Rivers, Roads and Communications

Again, and as we would expect, major communications routes were determined by the geography of the landscape, and for the heartlands of the medieval east Roman empire the interregional routes can be identified with some certainty, although their physical traces are not always so readily located. In the Balkans, the major as well as the less important routes pass in several places through relatively narrow and often quite high passes, easily blocked. Winter conditions alone made passage hazardous, as even today in many cases, but human agency might also close access - for example, to an invading army. Political control has always been difficult, and the fragmented geography made for a fragmented political landscape also. The history of the Balkans, the pattern of communications and the degree and depth of Byzantine political control show this especially clearly, for there was no obvious geographical focal point in the south Balkan region - the main cities in

200 kilometres

Map 1.7 Asia Minor: major population centres, 7th-12th centuries.

Elevation (metres)

2000+

1000-2000

500-1000

0-500

Map 1.8 Turkey in 1935: average population per square mile.

Towns/fortresses

Map 1.9 The Balkans: major routes, 7th-12th centuries.

The medieval period were Thessalonica and Constantinople, both peripheral to the interior of the peninsula. In the highland districts, especially the Rhodope and Pindus ranges, government power was always circumscribed by distance and remoteness, regions where paganism and heresy could survive relatively uninterrupted by state or ecclesiastical authority. In Asia Minor the waterless tracts across the central plateau similarly made travel hazardous, while the eastern highlands were particularly difficult to negotiate in the winter season. The narrow mountain passes across the Taurus made that range a natural barrier, and it was successfully employed by the imperial government in this way during much of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries. Across the Middle Eastern and African provinces of the empire the road system continued to expand into the fifth century as the frontier between Roman and Persian lands shifted and as strategic priorities altered over time. In North Africa again strategic considerations, and in particular the maintenance of communications between key coastal garrisons and ports and the fortresses covering the interior, were important factors, and continued to influence imperial construction into the reign of Justinian.

The eastern Roman empire benefited from the creation of military roads, constructed largely in the period 100 BCE-100 CE by the Roman army - one of the reasons for their success and efficiency on campaign, for this network also eased and aided non-military communications, the movement

Towns/fortresses

Map 1.10 Asia Minor: major routes, 7th-12th centuries.

Of goods, people and information. But the regular maintenance of roads, which was a state burden upon towns and which was administered and regulated at the local level, seems during the later Roman period to have suffered somewhat. One significant consequence of this change, and the difficulties it created for the use of wheeled vehicles, was an ever-increasing dependence on pack-animals - horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, camels. Strict regulations were established during the later third and fourth centuries on the size, loads and types of wheeled vehicle employed by the state transport system. This was divided into two branches, the fast post (faster-moving pack-animals, light carts, and horses or ponies) and the slow post (ox-carts and similar heavy vehicles) and although the service was drastically reduced after the sixth century (and cut back already under Justinian), it seems that a unified transport and courier service continued to operate through the Byzantine period.

There were many types and standards of road: wide roads, narrow tracks or paths, paved and unpaved roads, roads suitable or unsuitable for wagons or wheeled vehicles are all mentioned in the sources. Roads of strategic importance were generally more regularly maintained. After the sixth century, it would appear that certain key routes only were kept up, largely by means of compulsory duties imposed on local communities and appropriately skilled craftsmen. The road system from the middle of the seventh century in Anatolia was thus less extensive than in the fifth century or before, but still effective. Similar considerations apply in the Balkans. The maintenance of much of the network became a localised and irregular matter, and the limited evidence suggests that the great majority of nonmilitary routes became little more than paths or tracks suitable only for pack-animals, with paved or hard surfaces only near towns and fortresses.

Transport by water was generally much faster and certainly far cheaper than by land. Long-distance overland movement of bulk goods such as grain was generally prohibitively expensive - the cost of feeding draught-oxen, maintaining drovers and carters, paying local tolls, combined with the extremely slow rate of movement of ox-carts, multiplied the value of the goods being transported beyond the price of anyone who would otherwise have bought them. Although the bulk transport of goods over long distances did sometimes happen, it was really only the state, with some activity funded by wealthy private individuals, which could pay for this. The cost-effectiveness of shipping, entailing the carriage of large quantities of goods in a single vessel handled by a small crew, also gave coastal settlements a great advantage with regard to their access to the wider world.

Balkan Routes

•  The Via Egnatia: Constantinople - Herakleia in Thrace

-  Thessalonica - Edessa - Bitola - Achrida {Ohrid)

-  Elbasan - Dyrrachion (Durres) on the Adriatic coast.

•  Constantinople - Adrianople (Edirne) - along the Maritsa - Philippopolis (Plovdiv) - the pass of Succi (guarded at the northern exit by the so-called ‘gates of Trajan’, and barred by a wall and forts) - the pass of Vakarel - Serdica (Sofia) - the Nisava valley - Naissus (Nis - key crossroads along the routes southwards to the Aegean and Macedonia, westwards to the Adriatic, south-eastwards to Thrace and Constantinople, and northwards to the Danube) - the valley of the Morava

-  Viminacium (nr. mod. Kostolac) - Singidunum (Belgrade). This was a key military route, and it was complemented by a number of spurs to east and west, giving access to the south Danube plain, the Haimos mountains and Black Sea coastal plain, as well as, in the west, the valleys of the west Morava, Ibar and Drin rivers.

•  Thessalonica - the Axios (Vardar) valley and the pass of Demir Kapija (alternative easterly loop avoiding this defile and leading through another pass, known to the Byzantines as Kleidion - the key) - Stoboi (Stobi)

-  Skopia (Skopje) - Naissos (Nis).

•  Constantinople - Anchialos (Pomorie) - Mesembria (Nesebar) - Odessos (Varna) - mouth of the Danube.

•  Adrianople - across the Sredna Gora range - over the Shipka pass through the Balkan range itself - Nikopolis (Veliko Trnovo) - Novae (Svistov) on the Danube.

Anatolian Routes

•  Chrysoupolis (opposite Constantinople) - Nikomedeia - Nikaia - Malagina (an important imperial military base)

-  Dorylaion - (easterly route via Kotyaion/westerly route via Amorion) - Akroinon - Ikonion/ Synnada - Kolossai/ Chonai. There were two options to turn off to the south along this last route, the first down to Kibyra and thence across the mountains to the coast at Attaleia or, farther west, at Myra. Alternatively, the road from Chonai led westwards via Laodikeia and Tralles to Ephesos on the coast.

•  Ikonion - Archelais - Tyana/Kaisareia.

•  Ikonion - Savatra - Thebasa - Kybistra/Herakleia

-  Loulon - Podandos - Qakit River gorge (through the Anti-Taurus mountains).

•  Kaisareia - Tyana - Loulon - Podandos - ‘Cilician Gates’ (Kulek Bogazi) - the Cilician plain - Tarsos/Adana.

•  Kaisareia - (i) - Ankara/ Basilika Therma - Tabion

-  Euchaita/ (ii) - Sebasteia - Dazimon - Amaseia

•  Sebasteia - Kamacha/ Koloneia - Satala.

•  Dorylaion - valley of the Tembris river (mod. Porsuk Su) - Trikomia - Gorbeous - Saniana - Timios Stavros

-  Basilika Therma - Charsianon Kastron - Bathys Ryax

-  Sebasteia - (and on to Kaisareia, north to Dazimon, east to Koloneia and Satala, or south-east to Melitene).

•  Saniana - Mokissos - Ioustinianoupolis - Kaisareia.

Routes across the Taurus Ranges into Byzantine lands

•  Cilician Gates - Podandos - Loulon - Herakleia - Ikonion/ Loulon - Tyana - Kaisareia.

•  Germanikeia (Mar’as) - Koukousos - Kaisareia

•  Adata - Zapetra - Melitene - Kaisareia - Lykandos/ Kaisareia - Sebasteia/Melitene - Arsamosata (Simsat)

-  Khliat (on L. Van)

•  Mopsouestia (al-Massisa) - Anazarba (‘Ain Zarba)

-  Sision - Kaisareia.

This page intentionally left blank

Part One:

The Early Period (c. 4th-7th Century)