One of the questions which has intrigued scholars in this respect has been that of the supposed absence of a theory of “holy war” in Byzantium. No concept of holy war comparable to that familiar from Islam nor again of the just war similar to that enunciated before, during and after the Crusades in western Europe, ever evolved in Byzantium. The waging of war against unbelievers is, of course, only one—and in Islamic theory not the most important—of four ways to fulfil the duty of jihad, which signifies the struggle to propagate Islam by the heart (i. e. inner struggle), the tongue, the hand (i. e. by upholding good against evil) and the sword: the latter is waged in order to gain effective control over societies so that they may be administered in accordance with the principles of Islam. Those who died in the course of this struggle for the faith were understood immediately to be brought to paradise.10 Nothing approaching this complex and multi-faceted notion was generated by Christianity.
The answer to the question, “did the Byzantines have a concept of holy war?” depends, of course, on the way in which the question is framed and what is understood by the term “holy war”. As we will see, reducing the terms of the debate to a crude opposition between the western Crusade and Islamic jihad hardly assists in the appreciation of the much more complex reality of Byzantine attitudes and practice.11
In spite of the reservations expressed by a number of Christian thinkers, the view that warfare—however regrettable—in a just cause was acceptable became widespread, partly, of course, because from a pragmatic standpoint the Roman state, whatever faith it professed, had to defend its territorial integrity against aggression. So some rationalization of the need to fight was inevitable. Eusabius of Caesarea, the Christian apologist for Constantine I whose intellectual influence in this respect played a key role in the compromise between pagan and Christian attitudes to the empire, the emperor and the imperial cult, expressed a view which can indeed be understood to represent warfare with the aim of promoting the new imperial faith as a type of holy war.12 The symbol of the Cross appeared both in imperial propaganda and, more significantly, among the insignia of the imperial armies; the Christian labarum and the chirho symbol—seen in a vision by Constantine himself before his victory over Galerius in 312—was carried by the standard-bearers of the legions, as well as appearing on imperial coins and in association with images or busts of the emperors. Warfare waged against the enemies of the empire was now warfare to defend or extend the religion favoured by the emperor and, from the time of Theodosius I, the official religion of the state as such. Enemies of the empire could be portrayed as enemies of Christianity, against whom warfare was entirely justified, indeed necessary if the True Faith were to fulfil the destiny inhering in divine providence. To a degree, therefore, warfare of the Christian
Roman empire against its enemies and those who threatened it, and therefore God’s empire on earth, was holy war. That this was a paradox within Christian attitudes to warfare is clear, but pragmatic considerations made a solution essential.
Throughout its history and the many wars it had to fight—given the strategic and geopolitical situation it occupied discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 below—religious motifs played a key role in the ideological struggles waged by the empire. During the later sixth century, and on numerous occasions thereafter, religious images were taken with the armies on their campaigns, designed to ensure divine support for the expedition and to encourage the soldiers against their non-Christian foe. Most famous was the image of Christ “not made by human hand”, the so-called Camuliana image, used by imperial commanders in the eastern wars in the 570s and after.13 Other such palladia were placed above city gates as a symbol of the protection afforded by the figure depicted—at Alexandria, Kaisareia in Palestine, Antioch and Constantinople, for example.14
This religious element was especially the case when the rulers of neighbouring hostile peoples or states actively persecuted the Christian communities within their territories, and the wars with the Persians were frequently presented both to the soldiers of the Roman armies and to the wider populace in the light of a struggle between Christianity and the forces of evil.15 The war that broke out between the Romans and Persians in 421 was directly associated with Zoroastrian persecution of Christians in Persia (although the hostility of some Christian leaders in Persia to Zoroastrian worship had certainly inflamed the situation), and was presented by contemporary and later Roman commentators as a just war to defend Christians from pagan attack. Christian refugees from Persian oppression inflamed opinion in the eastern provinces and at Constantinople; at the same time as the expedition was under preparation, the emperor despatched a bejewelled gold cross to the patriarch of Jerusalem as a token of imperial devotion to the Christian cause, while a new iconography on imperial coinage, showing the figure of Victory raising aloft a cross, betokened divine support for the Christian empire. The Roman military victory which followed the brief conflict and the ensuing treaty (which included clauses designed to protect the Christians of Persia from persecution) were ascribed to divine support for the imperial cause and, of course, legitimated the act of war which had involved the loss of life on both sides.16
Mostly the conflicts between Persia and East Rome revolved around issues of strategic control along the eastern frontier, yet there was always a religious-ideological element present. In the peace treaty signed by both powers in 562, for example, while the chief concern on both sides was their respective strategic situations in the Caucasus (especially the region of Lazica), other clauses specified that the Christians should be free of persecution and able to worship without harassment, and in addition that neither of the two main religious groups in Persia—both Christians and Zoroastrians—should attempt to proselytise in each other’s communities.17 Although it is difficult to find any explicitly religious motivation in the wars of the later sixth century, which involved primarily political and strategic concerns, it is nevertheless important to note that Roman writers regularly refer to their own side as “the Christians”, as well as “the Romans”, and that this awareness of difference is especially pronounced when dealing with enemies of a distinctly different faith. Given that the mid-sixth century was marked by efforts on the part of the Persian king Khusru I to promote a Zoroastrian religious organization similar to that evident in the Christian church, this consciousness, and the greater profile given to religious-ideological differences, is perhaps not surprising. But although it played a role, it does not predominate in the contemporary accounts of the reasons and motives for warfare between Byzantium and Persia.18
Awareness of difference in religion as at least one element among many in the accounts of war between the Christian Roman state and its enemies is hardly surprising, of course, and that is not an issue here. Throughout the seventh century Byzantine theologians as well as writers of miracle collections and saints’ lives raise the issue of Jewish or heretical hostility to orthodoxy; religious debate and theological argument became, indeed, the language through which politics and theories of power and authority were expressed. This is a development which can be seen increasingly from the later sixth century, but was given huge impetus after the defeats suffered by the Romans at the hands of Islam and the Arabs in the 630s and 640s.19 Yet the wars which were fought against the Persians by the emperor Heraclius, culminating in the complete defeat of the Sassanid forces in 626—7, had an ideological quality which, as has several times been pointed out, differentiates them from earlier conflicts.
The emperor Maurice had been killed in 602, following a mutiny among the Danube forces and the seizure of power by the centurion Phocas who ruled until 610. It was Maurice, however, who had intervened to help the young Khusru II recover his throne during the Persian civil war of 590—1, and upon news of Maurice’s death reaching him, the Persian king declared war on the tyrant, claiming to act on behalf of one of Maurice’s sons who had ostensibly escaped the massacre of the imperial family.
Fighting began in 603, and until 611—12 consisted for the most part of regular Persian attacks and raids across the frontier, pillaging and amassing booty from the Roman provinces. There seems to have been little meaningful opposition from Roman armies, which were at the same time divided between factions supporting Phocas and those under commanders who opposed the new emperor. In 610 a coup was mounted under Heraclius, the son of the exarch of Africa (military governor), also named Heraclius, the latter formerly a general under Maurice, together with the cousin of Heraclius the younger, Nicetas. While the latter marched overland via Egypt and Syria against the loyalist forces, Heraclius sailed with a fleet to Constantinople where, in collaboration with elements within the city, Phocas was deposed and executed. But the Persians refused to halt the war, and indeed what had begun as a war of raiding
And extortion of booty began from 611/12 to be transformed into a war of conquest.
By 614 Persian troops had occupied much of Syria and Palestine; from 618 the occupation of Egypt began. The relic of the True Cross was taken from Jerusalem to Persia, and in 626 Persian and Avar forces attempted to mount a combined attack on Constantinople. But in the early 620s the emperor had set about reorganizing and reconstituting his field forces, and in 622 inaugurated a long-term campaign which involved ignoring the direct threat from Persian armies in Anatolia, attacking instead through eastern Asia Minor behind the main Persian lines and threatening both their supply lines and communications with their home bases as well as posing a major challenge to the Persian heartlands. With consummate strategic skill, greatly increased morale and improved discipline, and the aid of Turkic allies from beyond the Caucasus, the emperor’s policy paid off, with the result that Persian forces were defeated piecemeal both in Persia, as well as Asia Minor. The failure of the siege of 626, the withdrawal of the Avars and of the besieging Persian troops meant the end of effective Persian strategy, and the deposition and assassination of Khusru II brought also a reversal of Persian policy with regard to the Romans. A peace was negotiated, Persian forces were eventually withdrawn peacefully from Egypt and Palestine/Syria, and the status quo of the 590s was restored.20
One of the hallmarks of the contemporary and later accounts of these wars is the pre-eminence of the Cross as a symbol of imperial victory, and of the strongly religious element in imperial propaganda: this was a war fought by Christians under the victorious sign of the Cross, with the aid of the Theotokos, the mother of God, against pagans who had not only impugned the integrity of the Roman empire, protected by God, but that of the True Cross, the symbol of the faith itself. The emperor himself cast the Persian king Khusru as the enemy of God, and the court panegyrist, George of Pisidia, represented Heraclius as the chosen instrument of God’s divine wrath as well as the pious and orthodox ruler leading the Chosen People—the Romans—to victory, safeguarding the faith and—of crucial symbolic significance—recovering the True Cross and restoring it to Jerusalem. This attitude did not arise without good reason: for as well as the longer-term context we have already discussed, Khusru is reported to have himself set out on his war to crush the Christian Roman empire and even to restore the realm of his distant forebears Cyrus, Xerxes and Darius.21 Already at the outset of the campaign Heraclius adopted a strongly religious tone, using the Easter celebrations of 622 as his starting point; the symbolism of imperial coinage, especially the introduction of the so-called “cross on steps” motif, emphasized this message. And George of Pisidia, the emperor’s propagandist, hammered the point home in each of his compositions.22 During the siege of 626 the patriarch Sergios and the Master of Offices, the emperor’s deputy during his absence, had lead the defence. But the key figure for the Byzantines themselves had been the Virgin Mary, who had been seen by both Byzantines and Avars during the fighting. It was her image which had been paraded around the walls of the city, and it was to her intervention that the city owed its salvation. And it was her image which accompanied Heraclius on his campaigns against the Persians as well as—importantly—in his coup against Phocas in 610.23 The churchman Theodore the syncellus, a member of the patriarchal clergy, had composed and delivered a sermon on the defeat of the Avars, and his tone was similarly one of religious war, a war to defend the faith of an empire chosen by God to lead humankind to Orthodoxy and salvation.24
As the East Roman empire became increasingly threatened and beleaguered during the second half of the seventh century and afterwards, so its religious identity came ever more to the fore; and logically enough, its struggle for survival took the form of a struggle between good and evil, between Christianity and its enemies. This affected internal politics and social attitudes as much as it affected attitudes to warfare, of course.25 But it meant that, in one sense, all wars were now holy wars, for the very survival of the God-protected realm of the Chosen People was under threat.
The wars fought by Heraclius against the Persians, and the very explicitly religious profile they were given by the emperor in the way he planned and timed his departures from the city, as well as by contemporary imperial and ecclesiastical propaganda, are nevertheless unusual in degree and frequency.26 It seems certainly to have been the case that contemporaries perceived something special and exceptional in the nature of the struggle and its aims. Yet, as we will see, it is equally clear that no specific doctrine of holy war ever evolved out of these experiences.
World History
