Battle of Kopidnadon
Asia Minor approx. 780 AD
| date | September 788 |
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| place | Podandos , Asia Minor |
| output | Abbasid victory |
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Byzantine-Arab Wars
Early battles
Mu'ta - Tabuk - Dathin - Firaz
Arab conquest of the Levant
Qartin - Bosra - Adschnadain - Marj al-Rahit - Fahl - Damascus - Marj ad Dibadsch - Emesa - Yarmouk - Jerusalem - Hazir - Aleppo
Muslim conquest of Egypt
Heliopolis - Alexandria - Nikiou
Umayyad conquest of North Africa
Sufetula - Vescera - Carthage
Umayyadidische invasion of Anatolia
and Constantinople
Iron bridge - Germanikeia - 1. Konstantin Opel - Sebastopolis - Tyana - 2. Konstantin Opel - Nicaea - Akroinon
Arabic-Byzantine border war
Kamacha - Kopidnadon - Krasos - Anzen and Amorion - Mauropotamos - Lalakaon - Bathys Ryax
Sicily and Southern Italy
1st Syracuse - 2nd Syracuse - Campaigns of the Maniac
Byzantine counter-attack
Marasch - Raban - Andrassos - Campaigns of Nikephoros Phokas - Campaigns of John Tzimiskes - Orontes - Campaigns of Basil II. - Azaz Sea
operations
Phoinix - Muslim Conquest of Crete - Thasos - Damiette - Thessalonike - Byzantine reconquest of Crete
The Battle of Kopidnadon or Kopidnados was fought in September 788 between the armies of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire . Previously, the Abbasid army had embarked on a campaign in Byzantine Asia Minor, where it was placed by a Byzantine army at Kopidnadon. The Abbasid army won. Among the Byzantine victims of the battle was a certain Diogenis, who is regarded by some scholars as the historical template for the fictional hero Digenis Akritas .
background
Since the failure of the last Arab attempt to capture the Byzantine capital, Constantinople , Abbasid armies had undertaken raids into Byzantine Asia Minor on an almost annual basis. In 782 ended a larger campaign that the Abbasid heirs Harun al-Rashid was led (reigned 786-809), in a humiliating peace for Byzantium, which was forced in exchange for an annual tribute of 160,000 gold - nomismata to peace ask. In 785, the imperial regent of Byzantium, Irene , decided to stop paying tribute and the war began again. The Arabs plundered the Armeniakon theme , but in 786 the Byzantines retaliated by destroying the Cilician border fortress Hadath , which the Abbasids had built into a base for their raids over the past five years.
battle
After Harun al-Rashid's accession to the throne in 786, the raids of the next two years were of minor magnitude; the first major attack took place in 788, when a large expeditionary army crossed the Cilician Porte into the theme of Anatolicon . Although the raid is not mentioned in Arabic sources, its mention by Theophanes indicates a major campaign against which the two largest thematic armies of the Byzantine Empire, that of Anatolicon and that of Opsikion , were mobilized.
Theophanes called the place of the battle "Kopidnadon", the place is nowhere else occupied. Today's scientists, starting with Henri Grégoire in 1932, equate it with the place Podandos at the western exit of the Cilician Gate. According to Theophanes' brief account, the battle ended in bloody defeat for the Byzantines, who lost many soldiers and officers, including the Scholai Tagma . Theophanes also highlights the loss of the able officer Diogenis, a tour march on the Anatolian theme.
consequences
The immediate consequences of the battle for the Byzantines seem to have been manageable; they had lost many soldiers, but the damage in the province seems to have been limited. In material terms, there is not much that distinguishes the consequences of Kopidnadon from those of a “typical” Arab raid. The battle marks the resumption of the permanent border war after the relatively calm phase after 782. The conflict continued unabated until Harun's death in 809 and the beginning of the Abbasid civil war .
Perhaps the longest lasting consequence of the battle was the death of Tourmarches Diogenis: Due to the unusual exposure of his person by Theophanes, Henri Grégoire concludes that he could be the archetype for the later legendary hero Digenis Akritas .
literature
- Hans-Georg Beck: Byzantine manual . Part 2, Vol. 3: History of Byzantine Folk Literature. Beck, Munich 1971, ISBN 3-406-01420-8 .
- EW Brooks: Chapter V. (A) The Struggle with the Saracens (717-867). In: The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV: The Eastern Roman Empire (717-1453). Cambridge 1923, pp. 119-138.
- Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Ilse Rochow: Byzantium under Eirene and Constantine VI. (780-802) . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-631-30582-6 .
- Christos Makrypoulias: Battle at Kopidnadon, 788. In: Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Asia Minor. Foundation of the Hellenic World. 2008.
- Warren T. Treadgold: The Byzantine Revival, 780-842 . Stanford University Press, Stanford 1988, ISBN 0-8047-1462-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brooks: The Struggle with the Saracens (717-867). 1923, p. 124; Treadgold: The Byzantine Revival, 780-842. 1988, pp. 67-70.
- ↑ Brooks: The Struggle with the Saracens (717-867). 1923, p. 125; Treadgold: The Byzantine Revival, 780-842. 1988, pp. 78-79.
- ↑ a b Makrypoulias: Battle at Kopidnadon, 788. 2008, Chapter 1 ( Memento of August 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ a b c Treadgold: The Byzantine Revival, 780-842. 1988, p. 91.
- ↑ a b c Lily: Byzantium under Eirene and Constantine VI. (780-802). 1996, p. 156.
- ↑ a b Makrypoulias: Battle at Kopidnadon, 788. 2008, Chapter 2 ( Memento of August 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ a b Makrypoulias: Battle at Kopidnadon, 788. 2008, Chapter 3 ( Memento of August 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Lily: Byzantium under Eirene and Constantine VI. (780-802). 1996, p. 167.
- ↑ Brooks: The Struggle with the Saracens (717-867). 1923, pp. 125-127.
- ^ Treadgold: The Byzantine Revival, 780-842. 1988, p. 401 (Note # 110); also: Beck: Byzantine Handbook. 1971, pp. 63-97 to discuss the origin of the Diogenis legend.