The Arab Siege of Constantinople, 717-18
What follows bellow is the original draft of a the cover article I wrote for Early Medieval Warfare magazine a few years ago, sometime in the future I would like to write a longer popular monograph on the topic that utilises even more of the latest academic research. To me it is an example of just the right combination of serious and readable history. The complete article with additions and some beautiful images is available in the issue below. I bought some of the original artwork in lieu of pay…and it hangs in my office
Because of the frequent assumptions of imperial power and the prevalence of usurpation, the affairs of the empire and of the City (Constantinople) were being neglected and declined; furthermore, education was being destroyed and military organisation crumbled. As a result, the enemy were able to over-run the Roman state with impunity causing much slaughter, abduction and the capture of cities. For this reason, the Saracens advanced on the Imperial City itself.
Nicophorus 52
On the morning of 15 August 717, the residents of Constantinople awoke to find their resplendent city besieged by 100,000 of the Umayyad Caliphate’s finest soldiers. Years in the planning, the siege was the recently emerged Muslim Empire’s most ambitious attempt to capture Constantinople and snuff out the stubborn resistance of the Christian Roman Empire once and for all. Having approached the outskirts of the city facing only minimal Roman resistance, Masalama ibn ‘Abd al-Malik—the supreme commander of the Muslim army and brother of the eleventh Caliph, Sulayman bin Abd al-Malik (r. 715-717)—had then ordered his men to dig trenches around the city’s land-defences and construct their own wall of stone to counter the hitherto impregnable Roman land walls, which had thwarted previous sieges by the Sassanid Persians and Avars in 626 and the Muslims in 674-78. A two-part sea and land campaign, this second siege of Constantinople was better organised than the first.
The situation in the coming weeks indeed grew even more dire for the Byzantines. On 1 September, a Muslim armada, which had set-sail from Syria, arrived on the Sea of Marmara on the southern side of the capital. Having learned lessons from their earlier failure, the Umayyad leadership seemed to appreciate that logistics as much as generalship, manpower, weaponry, and fortifications would help to determine the success or failure of the coming attack. Comprised of a combination of 1800 swift war-galleys and lumbering supply-ships (called katanai by the Byzantines) brimming with foodstuffs, animals, and weaponry, the fleet loomed just outside the narrow straight of the Bosphorus that forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, awaiting the order to advance. The Umayyad’s sought to slowly starve Constantinople into submission by surrounding the city by land and sea before the Byzantine navy could respond. Contemporary sources add the all-to-human detail that the Umayyad financers lingered like hungry vultures, intent on getting a return on their investment, after what they saw as the inevitable storming and looting of one of the pre-modern world’s wealthiest cities. Although the Romans had been readying for the impending attack since 713, the tremendous size of the Muslim force must have caused many to ponder if they— like the other great agrarian Empire in antiquity, Persia, in the mid-seventh century—were about to be swept into the dustbins of history. Little wonder that in a culture that had long linked Rome’s long imperium to God’s favour, many Constantinopolitans supposed that their long-line of defeats at the hands of the Muslims and their own rapidly shrinking territory represented a sign of God’s disfavour.
What we moderns habitually call the Byzantine Empire, but what late antique peoples knew as the res publica or politeia of the Romans, by the dawn of the eighth century was an empire in name only. A combination of war and plague in the sixth and the seventh centuries had seen the lands of the Roman state dwindle to a mere shadow of its former glory. Having in the sixth century recovered imperial lands in North Africa, Italy and Spain lost to the Vandals and the Goths in the fifth century, the emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) controlled well over a million square miles of territory. By the dawn of the eighth century, as James Howard-Johnstone explains, ‘Stripped of most of its Caucasian clients and north Africa as well as its rich Middle Eastern province,’ Byzantium had shrivelled to ‘nothing more than a medium sized power on the north-west flank of the caliphate.’ Constantinople—established by the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306-337) in 324— witnessed a precipitous decline in its population, contracting from a peak of around 500,000 around 500 to perhaps as low as 50,000-60,000 by 700. Yet, Constantinople remained one of the pre-modern world’s preeminent cities. It stood as the seat of imperial power and a holy city famed throughout Christendom for its majestic churches and monasteries overflowing with many of Christianity’s most revered relics. Blessed by its unique position at the cross-roads of Europe and Asia, some sense of the city’s strategic and symbolic importance may be discerned in Sulayman’s proclamation at the outset of the campaign, that he would ‘not cease from the struggle with Constantinople until I conquer it, or I destroy the entire dominion of the Arabs (in trying).’ Backed by the best fighters of his day, a magnificent fleet, and catapults to hurl projectiles and battering rams with which to punch holes into the thickest of walls, it must have seemed clear to Sulayman (Solomon), that he was the great Muslim leader referred to in Islamic prophecy, which declared a leader with a prophet’s name would take the prize of Constantinople for Islam.
Nevertheless, marching your army and sailing your navies to the outskirts of the Roman capital was one thing, taking ‘fortress’ Constantinople, however, was quite another matter. Constantine had chosen the site on the ruins of the ancient Greek town of Byzantion, in part, for its defensible position. Surrounded on three sides by water, the original fourth-century city walls, which skirted the older parts of the city, had been bolstered in the intervening centuries by a thick layer of defensive walls, towers, and gates on the city’s rapidly expanding outskirts. The Theodosian walls, completed during the reign of Theodosius II (r. 408-450) and repaired and upgraded in the intervening centuries, ran for more than four miles (6.5 kilometres) from the Sea of Marmara in the south to the Golden Horne— an estuary in the north, providing an intimidating barrier on the city’s landward side. Constructed 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) from Constantine’s original fortifications, the Theodosian walls functioned as a multi-layered defence system and enclosed the city’s seven hills within 6,400 acres (2,600 hectares) of living area, which included farmlands and several cisterns offering a continuous supply of fresh drinking water. The larger outer-walls and towers were supplemented by a moat and by two inner-walls. The series of towers and slender battlement windows offered the Byzantines a devastating vantage point from which to spray arrows on any approaching enemy. Even if the attackers breached the outer-wall they would find themselves exposed in a 65 foot (c. 20 metres) open area to more withering fire from the inner-walls’ defenders. Masalama and his men knew all too well, that any frontal assault would come at a heavy cost.
It appears, however, that Masalama hoped that he might not need to storm the city. Multiple Byzantine and Muslim sources explain that the Arab general had an ace up his sleeve. Though elaborated in each subsequent telling, they state that the emperor Leo III (r. 717-41), who was leading the Byzantine resistance from within Constantinople, had made a pact with the Muslims in 715 or 716— when he was general of the Byzantine Province (thema) of Anatolikon in West-central Anatolia—to hand over the imperial city. While the sincerity of Leo’s vow is lost in the sands of time, Leo knew only too well the dangers of taking the Muslims head on. Heavily outnumbered in Anatolia, it made sense that to protect his theme and leave his army intact, Leo would use his wits and familiarity with Islam to feign willingness to capitulate and join the Arab’s cause. Such sentient deviousness would become a hallmark of Leo’s long reign.
Leo, inaccurately known to history as Leo the Isaurian and somewhat anachronistically as the father of iconoclasm, was born as Konon in the Roman province of Germanikeia (present-day Maras in Southern Turkey) in Northern Syria around 685. Captured by the Arabs around 637, Leo’s hometown had only been recovered by the Byzantines in 683. Brought up in proximity to Islamic Syria, Leo was well-versed in Muslim culture and fighting tactics. Though precise details of his early years remain shadowy, Leo had risen to prominence as a general during the reign of Justinian II (r. 685-95, 707-11).
The early days of Justinian II’s first reign were optimistic ones for the Romans. The combination of their thwarting of the first Arab siege and a subsequent Islamic civil-war from 683-692 had seen the Byzantine’s fortunes improve markedly. Justinian had even led a victorious campaign against the Bulgers in 688-89. Yet, this recovery proved ephemeral. Believing he could re-establish Roman hegemony over the Muslims, the notably eccentric Justinian II’s aggressive policies had stretched the financial limitations of his state and the capabilities of his army, which led to a defeat at the hands of the Umayyads at the Battle of Sebastopol in 692. The rout had seen the East Romans plunged into two decades of civil war and political decline; Constantinopolitans witnessed seven usurpations in twenty-two years. Maslama, who could never rule himself since his mother had been a slave, played a key role in the Muslim’s counter-offensive. In 707-8, he routed a Roman army and destroyed the city of Tyna and enslaved its population. Although one must remain wary of ancient body counts, Arab and Byzantine sources tell us that up to 40,000 Roman soldiers died. From 711-13, Maslama led raids into Byzantine territories, which saw the destruction of the major Roman cities of Amasea and Pisidian Antioch. With the capture of Visigothic Spain in 711, the Muslims had made their first inroads into Europe. The easy success of these campaigns led inevitably to dreams of capturing the irresistibly attractive prize of Constantinople.
Yet, brute force had never been the Caliphate’s sole weapon in its rise; carrot was wielded just as effectively as stick. Peaceful absorption of formerly Roman peoples into the Caliphate had served as one of the Muslim’s most successful tactics since the Islamic armies had thundered out of Arabia as a new religious, military and political force in the first half of the seventh century. After a Muslim army had crushed a Roman force at Yarmuk in 636, many monophysite populations in Syria (636) and Egypt (642) had submitted to Islamic rule with barely a whimper. Such peaceful capitulations were repeated throughout the seventh and early eighth centuries.
Facing complete military and political collapse, surrendering Constantinople to a Caliph who promised peace and prosperity therefore may have seemed at the time to be sound strategy, and not betrayal. Of course, we know that Leo chose resistance. Fleeing in the face of the Muslim advance, Leo and his Anatolic army after a brief skirmish had defeated soldiers sent by the usurper Theodosius III (r. 715-17) to capture him. Instead, Theodosius’ men raised Leo as emperor. Leo then led the force back to Constantinople on 25 March 717. Leo’s reputation preceded him, and Constantinopolitans seeking a military saviour, received the usurper rapturously. For once they had chosen wisely. After forcing Theodosius III to abdicate, Leo went to work continuing the preparations begun under Anastasius II to shore up the city’s defences, stockpile food, and prepare his warships. He also sought out possible allies. Relying on their shared interests to thwart an ever-expanding Caliphate, Leo enlisted the aid of the Byzantines erstwhile enemies the Bulgars, a wise move that would pay dividends in the coming months.
With a favourable shift of winds, on 3 September the Arab fleet entered the Bosphorus. Once the Arab war-galleys swept past the southern half of the capital largely unhindered, they anchored along Constantinople’s suburbs on the European and Asiatic sides of the capital. The Muslim’s could be forgiven if they thought that the agreement between Leo and Masalama was holding. Hoping to capitalise upon the good conditions and the Byzantine’s failure to engage their warships, the Arabs then crept their bulky supply-ships into the Bosphorus. They were seeking to dock them at a narrow neck of land near the Theodosian walls to unload the men and weaponry by which to begin bashing their way into Constantinople. Leo, however, sprung his trap. Streaming out of the citadel, an attack-force of sleek Byzantine fire-ships pounced upon the lumbering supply ships. Though the Byzantines had used what they called ‘sea fire’ or ‘liquid fire’ to great effect at the first Arab siege of Constantinople, it seems they had refined the weapon in the intervening years. Weighed down by their heavy cargo, the katanai made easy picking for the Byzantine biremes and dromones armed with siphons, which erupted to life with a thunderous roar and spat out with the help of a forced pump— a deadly stream of petroleum-based liquid fire. Able to swivel and aimed with deadly precision by the operator (siphonator) who stood behind a protective bulwark, the jets of sticky flames quickly emolliated men, beasts, supplies, and ships without mercy. Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the sea as the screams of burning men and animals echoed across the Bosphorus. Still heavily outnumbered by the Arab navy, the Byzantines quickly retreated to the safety of the citadel. That same night, Leo drew up the stout chain between Constantinople that protected the Golden Horn from enemy ships. The ninth-century Byzantine chronicler Theophanes described the disastrous aftermath for the Arab cause: ‘Some of them still burning, smashed into the seawall, while other sank into the sea, men and all, and still others, flaming furiously, went as far off course as the islands of Oxeia and Plateia’ around 20 miles south of Constantinople.
The naval triumph offered a well-needed psychological boost for the outnumbered and dispirited Byzantines. Observing the charred remainders of the Arab fleet, not only buoyed the Constantinopolitans’ spirits, but offered convincing proof that the Virgin Mary—whose icon was held within a church incorporated within the city’s defences—had intervened to save Constantinople in its moment of greatest need, just as she had in 626, when the patriarch Sergius had held her icon in processions along the walls during that siege’s darkest days. Today most would see this miracle as superstition; to the devout citizens of eighth-century Constantinople it was Providence—proof of the porous boundaries between Heaven and earth. The Arabs, on the other hand, now realised that they faced the prospect of a long siege; Leo and his subjects were not going to meekly submit, but stubbornly resist. Moreover, the ships with much of their food and the bulk of the weapons with which they hoped to batter-down the Byzantine fortifications, now lay at the bottom of the Bosphorus.
Sulayman’s death on 3 October, spared him from learning further bad news. In a further sign to the Romans that God had shifted to their side, that winter was one of the severest on record. In this instance, the besiegers’ suffering far outweighed that of the besieged. Desperately short on food and unable to breach the Byzantine’s fortifications, starvation quickly set-in amongst the Caliphate’s camps. The increasingly desperate Muslim troops who held Nicaea and Nicomedia were harried as they desperately foraged for food by the Bulgars incessant guerrilla attacks. Meanwhile within the spacious confines of Constantinople, the Byzantines found protection from the elements and fed on their stockpiles of foodstuffs, which were more than enough to see them through until spring. Muslim and Byzantines sources explain that the situation grew so desperate that the Arabs ‘had begun to eat dead animals, human corpses, and dung.’ Little wonder then that disease spread rapidly.
Despite the string of setbacks, the new Caliph, Umar II ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (r. 717-720), had not abandoned hope that Constantinople would fall. He still had a massive numerical superiority and knew that a fresh armada from Africa would resupply his men in the spring. Masalama too was feeding Umar over-optimistic reports from a deteriorating front. Carefully avoiding the reach of the Byzantine fire-ships, the second Arab fleet arrived outside of the city the next spring to resupply the desperate Muslim army. Yet, emblematic of the slow process of Islamisation within the late antique Caliphate, many of the men who manned the Arab ships were Christians who remained the majority in Islamic North Africa. Upon sighting Constantinople, many had fled to the Roman side. These deserters provided Leo with the Arab ships whereabouts, and the emperor led another force of Byzantine raiders, who by employing liquid fire destroyed most of the relieving fleet.
Realising that his men would not survive another winter, Umar ordered a full-withdrawal; Masalama reluctantly pulled out his remaining forces on 15 August. Yet the voyage home offered little succour. Once again Theophanes offers an account of the Arab’s tribulations: ‘A furious storm fell upon them and scattered them: it came from God at the intercession of His Mother (Mary).’ Those who survived the hail storm, suffered further losses in the wake of a volcanic eruption, which saw a ‘fiery shower’ of rain upon them. All these events offered proof to Theophanes and his readers that ‘God and His all-holy maiden Mother watched over Constantinople and the Empire of the Christians.’
What began as one of Byzantium’s darkest hours, thus concluded as one of Byzantium’s greatest glories. Despite the Byzantine’s comprehensive victory, Leo was wise enough to realise that the Caliphates’ ongoing ability to raise large numbers of men and economic strangle hold on the Middle East and North Africa, meant that they were now the dominate power in the region. To survive the Byzantines would need to abandon suicidal attempts to confront the Muslims head on. Instead a defensive formula was developed by Leo and fine-tuned by his successors whereby the Byzantines would avoid provoking and, most importantly, fighting set-battles with the Caliphate. Yet, the second Arab siege also offered proof of the Byzantine’s will to survive and élan. Byzantium indeed would not only endure to fight another day, but some of its brightest days lay ahead.
mikeaztec 