.

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strategic position just off the Libyan coast, where he consolidated his position in winter 669-70. The attack switched to land in 670, when Uqba b. Nafial-Fihri invaded Byzacena (southern Tunisia) and began construction of a permanent base at Qayrawan. Pressure could now be brought to bear on Carthage from the south by land as well as by sea.16

4. Me seems to have secured himself in Syracuse, when Constantine IV sailed west with the main battle-fleet in 670. Constantines main aim, it may be conjectured, was to drive the Arabs from North Africa, after which he would be able to deal with the pretender. In the event the Arabs left of their own accord. Muawiya dismissed Uqba and closed down the campaign, when it became clear that Constantine intended to defend his western possessions.17 The second task proved more difficult. Constantine deputed it to his commanders in the west, who were only able to capture and execute the pretender in 672, after regrouping and launching a concerted attack on Syracuse.18 Constantine took no part in that final operation, as he had to hurry back to Constantinople as soon as the navigating season opened in 671.19

5. An Arab naval force had attacked the metropolitan region in 670, after the departure of the main Roman fleet. Muawiya, a past master of strategic deception seems to have turned his attack on north Africa into a feint, once Constantine was lured to the west, ordering instead a naval offensive against the exposed metropolitan region. While two generals raided Asia Minor, a fleet under the command of Fadala (evidently recalled to the east once he had taken Djerba in 669) sailed up the Aegean, when it was too late in the 670 navigation season for Constantine to contemplate a return voyage. Fadala took control of the waters around Constantinople, without encountering serious opposition, established a base on the Cyzicus peninsula, and maintained the pressure through the winter and deep into 671. Fadala thus laid on an impressive demonstration of Muslim naval capability to the governing elite and people of the capital city, in the hope, perhaps, of weakening their resolve to fight on. Having done so, he withdrew before Constantine and the main Roman fleet returned in 671, presumably towards the end of the sailing season.20 In his paper in this volume, Marek Jankowiak agrees that there was no seven-year blockade of Constantinople, but dates the naval attack two years earlier, to 668. He associates it with a campaign into Asia Minor, planned originally to support action by Shapur, a rebel Roman military commander in the south-east but then, after Shapurs accidental death, placed under the command of Yazid, Muawiyas son and designated heir. Theophilus reports that Yazid reached Chalcedon, apparently in 668, and returned with many prisoners and booty. He makes no mention of contemporary naval operations nor of any attack on Constantinople.21 I move the patriarchate of Thomas II of Constantinople, who was unable to send the customary letter to the pope announcing

16 Theoph., 352.13-14; Hoyland, Theophilus, 164 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234); M.G. Morony, tr., The History of

al-Tabari, XVIII Between the Civil Wars: The Caliphate of Muawiya (Albany, NY, 1987), 94, 102-3; al-Baladhuri, tr. P.K. Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State, 2 vols. (New York, 1916-24), I, 357-9, 361. Cf. Corsi, Spedizione italiana, 196-206, A.D. Taha, The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain (London, 1989), 60-2, Kaegi, The Interrelationship, 27-8. 17

Theoph., 352.4-6; Hoyland, Theophilus, 163-4 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234); Tab, XVIII, 102-3. 18

Lib.Pont., I, 346 (tr. 72) places Mes death in the pontificate of Pope Adeodatus (no.79) which only began on 11 th April 672. Cf. Paulus Diaconus, Hist.Lang., v.12. Theophilus asserts (tr. Hoyland, 163-4 plus Theoph., 352.6-7), contrary to the evidence of these western sources, that Constantine IV was personally involved in the capture and execution of Me. 19

Theoph., 352.7-9; Hoyland, Theophilus, 163-4 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234). 20

Theoph., 353.7 (a brief notice, almost certainly taken from Theophilus, but not parallelled in the eastern derivaties); Tab., XVIII, 96, 122. 21

Theoph., 350.7-351.5; Hoyland, Theophilus, 158, 161 (Agap, Mich.Syr.and Chron.1234). Only the Spanish Chronica Byzantia-Arabica, ed. J. Gil, Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum, I (Madrid, 1973), c.27 connects Yazids land expedition of 668 with the naval attack of 670-1. In my view (contra Marek) this is probably a case of garbling on the part of a distant chronicler.

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his appointment because of a two-year blockade, from spring 667-November 669 (the date conjectured by van Dieten) two years forward to spring 669-November 671.22

6. The military and naval pressure was sustained over the following years. An experienced general on the Roman front, Busr b. Abi Artatis, conducted a summer raid in 671 and another the following winter. There followed summer and winter raids in 672-3, which acted as the prelude to the renewal of large-scale warfare by sea in 673.23 Muawiya dispatched two fleets which took command of the waters off the south and west coasts of Asia Minor. Rhodes was captured and garrisoned. It was a valuable forward base and observation post, commanding the sea lanes linking the east Mediterranean to the Aegean. Like Fadala in 670, the two admirals then wintered on Roman territory, occupying Smyrna, one of the two main urban centres in the Aegean coastlands, and strategic points on the Lycian and Cilician coasts. The richest Roman lands on the periphery of Asia Minor were now all too exposed to attack from the sea.24 The Arabs were demonstrating their ability to strike at will, to cause extensive damage by raiding inland, and to winter on Roman territory. The futility of continued resistance was being impressed on Roman policy-planners and the population at large.

7. The Muslims renewed their naval offensive in 674. A large military force was landed in Lycia, perhaps to establish a permanent bridgehead in the south west of Asia Minor. It would be easier to push step by step into the interior if there were two springboards for attack, in the south-west as well as the south-east. Three Roman generals counterattacked and defeated the land force when it was engaged in siege operations. There were many casualties but the survivors withdrew and embarked safely on the ships which had brought them. Then came the real disaster from the Muslims point of view. A Roman fleet, armed with a secret new weapon, flamethrowers projecting Greek Fire (a petroleum compound), attacked and annihilated the fleet which was evacuating the troops. This victory, in 674, amounted to a mini-Trafalgar. Muawiyas second naval offensive came to an abrupt halt, apart from the temporary occupation of Crete in winter 674-5 (where there was little danger of serious counterattack) and, according to Muslim sources, two later sea-raids (in 676 and 678). Fighting continued by land, but the initiative had passed to the Romans.25

8. It is now that the Mardaites come into view. The Romans launched a devastating counter-attack - almost certainly within a year or so of the decisive victories of 674. Special forces were landed on the north Syrian coast, between Tyre and Sidon. They probably numbered no more than a few hundred. They moved inland and established themselves in secure, easily defended terrain, on Mount Lebanon. There they were joined by insurgents from the surrounding country, who included runaway slaves and escaped prisoners as well as former Roman provincials. The most important contingent among the last came from the Amanus range to the north, which separates the territory of Antioch from Cilicia to the west. They were known to the Arabs as the Jarajima. Previously they had been co-opted into guarding the frontier and gathering intelligence about the Romans. In return they had been exempted from taxation. The insurgency grew steadily in scale, until many thousands were involved. They were able to take control of the full length of the highlands which command the Mediterranean coast and the desert frontage of Syria and Palestine, from the Amanus range to the Golan Heights in the south. From their strongholds, they ranged over the surrounding lowlands, causing extensive damage and, in due course, inducing real apprehension at the highest level in the

22 J.L. van Dieten, Geschichte der Patriarchen von Sergios I. bis Johannes VI. (610-715) (Amsterdam, 1972), 117-20.

Cf. Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 492, n.13. 23

Theoph., 353.9-10; Hoyland, Theophilus, 165 (Agap.); Tab., XVIII, 122, 165, 166. 24

Theoph., 353.14-16; Hoyland, Theophilus, 167 (Agap.); Tab., XVIII, 166; Bal., I, 375-6. 25

Theoph., 354.11-21; Hoyland, Theophilus, 167-8 (Agap.and Mich.Syr.); Tab., XVIII, 180, 183, 191, 192, 199.

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new Arab regime. Its hold on the former Roman provinces of the Middle East was imperilled.26

Theophilus of Edessa, to judge by the extant derivatives of his lost text, called the Roman troops inserted into Lebanon Mardaites from the first, in contrast to the main alternative name, Jarajima, which they were given later by Syrians. It is incidentally as Jarajima that they figure in al-Baladhuri. As has been observed by Syriac specialists, the name Mardaite seems to be derived from Syriac MRD (to rebel).27 I am inclined to think that the troops were so designated before they landed, their mission thus being advertised as that of activating an insurgency, rather than to suppose that they were only called Mardaites later, when they had succeeded in their mission. The date given by Theophilus for the landing of the Mardaites was the ninth regnal year of Constantine IV, so 677-8. His notice, however, goes on to report the development of the insurgency into a major security problem which caused serious concern to the Umayyad regime. It is hard to conceive that this transformation occurred in a matter of months. A minimum of two years was probably required for the insurgents to grow in numbers and to begin to threaten the whole Levant. In which case the notice can be viewed either as a cast-forward from the landing, which is correctly dated, to the peak of the insurgency (which would come at the very end of Muawiyas rule, in 679-80), or more probably as a cast-backward from the negotiations forced on the caliph by the insurgency to the original landing two years earlier (so in 675-6). It is indeed unlikely that the Romans would have waited more than a year or two, after the decisive naval victory off the coast of Lycia in 674, before launching their counterattack.

9. The naval defeat which he had suffered and now this widespread Christian insurgency forced Muawiya to acknowledge that the conquest of the Roman empire was not yet divinely sanctioned. He had no choice but to recognise Roman independence and to negotiate a peace treaty. Constantine IV proved receptive and sent an experienced diplomat, of distinguished lineage, to talks in Damascus. The negotiations in 677-8 took time, but, with both sides anxious for peace, terms were eventually agreed. The treaty was to last for thirty years. Muawiya was even ready implicitly to acknowledge the seniority of the old empire by agreeing to pay an annual tribute, in cash (a token sum of 3,000 solidi) and kind (fifty freed prisoners-of-war and fifty horses).28 The quid pro quo is not specified in the extant account of negotiations, which is Roman. But Constantine must have been required to cut off support for the insurgents and to do what he could to restrain them. The treaty negotiated by Muawiya is not reported by Theophilus. It has been suggested, not unreasonably, that it may be a garbled version of the later treaty negotiated by Abd al-Malik in 686.29 However, given the concern roused by the insurgency before the end of Muawiyas rule and the different terms ascribed to the treaty (token tribute and a longer, thirty-year term), I am ready, hesitantly, to accept Trajans uncorroborated testimony.

10. Within a very few years, there was a dramatic change in the geopolitical position of the Caliphate. Muawiyas prestige was shaken by the reverses of the 670s. He was also growing old. There was open opposition from traditionalists to the planned succession of his son Yazid. Two powerful court factions were also manoeuvring against each other in Damascus. It was not long then after his death April 680, that these serious divisions, ideological and political, flared up into open conflict.30 The perilous situation of the Umayyad dynasty and of the Muslim empire was made

26 Theoph., 355.6-10; Hoyland, Theophilus, 169-70 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234); Bal., I, 246-8.

27 A. Palmer, The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles, TTH 15 (Liverpool, 1993), 195, n.478; Hoyland,

Theophilus, 170, n.441. 28

Nic., c.34.21-31; Theoph., 355.10-356.2. 29

Hoyland, Theophilus, 169, n.440. 30

H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates (London, 1986), 88-98; C. Robinson, Abd al-Malik (Oxford, 2005), 22-44.

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much worse a few years later when the emerging great power in the north, the Khazar khaganate intervened in the affairs of the southern world. The Khazars invaded Arab-controlled Transcaucasia and inflicted a serious defeat on a coalition of Armenian, Iberian and Albanian princes in August 685.31 This was followed by a Roman invasion, probably later in the year, ordered by Justinian II, the new 16-year-old Roman emperor. In his case, this meant breaking the thirty-year peace treaty which his father had signed in 677-8. He dispatched a large army to Transcaucasia, commanded by Leontius (later to oust Justinian and seize the throne in 695). Any Muslims encountered were killed. Taxes were raised from the principal components of the region - Armenia, Iberia, Albania - as well as from Media in north-western Iran.32 Abd al-Malik, who had succeeded his father Marwan in April 685, was in a parlous plight. Egypt had only recently been won over. In Syria there were still tensions between the original Yamani supporters of the Umayyads and those who had sided with their Qaysi opponents. The remnants of the Qaysi army remained a danger just across the Euphrates. There was open opposition from Arabia, solid in its backing for Ibn al-Zubayr, rival claimant to the caliphate, especially after the repulse of an expedition sent by Marwan in 684. Iraq too was fixedly hostile, although divided between Alids, led by Mukhtar b. Abi Ubayd who took control of Kufa in October 685, and the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr at Basra. In these circumstances, it is hard to believe that there was no re-activation of the Christian insurgency in the highlands of Syria and Palestine.33

The situation became yet more perilous when Roman naval forces raided the coast of the Levant, perhaps in concert with action by the insurgents. Serious damage was done to several coastal cities, first and foremost Caesarea, former provincial capital and still an important city, but also Ascalon to the south, and Acre and Tyre to the north.34 It is surprising that Theophilus of Edessa seems to have omitted this episode from his history, but evidently he judged the northern attack to be much more important. Trajans silence is more to be expected.

11. There was little that Abd al-Malik could do in response to the Roman attack and (if it was recurring) the Christian insurgency. His prior concerns had to be the Qaysis, menacingly placed across the Euphrates, and the Iraqis. It was essential to renew the peace with the Romans, so as to free his hands in the struggle for power within the caliphate. He had no choice but to negotiate a revision of the treaty of 677/8. The terms, which were forced on him, were humiliating: the tribute was increased to a swingeing 1,000 solidi a day, so 365,000 per year, as against the maximum of 200,000 ever paid out by the Romans in the past (to the Avars in 624-5).35 The number of freed prisoners of war and horses to be handed over was also increased, to one a day. He also agreed to the excision of large territories from the caliphate, (1) the whole of Armenia together with a militarily valuable salient in the south (Arzanene), (2) Gurzan, and (3) Atropatene, and to joint rule over Cyprus. In return, he had the length of the peace cut back to ten years and demanded the withdrawal of the Mardaites, i.e. the insurgents and any special forces still operating with them, to Roman territory. The Mardaites, who numbered 12,000, were duly evacuated, probably before the

31 Pilon, ed. A.G. Abrahamyan, Anania irakatsu matenagrutyune (Erevan, 1944), 199.25-9. Cf. C. Zuckerman, The

Khazars and Byzantium - The First Encounter, in P.B. Golden, H. Ben-Shammai & A. Rna-Tas, ed., The World of the Khazars, Handbook of Oriental Studies 8.17 (Leiden, 2007), 399-432, at 430-1; T.W. Greenwood, New Light from the East: Chronography and Ecclesiastical History through a Late Seventh-Century Armenian Source, JECS 16 (2008), 197-254, at 245. 32

Theoph., 363.26-31. The fifth region attacked, Boukania, is not readily identifiable. 33

G.R. Hawting, tr., The History of al-Tabari, XX The Collapse of Sufyanid Authority and the Coming of the Marwanids (Albany, NY, 1989), 63 (flight of Qaysis), 159-61 (death of Marwan), 182-225 (Mukhtar); Theoph. 360.22-9; Hoyland, Theophilus, 176-9 (Agap., Mich.S. and Chron.1234). Cf. A.A. Dixon, The Umayyad Caliphate 65-86/684-705 (A Political Study) (London, 1971), 25-59 (Mukhtar), 89-93 (Qaysis); Kennedy, Age of the Caliphates, 93-7. 34

Bal., I, 219-20. I am grateful to Marek Jankowiak for drawing my attention to this passage. 35

Nic., c.13.1-4. Cf. Theoph., 302.15-21 (a notice misplaced under 618-19).

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end of 686.36 Subsequently they were resettled close to the maritime frontiers of the rump Roman empire where their presence is securely attested in later centuries - in the hinterland of Attaleia in southern Asia Minor and in the Peloponnese, Nikopolis and Kephallenia in the far west.37 The figure of 12,000 given for the Mardaites excluded women and children. It may seem implausibly large, but this order of magnitude can be confirmed from what can be learned of the Mardaites, who seem to have maintained their identity for many generations. No wonder the Arab authorities were concerned and that Abd al-Malik was ready to offer such massive concessions, if there were thousands of insurgents threatening Syria and Palestine, with the capital Damascus by no means immune from attack. The importance of the Mardaites in the early tenth century may be gauged from the influence exercised in regional affairs by the Katepan in command of the Mardaites of Attaleia.38 Those in the west numbered many thousands since they were able to contribute a force of more than 5,000 marines to an expeditionary force operating out of the Aegean and targeted probably on the Levant in 911.39

12. As he was bringing the second Arab civil war to a violent end in 691, Abd al-Malik prepared the ground for a renewal of the struggle against the Christian empire in the north. Later Syrian and Byzantine sources relay uncritically the line he adopted in his dealings with Justinian II. There was no question of his breaking a treaty set to last for another five years since that would involve forswearing himself before God. Instead he engineered a breakdown in relations, by minting a new type of gold coin for that years instalment of tribute. It was quite unacceptable to the Romans, since crosses had been stripped down to simple uprights surmounted by small globes and a shahada (declaration of faith) was included on the margin of the reverse, reading In the name of God, there is no God but God alone; Muhammad is the messenger of God. It was duly rejected by Justinian II. Abd al-Malik also construed the resettlement of a number of Cypriots on the Cyzicus peninsula (probably rich citizens who had migrated while they could) as a violation of the terms of the treaty.40 When Justinian put the empire on a war footing, mobilising a large army well inside his sector of Transcaucasia, at Sebastopolis on the Black Sea coast, Abd al-Malik dispatched an expeditionary force to intercept and engage the Romans, with public protestations that it was not the Muslims who were breaking the treaty. In the battle which followed, a specially recruited body of Slav soldiers, designated the Chosen Force, changed sides and Justinians army suffered a crushing defeat.41 This was the signal for a resumption of the outward expansion of Islam which had been stalled since the beginning of first fitna. In the course of the next generation, Carthage fell, the whole of North Africa was overrun and Muslim forces, now predominantly Berber, crossed over the Straits into Spain, while in the Middle East operations resumed against the outlying territories of

36 Nic., c.38.15-16; Theoph., 361.8-13, 363.6-20; Hoyland, Theophilus, 181-2 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234).

Iberia has been substituted for Gurzan in Theophanes version - almost certainly a mistake, since the third territory mentioned surely acted as a link between the other two, Atropatene and Armenia, and should be located in southern Transcaucasia or conceivably in the mountains and upland basins of modern Kurdistan. Theophanes also has Abd al-Malik merely cede a share of power to the Romans in the north (over Armenia and Iberia), contrary to the combined testimony of Agapius and Michael the Syrian, who make it plain that he had to cede full sovereignty there. 37

References in next two notes. 38

Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, ed. Gy. Moravcsik, tr. R.J.H. Jenkins, CFHB 1 (Washington, D.C., 1967), c.50.169-221. 39

Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, ii.44, ed. J.J. Reiske, CSHB (Bonn, 1829), 654.1-3, 655.4-8, 656.10-13, 656.18-657.7, with commentary of J. Haldon, Theory and Practice in Tenth-Century Military Administration: Chapters II, 44 and 45 of the Book of Ceremonies, Travaux et Mmoires, 13 (2000), 201-352, at 240-2 & 248, n.45. 40

Theoph., 365.8-21; Hoyland, Theophilus, 186-7 (Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234). See Luke Treadwells contribution in this volume for the design of the solidi paid over by Abd al-Malik. 41

Nic., c.38.11-28; Theoph., 365.30-366.20; Hoyland, Theophilus, 186-7 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234); M. Fishbein, tr., The History of al-Tabari, XXI The Victory of the Marwanids (Albany, NY, 1990), 233-4.

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Byzantium and in Central Asia Arab forces seized control of the rich trading cities of Sogdiana.42 Theophanes notice about the offensive form in which Abd al-Malik sent his tribute in 691 and Justinian IIs reaction is taken from Trajan, who was much better informed about the first reign of Justinian II than that of his father Constantine IV.43 It is not to be equated with Theophilus later notice about the first issue of aniconic coins in 697.44 On this important numismatic point I agree with Luke Treadwell. It is possible that Justinian II responded in kind in 691, asserting his special role as Christs earthly agent by placing his own portrait (standing) on the reverse of a new gold issue with the legend Servant of Christ, and a bust of Christ as Pantocrator on the obverse with the legend King of Kings.45 However, it is equally possible that he changed to this new type of solidus a few years earlier, within three or four years of his accession. In that case the Pantokrator solidus could be taken to be a triumphalist issue, after the successful land and sea campaigns of 685 and the diplomatic humiliation of Abd al-Malik in 686.46 Theophanes names the site of the decisive victory won by Arab forces in 692 as Sebastopolis, far to the north of the main arena of combat of the time, on either side of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus. Michael the Syrian (or his immediate source, Dionysius of Tel-Mahre) substitutes a more familiar place, Caesarea in Cappadocia. It is unlikely that the relatively obscure Sebastopolis would have been substituted for Caesarea.47

Numismatic observations Finally, let me make a few comments from a historians perspective on the numismatic record of the period 669-91.

First, there is the question of the inflow of Roman copper coins into the former Roman provinces in Syria and Palestine. This dwindled to a trickle before the end of Constans IIs reign, from around 558. Very few authentic coins of Constantine IV have been found on Arab territory. It is interesting, though, that such copper issues of his as did arrive were mainly minted in Sicily between 669 and 672.48 The numismatic record thus bears the imprint of his successful foray to the west in 669-71. So how, one may ask, did these Sicilian issues make their way east? I can think of four possible mechanisms: (1) they were brought back by Arab troops who had faced the Romans in North Africa; (2) they were conveyed eastward in commercial transactions, once the fighting in North Africa died down in the early 670s; (3) they entered the Asia Minor coin-stock and filtered across the frontier into Cilicia and northern Syria; (4) they arrived with the Mardaites in the later 670s. Options (2) and (3) should probably be ruled out, given the very small numbers which arrived. Under option (1), they should have entered the Egyptian coin-stock in larger numbers. That leaves us with option (4), dissemination via the Mardaites.

Second, the Christian insurgency, triggered by the Mardaites, which peaked in 677-8 and again in the early-mid 680s, may have had a considerable an impact on the coinage of Syria and Palestine in

42 H. Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests (London, 2007), 216-24, 255-76.

43 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, 259-60, 306-7.

44 Contra Hoyland, Theophilus, 190-1.

45M.L. Bates, History, Geography and Numismatics in the First Century of Islamic Coinage, Revue Suisse de Numismatique, 65 (1986), 231-63, at 243; S. Album & T. Goodwin, Sylloge of Islamic Coins in the Ashmolean, I The Pre-Reform Coinage of the Early Islamic Period (Oxford, 2002), 91; Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, II.2 From Heraclius Constantine to Theodosius III (641-717), ed. P. Grierson (Washington, D.C., 1968), 568-70. 46

I preferred 691 at Witnesses, 499. The earlier date of issue was canvassed by Tony Goodwin and Marcus Phillips at the Round Table. Luke Treadwell analyses the evidence thoroughly in his contribution to this volume. 47

Theoph., 365.4-11; Hoyland, Theophilus, 186 (Mich.Syr.). 48

C. Foss, Arab-Byzantine Coins (Washington, D.C., 2008), 20-1.

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another way. The introduction of declarations of Muslim faith on local copper issues around this time makes sense in the context of a growing threat to Muslim rule. So too does the proliferation of mints, at a time of crisis when individual cities had need of militias and those militias needed payment.49

Third, consideration should be given to an intriguing thesis recently propounded by Nikolaus Schindel and Wolfgang Hahn (Imitations of Sicilian Folles of Constantine IV from Bilad al-Sham, Israel Numismatic Journal, 17 [2010], 213-32). They attribute an anomalous small group of copper coins, modelled on Constantine IVs Sicilian folles, to the Mardaites. They have studied sixteen specimens but are aware that more exist. They localise their production in northern Syria, on the basis of reported provenances, but acknowledge that there are no secure, archaeologically determined find-spots. So far they have identified eleven dies. Since the folles on which they are modelled were issued in 669-72, the imitations should be dated at the earliest to the middle 670s. There is then a rough coincidence between their issue and the Mardaite venture.

There is nothing untoward in the suggestion (already advanced above) that copper coins may have entered Syria with the Mardaites. But there is something very odd about these coins. A legend in Pahlavi has been introduced on the obverse. It reads mltn MLKA, which has been convincingly interpreted to mean mardan shah (king of the men) or to refer to an individual called Mardanshah. Either way, a political leader, general or governor is commemorated on these coins. Who was he then? Why did coins with a Pahlavi legend turn up in the Levant?50 The Schindel-Hahn solution is to identify the men with the Mardaites (they derive the Greek name from the Pahlavi noun) and the king as the Emperor Constantine IV.

There is, it seems to me, an insurmountable problem with this proposal. Dispatch of a Persian armed force into former Roman territories makes no sense, if the aim of the venture was to stir up the provincials against the new Arab regime. If, as seems likely, religion was to be used as a weapon to rouse up Syrians and Palestinians against the purveyors of a hostile monotheist faith, it would have been counterproductive to deploy troops with a radically different, dualist faith. The only alternative scenario which might explain their presence in Syria would involve Persian troops in service of Shapur, the military commander in eastern Asia Minor who had planned to rebel against Constans II and had approached Muawiya for Arab backing in 667-8. To judge by his name, Shapur was Persian. He was probably accompanied by a bodyguard or larger force of Persian troops.51

So far I am not at odds with Schindel and Hahn. For they too suppose that the men referred to in the legend were Persian soldiers in Roman service. I diverge from them in identifying the king of the legend as Shapur, who was indeed a candidate for the Byzantine throne. By the time the coins were produced, Shapur was dead, killed in an accident as he was riding out of Melitene in 668. His Persian troops, however, lived on, took part in Yazids expedition to Chalcedon in 668, and presumably withdrew with Yazid to Syria. I suggest that the coins were produced in a defiant gesture of support for their dead commander, and as a symbol of their enduring esprit de corps.52

49 Album & Goodwin, Sylloge, 81-91. Nine urban mints can be identified at Emesa, Damascus, Heliopolis, Philadelphia,

Tiberias, Scythopolis, Gerasa, Diospolis and Jerusalem, as well as a peripatetic mint (Ps.Damascus) circulating in the badiya (desert fringe) and two others. 50

The evidence such as it is (presented by Lutz Ilisch and Gabriela Bijovsky to the Round Table) points to an origin in Lebanon. 51

Theoph., 348.29-351.9; Hoyland, Theophilus, 157-61 (Agap., Mich.Syr. and Chron.1234). 52

It is just conceivable that their new commander after Shapurs death was called Mardanshah and that he later became the dihqan of al-Ahwaz, whose execution was ordered by Ibn al-Zubayrs son Hamza in AH 67 (Tab., XXI, 119).

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It is possible, of course, that it is not the legend which is anomalous but the design of the coins - i.e. that they were issued in the eastern borderlands of Iran, like a series of drachms, which probably predate 686-7, with exactly the same Pahlavi legend. So rather than an Iranian legend turning up in Syria, we have a Syrian coin-type turning up in Iran. But to this there is an insuperable objection - Andrew Oddys observation that they are die-linked to regular Arab-Byzantine coins.

Fourth and finally, the events of 669-91 must have had a major impact on the monetary system of the reduced Roman empire. For the tribute paid over a five-year period, 686-90, amounted to a total of 1.825 million solidi - a massive infusion of gold. This boost to the Roman exchequer would help to explain the scale of military operations, in the north as well as the east and west, undertaken by Justinian II and his successors as they combated the power of the caliphate on all fronts for a generation.