The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (29 page)

The preparations continued all through the first six months of 960; then, in the last days of June, the great fleet sailed out of the Golden Horn into the Marmara. Some two weeks later, on 13 July, it appeared off the north coast of Crete. Exactly where the landing took place is uncertain, but it was watched in horror by a dense crowd of Saracens, on foot and on horseback, who were gathered on the heights above the bank. The enemy had obviously been taken by surprise, and at first there was no organized resistance: those who approached too close were met by hails of arrows and sling-bolts. As the disembarkation continued, however, squadrons of cavalry began to appear in increasing strength, and as soon as enough were assembled, flung themselves on the invaders. They fought, according to Leo the Deacon,
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with almost superhuman courage; but they were hopelessly outnumbered and made little impression on the Byzantine forces. Hundreds were killed, while those who fell wounded were trampled to death by the cataphracts - armoured cavalry whose heavy coats of mail rendered them well-nigh invulnerable to anything other than the fierce Mediterranean sun.

Then, a few days later, the imperial army suffered its first reverse. Nicephorus had dispatched a large reconnaissance and foraging party

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Whose account I follow here. Theophanes Continuants tells a rather different story, laying a good deal less emphasis on Saracen resistance.

into the hinterland, under the command of one Pastilas,
strategos
of Thrace. Unfortunately it included a detachment of Russians, whom the extraordinary beauty, richness and fertility of the land seems to have sent into a kind of ecstasy, causing them to lose all sense of discipline. What actually happened is uncertain - presumably they got roaring drunk and went to sleep; in any case the Saracens, who had been watching their every move, suddenly saw their opportunity. Down they swept, catching their victims entirely unawares. Pastilas and the rest hastened to the rescue, but too late: nearly all were cut down in the ensuing melee, the
strategos
himself among them. Only a handful survived to bring news of the catastrophe back to the main body of the army.

Nicephorus was predictably furious, but saw no reason to change his plan, which was to advance directly on the city of Candia — which the Byzantines called Chandax and we today know as Heraklion. It was by far the largest town on the whole island and - insofar as such a thing existed in an essentially pirate community — its capital. If it were taken there was a good chance that there would be no other serious resistance anywhere on the island. A day or two later he drew up the army before its walls, and the siege began. It continued for eight months. Had the Byzantines managed to maintain an effective blockade by sea as well as by land, the whole thing might have been over in half that time; but there were no natural harbours and Nicephorus could not keep his ships indefinitely at sea through what was to prove an abnormally long and harsh winter. The beleaguered citizens could thus bring in all the provisions and supplies they needed; more important still, they could -and did - send urgent appeals for aid to their co-religionists in Sicily, Egypt and Spain.

But their appeals went unanswered and, as the weeks went by, their morale began to flag. Their only consolation was the sight of their half-frozen enemies huddling together round their fires and the knowledge that - as so often in medieval siege warfare - life, especially in winter, was often a good deal more uncomfortable for the besiegers than for the besieged. As the long, cold months dragged by, the imperial army was indeed beginning to suffer the pangs of serious hunger; under many another commander, open mutiny would have been a distinct possibility. But Nicephorus understood his men: somehow, on his daily rounds, he managed to imbue them with strength, hope and the courage to continue. In this task he seems to have been himself inspired by his friend and mentor Athanasius who by now, with several undoubted miracles to his credit, had reluctantly left his hermitage on Mount Athos at the general's urgent summons and joined him in the camp. It was - Nicephorus was convinced - entirely through his intercession that just in time, around the middle of February, the long-awaited relief fleet arrived with supplies from Constantinople; and before the end of the month the Byzantines, their morale considerably restored, had made two determined attempts to smash their way into the town. Both these first assaults failed; but a third succeeded, and on 7 March 961, for the first time in 136 years, the imperial standard flew again over Crete.

On the same day the massacre began. Women, old and young, were raped, murdered and thrown aside; children, even babies at the breast, were strangled or impaled on lances. Not even the immense prestige of Nicephorus was able to halt the carnage; only after three days did he succeed in making his voice heard, and even then there was little hope for the people of Candia. The survivors, both male and female, were sold into slavery; and the victorious fleet headed back to the Bosphorus, laden to the gunwales with the results of more than a century's plunder of the richest cities of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The fall of Candia, and the consequent collapse of Saracen power in Crete, was a victory for the Byzantines unparalleled since the days of Heraclius. When the news reached Constantinople there was celebration throughout the city: an all-night service of thanksgiving was held in St Sophia in the presence of the Emperor and Empress, the nobility and clergy, and as many of the populace as could squeeze themselves into the Great Church. Among the whole vast congregation there was perhaps one man only in whom the overriding emotion was not jubilation but anxiety. The eunuch Joseph Bringas had always hated the house of Phocas, of whom he was bitterly jealous. Heretofore, Nicephorus's popularity had been confined to the army; he had had no appeal for the people of Constantinople, to most of whom he was in any case little more than a name. Now all that would be changed: overnight he had become the Empire's hero. Victorious generals were dangerous at the best of times, and Nicephorus was known to be consumed by ambition. If that ambition was to be contained, both government and court must proceed with the most meticulous care; there would be difficult weeks ahead.

And so it came about that when Nicephorus Phocas sailed proudly back into the Golden Horn, to be greeted by Romanus and Theophano and publicly congratulated on his historic achievement, he was not on this occasion offered the full imperial triumph that he had so abundantly deserved. All that was permitted to him was an ovation in the Hippodrome, at which the people were given the chance to gaze upon their finest general and to salute him with their cheers; he, on the other hand, stood before them not in a four-horse chariot but on foot. There was no great military parade, no flaunting of prisoners and plunder. It was made clear to him, too, that he was not to remain in the capital any longer than was absolutely necessary. Saracen morale had suffered a bitter blow, and the Empire must quickly follow up the advantage it had gained. In short, he was needed in the East.

When Nicephorus had relinquished his eastern command two years before to prepare for the Cretan expedition, he had been succeeded by his younger brother Leo. Within weeks of his assumption of that command, however, Leo had found himself faced with a major challenge from the Empire's old enemy, Saif ed-Daula. Saif had come a long way since his first appearance in these pages in the 930s, as the most redoubtable opponent of John Curcuas. In 944 he had captured Aleppo, which he had made his permanent headquarters and from which he had rapidly extended his domains to embrace the greater part of Syria and northern Mesopotamia, including Damascus, Emesa and Antioch. All these conquests had further enhanced the reputation for valour that he had first acquired in his early youth; thus, well before the age of thirty-five - he had been born in 916 - he had become the
beau ideal
of the Arab Emir of the early Middle Ages: cruel and pitiless in war but chivalrous and merciful in peace, poet and scholar, patron of literature and the arts, possessor of the largest stable, the most extensive library and the most sumptuously stocked harem in the Muslim world.

Every year without fail, Saif had led at least one major raid into Byzantine territory. None, however, had been so ambitious as that of the early summer of 960. The moment was perfectly chosen. The army of the East, seriously depleted by the demands of the Cretan expedition, was weaker than it had been for years. Leo Phocas was still mopping up after a successful campaign in south Syria and was thus several days' march away in the opposite direction. Saif was not the man to miss that kind of opportunity; and at almost exactly the time that Nicephorus sailed for Crete - it may well have been on the very same day - he crossed the imperial border from the south-east at the head of a Saracen army estimated at 30,000 men, passing unhindered through the defiles of the eastern Taurus and advancing to the fortress of Charsian
1
near Melitene, where he massacred the garrison and took a large number of prisoners.

Leo Phocas pursued him, but without undue haste. He was heavily outnumbered, he knew, and such men as he had available were still exhausted after a long and arduous campaign; to meet such an enemy on open ground would be to invite disaster. He advanced only as far as the mountains, where he carefully disposed his men to command the principal passes. Then he settled down to wait.

It was early November before Sai'f ed-Daula returned with his army. His expedition had been a huge success. Long trains of captives shuffled behind him, his carts groaned with the weight of his plunder; he himself, according to Leo the Deacon, rode proudly at the head of his men on a magnificent Arab mare, 'playing all the time skilfully with his lance, which he would throw high in the air and catch again as it descended, without once letting it fall or delaying the speed of the march'. Cheerfully and confidently the long procession made its way back through the mountains; then, just as it entered a pass that the Greeks called the
Kulindros,
or cylinder, there rang out the blast of a hidden trumpet. Within seconds, immense boulders came spinning down the mountainside on top of the defenceless column. As if from nowhere, Leo Phocas and his army appeared both before and behind, and SaJf suddenly found himself surrounded. At first he stood his ground, defending himself heroically, hacking to left and right with his scimitar. His horse was killed under him; seizing that of a servant, he returned to the fray. Only later, when he saw that the day was lost, did he wheel round and set off at a gallop. By scattering behind him handful after handful of gold coins he effectively slowed down his pursuers and so made good his escape, together with some 300 of his cavalry. Of the rest, nearly half lay dead; the survivors were all taken prisoner, being secured with the same ropes and fetters that had formerly held the Christian captives.

This famous victory shows clearly enough that Leo Phocas, even with diminished forces, was perfectly capable of defending the eastern frontier — and causes us yet again to question the real motives for the almost indecent speed with which Nicephorus was posted back to relieve him. As was only to be expected, however, the renewed presence of both

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The Arab chroniclers call it Karchanah. I have been unable to identify it.

brothers, at the head of an army restored to its former size and with its morale higher than ever before, had a dramatic effect on the future of the fighting. In the space of just three weeks during February and March 962, the Byzantines regained no less than fifty-five walled towns in Cilicia; then, after a brief pause while they celebrated Easter, they advanced through the Syrian Gates near Alexandretta (Iskenderun). From here they moved slowly and methodically southward, burning and plundering as they went. A few months later they were beneath the walls of Aleppo itself, preparing to lay siege to the city.

Aleppo was at this moment enjoying the most brilliant chapter of its long history. Its capture by Saif ed-Daula eighteen years before had made it, for the first time, the capital of an independent state and the chief residence of its ruler; and Saif's magnificent palace, known as al-Hallaba, was one of the most beautiful and renowned buildings of the tenth-century Muslim world. The Emir himself had never ceased to enrich it with all the spoils taken in his countless campaigns, but it had one major drawback: a cruelly exposed position outside the city walls, which he had made little effort to protect. On the very night of their arrival, Nicephorus's men fell on it like locusts, first emptying it of all its treasures and then burning it to the ground. As well as 390,000 silver dinars, they took possession of 2,000 camels, 1,400 mules and so many Arab thoroughbreds that 'they could not be counted'. The building itself was stripped, inside and out: the Arab chroniclers speak sadly of the gold and silver plate, the bales of velvet and silken damask, the swords and breastplates and jewelled belts, even the gilded tiles from the walls and roofs. Only when there was nothing of the palace left to plunder did the imperial army turn its attention to Aleppo itself. Saif, caught outside the walls, was once again obliged to flee for his life; the majority of the local garrison, deprived of his ever-inspiriting presence, lacked stomach for the fight; and two days before Christmas the triumphant Byzantines swarmed into the city. As at Candia, no mercy was shown: the carnage, writes an Arab historian, ceased only when the conquerors were too exhausted to go on.

But Aleppo, though occupied, had not quite fallen. A handful of soldiers in the citadel had dug themselves in and obstinately refused to surrender. Nicephorus simply ignored them. They could not hold out for long, and their provisions could not last for ever. The important thing was that Saif was gone, and Aleppo was no longer a force to be reckoned with. There was no point in wasting any more time. He gave
the order to retire, and the victorious army began the long journey home.

It had advanced no further than Cappadocia when a message arrived from Constantinople. The Emperor Romanus LI was dead.