Horse and riderA ROMAN ARMYON HORSEBACK
Horse and rider
The army kept the empire going too.
It called itself the Roman army; and this Roman army of the Greek Byzantine Empire was about as efficient as any body of armed men between the time of Julius Caesar and the days of gunpowder and artillery.
Actually, though, Julius Caesar would have been astonished if he had seen it. Who, he would have asked, were these swarthy-skinned, black-bearded men with their quick and glinting Asiatic eyes? The commands seemed to be given in Latin, but the accent made them hard to understand. Why were so many of them on prancing, spirited horses?
Caesar would have remembered his legions like the famous Tenth Legion with which he landed in Britain. Rome had conquered the world with her legions. The legion was a body of from 4,000 to 6,000 citizen-soldiers. Except for a smallhandful who were mounted for scouting, the legion was made up entirely of foot soldiers. The tough men who fought in its ranks were clean-shaven, and each one carried a large shield. He wore a round helmet and a leather cuirass, and was armed with a short Spanish thrusting sword (that is, you didn’t hack with it) and a short throwing spear called apilum.
But when in 378A.D., a mighty Roman emperor was surrounded and crushed by barbarian horsemen in a Balkan valley not more than 150 miles from Constantinople, the infantry and the legion did not look unbeatable any more.
The Byzantines decided not to rely on it.
So first Caesar would have seen a large array of well-equipped men on sturdy chargers. These were the heavy cavalry, later known ascataphracts. They were as renowned as any Byzantine troops. They wore steel caps, and on each cap was a crest showing the colors of thatbandon, or horse regiment. They also wore long mail shirts, steel gauntlets, steel shoes, and sometimes a light surcoat. Even the horses, at least those of the officers and the men in the front rank, had steel head armor and breastplates. For weapons, each man had a broadsword, a dagger, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a long lance with a banderole, also in thebandoncolors. They could charge like knights, or by acting as bowmen, they could fight a distant enemy.
Then Caesar would have seen the light troopers, ortrapezidae. These too were cavalry, but they were the light cavalry. They did carry shields, but for body armor they wore only a cuirass of very light mail or horn. For weapons, they had only a lance and a sword.
There was still infantry in the Byzantine army, but it was now pretty unimportant. It was used mostly for holding ground which the cavalry had won. But even the infantry wasdivided into two groups. The heavy infantry were about as well armored as thecataphracts. For weapons, they carried a short, heavy battle ax and a dagger. They could stand off a barbarian cavalry charge. The light infantry wore no armor, but carried long-range bows. The Byzantine method of fighting was something like the German blitzkrieg, with cavalry taking the place of swiftly moving tanks and the foot soldiers following behind.
The Byzantines did much more than change their army into something swift and moving, however. They did more than divide the old clumsy legion into smaller units almost like our modern regiments, battalions, companies, and platoons. They spent a lot of time thinking about the whole business of fighting and may even have been the inventors of carefully planned strategy. They would not have been at all surprised at our modern war colleges where even generals are taught in the classroom what to do on the field of battle.
As a matter of fact, at least three Byzantine emperors wrote very good books on the art of war. These books included much more than just how to equip and drill an army. They also told the general exactly how he should fight his battles, and they emphasized that he must have a different kind of warfare for each different kind of foe.
The Franks, for example—and by the Franks, the Byzantines meant German and north Italian peoples quite as much as French and Normans—believe, said the books, that a retreat under any circumstances is dishonorable. Better die than show your back to the enemy. They are also very careless about outposts and scouts. So if you are fighting the Franks, you should try to trap them in a place where they will be at a disadvantage. Then you can annihilate them.
With the Turks—and by the Turks, the Byzantines alsomeant the Hungarians, the Patzinaks, and all the people of the Asiatic steppes—it is another matter, the books continued. They are light horsemen who carry bow and arrow as well as javelin and scimitar. They are hard to surprise because they always post mounted sentinels. Also you must be careful if you pursue them, for they don’t stay defeated but rally quickly. However, the heavy Byzantinecataphractscan ride them down and cut them to pieces. They are supposed to do so. And the Turks do not dare attack the Byzantine infantry because of its strong and powerful bows.
The Slavs, on the other hand, are only dangerous when they are led by Bulgarian khagans or by viking princes, and even then they are only really dangerous when they are in the hills. The thing to do, said the strategy books, is to lure them to the plains in hope of plunder. And then destroy them.
But the really difficult enemy faced by the Byzantines were the newly risen Arabs, or Saracens.
These wild sheiks from the desert were fanatically brave, for Mohammed had taught them that the easiest way to get to heaven was to die killing the unbeliever. Their numbers were limitless, for after they had conquered Egypt and Syria they drew into their ranks every discontented person in the Middle East. Once a year they poured, like a horde of locusts, through the gates of the Taurus Mountains into what today is southern Turkey. Nothing, including the Byzantine army, could stop them.
But fortunately, if they were wild and brave, they were also greedy for plunder, and besides that they could not stand cold or rain. So once a year too, usually in October or November, they turned back again, and their mules and camels, loaded down with booty, could not move back as fast as they had come.
“This is the way to beat them,” said one of the strategy books. “Always know where they are. Whether you are eating, taking a bath or sleeping, never turn away a man who says that he has information. Whether he is a freeman or a slave—no matter who he is!”
And then track them down, catching them in the narrow, snowy, chilly mountain passes if possible. They won’t fight well when they are trapped and shivering. Or if they don’t go back of their own accord, raid their own country and in this way bait them back. But whenever you fight them, or anyone else, be sure you know what you are doing. Above all, don’t throw everything into the battle at once. The general with the last reserves always wins.
The Byzantines also taught their generals not only how to fight but when to fight, and also when not to fight, which was even more important. They believed that it was better to be safe than sorry. The Byzantine general was told that he must never be rash, and above everything he must never throw his troops into battle where they might be killed or wounded if he could win the day by stratagems or tricks.
To be sure, he must always keep his pledged word. If he didn’t, who would believe him next time? And the lives of captives must always be spared if possible. One day they might be on the Byzantine side.
But it was all right to send an officer under a flag of truce and have him pretend that he wanted to discuss terms for surrender, when he was really acting as a spy. In the meantime, the Byzantines could bring up reinforcements. It was all right to forge letters showing that an enemy commander was turning traitor and then arrange to have them fall into his general’s hands. It was all right to disguise soldiers as innocentherdsmen driving bleating sheep and lowing cattle, and have them lure the enemy into a prepared ambush. Obviously, a feigned retreat was a recognized part of the game. Even a real retreat did not disgrace a Byzantine general, although the Byzantines were just as brave and proud as anyone else. At least the general who retreated would have some soldiers left and could fight and win another day.
The Byzantines also believed that if you wanted a good army, you must pay it well and treat it even better. A general’s salary could be as much as forty pounds of gold a year, and even a recruit had cash in his pocket. When a soldier served his time he might also get a grant of land. There was a well-organized supply department, and the soldiers were always sure of beans, cheese, and wine, to say nothing of what they could plunder from the country. A special corps of engineers pitched their tents for them and set up huge baths. The soldiers were even allowed to have slaves and servants. The army itself provided a groom for every four cavalrymen, and every sixteen foot soldiers had an attendant who drove a cart carrying all they needed. There was even an ambulance corps of stretcher bearers and surgeons. The stretcher bearers were paid a gold coin for every wounded man they brought from the field.
This is what the Byzantine regular army was like, but besides that, especially in the early days, there were regiments or even whole tribes of Huns, Goths, Alans, and other barbarians who fought for the emperor under their own chieftains. Later on, particularly in Asia Minor, there were also the great feudal lords, or Border Men.
There is a wonderful Byzantine poem calledDigenes Akritesabout one of these men. Its hero is Basil Digenes Akrites,son of an Arab emir named Monsour and a Greek lady of the noble Dukas family. For this reason he is called Digenes Akrites, which means “border man of two races.”
Basil was a valiant knight like Roland and Sir Lancelot, and in spite of his Arab father, he was a faithful Christian. And so when he wasn’t slaying lions, fighting cattle thieves, or rescuing lovely damsels, he was ready to join forces with the emperor and lead his men against the infidel.
But he only did this when he thought the emperor was right! When one of the emperors came to visit his castle he was quite willing to give him a lecture on how an emperor should act.
Both the barbarians, with their hard-riding horsemen, and the valiant border lords played an important part in defending the Byzantine Empire from its enemies, but the Byzantines never really trusted either group. A barbarian chieftain was far too likely to ride off with his hordes and found a kingdom of his own as Theodoric had done in Italy. A border lord from Asia Minor was too likely to try to become emperor himself. Indeed, more than one had.
The Byzantines also had a navy, one of the best navies of the Middle Ages. But often they did not rely on it as they did on their army. For one thing, the emperors were always afraid of the navy for the same reason that they were afraid of the border lords of Asia. They were fearful that some admiral would use it to take their throne from them. Three admirals did just that. Another reason was that the Byzantines liked to be sure of what they were doing. But in those days, ships were flimsy and the seas were full of unknown rocks and sudden storms. The best of plans might be upset by the violence of nature, and so it was more dependable to fight on land.
Just the same, when the Byzantines had to, they were always able to get together a fleet, and it was usually a good one. When Justinian sent an invasion army to North Africa, he had enough ships to need 20,000 sailors. It was the navy that twice drove the Arabs from Constantinople. In 853A.D., the Byzantines were able to send 300 ships against Egypt. A little later, Zoe Black Eyes could order a veritable armada all the way to Italy to drive Saracen sea raiders from their stronghold near Naples. When the Byzantines attacked the pirates in Crete, they were able to send 105 dromonds and 75 Pamphylians. The dromond was the battleship of the Middle Ages. It sometimes carried 300 men and was a bireme, that is, it had two decks of oars on each side, one under the other. A Pamphylian was a lighter, swifter cruiser. The admiral’s flagship was usually a Pamphylian. There were also galleys; they had only one bank of oars but were the swiftest of all.
It was the Byzantine navy that developed and used what was probably the first “secret weapon” of all history. This was the famous Greek fire. Even today nobody knows exactly what it was, except that it was a complicated mixture of chemicals, one of which may have been a crude form of petroleum.
The Byzantines pumped it at the enemy through huge tubes or hurled it at them from portable siphons almost like modern flame throwers. Even water would not put it out. So it was fairly easy to destroy an enemy fleet. Greek fire frightened the enemy even more.
But the Byzantines did not rely only on the army or the navy to win their battles for them. Helping them in every way was the Byzantine diplomatic service. For just as the Byzantines did not ever fight a battle if they could find some other way of winning it, so too they didn’t even begin a war unlessthey had to. Why fight if they could persuade an enemy to become their friend and ally? Why fight, and risk their own safety, if they could talk someone else into fighting for them? To the Byzantines, this made sense.
It was up to their diplomatic service to do this, and the reason it was able to do so very often was because here too the Byzantines knew just what they were doing. Under the Logothete of the Dromos, they had an almost modern intelligence system taken care of by a special department whose one job was to collect information about foreign nations.
How can such and such a country help the Byzantines and how can it hurt them?
How can it best be won over by the Byzantines—by force, by honors and favors, or by gifts?
If the last, by what kind of gifts?
Has it any enemies, and if so, who are they?
What were its origins? What is its history? What is its climate and its geographical position?
Has it usually been a friend or an enemy of the Byzantines? Trace this back to the day when it first appeared on the scene!
With this information—the questions had been carefully worked out by the emperor Constantine Born-in-the-Purple in a book calledHow To Run the Empire—the Byzantines could select the right method for the nation they were interested in and then go to work on it.
If the ruler or his ambassador was easily dazzled, they could impress him with court ceremony and with purple shoes and robes, and they might even give out a title or two such as patrician orarchon. They might even take some northern duke or count and promote him to be prince or king provided he swore allegiance to them.
If he was greedy and avaricious—and, said Constantine, “the tribes of the north demand everything and hanker after everything”—they could give him cash in hand or even pay an annual tribute.
As a last resort, the emperor could marry a foreign princess or give a sister or a daughter in marriage to a foreign prince. The Byzantines did not really approve of the latter, especially the ladies who were shipped off to some outlandish country without Byzantine comforts or conveniences! “I am being sacrificed to the wild beast of the West!” wailed one of them. But it often worked wonders. From distant Asbagia under the towering snow-crowned Caucasus Mountains to distant Germany, where the “wild beast of the West” lived, many and many a kingdom was made friendly to the Byzantines because a Byzantine princess sat on its throne.
But of course when an emperor did this, he must never give the barbarians all they asked for, and he must always think up a good reason for not doing so. If they asked for an imperial crown or an imperial robe, he must point out that these were sacred and consecrated and tell of the horrendous death suffered by one emperor who had given some to his Khazar relatives. If they asked for Greek fire, he must tell them that it was given by an angel and that anyone who gave it away would be struck down from heaven. If they sought to marry a princess, he must tell them that the demand is monstrous, even though the royal robe-makers were already embroidering the wedding gown.
In that way he would not only save some of his valuable possessions, but the barbarians would appreciate the ones he did give them all the more.