How the capital of the great Roman Empire was besieged in the VI century
New attempts to take New Rome
The new century for Byzantium or the Roman Empire began with the death of Emperor Zeno in 491 and the struggle for the throne of Constantinople between the Isaurian group and the Roman party. The protege of the latter, Silenciary Anastasius, ascended the throne. He was already 60 years old, which for this historical period was a very old age.
In 512, Anastasius completed the construction of the 42-kilometer Long Walls, which protected the capital from invasion from the north, blocking the territory from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The distance between the wall of Anastasia and Theodosius, according to Procopius of Caesarea, was two days.
But the main problem turned out to be that the emperor was a Monophysite, and not an Orthodox Catholic. The Monophysites and Monothelites were the main ecclesiastical movements throughout the East: Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt. And Constantinople with the entire western part of the empire was Orthodox.
It is this movement in the Christian Church in the East that will eventually lead to the fall of the political power of the Roman Empire over these lands, but first things first.
In 514, Vitalian, the son of Patrikiol, acted as the defender of Orthodoxy. Since 503, he commanded the corps of federates with the rank of committee of federates. Only an authoritative and experienced warrior could lead such a division of formidable riders of different tribes. So, at the beginning of the 470th century, he was commanded by a goth or mestizo Patrikiol, he was replaced by his son Vitalian (518s - XNUMX), a committee of federates who fought under his father in the Persian wars. The headquarters of the committee of federates was in the province of Scythia.
The master of the army of Thrace, Hypatius, nephew of Anastasius, reduced the salaries of the federates. For this, Vitaly raised an uprising, spreading the rumor that he was appointed master of the army of all Thrace. He received all the military money located in the fortified city on the Black Sea coast - Odessa (modern Varna, Bulgaria).
Having gathered, according to Malala, 50 thousand soldiers, federates and mercenaries: the Huns, who returned their generic name, the Bulgarians, he moved to the capital under the slogan of defending Orthodoxy.
His army stood in Evdom (modern Bakirkoy) and approached the Golden Gate, which was nearby, 4 kilometers away. The emperor ordered copper crosses to be placed on the walls of the city with the inscriptions of the causes of the rebellion, made generous donations to the church, and placed a charter on the walls of St. Sophia Cathedral reporting on the situation with the Vitalian uprising. The negotiators from the emperor generously endowed the army and assured that no one oppresses the Orthodox faith.
As soon as Vitalian moved away from the city, his pursuit began. But at night he captured the master of the army of Thrace in Odessos (Varna, Bulgaria), and his ally the Hun Tarrach killed him with a dagger.
The emperor's army won in several skirmishes, there was already a holiday in the capital on this occasion, and in the meantime Vitalian with allied Huns surrounded the camp with the carts of the imperial army near Odessos. The shamans of the Huns conjured darkness in broad daylight, the Huns were able to break into the Roman camp, shooting bulls from bows, which brought confusion among the defenders. The entire army of the Romans fell, and the master of the army Hypatius was captured.
Now the path to the capital at Vitalian was free, and he already claimed the imperial throne: in addition to infantry and horsemen, the Danube flotilla of 200 ships that occupied the harbor on the Thracian shore of the Bosporus, 11 km from the capital.
The emperor again went to negotiations, he appointed Vitalian the master of the army of Thrace, issued 5 thousand pounds in gold, issued an edict on the right faith, and he sealed all this with an oath. But as soon as Vitalian moved away from Constantinople, the emperor again began hostilities in 516. For there is a law commanding kings, if necessary, to break their oath and lie.
Vitalian again moved his armies to the capital, he put the Bulgarians on the ships and is ready, perhaps as a landing or "marine infantry". His ground forces, mostly Bulgarians, made their base at Siki, a territory in the depths of the Golden Horn on the north side. Vitalian's fleet threatened Chrysopolis on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. The fleet is located in the harbor of Sikov - Vitharia.
As only Malala reports, the defense of the city was entrusted to Marina, while the fleet was commanded by the committee of escubitors (escuvites) Justin, the future emperor and uncle of the future basileus Justinian the Great. At this time, the Athenian philosopher Prok happened to be in the capital, who gave Marina a “magic powder”, it had to be thrown at enemy ships. Most likely, it was a kind of "Greek fire".
The battle was started by the Byzantine fleet, in front of the Church of St. Thekla in Siki, that is, on the northern side of the Golden Horn. Malala reported:
This defeat was seen by the allies of the Huns, who rushed to flee from the capital, and Vitalian rushed after them. Thus ended his attempts to capture the city of Constantine. Later, under Emperor Justinian, he would become consul and die in the palace, perhaps someone took revenge on him for his pogroms committed during the siege of the capital.
Grand Master of War saves the capital
In the XNUMXth century nomads reached the outskirts of Constantinople more than once. It seemed that in the wake of success in Italy, the armed forces of the empire should only strengthen. But, alas, it was not so. The huge length of the Roman (Roman) border, limited military resources that did not correspond to these sizes, made the empire too vulnerable. And the appropriating economy, dominating the neighbors on the borders of the empire, required constant powerful defense.
Moreover, Byzantium and late Rome, just like China, agricultural civilizations, stood at the same stage of development, differing only in periods, like the ethnic groups attacking them, with rare exceptions (Slavs, Pechenegs). Therefore, the military threat was so serious, it could at one moment simply shift the top of the government to a foreign one, without changing the foundations of society, which happened to Byzantium later.
The emperors clearly understood these threats, but, I repeat, the size of the country only allowed to achieve a “positive balance” on the borders periodically, and not on a permanent basis.
On December 14, 557, a powerful earthquake occurred in Constantinople, which, among other things, caused a huge amount of divination, divination from dreams and stars about the fate of the city, the masterpiece of the early Middle Ages and the largest Christian building until 1504 - St. Sophia were destroyed.
And the following year, a plague began in the city, which lasted from February to June. In addition to all the troubles, in addition to divination, an embassy of an unknown people, of a wonderful appearance - the Avars, arrived in Constantinople.
But trouble does not come alone.
Distance from the river. Danube to the capital of the Roman state - 1 km. The barbarians, Bulgarians, former Hunnic tribes and Slavs who invaded its territory more than once reached Thrace and even the Long Walls, but only in the winter of 500 did they reach Constantinople.
The army of the Huns-Kuturgurs and Slavs crossed the frozen Danube on ice, then their path lay through the Balkans, the provinces of Dacia and Thrace. So they went to the province of Europe.
The Kotrigurs defeated the frontier army, captured a huge crowd, creating violence everywhere, killing even babies. They reached the church of St. Stratonikos, which is 14-15 km from the capital.
The “long wall” of Anastasia was destroyed by an earthquake, so the kotrigurs or kutigurs (kuturgurs) ended up on the outskirts of Constantinople. The Huns laid siege to Thracian Chersonese in order to seize ships for a trip to the Asian coast to the Asian port of Avidos with rich customs. The leader with his own forces approached Constantinople, making his base the town of Melantida (modern Yarim-Burgas), which is between the Long Wall and Constantinople, 25–27 km from the Golden Gate.
It was their appearance that caused a terrible panic in the capital, the crowd constantly rushed about with shouts that the enemy was advancing, any loud sound excited her, the shopkeepers closed the shops at every rustle. Everyone imagined the horror of the siege, the famine, the destruction of the walls and the enemy troops.
The ease of their passage was due to the fact that there were practically no troops left in the Balkans, the war in Italy absorbed all resources. According to Agathias, there were 150 thousand warriors in the empire, scattered over numerous lands and borders.
Back in 551, the treasurer Narses, who had gathered troops for the war in Italy among the Heruli federates and regular troops, hid with them in Philippoly, waiting for the gangs of the Huns (Kotrigurs) to clear the way for him to Italy, while he himself humbly sat out in the fortress and did not spend his military forces on the Huns.
As the two authors who tell us about these events write, the problem was that Justinian, after extensive conquests and the return of Africa and Italy, lost interest in military affairs and began to concern himself only with the affairs of the church.
Of course, this is only one side of the problem. Its other side was the fact that the empire did not have the necessary resources for such extensive operations, as life showed: neither military nor financial. The military victories over the barbarians were followed by the robbery of the "liberated" territories by legal means, and this led to their falling away, especially since the opponents of the empire were numerous and, which is important in any war, had the initiative.
Despite the numerous diagrams of the army structures of this period that we have in the scientific literature, it all came down to mercenarism.
If earlier in the theory of the territorial group of forces it was implied that the war was supposed to be waged by a representative army (in praesenti) with the support of a regional army (comitatus), now everything came down to recruiting expeditionary forces from both the presentation and the regional army. The situation will improve after the death of Justinian, but in the meantime, it was not the regiment that went to war, but the soldiers.
If earlier the army was made up of certain regiments, and earlier - legions, now the recruitment was individual. The "expeditionary army" included federates, and hired tribes, and catalog soldiers. Thus, the boundaries of the territories were exposed. In our case, the Danube border. So, Herman recruited an army from the Thracian regular cavalry for a campaign in Italy. In 544, the Illyrian cavalry left the army in Italy, as the Huns attacked their lands.
The ceremonial palace troops stepped in to guard Byzantium. Some Byzantine authors (Agathius and especially Procopius, himself a warrior and eyewitness of events) considered the schollaria and other ceremonial parts to be incompetent: beautifully dressed and beautifully armed, they were ready for parades, but not for wars. And that was already quite a long time ago. Although, for the sake of justice, it should be noted that these units were periodically replenished with skilled warriors. And many of them often participated in wars, personally or as part of separate units. However, as Procopius of Caesarea writes:
Of course, Procopius in The Secret stories"exaggerates as much as possible, scolding Emperor Justinian, most likely, all capable soldiers from the guards were in the" expeditionary armies ", which we also know about.
And the remaining units in the capital, occupied by the defense of the troops, were described by Agathius of Mirinei:
But Theophanes the Byzantine, who lived much later than these events, reports that the walls were occupied by schols, protectors and dignitaries of the empire. There were also regular parts, arithms, in the city. They stood on the walls and guarded all the towers. In total, 7 thousand riders of the leader Zabergan came under the walls, the rest robbed other places in Greece. They devastated the fertile surroundings and easily blocked the city from land.
But could Zabergan really threaten the gigantic Constantinople, the historical part of Istanbul today is a huge city, however, from Vlaherna, that is, the walls of Theodosius, to the tip of the Golden Horn, you can walk along it in about three hours?
To threaten the city, where there was a huge (by the standards of the early Middle Ages) population?
In a previous article on VO, I wrote about the threat to the New Rome by the Huns, it is obvious that the army of the leader Zabergan was seriously inferior in number to the horde of Attila. The Kotrigurs and, possibly, the Slavs acted in different directions.
But this is what happened near the small city of Kherson Thracian. Kotrigurs and, possibly, the Slavs, according to a number of researchers, are actively storming the walls. In doing so, they use ladders and various siege engines. Again we see that the nomad horsemen have siege weapons.
Moreover, in order to take the city, they resort to various tricks. Agathius of Mirinea reported that they decided to build rafts in order to go around the city tower by sea, which covered the city from the coast, and break into the city from the coast unprotected by the wall:
Again, a number of historians believe that only the Slavs could build rafts, but there is not a word about them in the reports, they are mentioned only when crossing the Danube, so the question remains open.
On the rafts there were 600 well-equipped warriors, the rafts were secretly lowered into the sea, and, “rowing clumsily”, the enemies moved towards the city. Several small ships or large boats with warriors advanced towards them. Some rafts fell into the sea current, and the soldiers then did not know what to do, some were attacked by the Romans: they pulled the rafts with hooks, and the besiegers went to the bottom. The Romans with trophies returned to Kherson.
It can be seen that the Huns were perfectly prepared for the siege, having various siege weapons and ladders.
Fortunately for the capital, the rest of the lot lived here, but enriched well on the last expedition to Italy, the great commander and patrician - 59-year-old Belisarius:
City Dimas, city parties were also mobilized. Such parties were in all large cities where there were stadiums or hippodromes. I have already written about their role in the construction of the walls of Constantinople. They were formed from parties that supported one or another charioteer, becoming parties that defended the interests of their members and, later, their emperors.
Belisarius confiscated all the horses for the war, both in the palace and wherever they were: at the hippodrome, in charitable institutions and, of course, from private individuals. He had his own detachment of 300 oplites, his battle-tested veterans, with him. Whether it was his bukkelarii warriors or warriors who happened to be in the capital is not clear.
Belisarius armed all those gathered: both the violent youths of the city parties, and, apparently, the hippodrome parties always had their own armed detachments, and the peasants of the surrounding lands, devastated by the war and therefore full of revenge. He brought all this army outside the city and placed it in a camp with a moat. The commander began to make sorties, capturing and killing careless marauders.
Belisarius also resorted to trickery, for the army he ordered trees to be dragged along the road, thereby raising dust and creating the impression of a huge army. At night, he kindled fires in a large area around the camp - for the same purpose. The Huns, however, quickly revealed his tricks, but the very presence of the troops and the fact that the pompous guard was located on the walls frightened them.
The irritated army of Belisarius was thirsty for battle. He, probably, remembering the same situation before the battle on April 19, 531 in the parking lot in the city of Suron, when at the gathering the soldiers accused the generals of cowardice and forced them to fight, which ended in the defeat of the Romans at Kallinik (modern Er-Raqqa), turned to the militia . He explained the situation in detail and was able to convince them to act according to his plan.
The meaning of the battle was to neutralize the advantages of the Huns horsemen: to prevent them from firing, at the same time forcing them to fight in hand-to-hand combat.
In ambush, he placed 200 experienced spearmen and shieldmen, behind them were numerous, hastily armed peasants, whose goal was to make noise.
He himself stood in the center with his veterans and the rest of the militia. When 2 horsemen of Zabergan hit Belisarius, they were fired upon from the flanks from an ambush with spears and arrows, and the noise raised by the peasants with blows weapons about the shields led the formidable riders into confusion.
Then Belisarius's cavalry fell upon them:
Squeezed from the flanks, the kotrigurs lost, as the Roman commander had supposed, their advantage: they could not shoot, and the terrible noise did not allow them to correctly assess the situation. In order to avoid encirclement, a flight began, while the Huns did not even shoot back. And if it were not for the fatigue of the Roman horses, everyone would have died. They fled, having lost 400 horsemen, to their camp in Melantiada (modern Khoshkey region), and then in a hurry retreated to Decaton in the province of Thrace (modern Chorpu).
Sources report that Justinian, constantly jealous of Belisarius and seeing him as a threat to his throne, did not make him a triumph. Although it can be said that this triumph is not quite that triumph: the enemy with a small army was hardly driven away from the walls of Constantinople. How could such a triumph be compared with those awarded to Belisarius, who defeated the Vandals and the Goths and led their kings in a festive procession.
But the people welcomed the winner.
And the Kotrigurs, realizing that no one was pursuing them, reached Arcadiopol (modern Leliburgas) and stopped here until April 13, i.e. Easter. And Emperor Justinian I went with the townspeople to Silimvria, a city on the northern coast of the Sea of Marmara, from which the "Long Walls" began, in order to restore them. He was there until August, and the Huns never left, waiting for tribute.
Here we have different information. Agathius says that the emperor paid a huge ransom, which infuriated the townspeople, it seemed low to them that the enemy was not only not completely defeated, but also received a huge reward. But Theophanes the Byzantine reports that Justinian sent Justin's nephew to build two-tier ships and meet the retreating enemy at the Danube crossing. This was not part of the plans of Zabergan, who hastily crossed the Danube.
But, continues Agathius, this situation angered the Utigurs of Sandilh, who was a federate of the empire, and he did not like that the enemy was paid in gold.
Justinian cunningly informed him that the gold destined for Sandilhu had been taken by the kotrigurs. Then the Utigurs, not waiting for the return of their enemies from the campaign, ravaged their camps, taking their children and wives as slaves. And then, having met the army of the Kotrigurs, they entered into a war with them, which lasted for a long time and led to the fall of the forces of both Hunnic tribes on the eve of a new steppe threat - the Avars.
Thus, at the end of the glorious era of Justinian, the New Rome itself came under extreme threat.
To be continued ...
Information