Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us. Come to the aid of us Christians and make us worthy to fight to the death for our faith and our brothers, strengthen our souls and our hearts and our whole body, the mighty Lord of battles, through the intercession of the immaculate Mother of God, Thy Mother, and of all the saints. Amen.62 It is such a background that explains the reluctance of the church to accept the proposal of the emperor Nikephros II Phocas (963—9) that soldiers who fell fighting for the empire should be counted among the martyrs. Certainly, there was a hidden agenda on the part of the patriarch Polyeuctos, in view of the emperor’s measures to restrict the growth of monastic landholding, which played a role in the refusal of the synod which met to discuss the issue to endorse the emperor’s request.63 And although Basil’s canon 13 was cited as the overt reason for the rejection, it is also clear from the remarks of the later canonists that this canon was not strictly observed, as noted already. The attitude of the church at this time, and as was frequently the case, seems in fact to have been determined largely by the relations pertaining between emperor and patriarch (with the senior clergy). For as has also been pointed out, there are many examples where the church willingly offered substantial amounts of gold and silver plate to be converted into coin or otherwise employed by the state to avert a crisis (during the reigns of Heraclius, for example, or of Romanos I in the year 920, when church plate was turned into coin for paying the army and for buying barbarian military assistance), and other cases where, when relations between church and emperors were less friendly, the church refused such assistance.64 The request of the emperor Nikephros was, in any case, an exceptional one, the acceptance of which would have involved recognizing the warfare of the tenth century as of a somehow different (more holy) quality than other wars, or admitting that the martyrs of the early church showed no greater courage than the common soldiers of the day who would have been henceforth their equals. This was certainly a major objection raised by both contemporary and later commentators, and the idea was rejected and never again revived.65
Yet this notion does not appear for the first time in the time of Nikephros II. For already in the military treatise compiled by Leo VI, the Tactica, the reward of the soldier who fights for the faith is expressed in terms not simply of doing his duty as the companion in arms of the emperor, but also in spiritual terms: fighting the enemies of Christendom brings immediate spiritual benefit, and for those who die in battle perpetual contentment. It has been pointed out that in the same treatise, Leo describes his understanding of the Islamic notion of jihad, and that his own remarks suggest a remarkable parallel between the spiritual rewards reaped by the Christian soldier who falls in battle and Muslim attitudes.66 On the other hand, the idea that soldiers who fall in the fight for the true faith will receive the appropriate spiritual reward and that the Christian Romans are the Chosen People and are clearly to be distinguished from all others is by no means new—a sixth-century writer expresses similar sentiments,67 they are implicit in the views of Athanasius of Alexandria, as we have seen, and they can be found throughout the middle and later Byzantine periods.68 And, as we have seen, the material rewards were also admitted (quite apart from the official recompense for military service, all the military treatises along with the historical narratives recognize the significance of booty for the ordinary soldier). True, the model for Leo’s views may well be the Islam with which he and other Byzantines of the time were familiar. But this seems to have simply generated a slightly more nuanced version of already current Christian ideas, a product of a particular political and ideological moment in which the Roman empire was at last seeing the possibility of going over to the offensive and making good the losses—both territorial as well as political and ideological—of the preceding centuries.
By the tenth century, a distinct elite of magnate clans had come to dominate the military leadership and administration of the empire, expressed most clearly in the persons of those who led the armies which reconquered such large areas from Islam in the tenth century.69 A warrior culture had evolved in the Anatolian context where this elite originated, not unlike that of the nobility of western Europe in its attitude towards warfare, at least superficially, and involving an ideology of personal honour, bravery and skill in fighting. The Christian warrior attitude of this culture is reflected in the preference among its members for the military saints as both images on their lead seals and as patrons.70 And it is no accident that the very period when the idea that fighting the unbelievers should be rewarded more explicitly by the church makes an appearance was also the time of greatest imperial expansion and conquest or reconquest, and at the same time a period in which the magnate aristocracy of the provinces both led and set the tone for the armies of the state. The attempt of Nikephros II to redefine the morality of warfare represents an attempt to bring into the mainstream the ideology of the warrior and the frontier, and therefore of the magnate clans, as opposed to that of the metropolitan political elite and the church.
There is no doubt that the enthusiasm displayed by Nikephros II in particular for the war in the east had a powerful religious element. Traditionally, no difference was observed between dying in battle against the Christian Bulgars and the unbelieving Arabs. Phocas, and his immediate successor John I Tzimiskes, implied or suggested outright that there was indeed such a difference, and that the war was for the glory of the Christians, the rescue of the Holy Places and the destruction of Islam. This was proclaimed not only within the empire but formed part of the message communicated to Muslim rulers themselves.71 Nikephros is reported in his letter to the Caliph al-Muti’ to have declared that he would soon march on Baghdad, Jerusalem and Egypt, and that he would establish the throne of Christ in Mecca itself. John I Tzimiskes, in a letter to the Armenian king Ashot, stated that his desire “was to free the Holy Sepulchre from the outrages of Muslims”.72 In other words, a real “crusading” zeal was being promoted with the intention of transforming the Byzantine offensive into a holy war. But the effort made by Nikephros threatened the very Christian and typically Byzantine notion of philanthropy. For as noted already, it was that characteristic more than any other which encapsulated Byzantine diplomatic and strategic theory and practice.
What the attempt of Nikephros II does highlight is the difference between the official and theologically respectable views of various elements of what we might loosely call the “establishment” in both secular and religious terms, and those of the ordinary population of the empire, especially of the soldiers who did the fighting and the rural or urban populations who experienced warfare on a regular basis. And here we can find a rather different set of values in operation. Of course, all accepted the fundamental ethics of Christianity, and along with them the officially maintained political-ideological values of the Christian Roman empire. There was considerable room for variation between Constantinople and the provinces, and especially between those groups most directly involved with warfare and fighting the enemies of the empire, and the rest of society. The polarity between Constantinopolitan and provincial culture and attitudes has frequently been noted and analysed from a variety of standpoints, and need not detain us here.73 But it is clear that there was indeed a gulf between the common sense of everyday life on the frontier or in the provincial armies and that of Constantinople and the metropolitan provinces. These differences are only rarely given expression in literary form, but when they are they are very clear.
The treatise on guerrilla strategy written for the general, later emperor, Nikephros Phocas in the 950s or 960s reflects a frontier society very different from that of the inner provinces of the empire. The strategy it describes is, however, no longer in use, since the Romans are now everywhere victorious. But, the writer states, it will be useful for future generations to have a record of the methods of the generals and soldiers who employed it, should it ever be needed again. The values in respect of the position of soldiers in society and the way they are treated by the tax-collectors, for example, make it very clear that warfare and soldiering occupied an esteemed position in the views of the writer, and that these views were widespread among provincial military officers and, presumably, soldiers. There is equally a much more obviously pragmatic approach to killing: in a difficult situation, writes the author of the treatise on skirmishing, “prisoners should either be killed or sent on ahead”, sentiments which fit badly with notions ofphilanthropia and mercy.74
In the later eleventh century, the writer Kekaumenos (probably himself a military officer) compiled a book of advice addressed to his son, in which the life and values of a provincial soldier and magnate are described. Although by no means glorifying warfare, nor representing Byzantine warfare against enemies as in any way special, it is nevertheless very clear that the values— honour, integrity, justice—expected of a provincial noble and soldier are contrasted favourably with the (purportedly) dubious behaviour of city officials and bureaucrats, pen-pushers and sycophants at court: “don’t wish to be a Constantinopolitan official, for you can’t be a general and a clown at the same time” warns the writer.75 His world is one in which right belief and actions guided by God, through prayer and the scriptures, predominate, but in which cunning and intelligence should be applied to extract every advantage from a situation in which one deals with enemies, actual or potential. This is also a world of frontier warfare, in which pitched battles may not be the norm, in which shadowing and ambushing the enemy are still recommended, and in which no shame is attached to avoiding battle if one is at a disadvantage.76
Most indicative of all is the epic Digenis Akritas, a border romance recounting the life and deeds of a frontier lord and his retinue. It may first have been written down in the eleventh century, and reflects a timeless frontier world in which honour, shame, family and God are the dominant motifs. Single combat, heroic feats of arms, and the merciless slaughter of the dishonourable enemy are the key features (as well as the love story around which the tale, or tales, are built). Once again, God and the key values of Orthodoxy inform the moral universe of the Christian characters, but the leading Muslim protagonists also possess honour and bravery in equal measure, so that here we have an insight into a society which was accustomed to warfare and in which a somewhat different day-to-day code had evolved. The emperor and the court, indeed the whole apparatus of the East Roman state, are remote and figure barely at all. What counts are the martial achievements and the honour of the hero of the stories.77
All these sources reflect the main elements of “official” political ideology, of course; yet they all, in slightly variant ways, represent a more “grassroots” aspect of military or provincial life, which allows us to realize that there were—as we should, of course, expect—several different levels at which official ideas were interpreted and put into practice. This becomes clear through accounts in chronicles, saints’ lives and other texts of the attitudes and responses of soldiers to various events at different times during the history of the empire. In 812/13 soldiers cried out at the tomb of the emperor Constantine V (741—75) for him to return to lead them to victory instead of the ruling emperors who had allowed the empire to be humiliated by the Bulgars and the Arabs.78 Indeed, the reintroduction of an imperial policy of iconoclasm (image-breaking) was partly a response to this feeling in the army and in military circles.79 Soldiers throughout the late Roman period took action on occasion—whether through mutinies, involvement in coups d’etat or similar demonstrations against their generals or the central government because of defeats or slights against them.80 And soldiers actively invoked the saints to help them with their illnesses or in their battles—the cult of military saints, such as George, Theodore the Recruit, Demetrios, Anastasios the Persian and Merkourios was a widespread and popular form of devotion among soldiers. Soldiers in the ninth century had images of the saints painted on their shields, while—as we have already noted—armies as well as individual emperors carried sacred images with them into battle. The eleventh-century chronicler Michael Psellos notes that the Roman emperors traditionally carried an image of the Virgin Mary with them on their campaigns, and the emperor Basil II held it on his arm when he went into battle against the rebel general Bardas Phocas. Warfare and fighting were quite comfortably housed in the ideological universe of Christian East Rome.81
Yet the differences between metropolitan and provincial culture should not be exaggerated. Both shared a common Christian and Hellenized tradition; both shared also similar structures of family relationships and the loyalties that accompanied them; and both shared, at base, similar notions about public and private expressions of honour and shame.82 The court actively emphasized the divine support granted to imperial military undertakings. Both central and provincial forces were accompanied from the fourth century by crosses of varying patterns and sizes from simple wooden constructions to much larger and more elaborate bejewelled examples. That their religious and ideological significance was recognized is clear in the ninth century and after from the efforts made by Muslim forces to capture them and from the attempts made by the Byzantines to recover them, the latter an event greeted with great jubilation.83 Equally important were other symbols of this support—as when, for example, the emperor Constantine VII sent holy water blessed by relics of the Passion to a campaign force which he was himself unable to accompany. And on leaving the city for campaign, the emperors prayed for the success of the expedition and for the safety of Constantinople, while in the event of a victorious outcome both church and people were actively engaged in the triumphal reception of the returning victors in which both public and private prayers played a significant role.84
It is indeed partly because of this set of fundamental common motifs that, in spite of its dynamism in a provincial setting, the “warrior” ideology (if we can, somewhat crudely, so describe it) was, in the context of the metropolitan society of the ruling elite fairly rapidly toned down and accommodated to the framework of Constantinopolitan administrative culture. To survive, it had to adopt metropolitan values in order to attain ideological legitimization and respect. Indeed, the population of Constantinople found the presence of large numbers of soldiers there during the reign of Nikephros II especially objectionable. But the result was, in the eleventh century and after, an interesting blend and merging of two potentially exclusive and possibly antagonistic cultural traditions. The ruling elite of the Comnene period could happily accommodate aspects of both, as a result of a blend of aristocratic clan alliances and theories of imperial political service which Alexios I achieved during his efforts to consolidate and to stabilize his rule. Their use of soldier saints on imperial coinage illustrates the point.85
Thus it is precisely because the Byzantines fought under the symbol of the Cross, and because they saw themselves as soldiers of Christ fighting to preserve God’s kingdom on earth, that no theory or doctrine of “holy war” evolved. Warfare was almost by definition of a religious character, since the East Roman empire was the sole orthodox polity fighting to preserve and extend the Christian faith. Together with the doubts expressed by the Fathers of the Church in respect of killing and the unbroken cultural tradition which bound medieval East Rome to its late Roman and early Christian origins, it is not difficult to understand this. Indeed, the elements of discontinuity in the medieval west and in the nascent Islamic civilization in the east have been singled out as major factors which contributed in both cases to the evolution on the one hand of the notion of jihad, and on the other of a warrior caste, the theory of the “three orders” (or its practical realization in the period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries) and the notion of the Crusade.86
From the fifth century to the end of the empire, therefore, there is a mass of evidence both for the formal and official acceptance by both Church and court, as well as by the ordinary population, of the need to wage war, the fact of divine support for such warfare, and the need to maintain and to rely upon heavenly aid in waging war. And although the notion of “holy war” in the sense understood by the Crusaders or by non-Muslims as typical of Islam had thus a very brief life in the Byzantine world, this does not mean that the ways in which warfare on behalf of the Christian Roman state were understood did not experience a certain evolution. On the contrary, it is very clear that Byzantines were constantly aware of the need to justify their wars, and this need became the more pressing in a time of political and military expansionism such as the tenth century Constantine V is reported to have characterized as “noble” his campaign into Bulgaria in 772/73 because no Roman soldiers died, and by the time of the compilation of the Tactica of Leo VI the notion that a war had to be justified in accordance with orthodoxy and the existence of the Roman state was clearly set out: as long as the defence of Roman interests, however broadly defined, was at stake, then warfare was acceptable and just. From this time on, the notion of the just war in defence of the God-granted mission and purpose of the East Roman emperors and the Chosen People was a standard aspect of imperial political propaganda, directed both externally to the empire’s neighbours, whether hostile or not, and internally as an element in the practice of political-ideological legitimization of state, society and their institutional structures.87 War with other orthodox Christians was, of course, to be avoided, yet it could also be justified if the one true empire, that of the Romans, were to be attacked by the misguided rulers of such lands, a position perfectly exemplified in the letters of the patriarch Nikolaos I in the early tenth century to the Bulgar tsar Symeon.88
Given that this was the situation, we may ask how these values actually affected Byzantine theories of warfare—strategy—and how they were realized in practice.
World History
