Byzantine Defensive Structure: A Brief analysis of the Origins of Defence-in-depth

One could successfully argue that the cultural heights achieved by the Byzantine Empire, and Constantinople in particular, were attained in large part because of the relative peace and security that it experienced for nearly a thousand years. Certainly the Empire had to contend with a great many threats, yet only infrequently was the “heartland” centre directly assaulted. Constantinople itself proved unconquerable until it lost the battle of Manzikert in the eleventh century. The Byzantines faced numerous enemy powers on several fronts and were frequently defeated, yet throughout its history the Empire could repeatedly be defined with an overused maxim: Byzantium lost the battle but won the war. The most important factor in determining the ultimate survival of the Empire was the organization and professionalism of its military system. Living up to their stereotypical depiction as bureaucrats, it was through an administrative re-organization of the Empire that Byzantium could effectively counter and contain aggressive foreign powers. Both civil and military administration were overhauled to adopt a defensive strategy which protected the centre of the Empire while to an extent consciously sacrificing the periphery. This strategy emerged from studying the reality of frontier warfare faced by Byzantium. Above all else, the Byzantines were most adept at studying the tactics, units, and strengths and weaknesses of their enemies. A great deal of literature concerning a variety of military endeavours exists, much of it reflecting on the ancient tactics known to Byzantine scholars. Probably the more significant of these are the Strategikon – attributed to the sixth-century emperor Maurice, but more likely written by an unknown field commander under his command – the Taktika, a manual written in the eleventh century by the emperor Leo VI, and an anonymously written pamphlet frequently translated as On Skirmishing Warfare. Each of these texts describes one primary tactical consideration, namely to avoid conflict whenever possible. As the history of Byzantine warfare was to demonstrate, this was sound advice. The Byzantine army was frequently in a position in which it had to defend itself against superior enemy troop strength, not only at the strategic level but also in terms of individual battles. I will be examining the rise of the Byzantine defensive structure during the sixth and seventh centuries until the Empire was compromised by its defeat at the battle of Manzikert, which signalled then end of its supremacy in the East.

The Byzantine Empire had of course emerged from the Roman Empire, and therefore had inherited Roman military and administrative practice. Many of the threats faced by Byzantium were problems that likewise had menaced Rome, and Byzantine emperors and generals were to benefit from solutions initiated by their predecessors. Most crucial were developments in the armed forces. A new type of opponent had emerged in the middle of the first millennium with the insurgence of barbarian forces such as the Huns and the Scythians into the Roman Empire. These barbarian hordes represented a germinal type of shock warfare which could not be effectively countered by the traditional military system based on the legions. Rome’s new enemies were for the most part cavalry units which quickly struck vulnerable sections of the empire and withdrew with their plunder. To counter the damage caused by such raids, the Roman army was restructured to place more emphasis on smaller cavalry units which were obviously more mobile than the larger and much less flexible infantry-based legions. These mounted soldiers could be mobilized much more rapidly than the old legion and proved much more adept at defending the vast borders of the empire. Furthermore a smaller number of cavalry could adequately defend the frontier, which had previously required extensive garrisoning. Of course, the decline of Rome occurred despite these advances in the military, although a great many other factors were involved which lie beyond the focus of this essay. As delineated in the Strategikon, Byzantium incorporated cavalry into its military structure, yet further improved on the Roman system by outfitting two main divisions of mounted unit or cataphract, one equipped with lance or spear and the other with bow and arrow. Initially, bows were used as cavalry support, replacing the much less flexible small-unit catapults and ballistae used by the Romans. Mounted archers were adopted from the warriors of the Steppes – primarily the Huns – and proved very effective at defeating even the largest of infantry-based enemy armies. Cavalry units equipped with lance or spear were used as shock troops to break enemy lines, and also as close-quarter support for mounted and infantry archers.

The Byzantines had also learned a great deal from Roman strategic advances which precipitated from Roman frontier defence. The role of the army changed from being an instrument of aggressive imperialism to a more defensive posture. Much like the late Roman Empire, Byzantium simply did not have the human or material resources to effectively expand its borders. Nor, in fact, did it have the desire to do so. The territories held by Byzantium in the centuries leading up to the Moslem invasions of the early seventh century were in a sense believed to be possessed by the Emperor in accordance with the divine will to form a perfect correlative temporal kingdom to that in heaven. The concept of a divine empire was mirrored in the body of the emperor himself. Using a rather crude but obvious metaphor, the Byzantines believed that just as the physical body of the emperor could not be divided, neither could the lands of the Empire be fractured without disintegrating the entire state. Such an ideological stance was to prove problematic when the Western half of the old Roman empire proclaimed its independence with the crowning of Charlemagne in the ninth century. This was viewed as a heretical act, as the Byzantines believed that God had ordained only one emperor to justly rule on earth. Yet the Empire had to accept that its ‘natural’ borders were eastern, as it would have been impossible to stage any major offensive in the west. Byzantium did regain Venitia and the Dalmatian Coast as recompense for acknowledging the Western emperor diplomatically with the Pax Nicephori. The reconquests of lost land in the east, however – as carried out by the emperors Bardas in the ninth century, and Nicephorus II in the mid-tenth century, among others – was consequently believed to be a restoration of the divine will, not the potential for new beginnings which conquest usually anticipates. Of course such a belief remained largely abstract; the citizen majority were frequently opposed to the mobilization of the armies for the purpose of conquest, primarily because any offensive had to be financed by means of higher taxes. A further complication was that the ‘natural’ boundaries of the Empire were rather indefinite. Some territories which were believed to be Byzantine possessions were in fact outside of the Byzantine administrative system; Venice is a prime example of such a relationship, as it was independently governed, yet was allied with Constantinople. Border states, some of which were ostensibly outside the ‘natural’ empire, had begun to be colonised by native Byzantines by the ninth century. These settlers then proceeded to absorb the local population into the regular Byzantine citizenry, wherein Christianity proved itself to be an invaluable tool. In retrospect, this process succeeded in expanding the ‘native’ lands of the Empire. Other territories were jointly shared with foreign powers, such as Crete which was portioned between the Empire and the Caliphate. Still other lands were held in possession in largely diplomatic terms as tributary states or free alliances. Many of these diplomatically-held territories were used as buffer states against hostile foreign powers, and were therefore almost as important for the Empire’s well-being as the ‘naturally’ held ones. After the Bulgars had been pacified and an alliance secured with a diplomatic marriage, Bulgaria was used as a buffer state to keep both the Russians and the Magyars at bay. There are even a few instances of Byzantium entering into alliances with neutral foreign powers with the provision that the latter wage war with the enemies of the Empire. While such alliances did not expand the physical zone of control possessed by the Byzantines, they did establish a wider area of influence which just as ably checked aggressive foreign powers. A final means of securing the loyalty of foreign populations was to convert them to orthodox Christianity. Subsequently, they would be valuable allies against ‘heretical’ peoples such as the Turks and the Arabs. Following these considerations, the Empire was arguably defined much more by its sphere of influence than its physical possessions. Furthermore, history was to prove the fluidity of these boundaries, as they were never to remain static for any length of time. Yet the Byzantines retained their concept of a divinely ordered earthly empire, and sought to defend what must be referred to in retrospect as its most frequently held territories.

As theoretically sound as this principle was, it did not survive the Islamic raids of the seventh century. As the Moslem invasions were to show, the Byzantine army was simply not capable of providing a static system of defence against border raiders. The vast size of the empire was its greatest weakness, as many of its provinces were far too distant from Constantinople to be effectively defended. Most of the territories held by Byzantium were those most easily defensible from the capital. However, several themes such as Egypt and Palestine were of immense economic importance, and therefore justified the additional effort required to retain them. Such wealthy lands were of course as highly valued by Byzantium’s enemies, and many did not remain in the Empire’s possession after the Islamic invasions. Quite simply, the distances involved where much too great for a single, centralized army to adequately defend. The troops at Constantinople, which were the most trained and best provisioned, would have taken months to mobilize and reach any frontier conflict. The great distance to the capital was also problematic in terms of slow communications and supply trains, which adversely affected tactical decision making along the frontiers. Despite the presence of garrisons along the frontier, any substantial enemy army would quickly overwhelm and occupy border provinces before the main Byzantine force could arrive from the capital. Local ability for resistence was virtually non-existent as civilians had since the early Roman empire been prohibited from owning weapons, a precaution against rebellion. Consistent throughout the period here studied, Byzantine strategic ideology centred upon defence of the capital and its immediately neighbouring territories. Therefore, the emperor would not deploy the main army along the frontier to strengthen the garrisons as this would weaken the capital defensively. With no standing force to protect it, the vital centre of the Empire would consequently be overrun should the army fail to repulse an invasion. In the early seventh century, this possibility very nearly became manifest, as Persian forces surged into Byzantine territory, capturing cities throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, and Armenia; they had in fact raided as far as the Bosporus.

In this context the emperor Heraclius was to prove himself extremely virtuosic in countering both the immediate threat of the Persians and the long-term defence of the Empire. It was largely through an administrative restructuring during his reign and continued by his successors Constans II and Constantine IV that Byzantium was able to counter threats against its territory. The various territories of the Empire were divided into smaller, more geographically cohesive regions called themes. Initially there were fourteen themes, but they were expanded in number to twenty-one in the ninth century in order to increase their defendability by further delineating them to specific geographies. Critical frontier regions, such as mountain passes and choke points for enemy movements, were themselves made into small themes called clissurae and were under the command of a clissurarch. These clissurae maintained their entire force at a high level of readiness; consequently, the troops stationed in the clissurae needed to be periodically rotated to less exhausting tours of duty in other themes. Neither the themes nor the clissurae succeeded in completely stopping invasions, yet they did stop invaders from reaching the inner provinces of the empire, which were of course much more important from the Imperial perspective. The administrative system of the themes was tied to its military system. Each theme had an armed force containing three thousand to seventy-two hundred soldiers, depending on the strategic importance of the theme. Obviously, the themes which were most frequently under threat of invasion were provided with the most troops. The various Anatolic and Armeniac themes – which bordered the Moslem territories – had more troops than most of the lesser themes combined; the Anatolic theme was itself the largest and most prodigious, as it was the corridor for the majority of Arab invading parties. Thrace, wherein Constantinople was situated, was of course almost as significant, but it was defended primarily by the tagmata, and not the theme troops. These three themes constituted the bulk of the empire in terms of military significance: of the estimated eighty thousand soldiers in the Byzantine army in the late eighth century, only five thousand were situated elsewhere in the empire. One mush also not ignore the agricultural significance of these themes, in terms of both economic importance to the empire – Thrace had become the granary to the empire after the loss of Egypt – and population density, as they provided the bulk of the soldiers for the army. The Byzantines liked to vary the strength of their armed forces periodically to confuse enemy intelligence. Themes were the highest division of unit, followed by various numbers of turmae, which were themselves composed of numerous bandae comprising three- to four-hundred soldiers. In this way themes might be formed with the same number of divisions but contain fewer or greater troops. Even after the creation of the themes, troop strength along the frontier did not improve drastically, yet such was not the principle behind the restructuring process. Yet, save for a few minor locations, the Empire was much more secure by the ninth century than it had been since Roman times. Of course, it was helped by the civil unrest of the Arab empire, which did weaken the Moslems to the extent that no great invading force could be assembled. In any case, an excessively large army was not only very expensive and hard to co-ordinate and supply along the frontier, but it was rarely required as a defensive force. On Skirmishing Warfare states that a cavalry unit of three thousand would prove quite capable of defeating most Arab raiding parties. The themes therefore proved more than adequate at countering the incessant raids by small bands of mounted soldiers that plagued the borders of the Empire. Primarily, they were much more flexible and responsive to threats and could adapt more quickly to changing situations along the frontier. A strategos could effectively mobilize two to four turmae each of cavalry and infantry within minutes of receiving news of an invading force.

Of course, such a strategy requires an extensive reconnaissance network. An sizeable spy network had been in place since the early Roman republic, and the Byzantine system refined and expanded on its inheritance. Merchants had long been used as they could most easily and inconspicuously infiltrate enemy cities and courts. More professional agents were also used and found emplacement primarily in foreign courts as emissaries, courtesans, or servants. Important foreign officials and other ‘connected’ individuals were bribed in exchange for intelligence reports. A counter-intelligence unit was also created, the most important of which was located along the Arab border specifically to prevent the incursion of spies from the Moslem territories. These akritai served as spies themselves, although in a much less subdued fashion than their courtesan and merchant counterparts. Frequently, they raided into enemy territory to spy on or harass enemy troops to gather information, and also abducted and imprisoned enemy civilians and military personnel in order to extract information. These units proved especially vigilant in their border patrols, as they arrested any individual who did not have a permit allowing his presence.

Intelligence reports were not only scrutinized by the strategos commanding the theme adjacent to the enemy lands in which his spies were stationed, but were relayed to the other strategoi and to the central bureaucracy in Constantinople using two means. Byzantium still operated the old Roman messaging system, the cursus publicus, which consisted of a messenger corps, a series of posts where messengers could exchange their horses when they tired, and a system of roads to allow quick travel. For more important information which required to be much more hastily delivered, a system of beacon fires was created and refined during the reign of Theophilus. These beacon stations extended from the frontiers in Asia Minor to the high terrace overlooking the imperial palace. Information about any event which threatened the frontier would consequently reach the capital within an hour or so. In terms of tactical intelligence, every theme had a small scouting corps used to report enemy troop movements and formations. As the Strategikon states, such intelligence is of vital tactical importance: “before the battle and until it is over, [spies] should keep both the enemy and their own units under observation to prevent any attack from ambush or any other hostile trick”. Furthermore, “every effort should be made by continuously sending out keen-sighted scouts at appropriate intervals, by spies and patrols, to obtain information about the enemy’s movements, their strength and organization, and thus be in a position to prevent being surprised by them”. Byzantine strategists knew well that espionage worked just as easily against them, and used counter-intelligence tactics to confuse their enemies. Those soldiers who were positioned at scouting and beacon fire posts were relieved periodically to avoid betrayal. On the tactical level, the Strategikon gives further advice:

If an enemy spy is captured while observing our forces, then it may be
well to release him unharmed if all our forces are strong and in good
shape. The enemy will be absolutely dismayed by such reports. On the
other hand, if our forces are weak, the spy should be treated roughly,
forced to divulge enemy secrets, and finally either be put to death or
sent off somewhere under guard.

A primary consequence precipitating from the great distances between Constantinople and the borderlands was increased internal disunity, as loyalties to the Emperor were much more problematic. This was frequently to prove costly, most significantly during the early Moslem invasions. To pacify newly re-conquered or diplomatically assimilated populations, the Imperial government often re-settled them to other parts of the Empire, and simultaneously re-colonized the area with native Byzantines. Alien nobility were absorbed into the Byzantine administrative and military bureaucracy, and were given titles, land grants, and command duties, although most often they were forced to convert to Christianity in order to qualify. This process usually worked to placate important foreigners and suppress any insurrectionary tendencies with which they might sympathize. There were a few notable instances in which this process of imposing patriotism upon assimilated peoples rebounded against the Empire. During the eighth century, Byzantium had relied primarily on friendly, non-Islamic Arab tribes along the border of the Islamic territories to signal an upcoming invasion, as well as to fight beside the Byzantine troops. In return, these tribes gained trading privileges and protection from conversion and assimilation into Islam. Yet, the Byzantines had pushed this relationship too far by imposing the high taxes usually relegated to conquered territories, and consequently these friendly Arab tribes withdrew their support for the Empire. Arguably, it was this fact which led to the loss of Mesopotamia and Palestine to the Islamic conquers. In the early ninth century, another group of Arabs who were hostile toward the Caliphate was assimilated into the Byzantine Army. The Arabs were understandably enraged by this action, and sent an army of fifty-thousand into Byzantine territory, capturing Ankara and Amorium, the latter of which had become by this time the second most important city in the Empire. More devastating was the rebellion by the Pechenegs, a people located in the Balkans. In order to deal with the considerable threat they suddenly posed to the Empire, the emperor Constantine Monomachus relocated theme troops in Armenia to the Balkans. This allowed the Seljuk Turks free access to the entire province, and the subsequent invasion was to lead to the battle of Manzikert, which was to signal the effective end of the Empire as a superpower. A further consideration was the allowance given to foreign merchants and traders, who were authorized to establish their own cultural centres – primarily at Constantinople, which had large Islamic and Italian (Venetian) communities. In this manner hostilities were diminished along the borderlands, as foreigners gradually became Hellenised, Christianized, and acclimatized to life in the Empire. Of course, many kept their traditional cultures, yet only rarely did this sense of cultural identity become nationalistic to the extent of open rebellion.

While administrative efficiency was helped by appointing the strategos of the army as governor for the theme, this had the same potential to create rogue armies did as the older Roman provincial system. Rome itself had solved this problem by separating military and civil jurisdiction. The theme strategoi were of course reiterations of the old Republican governors, and Roman history provides sufficient evidence to warrant concern about the unification of military and civil authority in one individual. Consequently, from the reign of Heraclius the strategoi were personally chosen by the Emperor to ensure their loyalty. Similarly, a bureaucratic system was established to supervise the payment of wages to the armies, which until the reign of Heraclius had been sporadic and consequently subverted troop morale and loyalty. Importantly, this salary was paid by the Imperial bureaucracy in the capital and not through the theme bureaucracy; this was done to ensure troop loyalty to the Emperor and not to the local strategos. Soldiers in the themes were given land grants upon entering service, and these lands became hereditary possessions. The eldest male child would inherit both his father’s land and his contract to military service. Leo’s Taktika stressed the symbiotic relationship between the farming class and the soldiery; each depended for its existence upon the other. The Empire could not afford to hire mercenaries except in the interim -- and anyhow mercenary troops often proved dangerously unreliable – and its urban population proved to be useless militarily. Therefore the rural peasantry proved itself to be the backbone of the Empire’s defensive system. In this manner a continual supply of troops was ensured. One could surmise that troop casualties were quickly replaced as the sons of dead soldiers sought not only their inheritance, but vengeance for their fathers’ deaths as well. While this would certainly not ensure long-term troop loyalty, it would provide the army with a continual supply of young recruits eager to engage enemy forces. The most obvious flaw in this land-grant system was that it could be exploited by strategoi who had the desire to do so. Unlike the tagmata who were better paid and received the rich agricultural lands around Constantinople, the theme soldiers became increasingly dependent on their strategoi to support them. As soldiers had to pay for their own equipment and horses, many gradually went into debt to their strategos and were forced to forfeit part if not all of their land claims. In combination with the lands given to the strategoi for successful commands, by the late tenth and early eleventh centuries a new class of military aristocracy had emerged. If they so desired – and often they did, especially in the eleventh century – they could raise a private army under the guise of theme units to enforce their own political agendas. This would ultimately lead to a great deal of rebellion and civil war, which obviously weakened the Empire. By the middle of the eleventh century, the military and financial resources of the Empire had to a great extent been exhausted because of factional fighting between the civil aristocracy centred upon Constantinople, and the rural military aristocracy. This weakness greatly contributed to the success of the Turkish invasions before the battle of Manzikert. For the period being studied here, however, they were not a great factor in undermining the defensive position of the Empire until this later instance.

From these considerations emerged the overall strategy for the defence of the Empire, which has been termed “defence-in-depth” by modern historians. In brief, this strategic system allowed raiders access to frontier territories, yet did not permit penetration into the more valuable heartland of the Empire. Upon crossing the border, Arab armies would be shadowed by units of Byzantine cavalry and harassed as they broke up to raid the countryside. Any usable provisions outside of the city walls would have been destroyed, therefore leaving the raiders isolated and unprovisioned. The main theme force would then surround and destroy the weary invaders. This cat-and-mouse tracking stratagem was effective in isolating and destroying small splinter groups of the main force and ultimately reducing its strength without directly engaging the main army. It is hardly surprising that ambushes were most frequently used in these encounters, and indeed the Strategikon had advised just such a tactic: “Well-planned ambushes are of the greatest value in warfare. In various ways they have in a short time destroyed great powers before they had a chance to bring their whole battle line into action”. Cunning strategoi also used kidnappings, assassinations, and misinformation to sow dissension and lower morale among enemy lines. The theme as a whole – as well as any neighbouring themes who could be mobilized without compromising the security of their own territories – would then confront the newly reduced invading host, and on territory advantageous to the Byzantines and after the strategos had adequately prepared his forces. When the theme did encounter enemy troops, their tactics centred upon quick shock operations, with the lance-equipped cataphracts charging the enemy with support from the mounted archers, who would attempt to outflank the enemy lines. Should the strategos encounter an opposing army obviously superior to his own and a threat to the centre of the Empire, the Emperor would mobilize the tagmata, which would have gained time to reach the front by the delay tactics inherent in the defence-in-depth stratagem.

Of further importance to the theme system was the Byzantine navy, which until the tenth century had no equal in the eastern Mediterranean. Certainly there were other powers before the tenth century, such as the Arabs who, after the seventh century conquests were able to deploy a navy, yet they remained relatively minor in comparison to the almost overwhelming superiority of the Byzantine naval forces. Coastal and island themes had their own naval units under command of the strategos; additionally there was a central navy which operated out of Constantinople much like the tagmata, but obviously had a much larger effective field of operations. The navy served to patrol the waters around the themes, and quite successfully kept enemy raiders and invaders from landing in Byzantine territories. Most importantly however, as long as the navy retained control of the eastern Mediterranean, Constantinople could withstand any siege. Obviously this was an extreme circumstance, as any siege of the capital would be politically disastrous to an emperor. Yet on occasion, it did in fact occur. Byzantine strategy was also aided by the relative disorganization of its enemies. Beyond the early conquests, the Arabs did not seem to desire any more territory, and consequently did not organize any invading force larger than simple raiding parties. Furthermore, by the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Abbasid Caliphate was on the verge of collapse and was simply not interested in invading the empire. It was during this period that Byzantium in fact took the offensive, particularly under the emperor Nicephorus II. Of course, Byzantium’s enemies were just as quick to capitalize on occasional weaknesses within the Empire as well. Not every emperor fully supported the military. Some emperors viewed the military as an relatively unjustified drain on imperial finances which could better be apportioned within Constantinople itself. The emperors Constantine X and Romanos IV were of this ideology; while not openly hostile to military concerns, they simply felt pressure to expend resources elsewhere. Others, such as the empress Irene, were in fact openly hostile toward the military bureaucracy and consciously attempted to weaken it. For the most part, this military-administrative system reduced the threat of invasion, at least for the internal provinces.

While this defensive strategy did ultimately succeed in arresting the invading forces from capturing the centre of the Empire, it did not do so without consequences. Foremost, and perhaps most obvious, was the fact that such a strategic position required the sacrificing of the frontier lands for the containment of invaders. The raiding parties did indeed encroach into Byzantine territories, and they succeeded in plundering much of the local wealth before they were destroyed or were forced to withdraw. Defence-in-depth proved to be a highly expensive strategic ideology, in terms of both territorial destruction and casualties among the local population. Furthermore, it had one prime strategic flaw which was occasionally exploited. The various outposts which acted as garrisons and scouting forts did succeed at performing their task, yet they caused a reliance on maintaining fortified positions. The themes did indeed ultimately retain control of their territory, yet they sacrificed initiative to the raiders. They became a reactionary army, instead of one an enterprising one. What this meant in tactical terms was that they had to rely upon the movements of the enemy to precipitate their own actions. By the tenth century, Byzantine armies rarely ventured out to engage their enemy without first being prompted. Consequently, the themes lost some of their mobility, an element of tactical warfare for which they had been originally created. Larger invading forces began to turn towards the forts, laying siege to them instead of the cities, which resulted in the theme soldiers becoming merely an expanded garrison, instead of the stealthy, mobile attackers which had originally been their purpose. This in turn affected troop morale, which was of vital importance in ancient warfare. Byzantine troops frequently suffered from lower-than-desired morale because of their isolation and dependence on enemy actions to inform the activities of their own units. Many frontier troops threatened to mutiny, and some did cross over into enemy camps. Occasionally, this was due to the lack of provisions caused by besieging enemy forces. Similarly, invaders frequently had a much higher morale because their intended targets were ostensibly ‘easy pickings’. The imbalance in troop morale occasionally led to the desertion Byzantine units, who would abandon their fortified position and withdraw to the more ‘secure’ interior. Such occurred along the Bulgarian frontier, which was abandoned as the Bulgar king Krum was successfully leading his forces into Byzantine territory. Further problematic was the placement of the forts themselves, as they frequently weren’t positioned to support each other. Accordingly, successful raiders – such as the Arabs in the ninth century – were able to capture them one at a time in succession. Ultimately, what the Byzantine dependence on fortified positions to support the defence-in-depth strategy accomplished was a sense of predictability. Invaders could easily observe Byzantine troop movements, as they were confined to specific (and relatively permanent) areas. Raiders would enter into the province and do as much damage as possible before they were contained or were driven from the theme.

Yet Byzantine forces continued to succeed throughout the period here studied. The damage inflicted by invaders would quickly be repaired, defences would be rebuilt, land would be reclaimed, and the local populations – which as mentioned above frequently suffered high casualties – would continue to thrive. Usually the encroached-upon frontier was fully restored by the next campaign season. Likewise, the empire continued to thrive despite continued invasions, which were sometimes almost on an annual basis in certain key invasion corridors. The centre of the Empire was not threatened, except on a few occasions, for the majority of the four hundred year period herein examined. The defence-in-depth strategy succeeded, for example, in protecting the fertile coasts of Asia Minor by sacrificing the relatively barren wastes of the Anatolian plateau along the Arab borderlands. Viewed in the Imperial context, which was of course more interested in securing and legitimizing its authority than it was with the concerns of a distant and economically unimportant province, this was a very small sacrifice indeed.

Bibliography
Primary

Anon. On Skirmishing Warfare. (Need English translation)

Leo VI the Wise. Taktika. (Need English translation)

Maurice. Strategikon. Trans. George T. Dennis. Philadelpia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1984.

Secondary

Browning, Robert. The Byzantine Empire. Washington: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1992.

Dupuy, Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper
& Row, 1977.

Dvornik, Francis. The Origins of Intelligence Services. New Jersey: Rutgers University
Press, 1974.

Kaegi, Walter. Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Kazhdan, A.P. and Ann Wharton Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.

Nicol, Donald M. Byzantium and Venice: a study in diplomatic and cultural relations.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Apogee. London: Viking, 1991.

Treadgold, Warren. The Byzantine Revival 780-842. Stanford: Stanford University
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Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600-1025. Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1996.

The Brothers Karamazov

First Impressions...

Guilt

The eternal damnation of the soul. I guess I am expecting one of the brothers to suffer in a more or less conventional manner for the patricide. This will not be an entirely pleasurable reading experience, because I will be much too aware of my own guilt through the pleasure of voyeurism. I do expect the courtroom sequence to demonstrate that we all suffer by one person’s guilt; likewise do we share that person’s culpability. Dostoevsky is probably aware of this fact, as he pursues the societal construction of individual guilt through the exploration of the Karamazov family history. Whomever happens to be the murderer will not be solely responsible. For the individual act of participating in that particular event of killing he will surely act alone. Yet the conscience – the psychology – of reaching such a brutal conclusion involves the entire family and extends to the entire human race. The fact that seemingly normal individuals have the same latent bloodlust as any criminal is proven by attendance at executions, such as the autos-da-fé. Father Zosima elucidated possible reasons for society’s wish to quickly exterminate the guilty. Criminals are continual reminders of our own (arrested) barbarity. The “fires of hell” such as Inquisitorial burnings allow humanity to forget our collective guilty conscience through sheer spectacle. Dostoevsky seems to imply that some ashes of guilt do remain upon humanity however. It is simple: the fires of hell represent “the suffering of one who can no longer love”. He implies that akin to Jesus we as a civilization must love our enemies instead of burning them and submerging the ashes under our collective conscience.

Who is to be Guilty?

The individual Karamazovs have been moulded by their family history to reject society at the same time they apparently embrace it: Ivan hides behind his reason, compartmentalizing and justifying the world and his remoteness from it; Dmitri uses both love and violence in a process of self-ostracization which could eventually lead to his sharing of the contempt felt for the elder Karamazov by most people in the novel; Alyosha’s mysticism (asceticism) is perhaps the most conscious withdrawal from society; and Smerdyakov’s existence – or rather non-existence – as the bastard Karamozov is perhaps the most obvious instance of banishment in the text. It is not just for narrative reasons that Dostoevsky remains ambiguous concerning the guilty party through the opening sections of his text. He wishes to promote the fact that we are all capable of murder given extreme circumstances.

Impressed...

The notion of absolutes and universals has not been removed from the popular conscience despite the best efforts of many prolific post-modern thinkers. Contrary to Nietzsche, for the vast majority of people God is not in fact dead, in either the literal or abstract interpretation of that statement. Old universals have simply been replaced by newer ones promulgating their ideological liberalism while simultaneously rejecting the validity of “lesser” works. What has been more broadly accepted, however, has been the idea of allowing a more or less equal space to all viewpoints and means of expression. Technology is of primary influence on the creation of such a liberal society, as it has provided a means by which various ideologies can be expressed. Modern intellectual expression has to some extent become more exclusionary as a consequence; either one “gets it” or not. In several respects, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov is conversely very much a self-contained text in terms of its ideological debate. In particular, the author seems to be positing the redemptive theology of Father Zosima against the ideology of the absurd espoused by Ivan Karamazov. Indeed, there are overtones of Platonic dialogue within these sequences of philosophical exposition. There are of course two viewpoints presented – a Pro and a Contra as explicitly laid out in Book V – yet there can be no arguing that the author himself wishes to present his particular doctrine, wherein he aligns himself with Zosima, as being a universal truth. Primarily, I will be focussing upon Ivan’s ideological position, with reference to Zosima’s much more optimistic and redemptive theology.

Certainly there is little room for the application of late-twentieth century ideological liberalism to Dostoevsky’s writing, although Ivan’s nihilistic ideology does seem to suggest a more modern and existential school of thought. There is of course no doubting Dostoevsky’s religious opinions; his theology is both piously and devoutly expressed in many of his works. Yet, while he does not in fact question the ultimate absolute of God, he does imply other universals to be rather arbitrary. Most obvious is his treatment of guilt and justice in the novel. There is no simple explanation of individual culpability; no character is condemned outright. This belief is shared by both Ivan and Father Zosima. Dostoevsky seemed to want to focus upon the psychological and sociological aspects of criminal behaviour, and this is expressed throughout his works. As a consequence, he implies that justice itself is not a universal in terms simple cause and effect dispensation, in other words that crime x should receive punishment y. Throughout The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky undermines such a simplistic notion of earthly justice, and instead submits his characters to a more absolute jurisprudence. Ultimately for the author, and as Father Zosima states, justice must emerge from a personal communication with the divine.

From the very start of the novel, Dostoevsky suggests a very modern concept of guilt and justice by subverting its conventions. In one particular respect, his opinions concerning judiciary practise are in fact even more enlightened than those which currently exist in most of the industrialized world. If one is to interpret the entirety of his writing with respect to Dostoevsky’s theology, it becomes readily clear that his beliefs concerning justice do in fact originate in terms of guilt before the divine, although there is no practical or ideological reason that it should remain within a theological realm; a secular practise can be instructed by religious belief. In terms of theological origination, all of mankind shares in the guilt from the original fall from grace; the flesh must be transcended before innocence is regained. One cannot therefore simplistically denounce others for their crimes while supposing themselves to be above any such abhorrent behaviour. As Father Zosima states, “you cannot be anyone’s judge. No man on earth can judge a criminal until he understands that he himself is just as guilty as the man standing before him and that he may be responsible than anyone else for the crime” (p. 388). Zosima teaches that one must act like Christ, accepting the guilt of others onto one’s own conscience (or soul, in wholly religious phrasing). Every individual is guilty if they do not provide an example of virtue to those for whom it is required. As a further extension, one must rejoice in the righteousness of others, for in this manner one can avoid being burdened by one’s own guilty conscience. Moreover, others must not be weighted down by one’s own guilt. Within this context Zosima’s behaviour towards Dmitri early in the text can be understood. Interpreted in terms of Zosima’s prophetic nature – evidenced by his oracular relationship with Alyosha – his supplication in front of Dmitri is arguably a plea for forgiveness for his upcoming false conviction, as Zosima would acknowledge that Dmitri’s trial is only an earthly one and therefore not the true justice of God’s mercy. In many ways, Zosima acts as prognosticator to many of the other characters in the text as well. It becomes painfully clear by the end of the text that Zosima’s statements are reflected in Ivan’s constitution; ostensibly Dostoevsky is presenting Ivan’s tragedy as an example of the correctness of Zosima’s theology. Ivan’s suicide is resultant from the absurdity he sees in the world. As he states in book V, he will not choose to exist in a society which condones the suffering of the innocent to justify salvation for the rest. Yet Ivan counters himself when he states that he cannot love those people whom he actually encounters; they are no longer the innocents that he believed them to be, and conversely he feels a deep sense of revulsion towards them. Consequently, he believes that love can not truly exist in the world, and that the notion of ultimate love as professed by Zosima to be an impossibility: “Christ’s love for human beings was an impossible miracle on earth” (p. 284). Love for Ivan is a purely theoretical concept, a pure abstraction with no material plausibility. Hatred seems to be directed towards beggars and other unfortunates in particular, perhaps because they are physical manifestations of Zosima’s theology – in other words, following Zosima, one must give aid to beggars precisely because one is not a beggar. Ivan’s beliefs seem to be very much related to his father’s self-absorption and lack of sympathy for others; he has internalized these beliefs almost as much as his brother Smerdyakov. One particular instance later in the novel suggests that Ivan does in fact feel some sense of social indebtedness towards others. With the sequence in which Ivan picks up the drunk peasant and finds shelter for him, Dostoevsky seems to suggest that despite his character’s coldheartedness, even Ivan has a basic sense of human decency that cannot be disregarded.

In thoroughly secular terms, mitigating circumstances must be considered for a society to dispense proper justice. In The Brothers Karamazov, the primary mitigating circumstance is of course the elder Karamazov himself. Throughout the text, he is portrayed as a brute and uncaring man, almost beastly in his pursuit of self-gratification. In essence, it is his relationship with his sons which creates a situation in which any of them could be driven to murder their father. Ivan proves himself strangely prophetic when in detailing the story of a murderer who had been brutally raised by his parents. Certainly the actual act in broad terms is itself not completely foreign to anybody, although for the vast majority of people it is an impulse left repressed for the course of their lives. This impetus does find a means of expression however, although this form of bloodlust is vicarious in nature. Until the evolution of modern visual media, tendencies for the vicarious expression of violence did in fact involve the real suffering of others, either through violent sporting events such as hunts and staged combat, or through officially bureaucratic public executions, such as the autos-da-fé described in the Grand Inquisitor chapter of the novel. This section also elucidates the notion of why society desires the eradication of its criminal elements. They are continual reminders of the arrested barbarity of every individual; their execution or imprisonment is an attempt to cleanse the collective conscience of a community. As Zosima states in book VI, the fires of hell are simple allegory, a spectacle which allows humanity to forget its collective guilt. A society will destroy its criminal elements, but will not arrest the ultimate cause of criminal behaviour. For Zosima this is a simple instance of lack of true faith, of ignoring genuine religious practise as it requires too much of a sacrifice to forgive criminals for their behaviour.

To Ivan however, justice is merely an expression of humanity’s latent barbarousness. Public executions are merely a communal forum in which the desire to witness another’s suffering is officially sanctioned. It matters not whether those sentenced are in fact innocent or guilty, as the punishment is both the trial and the conviction. Neither does it matter whether the punishment will arrest any future criminal activity, as it serves its immediate purpose to appease the bloodlust of the masses. It is for this reason that Ivan rejects any concept of the righteous salvation of the damned. The contempt that he feels toward the religious who believe they have attained this state of grace is fairly explicit when he describes the execution of a vicious murderer:

And the next thing, brother Richard, covered with the kisses of
all his brothers and sisters, was dragged up onto the scaffold, placed
under the knife of the guillotine, had his head chopped off in the
most brotherly fashion, and gained eternal bliss.
(p. 289)

For Ivan, the idea of a murderer finding salvation through an execution is akin to redemption of society through the torture of a child. Just as the chaplains at the execution reach a state of religious fervour, so does the torturer enter a state of bliss while he is performing his violence upon another. Each is identical in that the suffering of another becomes a source of pleasure and self-gratification. Throughout his philosophizing, Ivan demonstrates his agreement with the Marquis De Sade in stating that all instances of love are in fact various forms of dependency. It is a simple binary: lovers need those who requite their love, just as torturers need the object of their ferocity. Indeed, it becomes an essential element of an individual’s identity, and Ivan seems almost humourously to suggest that through the internalization of brutality, Russians have created their national identity: “To us, nailing people by their ears is unthinkable because, despite everything, we are Europeans. But birch and lash, they’re different – they’re something that’s really ours and cannot be taken away from us” (p. 287). Man has a very refined sense of cruelty, and the act of torture becomes art in and of itself. There is no real other motive than sheer pleasure in witnessing and inflicting suffering upon others. It is within this context that Ivan views any sense of religious love as wicked, for the religious need (and love) the sinful because it is through them that good and evil are defined. He vehemently rejects such a existence: “I’d rather not know about their damn good and evil than pay such a terrible price for it. I feel that all universal knowledge is not worth that child’s tears when she was begging ‘gentle Jesus’ to help her” (p. 291). His arguments do not demonstrate any confidence that there is a solution to the tragic fate of humanity, and consequently his nihilistic mentality and belief in the ultimate absurdity of all existence lead to his suicide. Humanity will ultimately destroy itself in an orgy of violent self-gratification; it will voraciously consume itself and enjoy the taste.

Ivan’s entire discourse to Alyosha is very much an example of this process, as he quite explicitly delights in the rather disgusted reactions which he stimulates in his brother. Not only does he revel in the barbaric details of his lecture, at times he seems to internalize them himself and act out the part. In describing the “justice” of a general who kills a child for a relatively minor misdemeanour, he begins to shout at Alyosha much like the general himself might have: “Perhaps he ought to have been shot, to satisfy the moral indignation that such an act arouses in us? Well, speak up, my boy, go on!” (p. 292). The frequent use of children in his examples is of course demonstrative of Ivan’s extremism. Were he to rely on more median examples of earthly suffering – as more commonly exists in the world – his arguments would lose some of their merit. Of course, one must forgive suicides for their extremism, as such is their nature. His rebellion against the traditional doctrines of Christianity is not entirely complete, however, as even he desires a Christ figure for redemption. Only by accepting the suffering caused by existence will anyone find salvation: “I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the resurrected victim rise and embrace his murderer” (p. 294). Just as the lion must kill the lamb for that is the lion’s essence and purpose, so must the torturer inflict suffering for that is its purpose. Surely such a tenant is a difficult one for the majority of people to accept. Ivan’s suicide is proof that even he could not believe in such an existence.

Ivan’s philosophical beliefs are very important in order to fully understand his character. That this section of the novel is just as equally detailed as a later book which presents Zosima’s complex theology suggests that Dostoevsky wanted the reader to compare the two. It is a somewhat subtle manner in which an opinion can be conveyed to the reader. Dostoevsky does in fact intend his audience to be more convinced by Zosima’s devout theology than Ivan’s proto-existentialism. Yet each is allowed a voice; the reader naturally becomes an advocate for one or the other. Certainly there is some truth in Ivan’s ideological stance, although the fact that there he has no hope or sense of purpose draws one away from his nihilism. By the end of the novel, it is quite obvious that Dostoevsky has presented an ideology which cannot function, for it is far too destructive for those who practise it.

Bibliography

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamavoz. Trans. Andrew H. MacAndrew. Toronto:
Bantam Books, 1981.