Download PDF | Byzantine Military Rhetoric in the Ninth Century A Translation of the Anonymi Byzantini Rhetorica Militaris.
105 Pages
Byzantine Military Rhetoric in the Ninth Century is the first English translation of the ninth-century Anonymi Byzantini Rhetorica Militaris. This influential text offers a valuable insight into the warrior ethic of the period, the role of religion in the justification of war, and the view of other military cultures by the Byzantine elite. It also played a crucial role in the compilation of the tenth-century Taktika and Constantine VII’s harangues during a period of intense military activity for the Byzantine Empire on its eastern borders. Including a detailed commentary and critical introduction to the author and the structure of the text, this book will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine political ideology and military history.
Georgios Theotokis is a lecturer of European history at Ibn Haldun University, Turkey. His publications include Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081-1108 Ap (2014) and Byzantine Military Tactics in Syria and Mesopotamia in the Tenth Century (2018).
Dimitrios Sidiropoulos is currently PhD Student in Byzantine History (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki).
Introduction
Part A: the author and the work
Syrianos magistros and the compendium of Anonymus Byzantinus
Syrianos magistros has been attributed as the author of a comprehensive treatise that was published as three separate works broadly covering all aspects of warfare [taxtixd, Onunyopial, vavpayixd]:' the On Strategy (De re strategica),’ which began with some general observations about the body politic before quickly turning to the topic that really interested the author and “which is really the most important branch of the entire science of government,” strategy; the Rhetorica militaris, which is a comprehensive general’s guidebook on how to compose and deliver rhetorical speeches for the exhortation of the troops before and up to the point of battle and, finally, the Naumachiae,* which covers various topics related to strategy and tactics at sea. Historians have proposed that the compendium may also have included a section on siege warfare no longer extant.‘
The assertion of the common authorship of the On Strategy and the Rhetorica Militaris goes as far back as the seventeenth century, when the German philologist, geographer and historian from Hamburg, Lukas Holste (1596-2 February 1661), first suggested it in a manuscript notation, adding that the first work (i.e. On Strategy) represented the zpaxtikov pépos (1.€. the “practical” part) and the second (i.e. Rhetorica Militaris) accounted for the Aoyixov pépog (i.e. the “logical” or “verbal” part) of the De Orationibus Militaribus Tractatus.* Yet it was because of the editorial and translation work of two great scholars of the nineteenth century, Hermann Kéchly and Wilhelm Riistow — the first editors of both manuals — that Holste’s idea took hold.® Furthermore, it was Kéchly and Riistow who coined the term Anonymus Byzantinus. Finally, the “common paternity” of all three works of the compendium of the so-called Anonymus Byzantinus was supported a quarter of a century later by Karl Konrad Miiller, who, in 1882, also attributed the Naumachiae to the same author as the aforementioned two, in his edition of the Greek text under the title De proelio navali.”
Nevertheless, it would take another century for the three texts to be treated as one. That was because of a misunderstanding by one of the most influential codicologists of the twentieth century, Alphonse Dain.* In 1943, Dain strongly supported the textual independence of the On Strategy from the other two works, thus influencing leading scholars of the next generation, like George Dennis, to publish an English translation of the latter treatise, in 1985, as an independent piece of Byzantine military literature of the sixth century. Therefore, it is thanks to the authoritative study by Constantine Zuckerman in 1990 that historians have come to accept beyond reasonable doubt not only the “common paternity” but also Syrianus’ authorship of all three of the aforementioned works.?
Zuckerman’s theory of the “common paternity” of the compendium relies primarily on the thematic and stylistic parallels between the three works. For Zuckerman, Anonymus applied the same tactical and rhetorical devices when it comes to writing about land and naval warfare, thus dismissing the word-for-word reiteration for the Naumachiae, which could have implied that the author of the naval treatise — if different from Anonymus — would have drawn and adapted his material from the On Strategy or the Rhetorica Militaris. Zuckerman identified several points of correspondence between the Naumachiae and the On Strategy, based on Anonymus’ concept of land and naval tactics, which is largely shaped by the author’s notion of the “phalanx.” The naval formation of warships is an adaptation of his description of a land phalanx, while the same principle applies for the author’s highlighting of the importance of keeping an orderly formation while on march, for the use of scouts in advance of a phalanx and for equipping the front ranks of a phalanx with the best weaponry available. Furthermore, numerous parallels between the Naumachiae and the Rhetorica Militaris are drawn from the passages instructing/exhorting the general to battle: both texts deter the general from engaging in battle unless he holds the upper hand over his enemy in both numbers and morale. Finally, while upholding Zuckerman’s views on the thematic parallels, Cosentino draws attention to the great number of stylistic affinities between the three texts, mainly concerning the use of the neutral form, common terminologies and grammatical similarities,'° thus further confirming the “common paternity” of the compendium.
Assigning a name to Anonymus Byzantinus
The breakthrough regarding the name of the author of the compendium came — once again — by Dain, who was able to demonstrate that he had made out the inscription NAYMAXTAI XYPIANOY MATIXTPOY on folio 332” of the Ambrosianus B-119-sup that includes the Naumachiae (fs. 333'-338").!!
Therefore, it is the work of this Syrianos, along with the well-known secondcentury AD military theoretician Polyaenus, which the emperor Constantine VI Porphyrogennetos advised his son to bring with him on campaign in his mid-tenth-century treatise On What Should be Observed When the Great and High Emperor Goes on Campaign.'* This is another proof of the common authorship of the Naumachiae and the On Strategy, because it would have been unlikely for Constantine VII to recommend a treatise on naval warfare as paramount reading for his son Romanos on the occasion of the latter’s “land” campaign in eastern Asia Minor against the Hamdanid emir of Aleppo. Finally, the name Syrianos also appears (written by a scribe) in the margins of the Viennese codex Vindobonensis phil. graecus 275 of emperor Leo’s Tactical Constitutions, along with the names of Arrian, Aelian, Pelops, Onasander, Menas, Polyaenus and Plutarch, in the section of the prologue where the author writes that:
After devotedly giving our attention to the ancient, as well as to the more recent, strategic and tactical methods, and having read about further details in other accounts, if we came across anything in those sources that seemed useful for the needs of war, we have, as it were, gathered it up and collected it."°
Modern historians know surprisingly little about Syrianos magistros, as we find no person with this name in the primary sources between the midseventh and tenth centuries.'* Syrianos’ epithet implies that he had been awarded the senior dignity of magistros, a title that can be etymologically linked to the earlier office of the magister officiorum.'> The latter was apowerful palatine official, bearing the dignity of i//ustris after 380, that was created by the separate administrations of Constantine I and Licinius shortly after 312 (it is first attested in the sources in 320).'° He had as his main responsibility the overseeing of the civil and military staff related to the legal, administrative, diplomatic and ceremonial business conducted by the emperor.
By the end of the reign of Leo III (reigned 717-40), however, the greater part of the administrative functions of the office of the magister officiorum was transferred to other officials that — up until then — had been subordinates to him. Those included the Logothete of the Dromos or Postal Logothete (Greek: AoyoOétys tob dpouov), the Quaestor, the Domestic of the Schools (Greek: dopéotiKos tTHv ayo) @v), the Secretary of Petitions (Greek: 6 éxi tHv denoewy) and the Master of Ceremonies (Greek: 6 éxi tng Katactdcews).'" Therefore, as Bury very aptly put it, “the “ayiotpoc of the eighth century is the magister officiorum shorn of most of his old functions,”'* while the addition t@v 6ggixiov (Latin, officiorum) was gradually dropped, although Bury also notes the “exceptional” case of Leo VI’s (reigned 886-912) powerful father-in-law, Stylianos Zaoutzes, who was recorded in Leo’s Novels as LayloTpOG TOV Ociwv 6pgIKioy.
Evidence suggest that until the reign of Michael III (reigned 842-67), there seem to have been only two magistroi, a title conferred to eminent patricians for life, the senior of whom was termed protomagistros (qpwtonayiotpos, literary “first magistros”). The latter was a leading member of the Senate and shared in the decision-making process of the government with the chamberlain and the urban prefect during imperial absences.'” The second magistros participated in the ceremonial duties of the first. Finally, the title was conferred on more holders during the reign of Basil I (reigned 867-86), although certainly fewer than the number 12 implied in the List of Precedence (Klétorologion) of Philotheos, written in 899.”° By the tenth century, it had effectively transformed into a court dignitary, the highest until the introduction and award of the proedros (Greek: mpdedpoc) by Nikephoros II (reigned 963-69) to Basil Lekapenos.
Assigning a date to the compendium of Syrianos
Historians have at their disposal only two certain historical termini that can locate the authorship of the compendium in a period that is about three centuries long: the reference to the generalship of Belisarius (AD 530-59) and the use of Syrianos’ work in the composition of Leo VI’s Tactical Constitutions (AD 904—12). With the “land” treatise On Strategy naturally attracting the lion’s share of attention, the compendium has traditionally been dated to the reign of Justinian (527-65),”! following Kéchly and Rtistow’s first edition of 1855 that cited four pieces of internal evidence. First, the author’s allusions to the celebration of triumphs in the capital, pointing to Belisarius’ famous triumph in the Hippodrome following his reconquest of North Africa in 534; then, the “divide-and-rule” diplomacy of the emperor, which Kéchly and Riistow identified as — clearly — Justinianic in nature; third, the prominence of archery in the text that points more to a sixth-century compilation date rather than later; finally, a reference to the generalship of Belisarios in the present tense.” Yet a handful of modern scholars like Barry Baldwin, Doug Lee, Jonathan Shepard, Salvatore Cosentino and Philip Rance have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt the flimsiness of the arguments that have formed the foundation of the dating for the compendium to the sixth century,” pointing rather to a much later date sometime in the (later) ninth century.
In 2007, Philip Rance published the latest academic study concerning the debate about the dating of Syrianos’ compendium in an article that “intended to complement the insights of Baldwin, Lee and Shepard, and Cosentino by identifying five additional dating criteria that are incongruent with a sixth-century date and more consistent with a middle Byzantine context.” Therefore, regardless of the fact that historians are still unableto pinpoint the exact year, or even decade, of Syrianos’ work, we can say with confidence that a sixth-century date is no longer plausible. And here is why: despite Kéchly and Riistow’s confidence that the author referred to Belisarius’ famous triumph in the Hippodrome in 534, scholarship on the subject has shown that the celebrations of campaign triumphs with captives in public remained a very common practice until the eleventh century, especially during the period of the “Macedonians.”™ In order to safeguard his position, for example, Emperor Basil I (reigned 867—86) exploited the victory celebrations to the fullest, and, in total, he celebrated three triumphal victories in the capital, the most important of which was his second triumph after the conclusion of his 873 campaign in the East against the heretical Paulicians of Tephrike.” Furthermore, Kéchly and Riistow’s divide-andtule foreign policy over Byzantium’s neighbours should not be construed as particularly “Justinianic,” because it was also very common in the following centuries, especially during the critical tenth century of the Byzantine ““Re-conquest” in the East.*° On top of that, the alleged prominence of archery in the treatise is, surely, not another indication of its Justinianic origin, as archery remained a significant weapon for imperial armies during the following centuries.”’ Finally, Syrianos’ famous sentence in present tense toto dé molei Pediodptoc, “this is what Belisarius does,” should rather be understood in the historic present tense without chronological implications, as the overwhelming majority of the examples from the distant classical past of Greece, Persia and Rome are also described by the author of the treatise in the same tense.”
Rance added seven arguments that demonstrate the probability of Syrianos writing his compendium in the ninth century. First, another of the author’s famous sentences in the On Strategy that referred to the ambushes used by the Arabs had come under scrutiny already since Kéchly and Riistow’s edition of the treatise: tac évédpac zolodol Mev Kai oi onnEpov Papaioi te Kai Apafes (“ambushes are used by both today’s Romans and Arabs”).”° Historians have maintained for over a century that Syrianos’ Apafec were the empire’s pre-Islamic Ghassanid allies, hence reinforcing the suggestion that the author was writing in the sixth century.*” Lee and Shepard, Cosentino and Rance offered two counter-arguments to the established position: first, the marginal geo-political position of the empire’s Arab/Beduin allies would not have qualified them for any mention in a military treatise of the sixth century; second, the late Antique and early Byzantine historians and chroniclers largely favoured the term Lapaxnvoi [“shargiyyin,” meaning “easterners”] to denote the Arabs over Apafec, which is more common for the high period of Byzantine historiography.*’
Moreover, Baldwin’s emphasis on another passage in the On Strategy that seems to disprove the argument for the compilation of the treatise in the Justinianic period, is — actually — unfounded. Baldwin picked up on Syrianos’ introduction of the four branches of battle tactics (“ta tij¢ tats wépn’’) in the fourteenth chapter of the treatise, where the author explained, “I shall refrain from any treatment of elephants and chariots in the present work. For why should we still be discussing them, when even the terminology for their tactical operations has become obsolete?”** On the surface, this may seem like a clear indication that the author was writing several generations after the Byzantine-Persian wars, since Baldwin, Lee and Shepard and Cosentino assumed that elephants played a prominent role in the wars between the two superpowers of the sixth century.*? Yet Rance has demonstrated that although elephants frequently accompanied Sassanid armies on campaign for centuries, they had a very limited operational role, with the sole undisputed encounter of elephants by Roman troops in the battlefield witnessed at the Battle of Ganzak, in 591.*4 Rather, we should take Syrianos’ remark about elephants and war-chariots as another antiquarianism that goes back to Asclepiodotos, Aelian, Arrian and, eventually, the Greek Stoic philosopher Poseidonios of Apameia’s (c. 135 Bc—c. 51 Bc) description of the Seleucid army of the second century Bc.**
Additionally, Rance included five observations that add to the general argument supporting the compilation of Syrianos’ compendium in the (later) ninth century. First, he notes the description of the defensive structure of a military encampment in the On Strategy,** a military feature referred to in the tenth century as oxovtapa@ya (Latin “scutum’”), that is not recorded in the sources of the sixth century, but it is well attested in the tenth and eleventh centuries.*’ In a similar fashion, he emphasizes that Syrianos’ recommendation of the size of infantry shields of “no less than seven spithamai [c. 1,65 metres]” again has no parallels in the late Antique and early Byzantine sources, a size that is much more often documented in the tenth- and eleventh-century sources.** Rance also suggested that Syrianos’ mentioning of armour for horses’ hooves in the On Strategy may hint of a ninth-century compilation, since the one that our author describes resembles only another one from an unpublished Life of St. Philaretus the Younger (ca. 1020-76) (BHG 1513), an eleventh-century saint of Byzantine Calabria.*? Furthermore, the fact that the editor/copyist of the codex Ambrosianus graecus 119, which was commissioned sometime between 959 and early 960, chose not to paraphrase or edit the works by Syrianos, although he (linguistically) intervened in older texts to “update” the terminology for his contemporary readership, may suggest that “the editor . . . deemed it unnecessary or inappropriate to paraphrase a recently produced work.’””° Finally, Rance highlighted the absence of any majuscule/uncial errors in the manuscript witnesses to all three parts of Syrianos’ compendium, which carries the implication that if it was written in the sixth century, it has had the remarkably good fortune to be transmitted through a series of “especially diligent copyists.’””4!
Rance also emphasized the importance of a naval treatise like the Naumachiae in the compendium of Syrianos, compared to the predominantly “land-warfare” treatise of the sixth century Strategikon. If we consider that there was a significant upsurge of naval warfare around the middle of the ninth century (I will attempt to be more specific subsequently), it seems to me intrinsically plausible that a military compendium with a “naval element” would have made perfect sense for that period. This argument becomes stronger if we consider the famous “naval” Constitution 19, which, along with Constitutions 15 and 17 and other naval texts, was appended to the main text of Leo VI’s Tactical Constitutions sometime between 904 and 912. This addition clearly reflects the rapidly deteriorating geo-political situation between the Empire and the Caliphate in the closing years of the ninth century and the growing threat of sea-based attacks that was becoming a major concern for Leo VI’s administration.
We need to highlight two key arguments at this point before I try to pinpoint with greater accuracy the period of the compilation of Syrianos’ compendium. First, what I wrote previously about the fact that the editor/copyist of the codex Ambrosianus graecus 119 apparently did not paraphrase or edit the works by Syrianos, probably because he considered them recent scholarship on the subject of the art of war; this is important because it places Syrianos’ compendium very close — chronologically — to Leo’s Tactical Constitutions. On top of that, we have the complaint by the author of the Tactical Constitutions, at the beginning of the section “About Naval Warfare,” that “we have found no regulations on this subject among the ancient tacticians.””’ Surely this comment on its own precludes the fact that many generations would have passed between the compilations of both works. Furthermore, Cosentino (following Lammert) suggested that Syrianos’ Naumachiae primarily reflects literary considerations, particularly that of the largely lost compendium of Aeneas Tacticus, an assumption that transformed Syrianos’ naval treatise into the “literary heir” of a lost treatment of naval warfare which originally followed Aineias’ Poliorketika.* Nevertheless, as Rance very poignantly suggested, “If Syrianus did have the good fortune to possess a naval treatise by Aineias, he appears to have been the only Greek, Roman or Byzantine writer ever to have seen a copy. Certainly Leo VI was less fortunate.”“* Therefore, Cosentino’s and Lammert’s argument does not sound very compelling to me, which only adds to the point about the close (chronological) relationship between Syrianos’ and Leo’s works. However, is it possible to narrow down even further the possible period of the compilation of Syrianos’ compendium? I believe it is.
Dating the compendium and the geo-political background of the period
The basic strategic consideration that determined the empire’s strategic thinking and planning for this period was to achieve a sort of equilibrium with its archenemy in the East, the Abbasid Caliphate.* Yet John Haldon aptly described the history of Byzantine warfare during the eighth and the ninth centuries as “a rather depressing one, for the empire often seems to have lost far more battles than it won.’*° Land warfare between the two great superpowers during the period of the so-called Amorian dynasty, which corresponded with the reigns of the emperors Michael II (reigned, 820-29), Theophilos (reigned, 829-42) and Michael III (842-67), was defined by two great pitched battles that occurred a quarter of a century apart. Theophilos’ disastrous defeat at the Battle of Anzen, on 22 July 838, was of significant political and strategic importance for the equilibrium of power in Asia Minor while also opening the way for the brutal sack of Ancyra (27 July) and Amorion (beginning of August). Out of — perhaps — 70,000 inhabitants that had flocked to Amorion in the weeks leading up to the attack, around half were massacred or sold as slaves by the Abbasids.” This was a devastating political and ideological setback for the “Amorian” dynasty, considering that Amorion was one of the empire’s largest cities, the capital of the Anatolikon theme, and the one from which the imperial family’s founder Michael II descended.
The defeat at Anzen and the sack of Amorion played an additional role in discrediting iconoclasm, as shortly after Theophilos’ sudden death in 842, the veneration of icons was restored as part of the Triumph of Orthodoxy throughout the Empire.** Inevitably, these events had a deep impact on the Byzantine psyche, which is reflected in the numerous folk songs (Acritic songs) that have a survived since the eleventh century or — probably — even earlier. Examples include the Song of Armouris (Aopa tot Appovpy) that describes the efforts of a young Byzantine borderer to rescue his father from captivity, or the Castle of the Beauty (Kéotpo tg Qp[a]iac) or Castle of Mary (Kéotpo tig Mapods), a ballad about a fair maiden who fell from the battlements of her castle to her death to escape Muslim captivity.” These should be coupled with the veneration by the Church of the 42 martyrs of Amorion, the imperial officers that were captured in 838 and — allegedly — executed in Samarra seven years later for refusing to convert to Islam.*° Finally, the middle of the ninth century was a period when the cultural and diplomatic activity between the Constantinopolitan and Baghdad courts increased exponentially,*! which suggests a greater Byzantine awareness of Islam as a religious system and an ideology, to the point where Michael III asked Niketas Byzantios, a scholar from the entourage of Patriarch Photios, to compose a lengthy treatise that refuted the “new” religion.*’ However, I will talk more about the increasing Byzantine interest in Islam in the ninth century in the following.
Following the outbreak of civil war in the Caliphate, in 842, a combined force of some 15—20,000 men under the orders of the emir of Melitene, Umar al-Aqta (r. 830s—863), and the Abbasid governor of Tarsus broke into Anatolia through the Cilician Gates in late August 863, plundering and burning as they went.*? Umar carried on in a northerly direction and succeeded in defeating an imperial army of around the same size, led by Michael III himself, in a bloody battle at an area known in Arab sources as Marj al-Usquf (“Bishop’s Meadow”’): a highland near Malakopeia, north of Nazianzos.** With Umar penetrating as far north as the Black Sea port of Amisos in the Armeniakon theme, it was the Domestic of the Scholae, Petronas, who was shadowing the invading force and managed to surround and defeat it on 3 September, at a location known as Poson (IIldcwv), near the Lalakaon River, about 130 km southeast of Amisos.
The victory at Poson/Lalakaon encapsulates two key aspects of the Byzantine defence-in-depth strategy of the ninth century: first, the pincer movement designed to clear out the enemy columns by having several smaller neighbouring thematic forces converging in an area and, second, the degree of independence of the local commanders when it came to making decisions with adequate intelligence. Likewise, on a geo-political level, Poson/ Lalakaon undoubtedly broke the power of the emirate of Melitene, leading the Byzantines to hail the outcome as a revenge for Amorion 25 years earlier.*° Further Byzantine counterattacks against the heretic Paulicians in the region followed in the 870s.
The geo-political relations between the empire and the Arabs in the East that we just described fit very well with Cosentino’s assessment of the most likely period for the compilation of Syrianos’ compendium. The former brought forward some strong arguments that Syrianos would have been a contemporary of the events unfolding during Theophilos’ times, while he — most likely — would have compiled his work shortly after the emperor’s death in 842.°° Nevertheless, even if we take the view that Syrianos did not have much technical knowledge or any experience of warfare, it is his decision to include a treatise on naval warfare in his compendium that can — most plausibly — be viewed as a response to recent/current developments, especially since a naval chapter thereafter became a standard component of Byzantine military compendia (i.e. “Constitution 19” in Leo’s Tactical Constitutions). In my view, it is the significant upsurge in naval warfare after Basil I’s usurpation of the imperial throne in 867 that can be linked with the decision to include the Naumachiae, a fact that could push the period for the compilation of Syrianos’ work further forward to around the second half of the 870s.
Lounghis emphasized two critical points concerning the historical outline of the condition of the Byzantine navy in the eighth and — especially — the ninth centuries.*’ First, the major administrative reforms of the imperial navy during the first two emperors of the Macedonian dynasty, Basil I and Leo VI, that subjugated all the provincial naval forces to the needs of the new dynasty under a new officer, the droungarios of the fleet. Second, the ability of Byzantium to intervene in the West during the eighth and ninth centuries depended on the stability of the so-called “southern boundary,” roughly defined as the sea-routes dominated by the islands of Cyprus, Crete, and the southern Aegean, a fact that clearly demonstrates the connection between geo-political events in Crete and Sicily/Italy.
Beginning with the latter point, it is fair to say that although the northern (Danubian) and eastern borders of the empire were protected by its land armies, hence the longer and more thorough treatment of their achievements in the primary sources, of equal strategic importance were the southern and the western borders that were safeguarded by various naval forces. Therefore, any gap in the naval boundaries of the empire in the Mediterranean Sea would have been equally ominous for the empire as a resurgent border emir in the Taurus Mountains or the loss of a strategic fortress town south of the Danube. Bearing that in mind, the restoration of the gap in the southern boundary that the Arabs had inflicted in the seventh century with the loss of Cyprus, and with the more recent loss of Crete, should have been an urgent strategic priority for the Byzantine leadership compared to any expedition to the West (Italy and Sicily). However, as Lounghis emphasized, the imperial expeditions to the West throughout the ninth century “represented East Roman imperial predominance, and thus had absolute priority over the restoration of the southern boundary. Nevertheless, this priority did not hamper the successive plans .. . for the recovery of Cyprus and Crete.”** Under Basil I, the empire apparently abandoned its ecumenical pretensions in the West in favour of defending its restricted dominion in Italy. This meant that, although the Muslim bases in Crete and southern Aegean were menacingly closer to the imperial capital than Palermo, Messina, or Bari, the founder of the “Macedonian” dynasty saw the need to keep the imperial flag flying in the West.
The strategic priority of neutralizing Cyprus before any conquest of Crete could take place is clearly reflected in Leo VI’s Tactical Constitutions: “Now, as the barbarians are gathering together from Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia to campaign against the Romans, it is necessary for the fleet generals with their naval forces to occupy Cyprus before the barbarian ships can get together.” For that reason, it would certainly have looked paramount for Basil to capture the island of Cyprus, as this would have isolated Crete and deprived her of valuable supplies and reinforcements, while in Byzantine hands, it could have been used as a base to support land campaigns against Tarsus and northern Syria. The island’s strategic importance in the eastern Mediterranean had already been recognized since the time of Justinian II (reigned 685-95 and 705-11), when the main base of the theme of Kibyrrhaeotae was established at Kibyrrha, opposite Cyprus on the southern coast of Asia Minor, a few years before 698. Furthermore, two lead seals of two generals of the Kibyrrhaeotae (with the dignities of spatharios and patrikios, respectively)®' that were found in Cyprus also hint at a large Byzantine naval presence in the waters between Asia Minor and Cyprus. Nevertheless, it was during Basil’s reign that the empire regained possession of the island, although this was to prove ephemeral. The likeliest period of Byzantine rule was between the lull in the war against the Paulicians following the failure to take Melitene in 873 and the Arab retaking of the island in 880 or in 881, which again confirms the interdependency between different operational theatres of war.”
The only time in the history of Byzantine naval affairs in the eastern Mediterranean that the strategic goal of conquering Cyprus was overshadowed by another more pressing geo-political development was the period following the “Spaniard” Arab conquest of Crete during the reign of Michael II (820-29). The Byzantines reacted swiftly to the sudden and unexpected loss of this strategic island by dispatching three expeditions to reclaim it before the death of Michael II in October 829, but they all failed miserably. Surprisingly, the only expedition launched thereafter against the Cretan Arabs until the reign of Leo VI was the one led by the magistros and logothetes tou dromou Theoktistos in 843, which only achieved short-lived success.
Undoubtedly, the loss of Crete shifted the strategic makeup of the eastern Mediterranean, escalating the naval activity in the Aegean Sea for the following century and a half. Yet we should not construe these raids by the Arabs from Crete as mindless opportunistic pirate raids but rather as meticulously planned military expeditions that aimed either at booty or at the permanent conquest of an island. Around 839, they inflicted a major defeat on a Byzantine fleet off Thasos in the northern Aegean, and around 860, they raided the Cyclades, reaching as far north as the Dardanelles. Nasr’s raid on the town of Methymna in Lesbos in 867 also became famous through the Life of Saint Theoktiste of Lesbos. In the third quarter of the century, permanent Muslim occupation was witnessed for the islands of Karpathos, to the south of Rhodes; of Cos, between Rhodes and Samos; of Naxos, the biggest of the Cycladic islands in the southern Aegean, of Paros; and of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.
This increasing naval activity in the Aegean Sea forced successive imperial governments to revise the distribution of naval forces in their “southern boundary” in an effort to safeguard the critical navigational routes that crossed the western and eastern coasts of Crete. Under the “Amorian” emperors, we see the disappearance of the general of the Kibyrrhaeotae,® while the fleet of the newly established (probably shortly after 843)* theme of the Aegean Sea was reported operating in the southern Aegean but with mixed results, as attested in the Lives of Saints Peter of Argos and Euthymius and Theodore of Cythera.®’ On top of that, Michael III dispatched a strong fleet against Abbasid Egypt in 852/53 (repeated in 859), which sacked Damietta; apparently, the Byzantine leadership had — finally — grasped the fact that Egypt was also critical as a supply base for the Cretan naval activity in the eastern Mediterranean.
Things improved dramatically for the empire during Basil I’s reign, although victories over the Cretan Arabs began to show results only in the second half of the 870s.” The sources attest to a naval victory by the general of the theme of Hellas (est. around 687), a certain Oiniates, over a relatively small fleet from Tarsus that was raiding Euripos (modern Chalkida) in Euboea, either around 875 or shortly after 883.” Then, following a Cretan naval raid against Methone, Patras and Corinth in the Peloponnesus around 879, the Arabs were annihilated in the Gulf of Corinth by the upand-coming droungarios of the imperial fleet, Niketas Ooryphas. The latter had been promoted into his office immediately following Basil’s usurpation, despite the fact that Niketas first appears in our sources as urban prefect of Constantinople during Michael III’s reign, gaining his laurels around 873 when he defeated a Cretan fleet at the Gulf of Saros, just north of the Gallipoli Peninsula in the northern Aegean.
The fact remains, however, that successive Byzantine governments in the second and third quarters of the ninth century felt strong enough to — temporarily — ignore the loss of Crete and divert their forces to the West. Sicily had been upgraded into a theme already before the end of the seventh century (probably between 687 and 695), which meant that for the imperial governments of the eighth century, the island would have served as a stepping stone to reclaim the whole of Italy after the loss of Ravenna in 751. Unlike Crete, the strategic importance of Sicily is obvious in that it had its own thematic fleet and complement of locally raised soldiers, marking “the extreme naval limits of a long and broad southern naval boundary that defined the medieval East Roman identity.”’! However, the raising of Sicily to a rank similar, if not superior, to that of Ravenna certainly emboldened its generals towards “centrifugal acts,” as we see in the revolts of Sergios (in 717/18), Antiochos (in 764/65), Elpidios (in 781/82) and, finally, the turmarch Ephemios (in 827); this is important to remember, as I will explain subsequently, with regard to the appointment of “faithful” officers in charge of an upgraded imperial fleet by the new “Macedonian” dynasty. Moreover, it is understood that the eventual loss of Sicily to the “African” Arabs came not only as a devastating blow to the empire’s prestige, but it also dismantled its (unofficial) “western [naval] boundary.”” As a direct result of that, we see the Sicilian fleet retreating to Calabria sometime in the middle of the ninth century.”
When they were able, the Byzantines dispatched substantial fleets to the West, such as the one under Alexios Musele in 838. Musele was the son-in-law of emperor Theophilos (829-842) and was sent to reverse the Arab expansion in Sicily, bringing with him some 4,000 elite troops that were carried to Sicily by the newly established imperial fleet (BaotAiKov mA@y.ov)."* That was to no avail, as the Sicilian Arabs renewed their attacks and, worst of all, they took Messina (in 842), Brindisi (in 838), and Taranto (in 839), despite the effort of a Venetian fleet of 60 naves sent at imperial request to relieve Taranto in 840. A sizeable imperial fleet of 300 suffered another defeat in 859, resulting in the Arab conquest of the key Sicilian fortress of Enna (Castrogiovann1), thus confirming to the eyes of Michael III’s government that the loss of Sicily was irreversible.
Basil I’s first act as emperor in securing the frontiers of the empire was to dispatch a powerful fleet under the patrikios and droungarios of the fleet Niketas Ooryphas for a campaign to the West. The fleet first saw action in Dalmatia, in 868, where the Sicilian Arabs had renewed their attacks since 858, coming to the relief of Ragusa, and news of the approach of the imperial fleet forced the Arabs to end their long siege and to hurry back to Italy.* Lounghis made a significant point regarding Basil’s policy in the West during his first few years on the throne: the Byzantines abandoned Sicily in favour of southern Italy only after the siege of Arab-held Bari under the King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor Louis II (reigned 855-75), which was assisted by the imperial fleet under Ooryphas, succeeded in expelling the Arabs in 871.’° This point is reinforced by the appearance of an imperial fleet at Otranto in 873, while another fleet managed to reclaim Bari from the Germans in 876; this was more of a power shift than a strategic retreat to Italy, which was wrapped up with the Byzantine conquest of the last Arabheld city in Italy, Taranto, in 880. In the same year, when an Aghlabid fleet raided Kephalonia and Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea, Basil dispatched a fleet under the patrikios and droungarios of the fleet Naser (Nasr), who destroyed them off the coast of western Greece after cleverly using the bold tactic of night attack, as recommended in Leo’s “naval constitution.”””
It is during the early years of Basil I’s reign that we notice the significant upgrade of the droungarios of the fleet, who enjoyed a much higher position and prestige than during the previous period of the “Amorians,” as we see in the so-called Taktikon Uspensky (843) and in the so-called Klétorologion of Philotheos (899).”. Basil’s strengthening of the imperial fleet, which the Continuators of Theophanes report being permanently moored in the capital during his reign, must have been carried out by the subordination of smaller naval units, for example, the recently revived theme of the Kibyrrhaeotae that had been absent from the naval conflicts with the Arabs in the Mediterranean since the 820s.”
According to Lounghis, there is a critical correlation between the attempts made by the first two “Macedonian” emperors to centralize the naval forces of the empire under the command of the droungarios of the fleet in Constantinople and a passage in the De Administrando Imperio (compiled between 948-52), attributed to Basil’s grandson Constantine VII (reigned 913-59).®° In the aforementioned passage, the author pays great attention to the appointment of “trusted” naval officers in charge of the Mardaites of southern Asia Minor and the theme of Kibyrrhaeotae, clearly stressing the dynasty’s preference for officers of lower social origins over the highranking noblemen who had the power and prestige to defy them. A typical case is that of Eustathios Argyros, who first appeared during the outbreak of war with Bulgaria in 894 under the overall command of Nikephoros Phokas the Elder, another “loyal” and “reliable” army general repeatedly called tov nuétepov otpatnyov (“our general”) in Leo’s Tactical Constitutions.*' When Leo VI sent a fleet under Eustathios to aid Taormina in Sicily in 902, and following his return to Constantinople after the city’s fall to the Muslims, Eustathios and Constantine Karamallos, Taormina’s garrison commander, were accused of negligence and even high treason. However, Lounghis emphasized the bias of contemporary sources reporting on the aforementioned events, including the — alleged — “treachery” of another admiral, Adrianos, concerning the loss of Syracuse in 878. Sources hostile to the new dynasty of the “Macedonians” highlighted the inability and outright treachery of these admirals, while those that favoured the new regime simply whitewashed or altogether failed to mention the details behind these disasters.*?
To reiterate about the two critical points I outlined at the beginning of this section concerning the historical outline of the Byzantine navy in the ninth century: first, I have clearly shown that the empire’s geo-political stability depended on the cohesion of the so-called “southern naval boundary” that included the islands of Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily. Furthermore, I have described how it was after Basil I’s seizure of the throne in 867 that the balance of sea power in the Eastern Mediterranean tilted decisively in favour of the Byzantines, even if it might not have seemed so at the time. The fact remains, however, that Emperor Basil’s new western policy involving southern Italy instead of Sicily was radically different from that of his “Amorian” predecessors, and the operational theatre of Italy would always take precedence in the mind of Basil over Cyprus or Crete. Attempts to reclaim these two islands would only be made once the new “Macedonian” dynasty felt strong enough to undertake such a campaign, but not earlier than 873 and 911, respectively. Finally, the major administrative reforms of the imperial navy that subjugated all the provincial naval forces, including the re-fitted fleet of the Kibyrrhaeotae, to the needs of the new dynasty under the droungarios of the fleet, combined with the meticulous imperial attention paid to the appointment of officers faithful to the new regime, reveal the decisive (or desperate?) attempts of the “Macedonians” to secure the reins of power.
Therefore, I believe that Syrianos’ decision to include a treatise on naval warfare in his compendium fits much better into the geo-political environment of the second half of Basil I’s reign, roughly between 875 and 886, than the period suggested by Cosentino following the death of Theophilos in 842. This argument grows stronger considering that a naval chapter thereafter became a standard component of Byzantine military compendia, like the famous “Constitution 19” in Leo’s Tactical Constitutions, a military manual that also grew out of the late ninth-century cultural milieu of Christian-Muslim conflict to form an integral part of Emperor Leo’s scheme of setting the empire’s “military administration” on a sound footing by introducing imperial legislation to be accepted as instruction rather than suggestion.*
A note on the sources
Modern historians have proposed that Syrianos made selective reworking of earlier sources from the late Hellenistic sub-genre of military literature, some of which they have been able to identify. For example, his discussion on tactics in the On Strategy is — largely — drawn from Aelian, a Greek living in Rome in the early second century aD who based his Zactical Theory on the art of war developed in the late Hellenistic period, with the Macedonian phalanx as his model.** The On Strategy’s “tactical” chapters comply with the general order in the Tactical Theory although, as Zuckerman notes, Syrianos chose to modify the arrangement of Aelian’s definitions while, in some cases, he disregarded some of the topics in the Tactical Theory, or he included others that were entirely his own, like the chapter on river crossings (On Strategy, chapter 19) that he introduced with the following justification: “Since journeys are made not only on dry land but also across water, it is necessary to talk about crossing rivers.” Likewise, his analysis of fortifications and signal fires in the On Strategy prompted some historians to speculate that he drew on the Poliorketika of Philo of Byzantium (ca. 200 Bc) and, perhaps, the lost books of Aeneas Tacticus (ca. midfourth century Bc).* Finally, Syrianos also overtly criticizes the practicality of Apollodoros of Damascus’ (2nd c. AD) floating bridge in crossing rivers.*°
On the other hand, while Aelian remains an anonymous source in the compendium, Syrianos openly notes in the Rhetorica Militaris (chapter 3.2—4) that he is deliberately departing from Hermogenes in not formulating opposing arguments to war. Hermogenes of Tarsus (c. AD160—230) was, perhaps, the most influential rhetorical theorist of Late Antiquity, during the time of the so-called Second Sophistic*’ (first three centuries of the Common Era), when epideictic oratory (a type of persuasive speech designed primarily for rhetorical effect and display) had become a major literary force in the eastern Mediterranean. As basic handbooks on Greek rhetorical theory proliferated in the early sixth century, amongst the most authoritative in the field that were taught as separate “preliminary exercises,” or progymnasmata, were Aphthonius’ Progymnasmata (later fourth century), Hermogenes’ Peri staseon (“On Issues”) and Peri ideon (“On Ideas”), and Menander of Laodicea’s epideictic treatises (also known as Menander Rhetor; late third century).** These works would have been taught at several levels of the regular education in Byzantium, the enkyklios paideia,® to the extent that even writers such as the late eleventh-century Kekaumenos, a man of provincial military background, would have been aware of some basic progymnasmata.”° Therefore, for students whose ambition would have been to earn a career at the higher levels of the state bureaucracy, proficiency in this kind of literary education would have been a prerequisite; Syrianos would have been no exception.
To support the aforementioned point about Syrianos’ advanced education in rhetoric, Zuckerman highlights the language of the author in the On Strategy concerning the reasons he was writing his work:
A phalanx is a formation of armed men designed to hold off the enemy. It may assume a variety of shapes: the circle, the lozenge, the rhomboid, the wedge . . . and many others which we shall not bother to discuss in this work, since very few people nowadays have any practical knowledge of tactics.”!
The language of most of the authors of military treatises, including Syrianos, vividly portrays their frustration and intense concern over the future of their polities, which is translated into stereotypic rhetorical and philological models that glorify the past and lament their own times. Mindful and anxious that they live in a period of intense socio-political, ideological, and military upheaval, it is a common trait for the authors of these manuals to blame their contemporaries not just for not consulting previous treatises on military matters but also for completely ignoring the study of the science of war.*? Moreover, although Syrianos felt the need to add more definitions in his “tactical” chapters of the On Strategy, he did not feel the need to explain himself when writing about the “other stylistic forms” that the general should have been able to use in his exhortation speech to the troops (Rhetorica Militaris, 51). Therefore, not only was Syrianos well acquainted with Hermogenes’ doctrines on delivering exhortation speeches, he would also have assumed that his audience would have been too fully aware of Hermogenes’ writings on the forms of rhetorical style for him to repeat it in any detail.”
Finally, the true quality of the Rhetorica Militaris compared to the Late Antique progymnasmata can be summed up in the practical value of Syrianos’ treatise as a textbook of “military rhetoric.” Zuckerman identified a critical distinction between the Rhetorica Militaris and the progymnasmata in the sense that the former “filtered out” most of the examples of myths, historical anecdotes, gnomic sayings, or any other dry rhetorical elements, favouring, instead, the practical element of the material at the general’s disposal:
So we will talk about the other parts of the speech, how each of them is used, but also about the differences between them. We will do this not only with a didactic exposition,” but also in a practical way, through examples, both for the sake of clarity, but also to show the abundance of similar [examples/elements].”°
To give an example of Syrianos’ departure from the Late Antique rhetorical handbooks and the challenging task of adapting the earlier material for his own main character — the general — we can compare an extract from the Rhetorica Militaris with chapter 4, “On War and Peace,” of the On Invention,*’ a work on the parts of a rhetorical speech which, along with the “On Method,” was combined sometime in fifth- or the sixth-century Byzantium with the two authentic works by Hermogenes and Aphthonius’ Progymnasmata to form a comprehensive and authoritative rhetorical corpus:
Similarly, if we introduce a motion to go to war with someone or to end a war, we shall use prokatastasis as follows. If we are introducing amotion to go to war with someone, we shall run over earlier complaints and say that “we ought to have gone to war with these people long ago, for they are enemies and have committed many other wrongs against us before these,” then coming to what has now happened. .. . If, on the other hand, we are for putting an end to a war, the prokatastasis of the diegesis will be that “not even in the first place should we have set this war in motion,” and we shall use historical reasons if we have any. . . . But if we have no support from history, the prokatastasis will contain an attack on the war, to the effect that “we should not have raised this war in the first place, abandoning peace, for war is a difficult thing and unpleasant,” listing the evils in it, “and peace is good,” listing the good things in it.°8
I do not ignore that Hermogenes, and other rhetoricians before and after him, argue that pragmatism is a situation in which you can talk about future issues, but at the same time to compose the appropriate counter-arguments from the exact same premises. 3. We, however, who write about war according to pragmatism, will not construct opposite arguments (and how could we?), but will deal only with exhortations to war, which is one of the two parts of the war-peace question. For that reason, we have disregarded any mention of the refutation [of war].”
Syrianos emphasizes that he is deliberately deviating from Hermogenes in not formulating opposing arguments, since when a general exhorts to war, no consideration is given to the opposing point of view, that of peace. Therefore, it becomes clear that his aim was not to produce yet another rhetorical guide on deliberating war and peace in an Ancient Greek or Roman agora but rather to deliver an applied rhetorical handbook for a general.
The manuscript tradition
The first of the earliest surviving family of manuscripts containing the Rhetorica Militaris (fs. 218'-232") is the codex Mediceo-Laurentianus graecus, 55.4 (LV.4).'© This is the original, or a copy,'” of a voluminous collection of 16 Hellenistic, Late Roman, and Byzantine military treatises that included the works of Asclepiodotos, Aeneas Tacticus, Onasander, and Leo VI and Constantine VII'? and which was commissioned in the imperial scriptorium'™ under the auspices of Emperor Constantine VII sometime between 950 and 955.'™
The Laurentianus remained in Constantinople until the dispersal of the imperial library during/after the Fourth Crusade, before it found itself in the ownership of Demetrios Lascaris-Leontaris (d. 1431), an important Byzantine statesman and military leader of the period serving under the emperors Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391-1425) and John VIII Palaiologos (r. 1425—1448).'° In 1491, it passed into the ownership of the Medici family in Florence, for whom the noted Greek Renaissance scholar Janus Lascaris was working. As a librarian to Lorenzo de Medici (sole ruler of Florence, 1478-92), Janus toured the Levant (1489-92), and his records of the manuscripts he sought, examined, or purchased to bring back to Florence are of immense value for the history of learning.'°° The Laurentianus was stored in the Medici-built Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana) of Florence shortly after 1521.'°’
Dain identified 29 copies that are (directly or indirectly) dependent on the Laurentianus.'°° The oldest and most famous of these is the sixteenthcentury Parisinus graecus 2522,'” where the Rhetorica Militaris can be found in fs. 78-110" and which Kéchly used for his 1855-56 edition. It was probably copied either in Rome or in Florence between 1490 and 1530," then passed into the Bibliotheca Colbertina, the library of about 20,000 volumes that was owned successively by Jean Baptiste Colbert de Torcy; Jacques Nicolas Colbert, Archbishop of Rouen (1655-1707); and Charles Eleonor Colbert, Comte de Seignely (d. 1747), before being purchased by the library of the King of France in Paris in 1728.
Another well-known copy is the Bernensis 97,''' which includes the Rhetorica Militaris in fs. 153'"-192". Copied in Florence in the sixteenth century, it passed first into the library of Pierre Daniel of Orleans, (born 1531, Orléans—died 1604, Paris), a French lawyer, philologist and scholar, and later into that of Jacques Bongars,''’? (born 1554, Orléans—died 1612, Paris), a French diplomat and classical scholar who compiled the Gesta Dei per Francos, a collection of contemporary accounts of the Crusades. Following the death of Bongars, in 1612, the Library of Bern purchased the Bernensis. The Parisinus graecus 2446,' though — strictly speaking — is a secondary copy of the Bernensis rather than a direct apograph of the Laurentianus; it dates to the seventeenth century and contains the Rhetorica Militaris in fs. 68'-84".
Finally, a smaller (20.4 x 13 cm) copy of the Laurentianus, which can be dated with certainty to the seventeenth century, is the Barberinianus graecus 59.''* Lukas Holste copied this codex in Florence before it was passed into the Barberini Library in Rome, and it was moved once again in 1902, when the Vatican Library purchased the Barberini Library, which had rivalled it in importance in the seventeenth century. As Eramo rightly pointed out, Holste’s hypothesis of the common authorship of the On Strategy and the Rhetorica Militaris determined his placing of the treatises in succession within the codex, with the former contained in fs. 26-84" and the latter in fs. 86-111”.
A second surviving family of manuscripts is the codex Ambrosianus B 119 sup. (139),''° a parchment manuscript consisting of 347 folios, 29.5 x 22.5 cm, with 31 lines to a page. Mazzucchi convincingly argued that it was the influential courtier Basil the parakoimomenos who commissioned the Ambrosianus, sometime between 959 and early 960, to promote his candidacy for the imperial campaign to reclaim Crete from the Arabs in 960-61.!'° The Ambrosianus is, undoubtedly, independent from the Laurentianus, thus pointing to a common ancestor that was already missing its last folio, since they both end abruptly.''’ More significantly, however, the importance of the Ambrosianus lies in the fact that it is the only manuscript to contain all three extant sections of the compendium attributed to Syrianos: the On Strategy (only chapters 15-33 in fs. 6-17"), the Rhetorica Militaris [only the final part, from chapter 41.2 (acc. Kéchly) in fs. 135'"-140*], and the Naumachiae (fs. 333'—338"). The few things we know about the history of the codex put it in the ownership of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535-1601), an Italian humanist born in Naples who was known during his time as having perhaps the best private library in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century.''® The Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan purchased Pinelli’s collection of manuscripts after his death in 1608. Pinelli also commissioned a copy of the Ambrosianus sometime in the late sixteenth century, a codex known today as Marcianus graecus 976.1,''!° which ended up in the Marciana Library in Venice in 1713.
Part B: the contents of the work
The history of exhortation and exhortative speeches
In his Histories (2nd c. BC), Polybius classified speeches in ancient Greek and Roman historiography into three categories:
But to convince those also who are disposed to champion him I must speak of the principle on which he [author] composes public speeches, harangues to soldiers, the discourses of ambassadors, and, in a word, all utterances of the kind, which, as it were, sum up events and hold the whole history together. '?°
From this, we accept that speeches by generals to their army were of two kinds. First, there is the speech — deliberative or exhortative — delivered at a place resembling an assembly place, like standing or sitting in a horseshoe facing the speaker. Another type is the battle exhortation, allegedly delivered to the army when drawn up in battle formation or during the battle. The key point to differentiate between the two is timing; hence, a rough division into pre-battle and battle speeches should suffice for the purposes of this study. Finally, the terminology used by ancient Greek authors to indicate these kinds of speeches includes the nouns éyunyyopia (=a speech in the public assembly),'?! zapaiveoic (=exhortation, address),'”* and zapdxdnatc (=a calling to one’s aid and/or an exhortation).'*? On top of that, the title of our Anunyopioat IIpotpentixat mpoc¢ Avopetay (i.e. the Greek title of the Rhetorica Militaris) translates as “exhortative/encouraging (Greek: zpotpomy)'** public speeches to induce courage.”
Exhortation speeches have as their archetype the (pre-)battle speeches in Homer’s /liad, to which historiography owes not just the historian’s acknowledgement of why one side defeated the other but also the appearance of the main motifs of the exhortation in a speech, like the value of giving one’s life for the country, living up to the reputation of the ancestors, and so on, as I will explain subsequently.'?* Homer is also famous for his énin@dnoic (=going around), or “review of the troops” in the Jliad, in which Agamemnon passes along the Achaeans addressing a succession of prebattle speeches (Il. 4.234—420), a model readily adopted in the exhortation poems of Tyrteus, the Spartan elegiac poet of the mid-seventh century Bc. '”° Similar battle exhortations can be found in Herodotus, in which the “father of history” describes Themistocles and Harmokides encouraging their men to an honourable fight and to avoid the humiliation of a defeat.
It was Thucydides who introduced a “reinterpretation” of the function of the exhortation speeches in historiography, in that he did not care to reproduce the exact words spoken by the general. Rather, he looked to show first the character and intelligence of the general, followed by his own interpretation of the real reasons behind the outcome of the battle.!*”? These rhetorical innovations transformed the Thucydidean exhortations into a model in military oratory for subsequent generations, like Polybius and Sallust.'8 For others still, such as Quintus Curtius or Arrian, they served as a reason for displaying rhetorical skills, like in the pre-battle speeches that Alexander made before Issus and Gaugamela.'*? Thucydides is also known for his /ateral battle exhortations at the Battle of Mantinea in 418 Bc, where he puts the “Lacedaemonians encouraging one another both of themselves and also by the manner of their discipline in the war.” A generation later, Xenophon recommended to members of the Greek Ten Thousand that they “Follow Heracles the Leader and summon one another on, calling each man by name. It will surely be sweet . . . to keep himself in remembrance among those whom he wishes to remember him.”!*°
Caesar, that archetypal warrior-leader, almost without fail encourages his men before battle, regarding battle exhortation in fact a custom of war.'*! Also fascinating are Tacitus’ dramatic speeches attributed to Germanicus and Arminius before the Battle of Idistavisto, during the Third Campaign against the Germanic tribe of the Cherusci in aD 16, and to Calgacus before the Battle of Mons Graupius in northern Scotland in AD 83 or 84.'» Finally, a typical example of how military speeches evolved into a model for writing a suasoria, a deliberative speech advising a course of action in a historical situation, are the three extant suasdriae on battle-exhortation themes composed by Lesbonax of Mytilene, a Greek sophist and rhetorician in the time of Augustus.'** For the Late Antique period, we should mention Publius Herennius Dexippus’ exhortation speeches for his fellow Athenians during the invasion and capture of the city by the Heruli in 267'** and Ammianus Marcellinus’ speech attributed to Julian on the eve of the Battle of Argentoratum (Strasbourg) against the Alamanni in 357. According to O’Brien, the latter speech “plays a significant part in Ammianus’ strategy of building Julian up for imperial office.”'*°
In ancient Rome, the adlocutiod was an address given by the emperor to his massed soldiers during a special ceremony, either in a military camp or close to the battlefield, or even in Rome if political circumstances required it.'°° The Latin noun adlocutio (feminine, third declension) is an alternative form of allocutid, which means an address, consolation, or comforting speech.'*’ It usually followed an ancient Greek and Roman ritual of purification by sacrifice called /ustratio exercitus.'** Modern researchers emphasize the depiction of the adlocitid in the Roman arts of statuary and coinage that portray the different characteristics of this ceremonial act. In sculpture, the adlociti6 is often portrayed either simply as a single, life-size contrapposto figure of the emperor-general with his arm outstretched as a symbol of power and authority or as a relief scene on a podium addressing the army, like those seen in the columns of Trajan and Aurelius.'*° Such scenes also frequently appear on imperial coinage, where in the case known as an adlocutid cohortium (“address to the cohorts”) the soldiers are depicted in a compact formation standing in front of emperor Caligula,'”° or as in the simple adlocutid in which emperor Galba and his soldiers and officers are depicted in a more amiable (or restless?) atmosphere.'*! In all of the aforementioned examples, the emperor is depicted facing his troops on top of what was called a tribunal, which means a raised wooden or stone semicircular or square platform, or the elevation in the camp, from which the general addressed the soldiers and/or administered justice.’
Sadly, there is no depiction of a Byzantine emperor exhorting his troops, although of great interest is the portrayal of Joshua (a leadership model for Byzantine emperors) in the Vatopedi Octateuch (thirteenth century), codex 602 and folio 337, clad in military outfit and exhorting his officers and troops while leading them across the River Jordan.'*? Nevertheless, there are nine military speeches directed to imperial troops in Theophylaktos Simokattes’ History that focus mainly on the wars of the empire with the Avars and the Slavs in the Balkans and with Persia in the East in the second half of the sixth century, including important data on various Turkish leaders.'* We also find rousing speeches made by Heraclius during his wars against the Persian Empire, thanks to George of Pisidia’s Expeditio Persica and to verse summaries of the most notable campaign speeches, which he included in his revised edition of Heraclius’ dispatches and which are quoted almost verbatim by Theophanes. What is most important in Heraclius’ speeches is the relationship of emperor and army to God and his resulting giAavépazia (=benevolence), with which Heraclius wished to counterpose the tyranny and violence of the Persians.'*° Therefore, there is little doubt that George of Pisidia’s military exhortations aimed to strengthen Heraclius’ political theology as a divine ruler and, eventually, as the saviour of the empire of God on earth.'*°
Better studied and appreciated, however, are Procopius’ Wars of Justinian, in which the historian uses pre-battle exhortations to prepare his readers for subsequent action — a particularly effective narrative tool for combat descriptions. '*’ Pre-battle exhortations in Procopius are more prominent and numerous in the Vandal Wars than in the Persian Wars, where both Belisarius and Gelimer appeal to their men’s emotions, patriotism, and personal bravery. Moreover, in a typical Thucydidean fashion, the Wars provide a means of understanding and evaluating the respective generals’ performances and assessing the real causes of a victory or defeat.
The “practicalities” of exhortation speeches: where, when, how
One of the main duties and responsibilities of an emperor or a general was to encourage his troops by what we identified in the last section as Onunyopial mpotpentixai. Whether the exhortation speeches that have survived were trustworthy reproductions of the actual speeches delivered to the troops is beyond the scope of this study,'** although it is fair to say that what modern historians get to read is — in all probability — a reconstructed and literary elaborated version of a much shorter speech that would have actually been circulated on the battlefield or what the emperor wanted to publish as his political propaganda. Nonetheless, that does not negate the fact that some sort of speeches were indeed delivered to troops, although the practicalities of the whole process have come under scrutiny, with historians underlining the impracticality of a leader delivering a long speech to massed troops of more than a few thousands.'*? However, the commander did address the troops, either in camp,'*° perhaps following the emperor’s military council with his generals,'*' or after the end of the reli-
gious service and the blessing of the standards.'” If the force was small enough (perhaps up to 2,000),'* the commander might have delivered some encouraging words to those already arrayed for combat.'™ If the force was too large, then the commander had other options; we read in Leo VI’s Tactical Constitutions:
When you are not otherwise occupied, you shall assemble the army by droungoi and by tourmai,'* but not all at once in one place. Appropriate speeches should be addressed to them, either by yourself or their individual officers (=épyovtwv). Recall their past victories and their earlier successes to encourage them. Promise rewards and benefactions from Our Majesty and recompense for their loyalty to the state. Remind them, furthermore, of the commands given them and the other orders that they have received from you personally and from their own officers in each unit.'*¢
Therefore, if the voice of the emperor/general were impossible to be heard by everyone in the army, then the order/speech would have been transmitted in writing'®’ down the chain of command to the respective officers, a practice that has remained the same to this day. In addition, the right person to deliver the rousing speech to the troops, both before and during the battle, was the herald/cantor:
The function of the heralds (=xavratopwv), it seems to us, is a useful one, inasmuch as before the battle they address the troops to encourage them and get them to recall their previous victories. When their speech is finished, each tagma should be formed and drilled.'**
Be sure [general] to select one soldier, competent and educated, for the position referred to as cantor. Assign him to move about quickly in the midst of the fighting to encourage the troops in the unit and to arouse them to enthusiasm by hortatory words according to the model that we have prescribed for you.'*°
The skills of a commander as a public speaker
Being a good public orator with developed rhetorical skills did not guarantee loyalty by the battle-hardened troops, whom the emperor/general was — practically — demanding to risk their lives for God, for himself, and for the empire; addressing the senators was one thing, inspiring the men to die in battle was something very different! Therefore, many ancient authors and almost all of the ancient military treatises on warfare dedicate a section to the oratorical skills of the ideal commander.
Homer felt that the great leader had “to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.”!® For Hesiod (Theogony, composed c. 730-700 Bc), it was Kalliope, the Muse who presided over eloquence and epic poetry, who “accompanies revered kings. Whosoever among sky-nourished kings is honoured by these daughters of great Zeus [=the Muses] and is beheld by them when he is born, for such a man they pour sweet dew upon his tongue, and from his mouth flow sweet words.”'*! Xenophon believed that “‘it is neither numbers nor strength which wins victories in war; but whichever of the two sides it be whose troops, by the blessing of the gods, advance to the attack with stouter hearts,” although he also emphasized that speeches alone do not ensure victory in the field.’
In the Xztpatnyixdc¢ (General) of Onasander (writing ca. AD 60), a general should be “a ready speaker; for. . . if a general is drawing up his men before battle, the encouragement of his words makes them despise the danger and covet the honour.”'® Sextus Julius Frontinus (wrote the Strategemata, 1st c. AD) includes several examples of exhortation speeches that were delivered to troops in Antiquity and the advantageous effect these had on the morale of the troops.’ According to the author of the early seventh-century Strategikon, “the general who possesses some skill in public speaking is able, as in the past, to rouse the weak-hearted to battle and restore courage to a defeated army.”!® In the On Strategy, Syrianos stresses that the general “should be manly in his attitudes, naturally suited for command, profound in his thinking, sound in his judgement, in good physical condition, hardworking, emotionally stable. He should instil fear in the disobedient, while he should be gracious and kind to the others.”’'®’ For Emperor Leo VI, a general:
should be capable of speaking and exhorting in public. I think that this ability is of the greatest benefit to the army. If the general, when he is drawing up his troops for battle, should encourage them by his words, he will often induce them to despise the terrors, even death itself. At the same time, he makes them eager to obtain the good and pleasant rewards. '©’
The anonymous author of the ca. 960 treatise On Skirmishing repeats that a perfect general should be able to address his men in “honeyed words.”!® Finally, around the end of the 1070s, Kekaumenos admonishes the young commander to be an assiduous reader of ancient works, so that he becomes known not only for his avépeiav (=bravery) and etfoviia (=good counsel, prudence) but also for his yy@orv (=means of knowing) and his evyAwrttia (=fluency of speech).'°
Rhetorical topoi in building morale
To compare and contrast the content of the Rhetorica Militaris with the rest of the military treatises concerning their reference on battle exhortations, I will focus on the motive appeals or rhetorical topoi used. What sorts of things do the speakers emphasize or repeat to build morale among their troops? First, the speaker directly addressed his audience in a manner that resembles beseeching rather than ordering them, hence the meaning of the Latin term for our herald in Leo’s Tactical Constitutions (cantor/cantator = to use enchantments, charms, incantations, to enchant, to charm). In the RM, the speaker calls his audience &vdpec (=men; 22.2, 55.2, 58), apparently to denote their maturity to go to war as opposed to the maio1a (=young children), while the repeated use of the nouns ovotpati@tai (=fellow soldiers; 22.2, 22.5, 28.2, 28.4, 55.2), ddedgoi (=brothers; 22.2, 28.2, 37.1, 43.1, 52.1, 55.2) and téxva (=sons; 32, 36.3, 43.1) displays his desire to build a sort of a family atmosphere resembling that between father and son and to reinforce the image of the soldiers being the emperor’s flesh and blood.'” On top of that, the father and son metaphor suggests the desire of the commander to instil the same sort of ta&¢ic¢ (=discipline, order) that a father would teach his son.'7! The dvépec¢ Peopiaior (=~Roman men; 33, 49.3) is, undoubtedly, an honorific and charming address.
The address commiilitones (=fellow soldiers) has been traditionally attributed by Polyaenus to Caesar,'” while Ammianus Marcellinus puts it in the mouth of the emperor Constantius II (reigned 337-61) when addressing his soldiers fighting the Alamanni over the Rhine in aD 354 and against the Quadi and Sarmatians across the Danube in ap 357.'73 Leo the Deacon has Nikephoros Phokas using the aforementioned term when exhorting his troops in Crete against the Arabs in AD 960, later against the Hamdanids of Aleppo, when Nikephoros assumed the imperial regalia following the death of Emperor Romanos II in Ap 963 and on several other official occasions In Theodosius the Deacon’s historical epic with encomiastic elements on the Capture of Crete (written in 963), we read about Nikephoros Phokas addressing his troops as “Pane ta vebtpa, téxva, odvdovdoai, ptior” (=Sinews of Rome, children, fellow slaves, friends).'’° Finally, in one of Constantine VII’s military orations (ca. AD 950) to his soldiers and officers in the East, which was heavily influenced by the RM and Leo VI’s Constitutions, the emperor reveals his ambition to accompany his soldiers on a future campaign, thus addressing them as “fellow cavalrymen, fellow infantrymen, and comrades in arms.”!7°
A compelling way to raise the morale of the soldiers before battle is to remind them of previous victories, especially if they have defeated the enemy before. The aim is no other than to fill them with confidence and courage but also to remind them of their responsibility in emulating the achievements of their ancestors, especially when they have “big shoes to fill”’ We read in the RM:
Our ancestors of old, those who once achieved many great successes, are still praised today for their skills in arms. May we do likewise, following in their footsteps, pursue glory, in order to reach it and be crowned with similar achievements. You see that, as I told you from the beginning, I am addressing you as your father, and to you, my true children, I wish your salvation. Therefore, you too hasten, along with your father, to call upon the heavenly powers, to show in battle the same strength, intention, courage and bravery, to do the same feats that transformed the Romans from a small nation to a great one, as they attacked the land of enemies and made it their own. That is why they are still praised for these achievements. So we too must follow the path of their conquests, to become equally worthy of praise.'””
Strangely, there is no use of the rhetorical topos of reminding the soldiers of previous victories before the RM.'” Only about two generations later, when Constantine VII dispatched his exhortations to his soldiers in the East, which were influenced — as we already mentioned — by the RM, do we see the emperor repeatedly reminding his soldiers of their (not of their ancestors’)
past victories over the Hamdanids of Aleppo. We read, for example,'” “As I receive word of the surpassing renown of your exploits, men” and “What great things I have heard about you, and what great tidings have been brought back to me” or “you have set up such trophies as these against the enemy, you have striven for such victories as these, which have reached every corner of the world.” Leo the Deacon also used this motif of past victories when Nikephoros Phokas was exhorting his troops outside the walls of the Cretan capital Chandax in 960, saying “Proof of my words [regarding the help of the Almighty] is our recent victory [after we landed on the island].’”!*°
Reminding the soldiers of their past victories was coupled with the motive appeal of demeaning the enemies in the eyes of your troops in order, once again, to fill them with courage and hope that they would easily prevail in the upcoming battle. According to the RM:
25a. The arguments coming from persons can be drawn from the religion, from the mode of life, and from the slander of the enemy army. . . . [26.3] Many of those who have deserted to us say that the enemy has gathered farmers and other craftsmen, hardly armed at all, to wage war against us.'*!
Syrianos repeats the aforementioned recommendation in his Naumachica, saying that the commander should “calumniate the enemy soldiers in a persuasive manner while praising his own troops.”'* Emperor Heraclius assured his troops of the destitute condition of the Persian army with these words: “Let us be aware, O brethren that the Persian army, as it wanders through difficult country is exhausting and debilitating its horses.”'* Moreover, the author of the treatise On Skirmishing has the commander addressing his men with the words “Let us show them [enemy] that they are attacking stronger men, that they are drawn up facing men who will strike rather than be struck.”!** Finally, in his propagandistic oration of 950, Constantine VII makes a similar point:
How you [soldiers] were embroiled in combat not as if against men but as if triumphing over feeble women, succeeding not as in battle or in war, but rather dealing with men as though it were child’s play, even though they were mounted on horses whose speed made them impossible to overtake, even though they were protected by equipment unmatched in strength and in craftsmanship.'*
This image of the Arabs as effeminate warriors painted by Constantine, which served to promote himself and his reign in the eyes of not only his soldiers but the political establishment in Constantinople, is sharply contrasted by his writings in the De Administrando Imperio. The latter was a confidential and highly sensitive document commissioned by Emperor Constantine between 948-52 solely for the eyes of the heir to the throne, his son and future emperor Romanos. We read, “They [Fatimid Arabs of North Africa] are brave men and warriors, so that if they be found to the number of a thousand in an army, that army cannot be defeated (ayztytov) or worsted (axatapayntov).”'*
Syrianos’ recommendation to the commander to paint his enemies in the most derogatory way is contrasted by his suggestion to portray the Roman (he uses the Athenians versus the Persians as his example) soldier as the defender of the patria and the ultimate role model of a warrior. Hence, we read:
So if the Persians, barbarians though they are, dared to do such things in search of temporary glory and honor, how can we not fight to the last man, not only for a temporary glory, but also for immortality, for the sake of our compatriots and ourselves? 10. Because as much as we differ from them in terms of the knowledge of what is good, that much more we also demand the pains that a war brings.'*’
Most common are the commander’s appeals to the martial, manly virtues: bravery, valour, and prowess. Closely connected with these motives is the public recognition that goes with them: honour, glory, and renown. According to Syrianos, glory and fame that come from martial prowess in the battlefield would accompany the men in this life and would be remembered by future generations:
Just like the useful, likewise the glorious is divided according to what one does or does not do against the enemies. For example, if we fight, then yes, we will uphold the glory we already have, but we will add even more. If some kind of ill repute accompanies us from the past, then we will get rid of it, while the chance of developing a bad reputation will not bear fruit either. On the contrary, if we do not fight, then whatever glory we already have will be fleeting, and the one we are seeking after will not come, the possible ill repute from the past will go on, while more will be added in the future. 3. So the glorious should be elaborated according to the useful, not only from the positions that have already been formulated, but also from arguments and other.’
For the author of the Strategikon, “failure means swift death or flight, which is worse than death, whereas success brings gratification, material gain, fame, eternal memory.”!® Moreover, we read that a commander should “Make peace a time of training for war, and battle an exhibition of bravery,” which is repeated in the Tactical Constitutions in that “When the time comes to take the field, you [general] will provide, not just a training exercise in manly valour, but an actual demonstration of it.”!°? However, once again, Constantine VII’s military orations offer the best example of the use of the aforementioned motifs in exhorting the troops: “You [soldiers] have set up such trophies as these against the enemy, you have striven for such victories as these, which have reached every corner of the world, and have made you famous not only in your native lands but in every city. Now your wondrous deeds are on every tongue, and every ear is roused to hear of them.”!”!
In using the Byzantine army’s Christian faith as a rallying cry, we emphasize another stark contrast between the soldiers of the empire and those of her enemies, that between Christians and “the Others.” We observe the conflict between those who were righteous and those who were not, those who were faithful to the one true religion and those who were not and those who were “real” (or “ideal”) soldiers and the “false” ones, a classic perspective of those engaged in defensive warfare.'** We read:
And I really wonder if someone, having seen how impious our enemies are, is not in a hurry to fight them with all his might. They have stripped off God or they are fighting against God. In any case, even if there are no others willing to fight against them, it is absolutely necessary for us o do so, who are characterized by piety and are always protectors of the law.!?
We see very similar comments in Leo VI’s treatise concerning the importance placed by the soldiers and the commanders in their belief in God over their polar opposite [“the Others”’]:
We indeed hold God as our friend who bears the power of balance in war. The foe are the very opposite because of their lack of faith in Him. If the heralds think of anything else along these lines, they should make use of it in their exhortations and admonitions. Such words uttered at the right time are very powerful in arousing spirits, more than a large amount of money. !**
Moreover, we read in Constantine VII’s 950 oration that it is the faith in the one true God that could only tip the balance of power decisively over to the Byzantine side, even if the empire’s enemies were numerous and armed with “unmatched” armour:
Even though they [Hamdanid Muslims of Aleppo] were protected by equipment unmatched in strength, equipment unmatched in craftsmanship, and lacked nothing at all of those things which bring security and cause astonishment. But since they were without the one paramount advantage, by which I mean hope in Christ, all of their advantages were reduced to nothing and were in vain.’
In the critical question in the back of the mind of every soldier in history: “For whom/what are we fighting?” (=02ép tivoc o dyawv), the Greek tragedian Aeschylus provided a short but definite answer to his fellow Greeks in his tragedy Persians (premiered in 472 Bc), inspired as it was by the historic naval battle of Salamis eight years before: “On, you men of Hellas! Free your native land. Free your children, your wives, the temples of your fathers’ gods, and the tombs of your ancestors. Now you are fighting for all you have.”!'”® Thirteen centuries later, Syrianos is also explicit about the motives that emboldened the Roman soldiers while facing enemies in battle: for their religion, for the Roman genos and their compatriots and coreligionists, for their emperor, for justice and for the expected reward. Now let us go through them one by one.
We read in the RM, “the barbarians who fight us do so because they are actually fighting our faith. Because if we believed in the same [God] as them, then they would not fight us.”'*’ The defensive character of the war against the empire’s archenemy and the key role of religion in this issue is obvious here, and, moreover, Syrianos placed this paragraph under the chapter [9.2] on what is “just” (=dixaiov). In most of the Byzantine treatises of military nature we have studied so far, we find explicit references on going to war for God and the faith and about the just cause of defending God and Orthodoxy from faithless (=éiota) nations such as the Muslims — the stark contrast between the Christians and “the Others” that we saw before. We read:
The Romans .. . must be resolute in purpose and those <citizens> who have not actually gone off to war must campaign along with them against those people who blaspheme the emperor of all, Christ our God, and they must strengthen those waging war on His behalf against the nations by every means.'”
... it [is] unfair for the huntsmen to entice the hounds with the blood and the organs of the prey but to leave unrewarded the great spirit of those who suffer on behalf of our own people and for the unblemished faith of the Christians.'”
Therefore, have no fear, my men, have no fear, fill your souls with zeal and show the enemy who rely on the help of Beliar or Muhammad what those who put their faith in Christ can accomplish. Be the avengers and champions not only of Christians but also of Christ Himself, Whom they wickedly deny.*”
However, it would be a mistake to consider this religious rhetoric in Byzantium the primary cause for the empire going to war or engaging in a defensive warfare against non-Christian enemies. According to Stouraitis, “it can plausibly be asserted that the prominent role ascribed to the defence of religion as the higher cultural value of the medieval Romans in the Rhetorica militaris remained fully subordinate to a perception of war as a political task.”°' In other words, the Roman concept of “just war” included preventive or retaliation measures against enemies on the Empire’s vast frontiers in order to avoid potential attacks or to punish foreign peoples that raided imperial territory, regardless of whether they were Christian or non-Christian.
Syrianos observes that the Byzantines should defend themselves in the name of justice against their enemies that not only ill-treated their faith but also continuously attacked their lands. We read in the paragraph immediately following the one about the defence of the faith:
By performing these actions for the benefit of the fatherland, to which we owe so much, such as our progress and upbringing, but also to our parents, children and siblings, how could we honor it worthily, if we did not endanger our property, our toil, but also our own lives, which, after all, come from it?
For the author of the RM, the Byzantines had the duty to preserve justice by imitating the virtue of their fathers in defending their patria and seeking to inflict the greatest punishment upon the enemies who wished to set their hands upon their lands.” In both the RM and the On Strategy, the loyalty is implied to the zazpic, which takes more the meaning of a soldier’s place of birth and locality. On the other hand, in the treatises of the Strategikon,™ the Tactical Constitutions of Leo VP® and the Sylloge Taktikorum,”® the soldiers were doing loyal service to the zoditeia, which comes to be understood as the State.7”
The relationship between the sovereign and the soldiers is one of mutual love and respect, which the commander earned — no doubt — through his oratorical skills and his actions on the ground, as we saw earlier. On that point, let us repeat the following extract from Syrianos’ On Strategy:
[the general] should be manly in his attitudes, naturally suited for command, profound in his thinking, sound in his judgement, in good physical condition, hardworking, emotionally stable. He should instil fear in the disobedient, while he should be gracious and kind to the others.?"8
The same author is also explicit in the RM that the aforementioned love and respect between the commander and his troops should be reciprocal:
As I have loved and protected you, my good and valiant comradesin-arms, in the same way that a father does, it is impossible for you to fully learn it from anyone else. Because you have to remember that while you were sleeping at night, I was awake, and when you were resting from your daily toils, I struggled even harder. What was I doing? I was looking out for your interests, now walking around the palisade, now inspecting the ditches, and the like respectively, taking care of your safety. Why [was I doing] all this? To prevent the enemies from attacking the army at night, after having escaped our attention. 3. For these reasons, it is necessary for you, just as children do, to follow our commands and understand that these deeds are your salvation. For I am fully convinced that, if you listen to this speech with the same goodwill and go immediately and take action, everything will turn out well for you.?” This is reiterated in the Sylloge Taktikorum,*' while Kekaumenos urges the general “not to be afraid of death, if it is to die for the homeland [zaztpi6a] and the emperor — on the contrary, to be more afraid of the dishonouring” and reprehensible’ lifestyle.”?!> Emperor Constantine VII also writes in his (c. 958-59) treatise on Imperial Military Expeditions of similar calls for the soldiers to show their true devotion and love for God and their emperor, after the latter had been received with honour and pomp in base camp during a military expedition.”‘* Moreover, Syrianos presents this loyalty and obedience to the sovereign as a critical aspect of the Byzantine soldier’s character, compared to his enemies, who were motivated by fear instead. We read:
I am referring to when we entered the battle at dusk and worked every night as if it was daytime, when you showed obedience and absolute discipline to us, considering fatigue as normal. . . . And behold, here are our enemies. Although they seem to be ready to attack us, in reality they are probably afraid of us. 6. And I assure you that I see them moving with great hesitation, as if motivated only by the fear of the whip.”"°
It is interesting to make the comparison with the Strategikon’s description of the “Scythians,” whom the author depicts as a nation “governed not by love but by fear” and who “prefer to prevail over their enemies not so much by force as by deceit.””'© We can also read similar demeaning depictions of the Persians, who “obey their rulers out of fear, and the result is that they are steadfast in enduring hard work and warfare on behalf of their fatherland.”?!”
Imperial soldiers also perceived it as their duty to fight for the defence of their compatriots, and Syrianos writes about ten times in his RM [dudgvdor: 9.2-3, 12; 20.3; 35.1; 37.7; 45.5; 45.9; 52.2; ddedpots nudv: 36.8] about the love towards them within the spirit of the “just war” to defend them from aggression. We read in Syrianos’ work:
So if we too take part in the teachings of God with our faith, let us love our brothers and sisters, and let us give our lives for one another and our co-religionists, so that by our actions we may become true disciples of Christ. 9. But even for those who do not understand the divine law exactly like that, because Christ prevented Peter from using his knife, we should resort to the use of weapons as a last recourse, for the common good and in exceptional circumstances. 10. The laws are good, and above all the laws that come from God himself, and we all strive to obey them. Indeed, what could be more useful to people than the law of God? A law gave value to the Maccabees.”'®
The emphasis here is on the neighbourly love that should be as strong as the love between brothers, to a point that you are ready to sacrifice your life for your neighbour. Yet the reference to the Maccabees in this paragraph draws explicit parallels to the Deuteronomy 20 and the Old Testament notion of “Holy War” as ordained by God to eradicate the oppressors of the “chosen people.” However, as Stouraitis has pointed out, in ninth-century Byzantium, God’s word and its relationship to warfare were understood in very different terms, to the point where the New Testament reference to Jesus and Peter demonstrates the anti-violent motif that Syrianos wished to emphasize in his work.”' The latter rejects any connection between the sacrifice of the soldier in defence of his compatriots and a notion of martyrdom or other spiritual reward, pointing rather to war as an act of love in correspondence to the New Testament ideal of neighbourly love rather than a prerequisite to achieving martyrdom.”” The act of killing in warfare contradicted God’s will and law and was considered as the work of the devil and a great sin.””!
The predominant perception regarding God’s role in war in Byzantium is that He aids the righteous who strive to protect or restore the territories of the divinely protected Byzantine Empire. In the RM, therefore, we see God repeatedly been depicted as the “ultimate” sovereign or leader of the imperial armies: “we march against them [enemies] with greater courage, being on the right path to victory, under the guidance of God. At this point, we will put an end to the words, as God and the general have taken over the management of things together.”’”? God is also seen as the ultimate arbiter of victory: “When delivering a triumphal speech, we must begin by thanking God, to whom the present victory is due,”*’? who also redresses misconducts of the past: “Then, thirdly, we must tell the soldiers that even if God punished them for something bad they did in their lives, if they choose to be in God’s way again, then He too will fight with them for redress.”?* The bottom line is that “we trust in Him, we are guided by Him, and with His help we will overcome our enemies.””?> There are numerous examples of portraying God and the Theotokos as ultimate leaders of the imperial armies in the early and middle Byzantine sources, but there is no need to list them all here.”
The Old Testament (see Deuteronomy 20) view of God as a leader of the armies on the battlefield and the ultimate judge, which was merged with the New Testament notion of “just war” and self-defence, is how Syrianos interpreted divine intervention in the act of war. Only if the war was just, meaning that they strove to “right the wrongs” against them, and the soldiers and officers were righteous was God going to lead the imperial armies to victory; otherwise, He would lead them to their demise. Leo’s Tactical Constitutions provides us with an analytical insight into the Byzantine
notion of “just war’:””
30. We must always embrace peace for our own subjects, as well as for the barbarians, because of Christ, the emperor and God of all. If the nations also share these sentiments, stay within their own boundaries, and promise that they will not take unjust action against us, then you too refrain from taking up arms against them. Do not stain the ground with the blood of your own people or that of the barbarians. . . . We must always, if it is possible on our part, be at peace with all men, especially with those nations who desire to live in peace and who do nothing unjust to our subjects.
This is immediately followed by:
31. But if our adversary should act unwisely, initiate unjust hostilities, and invade our territory, then you do indeed have a just cause, inasmuch as an unjust war has been begun by the enemy. . . . It is they who have provided the cause by unjustly raising their hands against those subject to us. Take courage then. You will have the God of justice on your side.”
For Syrianos, the punishment of the evildoers is one of the just reasons to go to war, as it immediately follows the zeal for the faith and the sacrifice for the fatherland and the emperor that we mentioned previously. The author is explicit that
It is terrible to tolerate the injustices of your enemies without defending yourself, but at the same time to seek revenge for the insults you have suffered. Because the more we tolerate their insults, the more we attract them to continue to come against us.””
He insists that all injustices of the past must be avenged and any future be prevented” — the idea of revenge is at the core of Syrianos’ arguments “For whom/what are we fighting?” (=dzép tivoc o dywv). Moreover, he considers freedom a value that should be protected and cherished by the people of God, to be contrasted by the deprivation of one’s freedom and property, which he considers a uéya xaxov (=great evil). Finally, Syrianos calls on the soldiers to live up to the reputation of their fathers and preserve justice, as “many times against the same enemies, they [ancestors] did not remain indifferent to what was happening, but they campaigned and punished them in an even harsher way.””?! On the topic of “just war,” Onasander emphasizes that
the causes of war, I believe, should be marshalled with the greatest care; it should be evident to all that one fights on the side of justice. For then the gods also, kindly disposed, become comrades in arms to the soldiers, and men are more eager to take their stand against the foe.”
The author of the Strategikon is also unambiguous that “The cause of war must be just””*? (=d1xaiav dei tnv opyyv tov modéov yivecOat), while for the author of the Sylloge Taktikorum, the general
[must] truly be peaceful and sympathetic, because, at the beginning of the war, the generals should always be careful that they may become illustrious by fighting for the right cause, and not for the hope of earnings or profit. For it is then that men face hardships more willingly, and God becomes favourable and a comrade of the army.”*4
Finally, the feeling of justice is eminent in the Strategikon of Kekaumenos, who writes “Those under your control must learn to be prudent, and imitate your life — because the weapons of war is justice.”*°
As fear of killing and being killed in battle would have terrified any soldier from the dawn of humankind to the modern period, his primeval anxiety about the salvation of his soul would have had to be tamed somehow to maintain order and discipline within the ranks. Although Leo VI does not use the term jihad or holy war anywhere in his Tactical Constitutions, he is aware that his Muslim foes are offered spiritual rewards, a recompense given by God for the moral quality of their efforts if they die in battle, which he identifies as compensation (400c: to mean a spiritual rather than a monetary pay). He contrasts these characteristics of Islamic military recruitment favourably with the Byzantine situation, wishing, no doubt, for his compatriots to emulate the voluntary nature and enthusiasm for war against infidels. Yet it would be far from the truth to claim that Leo wished the Church to acclaim for the imperial soldiers the status of martyrs.
Throughout treatises of military nature like Leo VI’s Tactical Constitutions, the Anonymous Treatise on Skirmishing and the Imperial harangues attributed to Emperor Constantine VII, those who die in battle were considered perpetually blessed (=~axdpio1) “because they have not preferred their own lives over their faith and their brothers.””>’ We read in the RM:
To the soldiers, then, if the general is giving a speech to them: “I am also grateful for your virtues, the zeal you showed, the passion, the bravery, the perseverance, the fact that you fought as befits heroes and, seeing this, God rewarded you with victory.”?**
Yet, as Byzantine authors eagerly condemned the (Old Testament) idea of God as a warmonger who ordained war against other people, Christians or non-Christians, they equally denounced the notion that war could become a means to remission of sins and hence martyrdom.
As Stouraitis has pointed out, in the handful of recorded cases of battle exhortations that we find in the Byzantine sources in which the spiritual reward from God was highlighted, in none of these do we find the principle that God had ordained the waging of the war against the enemy because of his religion. What we do see, however, is for divine recompense to be dependent on the soldier’s peaceful nature and piety rather than the killing of an infidel, as war and the act of murder of any human were considered sinful and the contrivances of the devil.” Therefore, as Christian soldiers dreaded death and the killing in battle, they also regarded the idea of divine recompense as a means of “psychological support” that could “offset” the sinful act of killing in defence of the divinely protected empire. This idea served similar purposes with the religious acts of fasting and praying before battle," which — needless to say — were employed against Christian and nonChristian enemies alike. For that reason, therefore, Leo instructed the Byzantine generals to “accustom” (=e6iCeote) their soldiers to the correct faith, as this will expedite them to “easily overcome the distress of thirst and the lack of food, and of excess cold or heat . . . and for their pains they will store up compensations (4a006v) from God himself and from His kingdom.”
Leo VI is also fully aware of the desire of the Muslims to obtain material goods: “Because of the booty they have reason to expect, and because they do not fear the perils of war, this nation is easily gathered together in large numbers from inner Syria and all of Palestine.” The collection of booty had always been a significant incentive for campaigning armies, and it is clear that every author places an importance on its control. As Haldon notes, the attraction of collecting booty frequently appears as an inducement to Byzantine troops, although it is never mentioned as a motive for recruitment, as in the case of the Arabs.*4 Syrianos puts the following pertinent argument in the mouth of the general when exhorting his troops to battle:
If we defeat the enemies, not only will we preserve the goods that belong to us, but also at the same time we will acquire what belongs to the enemies. On the other hand, if we renounce the war, we may temporarily save our lives by choosing to flee, but soon all together and our families will be destroyed.”
This should be coupled with the author’s explanation of what is “useful” in exhorting the men to war apart from the public speeches: “
Beneficial for the war are not only these made up speeches, but also others, such as forcing some of the enemy’s deserters to tell our own during the siege that the besiegers or the besieged lack the necessary food, or that there is gold in the city, and silver and other precious goods, which the soldiers long for.“
For the author of the Strategikon, the general should also make “suitable speeches . . . promising rewards from the emperor, and recompense for their loyal service to the state,”*” while in the Sylloge Taktikorum, we read that the general “[must] encourage and rouse the men for battle, announcing to them the rewards and honours given by the emperor and the wage on behalf of the nation.”*“* In a similar fashion, Leo VI emphasizes that the general should “Promise rewards and benefactions from Our Majesty and recompense for their loyalty to the state.”** One exception is, perhaps, the Military Precepts of Nikephoros Phokas, where the author gives precise instructions on how to tackle such a notorious habit among the troops, no doubt being fully aware that it goes against the battlefield discipline (=zdéi¢) that the Byzantine military establishment of the mid-tenth century was eager to instil in its troops; for Phokas, looting and war booty were necessary evils.
Finally, we understand that the rewards from the emperor were not only material but also moral (offices, honours etc.), in what Syrianos advises the general to highlight to his soldiers in his exhortation speech:
To the soldiers, then, if the general is giving a speech to them: “I am also grateful for your virtues, the zeal you showed, the passion, the bravery, the perseverance, the fact that you fought as befits heroes and, seeing this, God rewarded you with victory.” 5. It is appropriate, after all these thanks, first to praise them all together, and then those who displayed excellence on the battlefield by name, then once again return to the common praise for the whole army, and finally make the present victory look like the foundation stone for future military successes.**!
In all of the treatises that we have examined so far, the following point is made abundantly clear: those who are brave; righteous and willing to fight and die for God, the emperor and the patria will receive ample recompense. On the other hand, those who are unwilling to do what is expected of them will be branded as cowards and will receive contempt from their compatriots and wrath and punishment from God and the emperor.
Note on the translation
There are now few sources in Byzantine history that have not been translated into English, which is also the /ingua franca of our time. The study in question was based on one of them, which bears the conventional title “Encouraging public speeches,” a ninth-century work which is attributed to Syrianos magistros.
For our translation, we used both critical versions of the work that have been written to date, including the old version of Kéchly but also the modern one of Eramo. Eramo’s edition also offers an Italian translation of the text. We tried to stay close to the meaning of what is in general an overly sophisticated Byzantine text in order to give a comprehensible translation to the reader but also pleasant to a degree, which would be a guide to how a Byzantine general motivated his troops before a critical battle or military campaign.
The structure of the translation follows the corresponding version of Eramo rather than Kéchly’s, since the original text has been further edited using codices that Kéchly did not have available. After all, K6chly relied on just two codices for the Rhetorica Militaris version, Parisinus 2522 and Bernensis 97, while Eramo also used the very important Laurentianus LV.4 and a number of others. It is clear that the structure of Eramo’s text is probably the best we have available, which is why we have kept the paragraph breaks in line with her Italian translation.
Apart from Eramo’s Italian translation, this work has never been translated into any modern language before, except for some excerpts — Chapters II into German shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century by Kéchly and Riistow.
The language of the original text is extremely rich, and every effort has been made to convey the complex meanings and literary structures to the reader with precision and sharpness. Where it was deemed intentional, there are linguistic comments in the form of footnotes to help the reader get a clearer meaning of a sentence in the text.
The purpose of our translation is to make the text of Syrianos magistros accessible to any scholar who does not have the reading skills necessary to go through the original text in the medieval Greek language, so that it can be studied together with other works of the same genre and, hopefully, shed more light on an aspect of war and political propaganda in this critical period for the history of the Byzantine Empire. The means by which the Byzantine military leaders used to exhort their troops before a decisive conflict or the beginning of a campaign included elements that have nothing to envy of ancient Greek rhetoric, and we hope to have rendered them satisfactorily in English.
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