Leo Phokas

The Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla, is to be Constantinople’s most persistent opponent on their eastern frontier in the period from 945 to 967, by virtue of his control over most of the borderlands between the Christains and the Muslims (the al-thughūr) and his commitment to jihad.

Sayf al-Dawla had already campaigned against the Empire in 938 and 940, but it is after his establishment of a large domain centered on Aleppo in 945, that he had begun confronting them on an annual basis.

Despite the numerical advantages enjoyed by the imperial forces, the Hamdanid's emergence had blunted an imperial offensive that had been unfolding since the mid-920s and had already resulted in the fall of Malatya (934), Arsamosata (940), and Qaliqala (in 949).

His main enemy during the first decade of continuous conflict with the Empire had been the Domestic of the Schools (commander-in-chief) Bardas Phokas.

After a few initial failures, Sayf al-Dawla had quickly established his supremacy, heavily defeating Bardas near Marash in 953.

Expeditions led by Bardas in the next two years had also been defeated, allowing Sayf al-Dawla to refortify his frontier zone and strengthen it against further imperial attacks.

Using his light cavalry to evade the more slow-moving imperial troops, Sayf al-Dawla is also able to launch destructive raids deep into imperial territory; however, his raids avoid fortified positions, and he cannot challenge effective imperial control over their recent conquests.

After 955, however, the situation had begun to change: the ineffective Bardas Phokas had been dismissed and replaced by his more capable son, Nikephoros, under whose supervision the Byzantine army's equipment has been upgraded, its ranks filled with Armenians, and its training intensified.

The new imperial leadership, which includes Nikephoros's brother Leo and his nephew John Tzimiskes, has resolved on a forward strategy and has begun raiding deep into Hamdanid territory.

Sayf al-Dawla pre-empts Tzimiskes from a planned assault on Amida in the Jazira, in spring 956, and invades imperial territory first.

Tzimiskes then seizes a pass in Sayf al-Dawla's rear, and attacks him during his return.

The hard-fought battle, fought amid torrential rainfall, results in a Muslim victory as Tzimiskes loses four thousand men.

At the same time, however, …

…Leo Phokas invades Syria and defeats and captures Sayf al-Dawla's cousin, whom he had left behind in his stead.

Nikephoros had taken and razed the fortress of Hadath in 957, and in the next spring, Tzimiskes invades the Jazira.

Here, he captures the fortress of Dara, and scores a crushing victory near Amida over an army led by one of Sayf al-Dawla's favorite lieutenants, the Circassian Nadja.

Of Nadja's ten thousand troops, Tzimiskes reportedly killed half and captured more than half of the survivors.

Reinforced with more troops under the parakoimomenos Basil Lekapenos, in June, Tzimiskes now storms Samosata and the fortress of Raban south of Hadath.

It is there that Sayf al-Dawla himself comes to confront him.

The ensuing battle (taking place between October 18 and November 15, 958) is hard fought—Sayf al-Dawla's cousin and court poet Abu Firas is said to have broken two lances in his first charge—but in the end, the Christian forces prevail and the Muslim army breaks and flees.

Many of Sayf al-Dawla's court companions and ghilman fall in the pursuit, while over seventeen hundred of his cavalry are captured; they will later be paraded in the streets of Constantinople.

The victory at Raban had made it clear that the Empire is gaining the upper hand over the Hamdanids.

Their success had also enabled them to retain control of Samosata, meaning that they had broken through the fortified frontier zone protecting northern Syria.

Nevertheless, the Hamdanid ruler is still in control of a potent military and capable of launching raids into imperial territory, until he suffers a catastrophic defeat in November 960 at the hands of Leo Phokas in an unidentified mountain pass on the Taurus Mountains.

Sayf al-Dawla himself barely escapes, but his army is annihilated.

Coming after the series of costly defeats in the previous years, this battle breaks the power of the Hamdanid emirate for good.

Nikephoros, upon returning to Constantinople from his successful expedition against the Emirate of Crete, had been denied the usual honor of a triumph, permitted only a mere ovation in the Hippodrome.

He soon returns to the east with a large and well-equipped army, attacking the Arabs of Cilicia and Syria at the beginning of 962, capturing more than sixty fortresses.

The imperial army takes possession of three hundred and ninety thousand silver dinars, two thousand camels, and fourteen hundred mules during the capture of Aleppo in December 962,

Nikephoros’s aim has not been to conquer the emirate, but to terminate its role as a regional power—the city of Aleppo is thoroughly sacked and its forces destroyed, but its territories are not annexed.

Emperor Romanos II, who unexpectedly died in Constantinople at twenty-six on March 15, 963, had already crowned as co-emperors his two sons Basil II and Constantine VIII.

Because Basil was five years old and Constantine only three, Romanos’ widow Theophano had been named regent.

Beautiful but amoral, Theophano had been an innkeeper's daughter by the name of Anastaso when the crown-prince Romanos fell in love with her around the year 956 and married her, rechristening her with the name of Romanos' grandfather's first saintly wife Theophano.

Having gained a reputation as an intelligent and ambitious woman, she is also suspected by contemporaries of poisoning her husband, whose cause of his death was uncertain.

(She will later gain a reputation for ruthlessness in achieving her goals.)

But Theophano had not been not allowed to rule alone.

Joseph Bringas, the eunuch palace official who had become Romanos' chief councilor, had maintained his position.

According to contemporary sources, he had intended to keep authority in his own hands, rather than those of the young Empress.

He had also tried to reduce the power of Nikephoros Phokas, the victorious general who had been accepted as the actual commander of the army and maintained his strong connections to the aristocracy.

During the following months, the intrigues of Joseph, who feared that Nikephoros could claim the throne with the support of both the army and the aristocracy, had turned both Theophano and Nikephoros against him.

Unknown to Joseph, Nikephoros had been urged to seize the throne by his nephew John Tzimiskes and entered into negotiations with Theophano.

With her help and that of the patriarch, Nikephoros Phokas had received supreme command of the eastern forces and, after being proclaimed emperor by them on July 2, 963, marched upon the capital, where meanwhile his partisans had overthrown his enemy Bringas.

Thanks to his popularity with the army, Nikephoros II Phokas had been crowned emperor by the side of Romanos's young sons on August 16, 963, and in spite of the patriarch's opposition married their mother, the regent Theophano.

The fifty-two-year-old Nikephoros is smitten with his 21-year old wife and influenced by his brother Leo Phokas, whose self-interested machinations (he is accused of speculating on the price of wheat) have stirred up the discontent of the people of Constantinople.

The popular soldier-emperor gradually becomes taciturn and suspicious even of his best advisers, who, one after another, he has removed from office.

Various synods are held before the emperors leave Rome for the south of Italy, in which, sometimes at their request, John XIII takes several German monasteries under his special protection, or decides that in some cases they are to remain forever “under the patronage (mundiburdium) of the kings or emperors.” (Mann, Horace K., The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol.

IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891-999 (1910); pgs.

290-291).

With Otto I seeking a marriage alliance with Constantinople through his son and an imperial princess, John XIII lends his support to Otto’s cause.

He writes a letter to the Eastern Emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas, but ends up insulting him by referring to him, not as “Emperor of the Romans”, but as “Emperor of the Greeks”.

As his price for the marriage, Otto demands a dowry from the Eastern Empire, that of the Themes of Longobardia and Calabria.

Nikephoros retorts by instead demanding the restitution of the Exarchate of Ravenna, which includes Rome and the Papal States, as the price for the imperial marriage.

When negotiations break down, Nikephoros refuses to write to John XIII in his own hand, instead sending him a threatening letter written by his brother, Leo Phokas the Younger.

Nikephoros, after the failure of negotiations, attempts to extend the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople into the Pope’s jurisdiction in southern Italy.

The eastern emperor orders the Patriarch to transform the bishopric of Otranto into a metropolitan see, and to ensure that services are no longer said in Latin, but in Greek only.

Patriarch Polyeuctus of Constantinople quickly addresses an order to the head of the Church of Otranto giving him authority to consecrate bishops in the churches of Acerenza, Tursi, Gravina, Matera, and Tricarico, all previously dependent on the Church of Rome.

In response, and at the request of the western emperor, John convenes a synod in 969, which elevates the bishopric of Beneventum into a metropolitan see, thus reducing the influence of Constantinople and the Eastern Church there.

However, the death of Nikephoros Phokas in 969 sees the elevation of John I Tzimiskes, who enters into negotiations with Otto I, and soon Otto II is betrothed to the niece of the eastern emperor.